“You didn’t jump,” Kara said.
Lena glanced up from her lo mein container, chopsticks in hand. “Jump?” Lena asked curiously.
Kara nibbled her lip thoughtfully, staring down at her potstickers. The evening had been a quiet one - a welcomed change of pace, after a wonderful and chaotic afternoon at Alex and Kelly’s wedding. When all was said and done - after the couple had left for their honeymoon and the party had quieted, after Eliza had taken Esme home for a fun week making chocolate chip cookies with her grandmother - Kara and Lena had found themselves in Kara’s apartment, settling down in their pajamas with a dinner of Chinese takeout.
“For Kelly’s bouquet,” Kara said. “You didn’t jump.”
Lena shrugged, digging into her food with her chopsticks again. “It wasn’t heading towards me.”
“You could’ve used magic,” Kara suggested, thinking of how a certain other super had used her powers to yank the flowers midair.
“And start a duel with Nia?” Lena grinned. “Seemed unwise. Besides, she has a likely candidate.”
Kara smiled.
“At least I was there,” Lena teased softly. “I didn’t see you in the crowd.”
Kara shrugged. “It’s a human tradition.”
Lena tilted her head. “What did Krypton have?”
Kara grimaced. “Genetic testing. AI matching. Rules about guild marriages,” she said, “My uncle destroyed the AI, at least. But romance was secondary on Krypton.”
“What about now? On Argo?”
“Romantic love is… still an alien concept, on Argo,” Kara said thoughtfully, popping another potsticker in her mouth. “It existed in some of our stories. But our upbringing, our culture- we had to squash a lot of that down.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s like…” Kara’s voice had lowered to a murmur, and Lena noticed a pink tint rising in her cheeks. Kara cleared her throat, staring into her food. “Now it’s like they’re marrying a close friend,” she continued. “I wouldn’t say they have romance like Earth does.”
“Like marrying a friend,” Lena mulled.
Kara quietly picked at her food.
“And what about you?” Lena said, partially curious, partially… well. She knew Kara could hear how her heart had started pounding, as much as she wished she could hide it.
“Me?”
“You grew up there. But you’ve been here for so long. Where do you fall?”
Kara’s brow crinkled. “I think I…like all the little things,” she murmured. “Giving flowers and chocolate. Kissing. Holding hands.”
“But?”
“Not a but,” Kara said as she glanced up - still avoiding Lena’s eyes, but looking thoughtfully ahead. “It feels so alien to me, but in this wonderful way. Exhilarating. Strange. I feel like I have this chimeric type of romance in my head - not Earthian, not Kryptonian. Like romance is…”
Kara grew quiet, turning her head to her food again, staring silently as the blush on her cheeks seemed to deepen.
Lena watched for a moment, taking in the unmoving kryptonian - the hint of tightness in her posture, the unusual muteness and stillness. “What is romance for you, Kara?” Lena whispered.
Kara slowly tilted her gaze up to meet Lena’s. “My perfect partner at a game night,” she confessed quietly. “Knowing someone so well that it feels like magic when we’re together.”
Lena let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding.
Kara nibbled nervously at her lip. “You- you don’t have to see it that way,” Kara said, her voice cracking. “It’s not- it doesn’t have to change anything. But I’ll understand if it’s too much…”
“I feel it too,” Lena whispered. “When I’m with you. It always feels like magic.”
“Really?” Kara said. “You could want- you-”
“I didn’t want to catch the bouquet unless it was for you,” Lena confessed. “I just- all I want is to be with you.”
Kara smiled wide, and Lena watched on as the tension seemed to melt away from the still-blushing kryptonian’s frame. “I love you, Lena.”
Lena smiled back. “I love you too.”
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anything for an A+ .
pairing ;; professor!matt x student!fem!oc
warnings ;; SMUTTTT🤞🤞 , age gap (matt is 27 reader is 22), cursing , making out , oral (m receiving) , p in v , fingering , unprotected sex (pls dont!!) , pet names (princess, sweetheart, etc) , lowercase intended and thats it!
a/n ;; pls bare w me im too shy to write on here but first smut post i hope yall likey!!! this is for my baby kitten whiskers; @mattsluttywaist and @cheetahmadi 🥳🥳 also this looked better in drafts
pink: you
blue: matt
. . . . .
“remember, no talking during the test.” was what pulled me out of the trance that i was in. i blinked as i noticed that i was staring at my professor for the entire time he talked about the test we were about to take. professor matthew was walking around the class to give everyone the papers.
“if i catch you talking, i will invalidate your test.” i let out a loud sigh as he placed the paper infront of me, remembering me of the last time that i accidentally spoke during an exam and it led me to get a zero. “yes sir.” i picked up my pencil from my pencil case and started to write my name.
a few hours felt like 10 minutes when my professor said that time was up. i looked down at my test for it not to be completed. “fuck.” i mumbled under my breath. my fingers flipped through the pages to see how many questions i had left. many students had started to walk down to the professors desk to turn it in, soon i was the last student in the class.
“ms. stallord, i said time was up.” he spoke, walking up to my desk. i groan and slouch into my chair. “sir, please is it okay if i finish this after school? i cant afford to fail.” i pout as i looked up at him, his arms crossed with his sleeves rolled up. the brunette shook his head, trying to think of something.
“lets do this.” matt said as he grabbed the packet of paper and walked back to his desk, signaling for me to follow him. i swallowed the lump in my throat while walking close enough to him that i could smell his cologne.
i watched him sit down in his desk and taking out what i assumed was the packet with the answers. the classroom remained quiet for a few minutes, the brunette probably grading what i had done. “C-“ he finally spoke up. i roll my eyes and let out a frustrated whine. “seriously??” matt took off his glasses, “its still passing.” he shrugged. i bit my bottom lip and let it bounce back as i thought. “is there anything i can do at all for extra credit?” i asked, tilting my head to the left and taking a seat next to his desk matt let his glasses on top of his head and pressed his fingers against his mouth. “hmmm, not that i know of, i dont think there is sweetheart.” he replied calmly. my heart skipped a beat as he called me sweetheart in such a way. “i would do anything sir. i cant have my mom know i got a C- on this exam.” i was practically begging at this point. “you got that grade because you didn’t finish the test, probably because you were looking at me. that correct?” he asked me, his head tilting to the side with a cocky smirk spread on his lips. i blinked rapidly when i heard what he had said. but to make it worse, he wasn’t lying. i wasn’t even looking, i was staring. “s-sorry what sir?” i muttered quickly. “you really don’t think i notice ms. stallord?” he chuckled a little bit. i stayed quiet, my cheeks a pink hue.
“now that i pointed it out, you stay silent huh?” matthew stated, his eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “no thats not it um.” i spoke quietly. “i don’t really mean to stare its just that uhm. you are very attractive.. sir.” the sentences left my mouth in a sheepish shaky tone. he laughed quietly to my embarrassment. “dont worry about it. i dont mind.” the brunette said, adjusting his seat so he was closer to me now. god i wanted to kiss him so bad. “o-oh okay, im glad sir.” i replied quietly, my eyes flickering to his lips and my tongue licking my lips to rehydrate them. “please, call me matt.” he mumbled, looking at my eyes then my lips. i listened to my gut and leaned in for a kiss, surprisingly getting one from him back.
my eyes fluttered shut, my heart pounding against my chest as my hands found their way to his loose brunette locks that i messed with slightly. matt nibbled on my bottom lip before sliding his tongue into my mouth. i whined softly, now somehow getting ontop of his lap. my legs were now wrapped around his hips and my hands rested on his shoulders. goosebumps covered each piece of skin matt had been touching. i felt one of his hands slide underneath my shirt, i shivered slightly at how cold his hand actually was.
his mouth detached from mine and he started to leave wet open mouthed kisses along my jawline and neck. small moans come out of my mouth as he did so, my hand trailed up to his head and i started to scratch his scalp gently. “will this make up the C-, sir?” i asked in an innocent tone as i looked down at him. “if you kneel for me, perhaps.” matt whispered, letting go of my hips and resting his hands back on the arm rests. i smirked with an obedient nod as i slid off of his lap and in between his legs. i kneeled in between his clothed thighs, my hands sliding up and down on them softly. i unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down and threw them somewhere in the classroom.
matt was left in his light grey boxers that had a small dark stain from his pre-cum on them. my fingers hooked around the waistband of his boxers and i pulled them down. his 7.4in slapped my face lightly as soon as i took off his boxers.
my mouth began to practically drool as soon as i saw him fully. i wrapped my cold palm around his base firmly and stroked him slowly. i made sure to make my thumb slide right through his slit.
“fuckk.” he whined, looking down at me. i looked up at him with innocent doe eyes as my hand began to stroke him up and down a bit more quicker now. i kissed his tip before taking him entirely in my mouth.
i felt his hand turn down to my hair, he grasped it and made it into a makeshift ponytail. my tongue slid over the head of his cock as i bopped my head up and down. i heard a string of swears pouring out of matt’s name while he began to thrust his ups upward. “fuck fuck yes yes.” the brunette groaned out. he started to twitch in my mouth which told me that he was getting close. soon enough, he spewed his cum down my throat. his cock left my mouth with a wet pop. i rubbed off any of his white liquid that was on my mouth. “you did so well.” he purred, i kissed his tip one last time and earning a small whine from him.
i stood back up and before i could say anything, he grabbed me and sat me down on his lap. “oh princess im not done with you.” the brunette said, placing his hands on my hips. my core was begging for any sort of friction.
matt’s hand slid underneath my skirt, his thumb rubbed over my clothed clit gently. a small whine left my lips as i tried to balance myself by having my hands on his shoulders. he hooked his slender fingers on my panties and he pushed them to the side. “your so wet already sweetheart.” he cooed, his fingers tracing my entrance. “dont tease.” i begged with my eyes fixating onto his face. matt tilted his head to the side as he slowly shoved his digits inside of my cunt.
his fingers slid easily in and out of me, they curled against my g-spot occasionally. i bit my bottom lip to hold back my small whimpers as i clenched around him. “oh shit.” i breathed out, my head leaning back slightly. matt thrusted his fingers in and out while the familiar knot started to form in my stomach. his slender digits continued to stab my pussy, but before i could finish on them he slid them out. “why’d you stop?” i pout with a small whimper. “not letting you finish just yet sweetheart.” matt spoke softly as he aligned his tip with my cunt.
before anything else, he slowly thrusted into me. as soon as he was inside of me, i made sure to squeeze around him perfectly. “tell me when i can move.” the brunette whispered so i could get a chance to adjust to his size. matt’s finger tips grazed my hips gently, his eyes fixated on my face. “o-okay.” a shaky moan left my lips. with no hesitation, he started to thrust in and out of me.
i leaned my head back when his tip kissed my sweet spot within every thrust. matt rested his hands against my hips a bit more roughly as he rutted his hips into mine. god he was so deep inside of me. i guess i was being a little bit too loud that caused matt to shove two of his fingers down my throat. “gotta be quiet baby.” he whispered, still plunging himself into my wet core. i coated his digits with my salvia, using the opportunity to do so. “m’so close sir.” i whine out when matt slid his fingers out of my mouth. his tip stabbed my cervix a few more times before the knot in my stomach started to form again. i felt him twitching inside of me, letting me know that he was about to cum again. “cum for me sweetheart.” he moaned out as his hips began to stutter into mine.
after a few more thrusts, i came all over his cock. it wasn’t too long before matt came deep inside of me ether. he fucked me through our high before he pulled himself out. “so, can i get an A+ now?” i asked with a small smirk spread on my face. “yes, you can sweetheart.”
. . . . .
a/n part 2: i started writing this at 4am and i finished at 4pm 😭😭 sorry if this isnt that good i hate writing fics publicly 😕
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HOLD STILL, PRETTY BOY, lee haechan
♡ . . . synopsis ; when your pretty boyfriend can't seem to stand in one place for a moment for you to snap a picture.
♡ . . . genre ; haechan × idol! fem reader, oh so silly fluff, inspired by the pictures from inkigayo bts they posted that took my breath away, established relationship.
♡ . . . notes ; i've been writing a lot these past few days and i think i'm over my slump. but i always start overthinking and never end up posting anything. here's to the first post on tumblr! just taking baby steps till i can put together something that lives up to my standards.
p.s also, requests are officially open!
"Lee Donghyuck, if you don't stop moving in the next second—"
Your exasperated yell does nothing but fuel his laughter as he ducks away from the frame of your camera, hands shoved in his pockets. Beside you Mark has given up wrangling his bandmate and stands under the cherry blossoms as you take a few stills of him.
All of your group members and theirs are spread around on the mostly empty street behind the SBS Open Hall. Beautiful pale pink flowers shower you with petals at the slightest wind blowing over them.
"Honestly, would it kill you to stand straight for a little bit?" You huff, putting the lens protector back on.
"I already have my whole day being filmed to be put on YouTube. I think I'm fine having a few minutes to myself," he says wittyly, making you pout.
It's not like he's wrong. He's just so infuriatingly correct about everything, and if you weren't such a sucker for capturing these moments, you would have been equally resistant to having a camera shoved in your face all the time.
"Hey, _____? Can I borrow your camera for a bit?" Jaemin's calls make you march over to him, handing over your precious Nikon DSLR with utmost care. Yet, if anything, he's the only one that understands your awe at such a whimsical sight.
You fish your phone from your pocket next, sheepishly approaching Donghyuck as he stares at the bright blue sky dotted with clouds. You can't take your eyes away from his face—from the sunlight peppering his skin in a delicate glow and making it's already lovely colour appear otherworldly; right down to the moles you loved to map constellations on.
Catching yourself before you could be found staring, you clear your throat. "Haechannie, can I please just take one picture? Pretty please?"
His eyebrows quirk up in amusement but he holds out hand towards you. You blink at it owlishly. "Only if we take a selfie together."
You smirk, seizing the golden opportunity to tease. "Oh, you looove me."
Contrary to what you expected—maybe a snarky reply or equal amounts of nonsensical teasing being reciprocated—Donghyuck only pulls you closer by hooking an arm around your waist, plucking petals off your curled hair. "That I do."
Feeling the familiar heat creep up you neck and towards your cheeks, you lower you head. "You're awfully sentimental today."
He scoffs. "What? Like I need a specific day to declare my overflowing feelings for my girlfriend." He pauses for a moment, staring at your dolled up face, a finger coming to press lightly on the gem sticker shaped like a star at the corner of your left eye. "You look really pretty."
You're practically beaming, soaking in this soft side of him you that adore just as much as his dramatics. "Yeah? You look very pretty, too. Now, hold still pretty boy and let me take a picture?"
"I guess one is fine." Donghyuck didn't let it show but you know he is flustered. Avoiding eye contact with such vigor was a telltale sign. You chuckle, going on your tiptoes to press your lips against his cheek, right as you click the shutter button.
Before you could pull back to inspect the product, he grabs the back of your neck, placing his pillowy lips on top of yours and you positively melt against him.
For all it was worth, you ignore the hoots and whistles of your friends to cherish these stolen moments wedged between hectic schedules.
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The creator had a:
sea streaked child
WC:800
Cw: reader is said to breastfeed but isn't written doing so
Checking the blinds to make sure they were clean, remaking the ruffles so they are even.
Furina had spent her entire morning jittery walking everywhere in the palais mermonia.
Now across the room she is digging in between the blue roses hiding any less than stellar bloom under one of its prettier sisters.
Changing the tea set on the table in the middle of the room, cerulean blue, cobalt blue and sky blue swapping places faster than Neuvillette can pay any mind to.
She sighs, looking defeated at the sets and almost begging them to tell her which one is supposed to be best yet for one second the teapots looked like mocking faces. Throwing herself on a loveseat the room starts to feel smaller and she isn't even totally sure what tea to serve.
“Breath” neuvillette says from the desk, ever since he took over the leading role in Fontaine he spent more time between pages of legal documents, if that is even possible “they are arriving for a simple chat to check on the general management of the region”
“How do you even expect me to be calm when they themselves asked for my attendance for this meeting!” she sits up wobbly, the soft swirling getting worse “I can't even remember what cake you told me they liked… this is going to be a mess”
“Their grace has quite the sweet tooth, as long as what you planned doesn't have coffee it's going to be alright”
“Why no coffee?”
“miss furina… they gave birth a few days ago, it’s disadvised to breastfeed and have caffeinated drinks” seeing her nod and her little ahoge bobbing along he feels the need to confirm “that not only includes coffee and variations but also most teas” and with that she jumps to her feet, quickly excusing herself to make some changes.
“That child…” he sighs as he reviews the documents he wanted to show you and a rough overview, his head resting against his hand and a finger between his teeth. Feeling the door whining softly he laughs from the bottom of his throat “back soon early?”
And as his heart skipped a beat as you spoke “Oh, my, I know I am 30 minutes early but I thought you would like to meet me particularly” you walk deeper inside the room, past the meticulously fixed flowers that you wouldn't have noticed the mistakes on and past the three teapots on the table, each a slightly different shade of blue. Now standing besides neuvillette and facing the documents he just noticed the bundle of white cloth you held onto.
“Did the crops get better with the method I recommended? It left me worried when I left”
“The production got better, if you want to check the report is here” he offers the three papers stuck together by a metal clip when he notices that doing it with a single hand might be hard “if I might help you” he positions his arms to grab the baby and you let her between his arms
“Let's hope she stays asleep, she is such a colicky baby” you whisper but as soon as you finish the sentence she opens her eyes and starts wailing “my goodness…” you sigh deeply.
“Let me take care of it, just focus on that” he stands up and tries to mimic what he saw parents do with their small children whenever something upsetting might come up during the trials and small children would cry.
He grabs her neck and head with one hand and her legs with another, cradling her like you. As he was swaying softly the blanket covering her hair slid down to show pointy ears and softly cartilage mixing on her thin white hair.
“Is she…” but is soon shushed by you, pointing at the door and then to your ears, the message very clear ‘someone might be listening’ but he keeps his eyes glued to you only to catch you mouthing a soundless yes. His hands cradle her head onto his neck, soft blue cartilage sneaking past his fingers.
Now soothed, you two find comfort on the soft sound of passing the pages and Cordelia's breathing, the baby's name he would later find out.
“NEUVI I managed to get a cheesecake and fontas did i save this?!” Furina pushes past the door, holding a full size strawberry cheesecake and hugging three fontas against her chest but seeing you head on thinking you weren't on Fontaine yet “HIYY”
The screech caused Cornelia to get startled and start wailing “Miss Furina.” neuvillette says sternly, almost like a father telling off his daughter. But the only thing it caused was for her to see him hugging a baby suspiciously similar to him which didn't take her long to join the dots.
“OOAH!”
“Furina please stop scaring my daughter!”
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This is kinda angsty angst. But what about one where reader got into an argument with jjk boy (maybe either satosogu, nanami, or choso) and they stop functioning or start getting reckless during missions and get really hurt. And they have a lil soft smutty smut to show reader that they love them and want them to stay on this planet.
Maybe I Should!
Pairing: Nanami Kento x FAB!Reader
Warnings: Yelling, fighting, blood, near-death experience, makeup, soft sex, fluff at the end, romance,
Word Count: 3,179
A/N: When I got this request, Nanami was the first to come to mind! I love him so much this request was made for him.
“You cannot take this mission!” Nanami snapped, cornering you against a wall. “It's too dangerous!”
“It's a grade-one curse! I'm a grade-one sorcerer; it’s an even match!” You shot back, ducking under his arm, reaching for your bags. “I’m not some fragile flower for you to protect.”
Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose, following behind you with a scowl. “This is not about me treating you like you’re fragile! I’ve read the case files! I’ve seen the damage that curse had done! This is way out of your league.” The room grew hotter with your growing rage.
“I can handle this!”
“No, you can’t!”
“Yes, I can!”
Nanami’s hand snapped forward, the veins in his arms and wrist flexed as he held onto you firmly. His touch wasn’t painful or too rough; it was gentle, allowing you to pull away at any given moment. For the first time since he told you you shouldn’t go, you stopped, turning to glance up at him. You were expecting to meet pleading eyes begging you not to go, to stay here. That gaze was nowhere to be found. Instead, you were met with a stern, cold look. One that just ticked you off even more.
You looked away as you yanked your wrist from his grasp. “I’m going; I can handle this on my own.” Your boyfriend remained silent. “I’m not one of the children at the high school.” A lump formed in your throat as you tilted your chin to give him a severe glare. “You tend to forget how strong I am. You look at me like I’m some pretty little weak housewife. I’m not!” Nanami scoffed; it was full of annoyance as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yes, I am aware; if you were my housewife, you would have the decency to at least listen to what I have to say!”
“If that’s what you fuckin’ want, maybe you should go out and find yourself a girl like that!”
“Maybe I should!!”
His words were like an ice pick to your gut. Those three words stole the breath from your lungs, rendering you speechless. Nanami’s honey-brown eyes didn’t meet yours; they glared down at the floor as he clenched his jaw so tight you could see the muscles in his neck twitch. You felt tears burning in your eyes; you struggled to find the words to say.
What was there to say? He had said enough. Maybe the two of you had grown apart from the missions you both kept taking. Perhaps this fight was the end of you and him.
“Love, I didn’t mean—“
“You did.” His eyes finally met yours; they were wide, full of confusion and regret. “You meant every word.” Tears blurred your vision as you wiped angrily at your eyes. “I have a plane to catch; let’s put a pin in—“ you motioned between the two of you. “us ending our relationship right now. I can’t focus on it when I have a mission.”
“Wait!” Nanami called out your name before you stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door.
The conversation, well, the fight, plagued your mind the entire way to Okinawa. His words, the anger that twisted over his face. Thinking of his reaction was a bundled mess of doubt and heartache that sat upon your chest and clouded your mind.
‘Maybe I should!’
Anger fumed within the deepest part of your soul as you lowered a veil around the abandoned shrine you were sent to cleanse. Maybe he should pull his head out of his ass! You weren’t that same high schooler that was a year younger than him! You didn’t run off to be a businessman! You stuck it out and got more scars than you could count! So maybe he should realize you could take care of yourself!
Your fuming anger blinded you as you walked through the halls, glaring around corners, trying to sense the energy of this stupid curse. But Nanami’s stupid face, the rage, regret, the sorrowfulness in his eyes when he said, ‘Maybe I should,’ left his lips crossed your mind. He turned pale when you told him you would discuss ending your relationship. Thinking about him, about what was to come for the two of you, had you stopping in your tracks.
Ending things with Nanami was the last thing you wanted to do. But he needed to come to terms with the fact that you weren’t as weak as he thought. You were as strong as him; you could handle missions independently—even grade-one curses.
A grade-one curse that came out of nowhere and slammed you against the wall so hard you saw black spots. A wheezed, pained gasp escaped you as your eyes widened in shock. It is a curse made out of thick thorns, garbling and swaying. You moved as fast as your body would allow, a thorny arm slashing over your back, causing a wretched scream to crawl up your throat as you ducked and rolled behind a pillar.
Blood soaks into your shirt, coating the fabric as you pull out your talisman paper. Using blood from your cheek, you scribble out ‘purify’ over the parchment before embedding your cursed energy into it. Blue energy flowed around it as you rolled out from behind the pillar, tossing it towards the cursed spirit. Despite the fact the talisman was written on paper, your cursed technique made all your talismans hit your targets like daggers.
As your talisman struck the curse in the center of the face, it screamed in pain before it dissipated into black smoke, fading away. You let out a pained whine as you limped forward, glaring down at its fading form. But as its mouth began to fade, it laughed. It was a laugh that made your skin crawl and goosebumps rise over your skin. Something wasn’t right about this.
Whirling around, you were met face-to-face with another thorn-cursed spirit. This one was larger and stronger than the last. Nanami’s words from earlier ran through your veins like ice.
‘I’ve read the case files! I’ve seen the damage this curse has done!’
Little did the both of you know, this curse turned out to be curses—two of them, both grade one. The first one was strong, but this one, this one was crazy stupid strong. If you didn't move, you'd be killed. You rushed forward, reaching for more paper in your pocket, only to be thrown across the floor, your head hitting the floor with a heavy crack!
With blurry vision, you slowly sat up before collapsing forward as the curse rushed towards you. Thorn-covered limbs and vines wrapped around your legs, yanking you towards it. Its mouth opened, and a large tongue lolled out as you hit the ground with every yank. You screamed in defiance, kicking and screaming, tearing your flesh on the thorns, fighting to grab a piece of parchment out. The curse only seemed to enjoy your pitiful wails as you wrapped around you tighter, its tongue slowly sliding up your back as you drew closer towards its mouth.
That was its first mistake; as it brought inches near its open mouth, you roared, slamming a talisman onto its tongue. The paper burned with cursed energy before the kanji ‘purification flames’ lit up, engulfing the curse in blue fire. As it burned, its grip on you loosened, freeing and allowing you to crawl back, watching it thrash and scream.
You stared into the flames, wheezing roughly as you groaned. A see-through version of Nanami stood there, glaring down at you in disapproval as you struggled to stand. The Nanami said nothing as you gripped your side with a weak chuckle.
“S-See, I was f-fine.” you limped forward, “I could handle it.” Nanami shook his head. “Dead as a doorna-Gaaahk!” Blood spurted from your mouth as a stabbing pain shot through your stomach. Stumbling, you looked down with blurry vision at a large blackthorn emerging from your abdomen. Your blood dripped onto the ground as the throne turned to ash.
‘You were reckless.’ The Nanami before you watched as you fell to your knees, your hands clasped firmly over your bleeding wound. ‘Reckless, weak, not even worthy of being a housewife.’
Either his words or the pain had you collapsing onto your side, blood bubbling out of your mouth. Nanami, your Nanami would never say that. Iron flooded your taste and smell as you watched Nanami fade. Nita came rushing in, falling to her knees and shaking you as you stared weakly into the distance.
Perhaps you should have listened to him instead of fighting with him. He was only looking out for you, trying to keep you safe. But you had taken his adoration and concern for you as him seeing you incapable of taking this dangerous mission on. A weak laugh escaped you as you felt Nita dragging you, screaming into a phone.
Maybe being a housewife wouldn't be that bad. It might have been fun. But you would never get to experience that. Your body was too cold as blood seeped out through your fingers as someone pulled you into a car. Your name turned into humming as you shut your eyes.
“Darling,”
“Hm?” You asked, opening your eyes before shifting slightly against the warm body you were snuggling.
“Hi,” Kento reached down, stroking your cheek with one hand while he held a book in the other. “Did you sleep well?”
“Mhmm.” you snuggled into his side, breathing in the smell of salt water. “I had a terrible nightmare. I almost died.”
Kento’s warm hand brushed gently over your cheek. “It’s a good thing it was only a dream.” He whispered, bring your face up to him. “I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, love.”
“Mhm, I love you, Kento.”
“And I love you.”
Slowly lifting your head, you grinned at him as he kissed you deeply. He was sitting on a beach towel under an umbrella. The sound of ocean waves crashing over the shore had you fading further into the reality you had made. Where you and Nanami finally got out of Japan and made a life on a tiny island somewhere far away.
A beach somewhere far away, where you could spend your days walking the shore, enjoying the sweet ocean air. This was a place where Nanami could be free. Somewhere far, far away from all the blood and death the two of you had faced—a little slice of heaven.
And it was a reality that didn't exist.
Blinking in your summer oasis, your vision became clearer. Ocean waves turned into the chirping of medical machines and heavy snoring. The warmth of the sand was the warmth of blankets covering you. And the smell of Nanami was because your boyfriend was sleeping in a chair beside your hospital bed.
Disorientation overcame you as you sat up, wincing at the stiffness of muscles and pain in your stomach. Your mouth was too dry, and your head was pounding. What had happened? Where were you? How long have you been out?
“Ken?” your voice was hoarse and broken, but the man next to you jolted.
Dark circles had formed under his eyes as he jumped out of his chair, his hands cupping your face. His honey-brown eyes, which had been filled with anger the last time you saw him, were now filled with utter relief. He pulled you into his chest, his hands gently stroking your hair back as you shuddered, a sob working his way up his throat.
“I thought I lost you.” He whispered, his voice broken. “I almost fuckin’ lost you.”
His relief was contagious; you felt yourself easing into him, crying softly into his chest as he crawled into the bed with you. His arms gently wrap around you, cradling you into his body. No words needed to be spoken; the touch and sobs you both shared conveyed every regret and emotion you both had been feeling.
You were lucky to be alive, thanks to Nita’s quick work and the work of the doctors at the local hospital. They kept you in a stable condition long enough for Shoko and Nanami to take the soonest plane to Okinawa. Shoko helped speed up the healing process, and you were released three days later. During those three days, neither you nor Nanami brought up the previous fight. Which you were grateful for until he helped you into your shared apartment. As he shut the door, placing your bags in the living room, you sighed.
“Kento, we need to talk.”
“Yes, we do.” he agreed, following you into the bedroom, where the two of you sat on the bed. “I would like to—”
“No, I'm going to start.” You interrupted, placing a hand on his chest. “Kento, I-I’m so sorry I acted as I did. I was frustrated and angry, and—” You swallowed hard, “I realized you were only looking out for me, and instead of taking your words to heart, I twisted them into something they weren't. S-So if you want to end this, to find a more ideal partner, I understand.”
Nanami gently interlaced his fingers with yours. “I said some terrible things myself. I know you're strong, love, and capable of going on missions and taking care of yourself. But I will always tell you the truth. If something looks difficult to me, that says a lot.” The truth hurts as you nod, swallowing even harder. “That being said, my agreement to find a more suitable housewife was immature and moronic of me. You're the only wife I want in my life.”
He cupped your cheeks, kissing you as softly as he could. “K-Kento? You mean that?” The words came out as a blubbering mess as he laid you down on the bed, fingers grazing under your shirt.
“Every single word, I love you; you're the only wife I want.”
“I-I love you too, Kento.”
Nanami gently pushed you back against the bed, his lips trailing down your neck as his hands gently ran up and down your sides. “I want to worship every part of your body.” Hands slid under your shirt, gently grabbing the fabric, tugging it up and over your head. “You're such a beautiful love. I adore you; you're the best thing that ever happened to me.”
You shivered as his hands trailed over the large scar on your stomach, gently caressing it. “K-Kento~” He sat back, allowing you to remove his shirt before he trailed kisses over every single inch of exposed skin.
“I want to make love to you. I need to caress you,
Feel you, and adore you.”
Nanami trailed kisses over your shoulders as he slotted himself between your legs with a groan. Seeing the arch you squirmed and arched against him was all the encouragement Nanami needed to keep going. He slid his hand into your panties, gently rubbing circles around your clit, making you buck against his hand.
“I can't lose you; I need you in my life.” His sweet words had you moaning louder than his fingers plunging inside of you. “It’s you; it’ll always be you, baby.”
Nanami was true to his words. He worshiped you with his tongue, fingers, and lips. Bringing you over the edge countless times before he finally began passing his thick girthy cock into you with a groan. Once the tip is inside, you both inhale sharply. Your eyes were boring into each other, fingers interlacing.
The air is thick with lust and passion as Nanami slowly sets a steady pace. He was continuing to slide into you before he finally bottomed out. His back muscles twitched as he groaned against your lips, staying buried inside of you as you lazily kissed each other.
“B-Babbyy~”
“Y-You feel so good inside of me, Kento~”
“And you feel fucking perfect wrapped around me, my love.” His lips find yours, slotting against yours in a deep passionate kiss; the sweet lingering fast of coffee and sweetbreads flood your mouth as he starts thrusting deeply into your tight pussy with a grunt.
Nanami is slowly and sensually fucking into you. His mouth against yours, both your whines and moans getting lost in the other's mouth: you had made life countless times before, but this time was different. It was different because Nanami put his entire heart and soul into each kiss and thrust. He was cautious of how tight he squeezed your fingers while paying attention to the quest your body gave him. The man was putting his everything into his movements.
And you could taste it, god, it was so sweet. The gentleness, the softness in his groans as he gently rocked into you. While his hands gently caressed you. This was perfect; it was the literal embodiment of true love. A love that you would never in a million years let slip away.
“K-Kento~ I-Im not going to last m-much longer.”
“Me neither.” he gasped against your mouth as his hips bucked faster, the bed creaking under the two of you with his thrusts. “Cum with me~ I need to feel you cum around my cock~ I need to feel it~ please love, please~”
“K-Ken~! Ken~!” You cried out in-between kisses as he fucked you into an intense orgasm. He gritted his teeth as your walls pulsated around him, drawing him over the edge with you. Your name left his lips like a prayer as he filled you with his cum fucking it as deep as your body would allow.
Kenton only stopped when you both were a sweaty heap of entangled limbs. “M-Mmm, fuck, I love you,” Kento whispered, pushing strands of your hair out of your face. “I love you so damn much~ please don't ever leave me.” he pressed his head against yours, breathing in every breath you exhaled as you both came down from your orgasmic bliss.
“I-I won't.” You whispered against his lips as he moved, grabbing your left hand. “I swear, Nanami.”
He shifted, reaching for something under his pillow. Your heart lurched as you felt him slide a ring onto your finger. Glancing down at it, you choked on your gasp as a glittering diamond ring shone on your finger.
“Say it again.”
“I swear I'll never leave you.” you kissed him deeply. “I love you~ I love you so much~!”
“I love you too, god I love you.” Nanami kissed you, his future wife, as hard as possible without hurting you. “We’ll be together forever.” His hips rocked gently into you.
You made love all day. Gently kissing each other until you both finally laid down to rest in the last afternoon. Nanami softly snored as he held you, and you just laid there, basking in the afterglow of sex and the elation of being engaged. Your diamond ring glittered in the sunlight shining through the window before you curled into Nanami’s chest, sighing happily.
Being with him like this, was your own personal paradise that you never wanted to leave.
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Blue and Fire Engine Red, Pt 2
Kara shuts the door of her car shut behind her, and smoothes her sweating palms down the front of her jeans. She should have stayed in uniform, she thinks. She’s no longer on shift, but she always feels more confident with a badge pinned to her chest. As it is, wearing jeans and a tee shirt, she feels exposed, as though anyone looking at her would be able to see just how fast her heart is racing.
But she’s come this far-- she can see this through. Exhaling deeply, Kara starts the short walk up the drive to the firehouse’s open bay doors. As she crosses the threshold sounds of activity fills her ears. She glimpses firefighters rolling hoses and mounting them on the engine, and others are buffing the chrome bumper of the ambulance. She catches the eye of one, she thinks she recognizes him from multiple calls– Brainy, she’s heard the others call him. He brightens at the sight of her, and to her horror comes trotting over to greet her.
“You are approximately 32 minutes late, Sergeant Danvers,” he says precisely. He clasps his hands behind his back.
“I–I’m sorry?” Kara asks. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming, let alone what time she planned to show up.
“Since I glimpsed you conversing with Lieutenant Reilly, I anticipated you would seek her out. Seeing as your shift ended one hour ago, and the precinct is 30 minutes from the firehouse, you are, by my calculations, late.”
Kara blinks. “There was traffic on the freeway… how did you–?”
“The lieutenant can be found in the gym,” Brainy clips, extending an arm towards the far corner of the engine bay. There, Kara glimpses a glass paneled wall and the outline of a pull-down machine.
“Thank you,” Kara issues numbly.
“You are most welcome.” Brainy then turns and returns to the ambulance and his chores. By now Kara’s thundering heart has climbed to her throat, but it;s too late to back out now that she’s been seen.
Kara wipes her palms again, nodding to herself. “You can do this,” she murmurs. “Look sharp, Danvers.”
Kara follows the hum treadmills and the clink of weights to the back right corner, where a glass paneled room sat under the spiraling staircase up to the second floor. There she stops, mesmerized by a dark swinging ponytail. Lena.
Lena running.
Lena running in a tank top and spandex shorts. Muscled arms swing in rhythm with her bobbing head, and Kara can glimpse round earbuds nestled in her ears.
She almost turns away, if only to keep from getting caught ogling. But a sweaty towel smacks Lena in the side of the head, pulling her attention to the young woman smirking off to Kara’s left. Nia, is it?
“Got a visitor, LT!”
Lena’s head swivels towards Kara without breaking stride. Her sweaty features brighten at the sight of her.
“Sergeant Danvers!” she chirps. She hops onto the strats of the treadmill, taking a moment to tap the machine off before stepping down entirely. She uses Nia’s towel to wipe her glistening face and neck, her breath huffing lightly. Kara’s mouth goes dry. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
Kara blinks, giving herself a little shake to re-orientate herself. Then she gives as easy a grin as she can manage. “And give up a free autograph? Not on your life.”
A smirk crosses Lena’s features as Nia steps up to stand at her shoulder. “Autograph?”
Kara plucks her calendar from her bag, giving it a playful flourish. Nia’s brow furrows, then lifts in delight.
“Oh my god! Miss March has a fan?!”
Lena turns towards her coworker with a roll of her eyes. “Nal…”
“Yeah?”
“Give us a minute, will you?”
“But–!”
“Nia.”
Nia sighs. “Fiiiiine…” She grabs her water and phone from beside the weight bench, and all but prances out with a smug, knowing smile in Kara’s direction. “Nice seeing you, Sergeant.”
They wait until Nia slips out, leaning them together with nothing but charged air between them. Kara gazes at Lena, who gives a soft smile in return. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Lena smiles back. Her cheeks are flushed, and Kara feels a glimmer of satisfaction at the thought it might not be entirely from exertion.
“So…” she says. “I have a place or two in mind for that drink. Someplace… friendly.”
Lena gives a slow nod. “I like friendly.”
“Someplace where we could get some privacy.”
Another nod, this time accompanied by a deliberate step forward. “Privacy is good.”
“And, ahhh… one of them just so happens to be walking distance from my place.”
Dark eyebrows lift in surprise, and suddenly Kara finds herself awkwardly trying to reel herself back.
“I mean, you know, in case we can’t drive after. I didn’t mean to imply– not that I expected… um, that.”
Pressing her lips together, Lena waits for Kara to talk herself out. It serves to jolt Kara back into herself; she chuckles. “You going to cut me a break here or what?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Lena returns, grinning. “I’m curious to see how far we’re not going to go on this date.”
Kara laughs. “Okay, okay. Look– what I mean is that I don’t expect anything more than a drink to get to know you better. That’s all.”
With a slow nod, Lena saunters even closer. “Message received,” she murmurs smoothly. “That said…”
She leans in close, until Kara can smell the tantalizing tang of sweat and the subtle fragrance of Lena’s shampoo. Her heart pounds so hard there’s no way Lena can’t hear it.
“If any of that,” Lena continues, “were to follow… I wouldn’t be averse to it.”
Unable to help her answering grin, Kara cocks her head. “Well, before we even get to that, we do have one order of business to get to first.”
She flips the calendar tauntingly between them, even going so far as to let the thing tap against Lena’s chest when she waggles it playfully. Lena glances down sharply, clearly having forgotten the “true” purpose of Kara’s visit. She throws her head back and laughs a full belly laugh that turns Kara’s insides to jello.
“Guess I’ll have to rustle up something to sign that with–”
A marker flies out of nowhere, bouncing off of Lena’s chest. She fumbles to catch it, and Kara lunges for it on reflex. Their heads crack together audibly, and they both stagger apart, cursing.
“Jesus fuck–!”
“Godammit!”
Nia’s voice calls cheerily from outside. “You’re welcome!”
Kara locks eyes with Lena, who grimaces at her.
“You said something about privacy?”
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Pairing: musician!Han x reader… bartender!chan x reader … security guard!Changbin x reader.
Synopsis: Han asks you to meet him in the corridor at a bar. Chan and Changbin join in for the fun.
About a 7 minute read.
This story is moderately unhinged. Porn without plot.
A/n: I couldn’t sleep the other night and thought to myself “what’s a naughty fantasy I could write about that isn’t realistic in the slightest?” but also not fantasy genre (one day I’ll write a non human Han story, promise).
This is what I came up with. Please be safe when having sex. The following isn’t recommended except in delululand where anything goes. 😜
CW: unprotected p in v sex with multiple strangers in a semi public space (a bar) and ppl see // voyeurism // exhibitionism // sub reader // 3Racha cum dump situation // gagging with underwear// mating press kind of// oral sex m rec// slight degradation- they talk like reader isn’t there // size, stretch kink// mild pain kink// I don’t offer a safe word option in this story but I promise reader wants it all (cos I made her up)// like I said it’s not realistic // if you are uncomfortable with any CW please don’t read.
A/n (again): Okay so now that’s out of the way… the scenario that got me hot and bothered…
Oh and by the way way if you want to be tagged in my after dark content because you’re as filthy as me, please let me know 😘
Really… let’s get started… I’m writing this 3 wines in 🤪 so who knows where we’ll end up. 🫣
You sit on a stool at the bar watching the musician on stage. His name’s Han, and he is singing a love song whilst playing his acoustic guitar. He’s fucking gorgeous and you can’t keep your eyes off him.
The bar itself is pretty empty. There’s the bartender. His name tag says “Chan”, a dozen or so patrons and a security guy pacing the entry way. You’re dressed up far more than anyone else here tonight in your short, tight, stretchy boob tube style dress and strappy stilettos.
Han finishes his song, and apparently his set list because he leaves the stage and some random music comes through the speakers. You turn back to face the bar and concentrate on your drink.
That’s when you feel a hand on your thigh. You turn to see who has the audacity, the nerve, to just come up and do that and find it’s none other than Han himself. Your breath catches in your throat. But he doesn’t actually acknowledge you. He just reaches over the bar, grabs a pen and scribbles something on the back of a coaster and pushes it in front of you. Then after a knowing, silent exchange with Chan, Han is gone.
You look down at the coaster to see a note, an invitation, just for you.
Meet me in the corridor in three minutes.
Corridor? You look around the bar.
“He means the corridor outside the bathrooms.” Chan informs you, like he’s seen this play out before. Oh? So Han does this often? You wonder for half a second, until your feel your pussy throb. You’d better listen to your pussy, you tell yourself.
…..
He’s waiting against the wall outside the bathrooms. Just like Chan said.
You take deep breath and bravely walk up to stand in front of him. He smells intoxicating.
“Hey?” You say quietly.
“Hey, baby.” He replies in a deep, husky voice.
You take a step towards him but in one swift move he turns you around and presses you against the wall.
You cry out in surprise at the forcefulness, then moan into his mouth when he crashes his lips on yours. His hands slide down your sides and then grope your ass as he presses himself against you.
You feel your body spark with arousal as he makes out with you in a rough, urgent way. His hands move down to then reach up under the hem of your dress. He slowly inches it up beginning to expose your ass. You pull away from the kiss and he moves his mouth to your neck.
“M-maybe…we should…take it to the bathroom?” You say.
Han nibbles your ear, his hands cup your bare ass cheeks. “Here’s just fine, baby.” He whispers.
“What?” You yelp.
“I’m gonna fuck you right here, not in a filthy toilet.” He grinds against you again and he’s so fucking hard it makes your cunt ache.
You see two women come out of the ladies room and glance over to where you are in the hall. They throw you an encouraging glance and throw a fist in the air to say “you go girl.”
“W-what about protection? You got something?” You pant. He’s really getting to you, and if he were to touch you right there, he’d know how ready you are for him to fill you with his cock.
His hands pull your dress up further exposing your red thong, and he hooks his hands into the sides of your underwear and peels them down your thighs.
You can hardly believe what’s happening when he’s dropped down momentarily to pick them up off the floor.
“Baby,” his voice is serious as his mouth inches closer to your cheek. “You’re asking too many questions. Just do as I say.” He shoves your panties into your mouth. Your eyes widen in surprise.
“Now listen.” He kisses your neck softly and his hands come back to squeeze at your ass. “I’m gonna fuck you raw.” Another kiss to the corner of your mouth this time. “And I’m not gonna pull out.” He yanks your panties out of your mouth. “You understand?”
Your body feels like jelly. His words are turning you on far too easily. You nod vigorously. “Yes. I understand.” You gasp. The panties are pushed back into your mouth and Han smirks at you.
“You’re such a good girl.” He caresses your body. You’re melting under his touch. “I saw you watching me.” His fingers tease the edge of your pussy. You need him to touch you so bad. You feel a thrill knowing you’re naked from the waist down and your dress up around your waist - In a public hallway for fucks sake. Anyone could stumble across you. It makes your pussy squeeze.
You wrap your arms around his neck and begin to grind yourself against his clothed crotch, trying to get him to touch you already.
He slips his fingers between your legs and slides his finger along your pussy. “Fuck baby. I gotta fuck you right now.”
His hands leave your body to undo his pants and release his cock. You don’t even get to see it because he’s lifting you up and your legs automatically wrap around him. He presses you against the wall at the same time he manages to plunge deep into your cunt. You cry out around the panties in your mouth.
He’s inside of you. Fucking you raw just like he said he was going to. He fucks you deep and slow, leaning in close against you and breathing ragged breaths. “Fuck, you feel good… knew your pussy would feel perfect around my cock.” He panted.
Your eyes roll back into your head as this man you’ve barely exchanged two words with is fucking you better than anyone has in a long time.
A few minutes pass and you’re feeling delirious from the relentless pace Han has built up to and you close your eyes, relishing the feeling of being used like this.
You open your eyes to see two men approaching, and you’re startled for a second until you realise who they are.
Chan and the security guard, Changbin is what his name tag says. Fuck you’re going to be kicked out. Banned for life.
But they’re not here to kick you out. Chan comes up to your left, Changbin on your right.
“So you’ve found Han I see.” Chan notes as he breathes on your cheek.
“She’s an eager one. Look at her with her pussy out on display.” Changbin growls.
“Does she feel good, Han?” Chan asks.
“Fuck, yeah! She’s so tight. Such good pussy.” He pants and thrusts harder causing you to whimper.
Chan and Changbin start to kiss your neck, nip your earlobes, breath hot heavy on your skin. The additional physical contact, and just the scenario itself, makes your core tighten. Your orgasm is approaching, you can feel it building rapidly.
“Fuck, look at her responding! She likes the idea of three guys huh?” Changbin notes.
“Hey Hannie, let’s help you out a bit, yeah?” Chan smirks.
Chan and Changbin hook an arm under each of your legs, holding you up and essentially pinning you to the wall behind you. Your arms automatically hold onto their shoulders, as they continue to bury their faces in your neck.
Han pulls out of you the whole way and takes in the sight before him.
“Fuck! Look at her pussy. It’s dripping.” He says.
The two others look down and moan and curse under their breath. Han runs his hands along your inner thighs, pushing them wider. Chan and Changbin pull your legs out as far as they can and then push your bent knees up higher. It’s like they’re trying to get you into as close as a mating press as possible.
“Han, you should get her tits out too.” Changbin suggests. Han obliges and yanks down your strapless dress, spilling your breasts out. It causes a commotion as their hands start to grope and knead them.
Han steps closer, ready to penetrate you again. “This is gonna be so deep, baby.” He pushes his cock back inside you and cups the underside of your ass for leverage.
It is so fucking deep that you swear you can feel him in your throat. He slams into you time and time again. It hurts, but in the most satisfying way. Tears prickle at your eyes from how good you’re being fucked and then you cry out around your panties as you orgasm.
“Shit…shit…fuck…baby…so…slippery…” Han pistons into you frantically. “Fuck I’m cumming, baby.” You feel his release deep inside you, against your cervix, leaving you both panting as you try to catch your breath.
He pulls out, removes your panties from your mouth and uses it to catch his cum that starts to seep out of your hole. Once he’s satisfied, he balls up the underwear and shoves it back in your mouth.
“My turn.” Says Changbin. He swaps places with Han. They continue to hold you in this position as Changbin lines his cock up with your entrance. He’s thicker than Han and the stretch makes you moan a deep guttural sound.
“Yeah, you like Binnie’s cock, hmm?” Chan cooes. “Didn’t know she’d be such a cockslut when I served her drinks.” He added.
“I could tell.” Han replies and licks the skin on your neck.
You’re loving the way they’re talking about you like you’re not there or can’t hear them.
Changbin sets a slow and steady pace, but the way he angles his cock at the end of each thrust sends jolts of pleasure through you. He doesn’t change pace or intensity the entire time he’s fucking you. It’s relentless, excruciating, frustrating that he won’t go faster. You can’t do anything about it because you’re pinned in place.
You sob around the panties in your mouth and your mascara is running down your face as you cry. You need to cum again.
You feel fingers encroach your asshole and start to explore you there. Please don’t tease me. You think to yourself. You don’t know whose fingers they are, but when one squeezes into your tight hole, you cum instantly.
“Fuck! She’s cum again. Such a good girl.” Han praised you.
“Shit, she clamps down hard doesn’t she?” Changbin growls. He suddenly pulls out and coats your inner thighs with his cum.
Again, your panties are removed and used to wipe up as much cum off you as possible and then it’s put back in your mouth.
They release you and help steady you on your feet. Han and Changbin continue to kiss and caress, squeeze and nip at your body.
“My turn now, babygirl.” Chan says pulling a chair into the hallway. He sits himself on the chair, holding his erect cock in his hand. It’s enormous, and you’re not sure how you’re going to manage it.
“Come, sit on my cock. I want to feel if you’re as tight as these two are saying.”
You carefully straddle Chan, facing away from him so the other two can get a full view, and lower yourself over his cock. He stretches you so wide as you slowly sink down. Once you reach halfway you stop. It’s not going to fit.
“You’ve got a bit more to go, sweetheart. Do you need help?” He grabs hold of your hips and pulls you down the rest of the way. You whimper. It’s too deep. He’s too big.
“Now babygirl, you’re gonna fuck yourself on me. Make me cum.” He growls.
You press your stilettos into the carpet and start to bounce on Chan’s cock. The impact against your cervix is brutal and you cry out each time his cock makes contact with it.
You’re not sure how much you can take, but you want to be a good girl, you want to please them. You want to show them you make Chan cum. You ride him wildly with all the enthusiasm you can. Just like in the porn you love to watch. You reach down and rub at your clit, and your other hand comes to your breast. You want to put on a show.
“Fuck, look how red and swollen her cunt is!” Changbin stares at where you and Chan are connected, dick in his hand.
“Makes me want to fuck her again.” Han declares as he pumps his own hardening cock. “Bet it’s twice as tight now.”
They’re right. You are swollen and sore, but it feels so fucking good and you can’t stop.
You reach out, ushering Han and Changbin closer. They step forward and you wrap your hands around their cocks.
Chan’s hands wrap around your front so he can grab onto both of your tits, and Han reaches down to play with your clit.
“That’s the way baby. Your hand feels so good around my cock.” Moans Han.
“How does her cunt feel, Chan?” Asks Changbin.
“Tiny. Feels like I’m gonna split her in two. Fuck, I wanna break her little cunt.”
That was enough. Those obscene words took you over the edge and you were cumming again. Harder than ever.
“Babygirl, I’m close! Fuckin’ milk me. Make me cum. Yes. Yes. Good… fucking pussy…suck it all out me… There you go. There you go.” chan groans, filling you up.
“Quick. Kneel on the floor.” He’s is quick to shove you off his cock.
You kneel on the floor as instructed, and continue to pump Han and Changbin as they stand in front of you. Han rips your panties out of your mouth only to stuff it with his cock. Changbin holds the back of your head while Han fucks your throat. He’s not gentle and you gag. It seems to spur him on, each thrust deeper into your throat. Then he pulls out to tell Changbin do the same.
They take turns like this for a while, even attempting to stick them both in your mouth at once, with Chan slouched on the chair working on getting himself hard again.
Han and Changbin release you and admire the saliva, tears and smeared mascara all over your face.
Then the the three of them stand in front of you pumping their cocks.
“Okay, baby. You ready? Keep your mouth and eyes open for us.” Chan says.
You open your mouth wide and do your best to keep your eyes open as Han, Changbin and Chan shoot ropes of cum all over your face. Some gets in your mouth, but most of it lands on your cheek, eyebrows and caught in your eyelashes.
Fuck you looked like a cum dump with a bucketload on your face, and Chan’s cum running down your leg.
“So fucking pretty.” Han smears the cum around your face.
Your panties are again used to wipe your face, but they are so wet that it can’t absorb anything else.
Chan comes behind you and scoops up some of the leaking cum and pushes it back inside you.
Then they get you to stand up and put your cum-filled panties back on. They feel so wet and dirty. You fix your dress, pulling it back down over your ass and up over your tits.
You look around to find the men are gone.
“Well fuck me!” You say out loud.
“Well I hope I can again.” Han says a he comes out of the bathroom with paper towel. He wipes your face to get the remaining cum off your skin.
“I’m hoping you’ll come back to mine. I still have one more hole to fuck, and I really want to take my time with it.”
////
@kangnina @noellllslut @channieandhisgoonsquad @weareapackofstrays @itshannjisung
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CW: Canon-typical violence with mentions of blood, Eddie being sympathetic for Vecna (but that's dubcon so there's another warning), brief mention of hunting, a little angst (Ed has to work through some shit here), a lot of fluff (because we love him for it), brutally honest Eddie, horny Eddie, pervy Eddie, and finally - male masturbation
I think that covers it
Word Count: 13.1K
Summary: The whereabouts and thought process(es) of Eddie is told as it should be -- from his manic, frantic, adorable lil POV.
Though he is very much a vampire, he is still very much our Eddie.
A/N: Not that you wouldn't be able to tell, but Eddie's flashbacks are told in italics and hopefully, uniform past tense throughout. Y'know how it is, switching from one tense to another in the same chapter. I'm bound to make a ton of mistakes, even though I read through it (once). Don't come at me, pls
Thank you so much to @rip-quizilla @munson-blurbs @blueywrites @hellfire--cult @ghost-proofbaby @morningberriesao3 @littlesubbyflower for all your help and encouragement with this chapter and most of all, feeding Eddie properly 😈💋
And I Need You to Know Masterlist
If you have not read And I Need You to Know, I strongly suggest you start with that story. This particular fic begins right where AINYTK leaves off, and it would be a little confusing to begin with this one. Merely a suggestion, of course. If you're a child of chaos and wanna do this your own way, WELCOME MY FRIEND!!
Waking the Fallen Masterlist
Previous Chapter
Divider by @strangergraphics
Darkness is not a new concept for Eddie Munson.
Not now, as the empty chasm where his heart used to beat for you aches at the way you plead for an explanation. Not then, as he awakened in the Upside Down after those shitty excuses for bats reduced his gangly body to shreds.
He’s done plenty of things that have blackened his soul, if he even has one anymore. He subjected one of his closest friends to the pain of watching him die in his arms. He left you behind, never really promising he’d stay. Which worked fantastically, because he still failed to buy more time in his stupidly self-righteous suicide mission, anyway.
He truly found darkness then.
But how does he tell you that he was forced into this body he now possesses? Could he even begin to explain that he couldn’t return even if he wanted to? It all sounds so weak. So contrived. Such a lame-ass excuse because the all-consuming love he felt (feels – because make no mistake, he fucking feels everything as you lie here in his arms) should have been enough to bring him back to you. He wanted to believe that like he wanted to breathe fresh air into his lungs.
That action itself that’s now fruitless.
No matter how he looks at it, he fears this darkness has settled. It’s in him, taken a residence inside forever; and though you still shine as brilliantly as you ever did, he stands convinced he can no longer live in the presence of the sun.
It’s why his stare is trained away from yours, scanning the depths of the forest for threats as the light disappears beneath the horizon. He murmurs your name as he searches for his words, helping you to your feet and brushing the dust of the earth from your ass. A smirk twitches over his kiss-bitten lips in spite of himself and you catch it, nudging him in his chest made broader by his fate dealt by the underworld. Your returning grin is strained and expectant, the whites of your eyes somehow brighter in the dim of twilight.
Waiting.
Eddie has to stop himself from helping you pull the thick cotton up your legs, the claws that adorn his fingers not yet retracted following the lewd activities he instigated on the forest floor. Clearing his throat, he finally finds the courage to speak.
“I’m sorry.”
The way you huff a scoff under your breath informs him you were almost expecting him to say that. “Yeah?” You keep your eyes locked on the stubborn knot of your sweats. “For what, exactly?”
“I dunno,” he mumbles, unable to help it as he presses the softest of kisses into your hair. “Everything.”
He is. Christ, he is. He’s sorry he cut that stupid rope. He’s sorry for failing and for dying in Dustin’s arms. He’s sorry you were without him for so long. He’s sorry for what he is and almost losing control and –
Yeah. That’s where he’s gonna start.
After he tucks himself back into his goddamn pants. Eddie tugs awkwardly at his jeans, stumbling over his apology.
“For losing control when I – uh, when –”
“When we were fucking,” you supply over the abrupt sound of the ascension of his zipper. “Don’t go shy on me now, Munson.”
Your tiny, crooked grin helps Eddie relax, just a little. But as usual, the calm doesn’t last; gone, like water through his fingers. His hand rakes through his curls before he says,
“I don’t know what I would be like if I did that.” He swallows hard before clarifying, “if I bit you.”
Fuck, it’s been far too long since he’s seen you. Really seen you. He used to be able to read you like a book, he knew you so damn well. But now? He feels this barrier in between, made thicker by the curiously flat stare you throw his way.
It makes him nervous. The silence screams so loudly, he has to clench his fists at his sides to keep him from clapping his hands over his ears.
The roar of the truth is so fucking violent, it makes him blurt out, “B-because you, uh… you know what I am, right?”
The expression that flits over your features fluidly transitions from neutral to perplexed to amused. “Yeah,” you blink, raising an eyebrow at the wings that he’s now tucked near his torso. “You’re a vampire.”
He studies your face, nearly positive the other shoe is going to drop as soon as he confirms, “I am.”
But it doesn’t. His confession garners basically no reaction, like you were expecting it. To be fair, you probably were, but none of this warrants such a blatant lack of shock or – fuck, anything. Eddie’s eyes widen comically as his tone kicks up an octave.
“And that’s okay with you? Are you – baby, are you not freaked out?”
The tiny lift of your shoulder is jarringly nonchalant. “I mean, I guess I’m a little surprised… but honestly Eddie, not really.”
His lips pop open, prepared to ask the obvious How? He feels so disconnected from you, like you’re not telling him what you want to just to spare his feelings, and it’s killing him. Eddie huffs a sigh that sounds a lot like a whine, rolling his oxblood eyes to the darkening sky.
His wings fold in on themselves of their own accord, becoming one with his skin, and that’s when reality rattles in its cage deep inside Eddie’s head.
You’ve been subjected to the shit beneath Hawkins for a lot longer than he has. You learned of beasts not entirely unlike him you never would have fathomed to be real – but yet, they were. You fought them for years before him, fought them beside him – and so, he supposes with a soft click of his tongue, that his reemergence as a vampire wouldn’t be all that surprising.
Anxiety still crawls beneath his skin, like an itch he just can’t scratch. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Well, yeah.” Eddie practically chokes on a humorless laugh as he mutters, “I’m a monster.”
There’s a soothing familiarity in the way your face crumples, in how you step into him and wrap your arms around his waist. Warmth that suspiciously feels like hope floods his body, a comfort that’s been absent for so long.
“No,” it’s not subtle, the firmness in the way you tell him, “you’re not.”
He scoffs, returning your embrace. “How do you know?”
Your confidence is beautiful, especially when it’s painted with a thick swipe of mischief.
“Well, for starters, you wouldn’t have pulled your vampire fangs away from my carotid artery while you were balls deep inside of me.”
He knows you have a point, but your brashness still makes him wince. “Yikes.”
“Eddie,” you soften even more, melting him all the same as your fingers wind through his. “You’re not a monster.”
“I guess.” He kicks at the dormant underbrush with his boot. “I feel like I am.”
“Why?”
“Well, for fuckin’ starters –” His answer is wordless, a sardonic wiggle of taloned fingers as his jaw clenches.
“Oh, yeah,” your eyelids flare, pupils dilating as the pointed nails glint in the rising moonlight. “I noticed those. Do they um, retract, ever?”
Eddie’s nose scrunches as he considers. “Yeah? Sometimes? When I’m not amped up and shit.”
“When is that?”
He can’t help how his mouth twitches. “Never.”
“Ah,” he swears that smirk was preloaded, the way your eyes dance with a subtle spark of the girl he once knew. “So, you’re pretty much the same as you were then, huh?”
Huffing a laugh, he’s grateful for your attempt to diffuse the tension. It’s something, but it's not enough. Eddie realizes he may be overthinking it, he might have tapped into his dramatics, again – but there’s a tension that still hangs thick between you. The more he tries to act normal and do what the Eddie before would have done just further jumbles his anxious mind.
The answers to so many of your questions lie in wait on his tongue, and he can’t wait to dive in with you. Make you understand.
A large part of him feels that you will.
But the way you trail off your sentences, misty eyes darting away from his gaze with this lonely, far-off look tells him you hold some cards close to your chest, and he’s not sure if he deserves to see your hand.
Far be it from him to fuck up a second chance, though. He cuts through the awkwardness with a dry cough. “Why does this feel weird?”
A tangled ball of guilt lodges deep in Eddie’s throat as soon as he sees your lip wobble. He lets you pause, sensing you need a moment to gather your thoughts.
It takes longer than a moment. An agonizing minute or two, or three, before you whisper, “Because you left me, Ed. You didn’t come back. On purpose.”
He appreciates your honesty, even though it’s like a knife to his side. “I was trying to buy them more time –”
“Were you really?” A pit of shame opens wide deep inside his gut as you interrupt, and he has to force himself to meet your stare. “I think you decided a long time ago that you weren’t going to come back.”
Eddie over it – done looking like some big, badass vampire. Sinking his top teeth into his bottom lip, he leans into the sting, hoping that it takes away from the bite of saltwater as it wells along his lower lids.
Apparently, vampires can cry. That’s just fucking great.
“I didn’t want you to die,” he croaks, hoarse with the thickness of regret.
A short sigh is punched out of your nose. “Well, I did anyway.”
Eddie is fairly certain there’s no longer a heart in his chest to tear to shreds. Whatever lives there now though – you’ve slaughtered it. It lies cracked and bleeding, a slow drain on whatever life force keeps him upright. He can’t survive, knowing he’s hurt you this much.
“C’mon,” gesturing to the shadows beyond the trees, you extend your hand to him. “We better get going.”
He doesn’t hesitate to thread his fingers between yours. “Where?”
“Harrington’s. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do – but I uh, have a feeling you’re not here just for a reunion.”
Of fucking course you picked up on that. “No.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Time is certainly of the essence, there’s no need to acknowledge it out loud. But what you don’t know is that he could give you this, he could suggest returning to that two-story you called home for the last nine months. Urgent matters can wait a few more hours if it means you’d be able to settle some of the turmoil he can see in your eyes.
“You um, you don’t wanna go back to…” Eddie’s insecurity silences that name, a burden that weighs on his tongue. He’s a coward and he knows it – he can see it clear as day that you’re conflicted. That his best friend has taken residence in your heart where he used to be. He doesn’t know how much, nor does he know if it’s permanent…
He can’t handle that, can’t bear that thought – not right now. So Eddie doesn't say his name.
It shouldn’t relieve him as much as it does when you give a brusque shake of your head. “I wanna be here with you.”
He allows himself a bit of hope. “Yeah?”
“Of course I do.” But you still sound so unsure. Your brows furrow over your nose while you look anywhere else but his piercing gaze. “Do you, um…” you begin nervously, “do you still want…”
Your voice trails off to nothing, and Eddie holds his tongue in hopes that you find yours. When you don’t, he proceeds with caution. “Do I still want what?”
His stomach drops, tying in knots when he sees that lower lip tremble before your eyes well full with tears as your hand lays over your heart.
“You?” he asks after a maddening beat of incredulity. “Sweetheart, are you kidding?”
The first of several sobs burst over reddened lips, the force of them shaking your shoulders. You collapse into him, so overcome with a deluge of emotion that he can hardly make out what you say through your cries.
“I just don’t know what’s happening.”
“Shhh,” he soothes as his thumbs swipes over the apples of your cheeks. “Okay. Shit, okay. I’m so sorry. You’re okay. We’re okay.”
“We’re okay,” you parrot as you burrow into his chest, trying to hide a sniffle into his shirt. “I think we have a lot to talk about but… we’re okay.”
“We’ll talk,” Eddie blurts out as fast as possible. His lips move across the crown of your head, muttering promises he’s ready to fulfill. “I’ll tell you everything, baby. Everything you wanna hear.”
“I need it, Eddie.” His beloved Hellfire shirt is already stained, the brine of your eyes just adds to it.
He bites the inside of his cheek to stop his own from flowing as he whispers, “I love you.”
It’s not said in the throes, not chanted like a prayer as he chases his release, but he hopes it conveys every last bit of intensity he feels.
“God, Eddie.” You heave a sigh as you pull him close for a kiss. “I love you too.”
He could stand there forever if you needed, kissing you back with every bit of passion that still burns for you in his chest. “Thank fuck you do.” Regrettably, he pulls away, taking your hand in his as he sets the pace. He leads you through a roughened path between the trees, peering at you over his leather-clad shoulder. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Ho-lyyy shit.”
Eddie Munson belted out a groan, loud and full and ragged; sounding like it didn't even belong to him, like it came from a different being entirely. Lolling his head to the side, it seemed to thunk against the ground of its own accord, too heavy all of a sudden for his body to hold it upright. Like the dirt and blood that matted his curls was just suddenly too much to bear, and so muscles relaxed as his face smushed into a wretched bed of boggy dirt.
His jaw clenched as his mind whirred to life – a burst of knowledge of what made the pea gravel and dust so fucking wet flashed like the lightning above. And suddenly, he was aware – still clouded but alight with a foggy realization of… everything. Where he was, what he was doing, what he had been doing before he ended up on his back, staring at the constellations of crackling white and red as bright white flashed across a canvas of charcoal gray. Eddie grunted again, coughing the dryness from his mouth that felt like it had been caked there for centuries.
Bleary eyes blinked, and then blinked again; futile in their attempt to chase the muck away and clear his line of vision so he can focus on the actual hell that he’s still trapped within. He had to have died, because before this – this consciousness, or whatever the fuck – there was pain. Take his word for it, there was a lot. Like, a fucklot of pain. More than he thought was humanly possible and definitely – infinitely – more than he could handle.
And then, in the time it took for weighted lids to slip closed and succumb to death, it ceased. Heavenly, blissful nothing. A floaty ascension from a body left broken and ravaged, a lifeless form that soaked the dirty gravel of the underworld beneath Forest Hills with his blood.
He felt it. He did – he felt the life trickle down his chest, pour out of his belly where those ratty-ass motherfuckers chewed him as he screamed into oblivion.
And then he died. He died, right?
Yeah. Yeah – of course he did. There was no way anyone could survive that, not without help. Not that he’s blaming anyone. He was a lost cause from the moment he cut that rope. From the minute those bats tore into his flesh and spilled his blood.
Shit, there was so much blood. So much that it ran in rivers away from where he lay, coating the gravel and matting the dirt, congealing to the point where it held the same viscosity as mud. Fucking mud that was littered with those asshole bats that stole his last breath decades before he expected. A tragic way to end a tragic life that was actually looking up, for once. God damn it, isn’t that always the way it goes?
Nope. Nope, nope. Can’t do that. He can’t throw himself a pity party when he’s still flat on his back in the middle of Satan’s backyard. Who knows what kinds of creatures still lurk about, just waiting for the right moment to strike?
Fuck that, fuck staying put. He needed to leave. He needed to peel himself from this dead patch of earth and return to you.
Eddie pushed a whine through his nose, the seizing of stiff muscles with even the most minute of movements hindered his escape. Every limb felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, uncoordinated and heavy with disuse. Jesus Christ, how fucking long had he been lying here?
And then, without warning – a new purpose flickered to life, an ember coaxed by a gentle breeze into a tender flame. Eddie thought it should feel wrong, like it was a dangerous thing to want to wander where this unfamiliar tether tugged him into the unknown.
But it didn’t, it felt good – which in turn, made him feel good. Good enough to just stand, like his body didn’t feel aged, didn’t have the weight of disappointment still slung over his chest. It was a relief that there was a weird sort of destiny calling to him, a soothing kind of knowing that he was meant to do this. He could worry about other things later, sure he would – he’ll get to returning to you.
Eventually.
WIthout an ache or care in the world, Eddie stood. Brushed himself off and allowed the force inside his gut to direct him down the lane and out of the park. The why wasn’t important right now, and it was beyond him to even give it a second thought. You were pushed aside, discarded into a darkened corner of his mind as he put one foot in front of the other into the void of the unknown.
“I really thought I was going to get back to you.”
The truth is bitter, a resentment that coats like a chalky film over his tongue and teeth. No amount of explaining himself will ever rid him of the taste.
“I thought it would be this easy thing. Just – you know,” Eddie waves his arms out in front of him, “go do whatever and then I’ll go back. Crawl through the gates all dramatically and get back to my woman.”
Playfully dropping his timbre several notches, he’s eternally grateful you take the bait, leaning into his side as his arm drapes around your shoulder.
“What you’re saying is you couldn’t,” you suggest softly, a tendril of concern whirls around the words as he leads you deeper into the woods.
Worry lines more numerous than before burrow around the frown at his mouth as he remembers. “It was such a strange feeling, sweetheart. I still could think for myself, could do anything I wanted – like, the freedom to do things was still there. But…” He grunts a weary sigh. “I didn’t want to.” Unfiltered anger simmers hot, rolling patent through empty veins under his skin. “I don’t even know if prefer is the right word, but it was like I preferred to stay and fucking obey.”
“It sounds like you were compelled.”
“It sounds like I was being a bitch.”
“Eddie,” your singsong chuckle soothes over the roughened edges of his flaring temper. “I assume this is Vecna we’re talking about?” you clarify, and he nods. “I don’t even know the half of what he can do, but… it really sounds like he forced you to stay.”
An odd, prickly sensation crawls up Eddie’s spine at the thought of that first awakening. It sickens him how much it feels like fondness, a thankful sort of relief before he buries it, layering it under shame and regret. He hates how good it made him feel.
The duality of emotions is frustrating, to say the least. Eddie grits his teeth as he admits, “No, not when I woke up. It was like a weight was lifted off my chest. I didn’t know what he was doing then, but he made it seem like my idea. He made me believe that I wanted this. I swear I felt like I didn’t have an original thought of my own.”
A delicate sound rolls in the back of your throat, sympathetic but not pitying. “That sounds awful.”
Dark curls bob slowly in affirmation. “I noticed but I didn’t care. He was that good.” If he wanted to, he could grind his molars to dust, and it’s a concerted effort to keep that from happening as he sneers lowly, “That manipulative.”
Eddie’s more at ease now that night has properly descended, but it does make it challenging to navigate you through the trees. Ever the gentleman, he offers to carry you, knowing that the slim bit of light provided by the moon won’t be enough for you. He allows a crooked smirk to play at his lips when you climb on his back, the perfect puzzle piece slots into place when your chin rests in the crook of his neck.
“This won’t hurt your wings?” you murmur sweetly into his ear.
Eddie chuffs a laugh. “Doubtful. I – uh, don’t even know where the fuck they go.” His hands purposefully squeeze the meat of your ass as he shifts you upward. “You comfortable?”
There’s a seductive warmth in how you hum Very into his hair. Eddie basks in it, closes his eyes and allows himself to melt into the heat of your body against his. A long stretch of the journey goes like this, one clinging to the other as Eddie brings you closer to Loch Nora. He offers bits and pieces of information as you ask for it, but even more content just to hold you; cradle you over the solid planes of his torso while his mind stays acute.
Always aware of these ever-changing surroundings.
Your clever question cuts through a lull in the conversation. “Did he get inside your head?”
A growl grumbles over Eddie’s lips. “He must have,” he spits. “Any time I had a shred of desire to leave or not do what he asked or expected of me, it would disappear as soon as it formed.”
He doesn’t tell you that he was made to dwell on all this awful shit – all lovingly fabricated from his subconscious by One himself, no doubt. A million and one reasons ran amok through his mind, always reminding him why Eddie needed to stay gone. How he was a freak, a murderer, an unworthy partner and a selfish friend.
That was a time where his head was a miserable place to be.
Tiny muscles twitch along the angle of his jaw. He treads delicately, not wanting to divulge this with you yet. Instead, he confesses the biggest reason he remained out of your sight.
“It freaked me the fuck out, princess. I – I hated myself for it. For letting him in. I worried that if I came back, he would find me.”
“How?”
Eddie sighs as he soundlessly weaves between the thick timber. “I could see things, or uh – I had this connection. Like, flashes of what he saw, or what he felt. I could feel how he was watching El. He’s watching Will, too. I – I don’t know why, but he is.”
“Oh my god. Eddie…”
Pressing on through your sympathy, he admits, “I guess I thought if I knew that much about him, he knew that much about me.”
Your demure oh says it all, mercifully connecting the dots. “And he’d see that you came back to me?” you reason slowly, shifting out of his grip to slide down from his back.
He meets you halfway, guiding you in front of him and cradling your face in his palms. “All I wanted to do was come back to you.” Insisting isn’t enough, he pours every bit of heat he has left into the truth. “With every passing day, I did. I wanted to, baby, but…” Even in the dark, he hopes the intensity in his stare reaches you. He’s changed, but here right now, he still feels like your man, grappling for forgiveness.
“I really thought you were safer without me. Maybe even better off,” he takes a long inhale as he punctuates his admission with an impossible truth. “With him.”
A sad sort of smile befalls your features, wistful and beautiful all at once. It’s an answer in itself, an assurance only you could provide, and Eddie’s chest inflates with hope that could flip the darkness into light if he lets it.
“Safer, perhaps.” You lean in, brushing the tip of your nose across his cheek in search of hungry lips. A blissful moment of your sweet taste, your essence envelopes Eddie and almost has him succumbing to your light.
Especially as you whisper into kiss-bitten flesh, “But I’m only better because you’re here.”
It wasn’t long before Eddie found him. A twisted hunk of flesh, burned and battered beyond recognition, but he would have known who this was regardless.
“Come.”
Vecna lay dying, entwined with the ground, trying to draw life from his already dead surroundings. Where his limbs ended and the vines began, Eddie couldn’t tell. What was abundantly clear was Vecna was lost without him, destined to wither to ash.
The dry rattle of death was evident; it smothered the low rumble of his tone. “My friend,” the being lifted a clawed finger with great effort, “come to me.”
Eddie’s automatic response rolled with regrettable reverence off his tongue. “Master.”
The urgency of the situation was made clear, and so it didn’t feel unnatural for Eddie to help. A pair of now-sharpened canines sunk into the thin tissue at his wrist, drawing what little blood Eddie had left for Vecna to consume. As the first drops touched his lips, the vines coiled tighter, elongated to slither and slide up his body and mold to his shape. It didn’t last long; Eddie’s sacrifice wasn’t nearly enough to completely heal, and so he unbound Vecna from the vines and brought him to a familiar structure, away from the decimated remains of Creel House.
To get there, they walked for miles, the lieutenant carrying his Master. It should have tired him, but if anything, the opposite occurred. Eddie appreciated his change, the metamorphosis of his body as it happened. Stronger. Longer. Leaner. More agile. More powerful. Like his entire being was created anew with each step he took. More acutely aware, his senses heightened like never before; a new dawn for a new kind of life.
Eddie knew how he wanted to feel, how terrified he should be with this twisted turn of events. But the tiny ember of longing for life up above with you was squelched, overshadowed by a new, more sinister purpose.
And he thought he was powerless to stop it.
If you’re horrified with what he’s told you so far, you haven’t shown it. Eddie’s torn between wishing for more of a fevered reaction and counting his blessings for the thoughtful neutrality in how you set your gaze forward. He can’t shake the feeling that’s how you are on the inside because Christ – that’s certainly how he was: a constant contradiction between fear and foreboding against a soothing, idle peace full of intention.
Vecna laid it all out, and Eddie often wondered if it was accidental. The normal safeguards in that labyrinthian mind full of filth and arrogance were destroyed, and it granted the newest beast of the Upside Down full access to the unrestrained objectives of a once-man who teetered on the verge of death.
Divulging this, he knows, won’t bother you in the least. “Vecna’s hurt. Or, he was. He’s getting better, he’s getting stronger, but Jesus,” huffing an incredulous laugh, he shakes his mop of curls. “Harrington and Buckley and Wheeler – they fucked him up.”
His occupied hand gets a squeeze from yours. “They’ll be happy to know that.” You pause, allowing Eddie to guide you around a wide bend in the landscape. “How did he get better?”
A rueful shudder rakes down his spine. He was hoping to skip this, gloss it over if it ever came up. Shame over what he’s done has burrowed deep in his skin and holds tight in his bones. He did promise he would tell you everything.
“I hunted for him.”
He cringes, a minute shrinking in on himself to brace for the onslaught of revulsion and anger as it pours from lips stained red with your disappointment. Even his strides slow, a feeble hope that it’ll lessen the burn from the heat of your words.
The reply you give him is soft, a tiny Oh as cool as the night air. He watches in awe as your lips pop open, a ready inquiry set to fire when you close them again, losing yourself in several yards of thoughtful contemplation.
Eddie feels like he’s vibrating with anticipation, impatient in the worst way for you to expand on that one sweet word that flipped his expectations on their pasty white ass. He can’t handle how fucking quiet you’ve become, not when he feels like he’s a lifetime’s worth of wrongs to make right.
The stark black silence is unbearable, and a pleading, “Sweetheart –” tumbles from his mouth at the same time you ask,
“Why you, though?”
Eddie jolts like he’s been electrocuted, the sheer surprise notches his tone up several octaves. He’d call it manic if he wasn’t so goddamn thrown.
“That’s what you’re curious about?”
“What should I be curious about?”
His arms wave in an arc, flabbergasted extremities gesturing to everything and nothing. “I – I don’t know, the fact that I fucking resurrected Vecna from certain death! I practically slept with the enemy!” His intake of breath is so sharp he practically snorts. “His little errand boy. I was his goddamn right-hand man for months –”
Eddie cuts himself off with a wheezing inhale, drawing out his frustrated whine. Okay. Safe to say that now he’s manic. Dropping your hand, he paces in front of you, not caring in the least that his leather jacket scrapes roughly against the trunk of a tree as he clumsily shoulders past it.
“He said jump and I said, How fucking high, Master?” Eddie mocks himself, trilling in an obnoxiously high soprano. “Shall I shine your shoes and wash your feet for you too? Perhaps take the demodog for a stroll around the park?”
In a blur of midnight and pearl, he whirls around to face you, and mercifully, the moon peeks through the clouds at this very moment. Knowing you can see the anguish that paints his features lessens the knot in his gut. “I did that, and I fucking knew it was wrong!” Eddie’s tone adopts an intimidating tenor, booming through the thick mass of trees. “Doesn’t that make me a monster? Doesn’t that make me enemy number fucking one?”
Your eyes are as round as saucers. “Did you really call him Master?”
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie does his best to suppress a wail, huffing more of the evening air through his nose. “Baby, focus. Please.”
A smirk twitches over your lips, though you do well to school it neutral. “Okay.” Chuckling softly, you step toward him and offer him your hand. “Sorry, Ed… but unless you’re gonna like, deliver me to him in the middle of these woods, no. You’re not a monster. You’re not the enemy.”
Despite the vigor in which your assurances come, he still doesn’t believe it. Not all the way. “No,” he scoffs, “I’m not going to fucking do that.”
And he wouldn’t. Not for all the gold in that one king’s castle or court or whatever it is, not when he’s been gifted the rarity of a second chance laced with such kindness and sympathy from you. Vecna may be this all-powerful entity with the realm’s most sinister psionic powers, but fuck.
What you’re doing now with all of this pure, unadulterated love that spills from your every pore? It will renew him, he’s sure of it.
And right on cue, you give him more. “Give yourself a break,” you murmur as your shoulder bumps against his chest. “Please.”
He wants to. More than you know, but even as a vampire he finds that the stupid fucking insecurities that plagued him as a human are like, tenfold as a beast that’s come straight out of hell. “I just don’t see how this is all okay.”
A considerate hum rumbles in your throat. “Vecna called you, didn’t he? It’s not like you chose it straight away.”
“I – I guess?”
“Why did he want you? Aren’t you curious about that?”
“Very fucking much,” Eddie grumbles as he pulls you towards a patch of sparse foliage. Squinting his lids just a millimeter or two, he can make out distant lights of a neighborhood ahead. “I wondered that a lot.”
“If we figure that part out, will it help?” Eddie makes a noncommittal noise, which prompts you to comment, smooth and sure, “Dustin’ll probably know.”
The mere sound of his name is like a knife to the chest. A calloused stripping of a wound partially healed to leave it gaping and open again. It hurts, and it bleeds into his tone.
“Is…” Eddie trails off, throat suddenly too dry to form the words. “Is Dustin gonna be at Harrington’s?”
It’s obvious you’ve heard his trepidation. “I assume they all will be at some point.” You’re so careful in what you say next as if you can sense his anxiety once again rising to a boiling point. “It’ll be okay –”
“I don’t know if I can see him,” he blurts, cutting down your confidence he so wishes he could feel.
Otherworldly patience must run in your veins. You tug him closer, wrapping your arm around his waist. “Baby, you’ll have to, eventually.”
Many regrets ran in a loop on the screen behind Eddie’s lids in the last year, and Dustin’s crumpled, tear-streaked face was often the star of the show. But of course, you’re right. Jesus, just the thought of that – Eddie knows it’ll hurt Dustin more if he keeps his presence in Hawkins a secret. He scrubs a dirty hand down his face.
“I know, but I don’t want him seeing me like this.”
“You seriously don’t think he’ll understand?”
Of course he will. Of fucking course Dustin will understand, but it doesn’t mean he’ll forgive the older boy for being selfish and running headlong into death. For literally dying in his arms. For scarring him for fucking life. Eddie gnashes his teeth, physically restraining the caustic retort that burns on his tongue.
He tones it down. Barely. “I put him through hell.”
“Well,” you reason fairly, “sounds like you went through hell, too.”
Guilt still rolls heavy in his chest, but he does his damndest to placate you and push it aside for now. Just because he knows you’re right doesn’t mean he’s ready to face it.
“We’re almost there,” he announces with a nod towards a subtle glow of twinkling lights.
“Good. Keep talking, Eds.”
So he does. Over the next several hundred yards, Eddie details one of Vecna’s more interesting behaviors, how he would retreat to an empty room and seemingly seek out a connection with a select few in Hawkins. Vines attached like wings at his back, Vecna would inhale all of the energy of his surroundings as those ugly arms contracted and lifted his body from the floor with a sickening squelch. At first, he had no idea what this odd ritual even was, or what purpose it served other than to knock him out for a few days. Completely zapping all of his reserve, Vecna would have Eddie bring him to recover in a separate room, effectively setting his healing back weeks.
“That’s how he attacks his victims,” you choke out, panic laced in how you splutter, “but I didn’t think – we didn’t think he was killing again!”
“No,” Eddie replies quickly, immediately sorry he didn’t fucking lead with that, “he’s not killing anyone. He’s not strong enough to attack. I think – well, I know that’s how he keeps tabs on your superhero friend.”
You balk, and Eddie backtracks, realizing he dropped quite a bit of information on you very fast. “What I mean is, he knows Max, which is understandable because she was cursed like Chrissy and Patrick. Oh, and he definitely knows who young Byers is. That – that girl, El, I think I already mentioned her.” A quick succession of snapping fingers echoes through the trees as Eddie adds, “And Nancy. He – he really knows who she is.”
That stops you dead in your tracks. “He – what?”
Eddie’s brain explodes in a kaleidoscope of Vecna’s most memorable visions, each more vivid than the last. It irritates the absolute hell out of him that even as an undead creature sort of known for their stoic, unflappable nature, Eddie’s version of vampire buzzes like a livewire, unable to be anything but fucking flapped at the moment.
If all that’s jumbled in his brain would slow down for a second and give him a chance, he could explain this better. Somehow.
Maybe.
He coughs, trying to dislodge the cherry pit in his throat. “Vecna senses El’s presence in Hawkins. I’m sure she can sense his –” Eddie waves his hand around his face, “– whatever, too. He was afraid of that. As much as that motherfucker can be afraid, I guess. I mean, he’s not afraid afraid, but he took time to make an extra effort to remain out of her sight or something.”
He realizes he’s rambling, and takes a second to stop, reeling himself back in after he’s ventured far from his point. “Either way,” Eddie sighs, “it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I never, ever saw even a trace of you in his mind. But fuck, princess. I so clearly would see Max sometimes and I couldn’t handle the thought of him finding you…”
“You saw Max in his head?” There’s a veracity in how you ask, so much that it sounds more like a statement than a question.
“I did, yeah.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, god. Forever ago, it feels like.” He doesn’t remember exactly, and he hates how your face falls.
He’s quick with his assurance. “That’s not who he’s focused on.”
He tells you that it’s primarily El that he wanted to monitor from afar. Young Byers as well, and maybe a few others. Eddie doesn’t know for sure, but for a long time he thought Vecna could read his mind. He was terrified to even attempt to even see you because he thought that his foolishness would alert Vecna to your presence, and therefore, hand you over like a lamb for slaughter.
But that never happened.
Dead leaves crunch under the sole of his boot. “I don’t think he even knows you exist,” he mumbles, equally pacified and irritated with this. If he would have known, he could have returned sooner.
But that, too, never happened.
“Eddie.” The way you breathe such sweet devotion in his name stops his self-loathing spiral in its tracks. “I get it. You wanted to keep me safe.”
Eddie blows out a breath drenched with relief. “I wanted to keep you safe.”
His chest nearly caves in at how you curl into him, albeit awkwardly from the side. The depths of your devotion and your outright trust all summed up in one embrace. Pressing your body against his, you nuzzle your forehead under his chin
Your whisper is thick, your breath hot as it fans over cool skin. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Forgive yourself,” your plea is downy soft and pure and a curious tug beneath his sternum has him stuttering over a sharp breath. “Please. I already do,” you sniff, maneuvering to burrow your face farther into his chest. “I forgave you the second I saw you.”
He could drown in it, the love he feels flowing hot and rich through your veins. “Sweetheart, I –”
“Deserve it, Ed,” you finish for him. “You deserve it. Okay?”
He doesn’t; not yet, anyway. Keeping the sadness from reaching his eyes, Eddie does his best to crinkle those crows feet with a smile that looks as genuine as the adoration he feels in his bones for you. He dips his head to meet your lips, dragging them against yours as slow and soothing as the November moonlight. And when he feels your movements grow warmer, he meets them with every last bit of devotion that always burned despite the chill of the underworld.
He’ll spend every waking moment from now until his end earning your forgiveness.
Bitterness ran through Eddie’s veins. Each time he assumed that role of the predator, he was a murderous mass of vitriol; heady, earthy and sour – fueled by the beasts of the Upside Down. The hunt kept him relevant, and the more time went on, the more he came to believe this. Undeniable was the love he held for the chase, the stalking of prey over miles of rugged, desolate terrain.
He especially loved the kill.
There was a time where he could almost convince himself that he was ridding the Upside Down of evils when fangs tore at rotted flesh, draining a lesser animal of its life while it incompletely nourished his and by extension, Vecna’s.
A necessary evil. A survival mechanism. Even then, deep down he knew it was a lie.
The most difficult pill to swallow wasn’t the acrid, decaying rot that flowed from the vessels of demogorgons and the like. No – Eddie found that the more he hunted, the more he fed, the more he provided for his Master, the more he grew to want it. His sense of purpose flourished. Humanity shed off of him in razor-thin flakes, undetectable at first. Regret clawed at his insides because he wasn’t blind to it.
Eddie felt himself withering away as Vecna grew stronger.
And then – a radical change, one he hadn’t felt since the night he first spoke to you in the trailer park in his past life. Just like then, it happened on a regular night. Ordinary in every sense, mundane in the way that Eddie had gone through the motions like always, same as it ever was. Only this time, he ventured farther away from Vecna than he ever had, the hours bleeding together into an elongated absence.
It was new, Eddie was testing it out, but what he’d learned so far excited him –
The peace and serenity of an unclouded mind was euphoric – all of the intricacies of his being he had been deprived of came rushing back in droves. Eddie Munson had a way to return to his former self, and it both relieved and terrified him.
He craved it, mostly because he found he was in control of his thoughts. No longer a dim, distant want, it was a need – because he could think of you.
He thought of you as he hunted near the gate that cut through a section of dense forest, and that’s when he smelled it.
Eddie caught the divine scent of a human.
Instinct roared to life – all of his senses sharpened, his teeth bared and glinted in the blood-red gashes of light through charcoal gray. This elevation of his basic impulses was far beyond what he’d experienced thus far, and a magnificent desire for the kill contracted the muscles in his legs, primed for the strike.
There was no chase, no preamble – Eddie found the exact spot between the two worlds where his unsuspecting victim stood. He heard every measured breath, felt the warm pulse of life as it pushed through thick, bulbous vessels, could nearly taste –
Oh, fuuuck. Two heartbeats.
Eddie nearly moaned. Two separate forces dropped him to his knees, claws extended and ripe for the chase. He had to suppress a dark chuckle – he knew it would be over before those poor souls had a chance to realize what happened.
He would show mercy. It would be over quickly.
No need to play with his food. Not when it was served up so readily.
The voices faded as they walked along the edge of the gate, seemingly unaware of what sort of horrors lay beneath. Eddie dragged a talon along the membrane separating the two worlds, flaying it down the middle. As silent as death itself, he emerged into the mortal plane, oxblood and onyx eyes honing in on two figures in those grotesque green and gold lettermans jackets that he loathed so much as a human.
He overheard their conversation – one that sparred the most inane, machismo back and forth like they’d actually do something other than shit their pants if they found themselves in the presence of what lies beneath their feet. One of them – Andy, Eddie believed – even went so far as to duck and weave with his fists raised, like he was just rearing to go for the fight.
Oh. Fuck showing mercy.
This was going to be FUN.
It came as no surprise that the two-idiot calvary hadn’t detected Eddie, too deep in their own egos to sense the actual threat that loomed behind them. In a breath of a moment, Eddie vanished far to their right, making sure to generate enough of a rustle to have the lead moron freeze and harshly spit a ‘What was that?’ into the shadows.
Here, Eddie stood sheathed in a darkness he conjured himself, invisible to the inferior human eye. Guilt wasn’t even a thought as he toyed with his food, rushing by at speeds too fast to be seen but just enough to let them know he was there. All he felt was the thrill, the exhilaration of a hunt that would end in what was sure to be his finest feast so far. Even the proximity of such delicious blood was intoxicating, heightening with every moment he prolonged this game.
Fear, as it turns out, when pulsed through the veins of cowards, made the chase so much sweeter.
And so he dragged it out, testing his hunting prowess, projecting his voice in a sinister growl, surrounding the two ex-jocks of Hawkins High and instilling a terror they’d never known until now. Heads whipped from one side to another, trying to track down exactly where – or what – they heard.
It was disorienting, their unfamiliar surroundings spiking adrenaline through their system. They shouted at one another, full of venom and blame.
Eddie couldn’t get enough.
He felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand to attention when he chuckled; a dry, condescending little sound before he ambushed them, grabbing Andy from behind and lifting his burly frame from the ground like he was nothing more than a rag doll.
The young man’s startled scream was lost to the wind that howled up from the gate.
“You,” rolling red oxblood in Eddie’s eyes glowed in brilliant, hypnotizing swirls as he pinned the other boy in a glare, “were never here. You will never return.”
Listening to Eddie’s command, the boy went rigid as he listened, nodding once with sluggish comprehension.
“Say it,” Eddie ordered, smothering Andy’s feeble cry for help in a crushing hold against the granite planes of his chest.
“I was never here.”
“Chase –” Andy choked out a hoarse, frantic plea for his friend’s attention, all in vain.
Eddie extinguished the light in Chase’s eyes, his monotone promise to go home and tell no one of what he saw all he said before he turned the opposite direction, unknowingly leaving his friend for slaughter.
That was precisely when a fluid wave of warmth spread from Eddie’s low belly, down the front of his jeans. Abrupt realization dawned, and Eddie grinned into the back of Andy’s neck now slick with sweat.
“Sorry big boy, I’m not into that,” Eddie rasped into his ear as a whimper bubbled over Andy’s lips. “You’re lucky the stench of your piss isn’t enough to ruin my appetite.”
Andy bucked in his grasp, a futile attempt to wriggle away. Pride surged through Eddie’s empty veins, finally on the other end of the endless torture he was subjected to at the hand of this man and the jockish likes of him. As much as it was satisfying, it was liberating.
Especially when Andy began to sob, pleading in blubbery, nonsensical words for his life.
Eddie couldn’t help the rumbling laugh that vibrated his chest. “Oh, but I do like that. Sound so cute when you beg.” A clawed hand raised to wrap around Andy’s throat, the plan to wrench it to the side. “Maybe I –”
As soon as skin touched skin, Eddie’s vision blacked out. Fleeting images flashed before him, one right after another, an overwhelming deluge of transgressions and terrible acts, all performed by the man Eddie held by the throat.
Until it stopped, locked on the familiar face twisted in fright as she kicked and clawed and fought for her escape.
Fun this was, no longer. Rage ran hot and blistered the tender skin of Andy’s cheek as Eddie gritted, “What did you do to Lady Applejack?”
“W-who?”
“Erica Sinclair.” Andy went silent and Eddie tightened his grip, digging the sharpened tops of his claws into his neck. “You hurt her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man!”
“What kind of man goes after a child?”
“No – she – no, I didn’t –”
The stuttering wasn’t enough to distract from the hate Andy had for her, and it wasn’t only because of her distant known affiliation with Eddie. It was because of who she was, who her brother was, same as the teammate he lost but didn’t really mourn.
Eddie ground his teeth against his rising anger, and channeled it into the gravel of his tone. “You know what I fucking hate worse than asshole, bigoted jocks?” He didn’t even wait for a response. “Liars.”
The fight in Andy increased, like he could sense what was coming. He thrashed and wiggled in Eddie’s arms that expended no extra effort to hold him in his place. “H-hey, no, I didn’t do anything!”
Eddie laughed then, cold and high, before clicking his tongue in disappointment. “I saw everything, dipshit.” His top hand moved from his neck to anchor in his hair, twisting his head at an impossible angle to expose a bounding pulse beneath thin, stress-mottled skin.
The position opened Andy up to watch his own demise. The young man gasped at the sight, his rounded eyes darting every which way over Eddie’s features, unsure where to land first.
The doomed man’s brain isn’t able to keep up. “What are you?” he settled on asking, and Eddie would have rolled his crimson eyes to the sky had he not been so hell-bent in finishing off this sorry excuse for a human.
So, he mustered up the most villainous grin he could, tilting his chin to showcase the razor blade edge of his canines in the moonlight.
“Hungry.”
Electricity practically hums under Eddie’s skin at the mere memory of the one and only time he fed on human flesh, the sheer ecstasy from the kill overshadowed even the darkest of shame that still blotted like ink in his chest. It worries him how indifferent he feels about the actual person versus the barbaric act, but he finds he’s much more concerned for your reaction than atoning for merely minding his nature.
For now, at least. It’s weak and he knows it, but clinging to the, it was instinct! excuse in his mind has kept him on this side of sanity since it happened.
“Eddie.” There’s not a trace of judgment or horror in the way you say his name. “Who was it?”
A shaky hand runs nervously through his curls. “Um…”
“The person you attacked.”
“Killed,” Eddie corrects you glumly. A downcast set of crimson eyes hone in on the details of the forest floor. “I killed him, sweetheart.”
“Actually –”
He cringes, surprised at how much he doesn’t need your assurance right now. As if denying the worst part of him won’t chase away the darkness that he fears has changed him forever. He hoped that it would, because Christ, he doesn’t want to be this monster you swear he’s not. But now it feels different, now that you’re willing to give him this undeserved support despite what he did?
No. Somehow making you a liar is worse.
He won’t do it. He won’t lie and hide behind what he’s become. “I’m a fucking murderer –”
“Woah,” you stop dead in your tracks, “no, you’re not –”
“I am,” Eddie argues back, his frantic muttering drowns out any reason to the contrary, “no fucking better than the monster everyone in this goddamn town said I was –”
“Was it Andy?”
Except maybe that. Eddie’s eyes round as he slowly brings them from the ground and back to yours. In his mind, he’s on his knees, begging whatever god might be left that he’s heard you right.
“Yes,” he husks, “it was Andy.”
“Baby,” you breathe as a sympathetic smile plays on your lips. “He’s not dead.”
Raw, unfiltered shock freezes him in his place. Eddie is rarely stunned silent, but at this moment he’d be surprised if he ever spoke again with how overwhelmed he feels. Swallowing heavily, he blinks your awaiting face back into focus and coughs a hoarse,
“Please elaborate.”
You’re quick to detail every last ounce of what you remember Gareth telling you over dinner one evening in late summer – how Andy wound up in the hospital after some townsfolk found him near the gate that was close to the woods on the edge of town. He was battered, like he’d been in a fight, but still very much alive – and initially, you say, Gareth thought Steve or Jonathan had something to do with it. It was well-known to the older boys that Andy was one of the assholes with Jason that got in a couple of cheap shots on Gareth’s face following Chrissy’s death. It wasn’t them, though – as confirmed by the injured young man himself when questioned before his release from the hospital.
“Hopper chalked it up to a bear attack… but we,” you raise your eyebrows knowingly, “all figured it was a demogorgon that got him and he miraculously got away.”
Eddie snorts derisively. “No, that would’ve been me.” He pulls a face, unable to move past a certain detail in your story. “I highly doubt the fine citizens of Hawkins believed Hopper’s stupid bear attack narrative. There aren’t even bears in Indiana.”
He can’t help but be affected by your giggles. “Yes, there are,” you titter genially. “They’re all downstate but yeah. Indiana has bears, Ed.”
“Oh.”
“Erica was prepared to track it down and shake its hand.”
That has him barking a laugh. “A demogorgon or a bear?” He shakes his head fondly as you shrug, indicating Erica would have stared down either just to express her thanks. “I wouldn’t expect any less from the brave Lady Applejack.”
He matches your smile, even after it fades into a more contemplative press of your lips. “How did it make you feel?” Eddie’s thick brows pinch over his nose, and you supply, “Feeding. On a human.”
“Amazing.” It’s out of his mouth before he realizes he’s thought it. A sheepish duck of his head is coupled with a grimace and a wary look in your direction to see if you’re at all ashamed of him.
You’re predictably not, though Eddie can’t fathom why.
Taking his hand in yours, a careful lacing of chilly digits through yours, you gesture for him to lead the way..
“Tell me about it.”
There’s no need for Eddie to hold his breath, not anymore. But, by force of habit, he blows an elongated exhale through his nose.
“After that, I – it was like I woke up. So many things about my existence and about Vecna just clicked into place for me. I could see it,” he whispers, “understand it.” A familiar sense of dread rushes up his spine as he admits, “All that time, I think I was fine to sit back and wait for it to be over, all while performing like some puppet on a string. Day after day. I couldn’t do that. I had to change – I had to open up my mind and think for myself and somehow find a way to be okay with that because –”
A mess of ebony curls dance around the sharp lines of his face. “I couldn’t shut down who I was and keep pretending that I was okay with being some sheep for slaughter. I knew then I didn’t want that. I wanted something else.” His grip tightens around your fingers as Eddie chokes over your name, “I knew he would be done with me the moment he got what he wanted. And – and so I just stopped. I didn’t return to him.”
“God, Eddie. When was this?”
“I don’t know,” the days and nights are all a blur at this point. “Maybe um, a few months ago?”
Ripping your hand from his, you recoil like you’ve been slapped. “A few months?!” you shriek. “Eddie! What took you so long?”
He’s rather vulnerable, a little raw in places that haven’t seen the light of day in nearly a year. Wounds haven’t healed, not even close – you have no idea the anguish that bogged him down when he thought he lost himself after Andy. There was no way he was just going to waltz back into your life, not with a legitimate soul on his conscience.
So, if he bites back, defensive and a little maniacal, Eddie thinks it’s warranted.
“Just because I had a fucking revalation or some shit didn’t mean I knew what I was going to do! I – I had to figure some shit out, I don’t know!”
You’re not buying it. Your hips pop into an infuriatingly adorable stance, made even more irresistible with the way your arms cross over your chest.
“A few months, though?”
Eddie thinks he might lose his damn mind.
“Baby, I don’t know how to do this,” he’s almost pleading as he exclaims, “I don’t know how to be a vampire!”
You open your mouth to argue, and he swoops you into his arms, holding you close as you emit a tiny squeak once your feet leave the ground.
He presses his forehead against yours. “It feels so unnatural for me, being up here in like,” he can’t help how bitterness seeps into his voice, “rightside up Hawkins. This feels like… like there’s a thousand little bugs crawling under my skin.” He’s unable to hide the ghost of a grin that tugs at his mouth as he drawls, “I mean, there actually could be a thousand little bugs crawling under my skin. I am dead, y’know.”
“Eddie!” His name is synonymous with the disbelieving scoff bursts from your lips, despite your attempt to squash it as you roll them in.
In a supremely sweet and undeniably you-like gesture, you bring your hands to the sides of his face and mold your mouth to his. It’s both heaven sent and not nearly long enough; though he consciously returns your feet to the forest floor, he chases your lips even as you pull away.
“Not funny,” you scold, though there’s no real reprimand behind it.
He can concede it’s not. His playful grin fades, melting into something much more sullen.
Fitting, because that’s precisely how he feels. “I don’t know what that means, okay? I don’t know fucking anything.”
“Well, neither do I.”
“I was afraid to come back.” He still doesn’t feel right admitting this, but knowing you deserve his honesty, he averts his gaze and mumbles, “I’m even a little afraid to be back.”
“What? Eddie, why?”
“What do you mean, why?” He doesn’t intend to sound mean when he asks, but Jesus – about a thousand different reasons why threaten to burst from his chest all at once, but none worse than the unknown that plagued him behind Gareth Emerson’s front door.
He takes a similar, yet safer approach, shying away from the whole truth. “What if I lose control, huh? What if you, I dunno, slice your finger and I can’t help myself and make you my fucking dinner?”
“You’re not going to do that!”
Normally, he would love how stubborn you are – but in this moment, you’ve got him wanting to tear out his hair by the roots.
“Baby, you don’t fucking know I won’t!”
“I do though, Ed! I know you!”
“No,” he growls, “you knew me. You have no idea what I’ve been through this year. How I’ve changed.”
A terse curl of your upper lip sends a flash of apprehension down his spine. “Yeah,” you seethe, “because you stayed away for fucking months when you could have been back with me.”
He wants to agree. Jesus Christ, he wants to agree with you so badly, but a large part of him just can’t. There was too much at risk, too much he couldn’t handle not knowing. It didn’t seem cowardly at the time, it seemed rather responsible.
But now he’s feeling like he chose the easy way out. That he ran away a-fucking-gain, and he can’t handle that it’s you who believes it.
“Are you fucking serious right now? I couldn’t just stroll up to the goddamn house like before,” he waves his arm in a wild gesture to the space between you, “because shit – what if one of you came at me with a stake?”
“Oh,” your lips part in a soft gasp as your eyebrows are lost beneath your fringe, “does that actually work?”
Eddie is practically manic as he shrieks, “Well I wasn’t about to test it, that’s for fucking sure!”
“We wouldn’t have done that!”
The muscles in his jaw clenches at the way you so naturally say we. “You might not have.”
“He wouldn’t.” Despite his best effort to school his expression neutral, Eddie’s face tightens at how defensive you are, protective over a man that isn’t him. “What,” you tut with a lift of an eyebrow, “you don’t think he missed you?”
This is precarious, he knows it. Dangerous fucking ground. Tiptoeing around goddamn landmines. Eddie should shut it down, steer you clear of talking about literally anything else but this.
“I – I’m sure he did,” as even as he wants it to sound, it still comes out strained.
It comes out insincere and he knows it, because it’s not what begs for freedom on his tongue. Seemed like he was doing just fine is what he wants to say. But as much as he wants that little bit of truth to come out, he wants to avoid it. Can’t feel that sharp twist of betrayal if you don’t ask about it in the first place. He could just ignore the elephant in the room and pretend nothing happened between you and his best friend, even though he understands he’s not privy to any of that. He doesn’t deserve to feel like this, not when he was the one that sent you practically running into another man’s arms.
Okay. He fucking realizes that’s not exactly what went down, but fuck. There’s not one bit of him that wants to discuss the details of your nights at Gareth Emerson’s house right now. That’s information he’s not sure he could handle, ever – and he doesn’t even know if his worst fears are even fucking true. He just –
“Eddie, I told him everything.”
Dark eyebrows furrow over a pair of puzzled onyx eyes, blinking as he steers his brain away from a total and complete internal meltdown. “Told him what, now?”
“About the Upside Down, about the dreams and Vecna and how I was so sure you were still alive.” You throw your arms up in defeat. “I talked about you like you were still here practically every day after I found that notebook.”
Oh.
Perhaps he’s worrying for nothing. White hot jealousy cools into an effervescent bubbling of satisfaction, because if he remembers anything, he remembers Gareth Emerson’s explosive personality. And you dumping this all on him, Eddie included?
Oh. That had to have been sweet. “Yeah?” His plush lips curl into a wolfish grin. “And how did that go?”
“Fine,” you chuff as you gnaw on the inside of your cheek, probably to hide a smirk. “Sort of. He yelled a lot.”
“That figures.”
He lets his busy mind rest a moment, studying you in the dim charcoal light of the evening. With the way you shift your body on your feet, he can tell there’s more; secrets still simmer beneath the surface. Or maybe that’s him projecting – he doesn’t really know. Eddie possesses enough restraint (and okay, maybe trepidation, as well) to avoid the topic for now, opting for safer questioning.
Or, to at least give in to the tug he feels deep in his chest. He’s man enough to admit he’s missed Gareth, too.
“How um, how is he?”
Your stare is pulled somewhere far away. “He’s okay. As okay as he can be, I guess.”
There’s a different sort of softness in your tone with how you speak of him now, and though it’s not a surprise, it still stings.
Your hands begin their anxious winding as you worry your lip between your teeth. “Maybe, um…” you begin meekly, “maybe after we get everyone up to speed at Steve’s, you and I can –”
“Sure,” he swiftly replies. This he can do. Envy may still slither in emerald green rivers through his veins, but right now, he appreciates the concern you still carry for his friend. Your friend, too. Your motives behind it be damned. “Whatever you need, princess.”
“He just deserves to know this, too. We’re all he has left.”
Eddie’s lips pop open as startled eyelids flare wide, and a pitiful realization washes over your face as it falls. “Oh Ed,” you sigh, “of course you don’t know. His parents died.”
“They did?” For no longer having a heart that beats, it still aches like it’s real. “God damn it. I wondered.”
A long moment passes as you regard him through your eyebrows, a look so severe he shrinks under the intensity of your gaze. “So it really was you,” the slow cadence of your tone illustrates the dots that connect in your mind. Your mouth pulls into a soft smirk as your hip juts into a coy little stance. “Or were those dreams I was having of you outside my window?”
He doesn’t think you’re mad about it, but he doesn’t hesitate to come clean, just in case. “No, they weren’t dreams, sweetheart,” Eddie wrings the back of his neck. “That was me.”
He wanted to get closer.
It had been just a mere two hours following his first foray into drinking human blood, and the divine sense of life it instilled in his veins elevated Eddie’s entire existence. Colors were brighter. Sounds were plentiful, numerous and many but each their own, individual song. A symphony of nature, just for him.
Powerful didn’t even begin to describe it. He was omnipotent, invincible, a paladin of this domain. Not too cocksure to know where danger lurked, and he was sure to stay far away from there. Never to return was what he intended. Instead, he went where his desires directed, swift and soundless over miles of terrain, tracking the scent of a literal angel on earth.
You.
Fuck, how he wanted to get closer.
Through the window above the front porch of his best friend’s home, he watched you as you drew back the patchwork quilt and climbed into bed. Eddie’s new and vastly improved eyesight allowed him to see you up close, near enough it felt as if he could reach out and touch you. But alas, the laws of physics still applied to him in this odd version of an afterlife. He remained, regrettably, in the shadows of the front yard with his feet firmly planted on the ground.
A minute passed by, and then another minute more. Eddie watched entranced with your every move, devastated by your beauty that appeared much more melancholy than ever before. Not even as you bid goodnight to your housemate (an action that had the pointed tips of Eddie’s ears searching for more beyond the moonlight) did you find it in yourself to allow a smile.
It should have satisfied him, but instead, it reared to life feelings he hadn’t dwelled on in ages. Apparently, enough humanity remained for jealousy to again bubble in his veins, thick and hot and sluggish like tar. It seeped under his skin as he watched and waited for the younger man to join you, settle into the space next to you like he once did.
A satisfied smile slithered across his face when you clicked off the light alone.
It tore him up inside, the thought of you sleeping alone. Joining you was out of the question; Eddie was vaguely certain he still had the blood of that miscreant still stained across his lips and chin. That may be nothing compared to what he now knew he was capable of, and he would never forgive himself if he ever lost his control like that with you.
But still, he longed for that blood to be yours, and there – that terrible, fantastical desire – was precisely the biggest reason he needed to stay away. This new awakening thrilled him just as much as it excited him, and with a muted groan to the darkness, Eddie palmed the growing bulge at the front of his jeans.
It was ecstasy like he’d never experienced, so robust and complete just from the mere thought of piercing the tips of his fangs through your flesh. Never in his life was he subject to such carnal want, and with a haughty snort of night air through his nose, he allowed himself to dream of it, to dream of you. The blood he just ingested rushed to fill out his cock, had it straining properly against his fly. A subtle thrust of his hips, just one, Eddie rutted against the thick denim of his jeans with a subtle grind and grunt, already powerless to the desire that thrummed through his veins.
He melted into his surroundings, called upon a familiar, self-conjured shadow to hide him away as he stared through the panes of your window. Welcome warmth radiated from every inch of his skin; he felt like the mere sight of you had set him on fire. He let it consume him, allowing for the most debased needs to sink into his bones as his taloned fingers picked at the button above his crotch, freeing it with just a deft twist and tug.
Okay. One aspect of turning into a vampire that Eddie hadn’t counted on was how unaroused he was for the first several months of his existence. As ridiculous as it sounds, he never had a reason to be. He oscillated between being disgusted and being terrified to the point where there was nothing else. It was almost comical to think about it – feeding on a human as vile as Andy was what lit the fuse.
It was finally seeing you set him on fire.
The first time Eddie’s palm dived under the band of his boxers, he knew something had changed. Instantaneous shock melted into pure ego at the sheer size he felt under his fingers. He chuckled then as he wrapped them around the ample girth of his shaft, pushing a disbelieving breath through his nose when it took two tugs to free it from the confines of his pants. There it hung heavily in his palm, pulsing and growing impossibly harder and longer still.
Now he really wanted to climb through that window and claim you, remind you who you belonged to.
Instead, his mind wandered to filthy scenarios as he stroked himself, languidly at first. He thought of how round your eyes would go when you saw him for the first time, how it would surprise you just as it did him. Lust trickled in rivers down his neck and over his chest as he imagined your hand gripping his length, guided by him. You’d look up at him with such wide, wet owl eyes and he’d coo your name, telling you that it would all be okay. He’d go slow. You could take it.
You would be Daddy’s good girl and take it.
“Ahh, fuck,” Eddie choked out, his breath rose in tendrils of smoke as he panted through his pleasure.
Jesus, just the thought of that. He tried to keep it slow, but the simmering pressure was just too fucking good. He moved faster then, longer strokes that squeezed and twisted over the crown of his broad, fat head. Eddie’s fantasy then swirled to envision how it would feel to split you in half with this monster in his fist for the first time. How he wanted you to cling to him as he pushed it inside you, how musical all those noises would sound as they spilled over your lips.
Eddie’s hips canted forward in time with his hand. Yeah, fuck that was good – all the noises he now realized he longed for after so much time. Now that he knew he could dwell on this and on you, it all came rushing back in a hurry.
Logically, he wondered how you would actually take his cock, how he’d ever get it to fit in your pretty little cunt, how you’d choke and gag if he ever gets a chance to run it over your tongue and into the back of your throat. Tears would undoubtedly fill your eyes and spill over your lashes in droves, because even as a human you had a tough time taking his length all the way in your mouth. There would be no way you could do that now.
A low, rumbling huff rolled in his chest. No. He would prepare you properly, like you deserved. If you wanted to try to take him in your mouth he would certainly let you, but not until he had thoroughly ravaged you first.
Eddie longed to gain control over these goddamn talons that pricked little crescents into the tough skin of his palm. He rucked his shirt to bunch under his chin to get a better view, to imagine better how he wanted to fuck you with his fingers that were now so thick he had to cut off his rings.
He still mourned that loss, especially when he had to sever the metal band of that precious bat ring you bought him for Christmas. He doesn’t mourn it now, not while the smooth pads of his fingers smeared the ample offering of precum down the girth of his shaft again and again, a sickly sort of slick serenade to the trees behind Emerson’s house.
Fuck, that was good. So fucking good, it had been too fucking long since Eddie’s balls tightened like this. His lower abs cramped and strained against his pleasure as it built low in his gut, climbing higher still as he thought of you falling apart on just a finger.
There was no doubt in his mind, he bet he would make you come with just one. The longest one, he decided then, would stretch you open. He would reach deep inside, touching places you could never get to yourself. Eddie’s head tipped back on his shoulders, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth to prevent primal grunts of pleasure from escaping between lips pressed together tight. Faster and faster he fucked his rigid cock, just as desperate to find release as he was to hang on and let his climax stall.
The scene then changed in Eddie’s mind. He saw your face twisted in erotic ecstasy as he fucked you on his finger, jaw swinging open in a silent scream as he got you ready for him with two. Fat tears rolled down your cheeks, crying out for him as he scissored them inside. He would lean in, kissing those droplets away as they trailed from your lids, increasing his cadence as he drove his digits in and out of your needy hole.
The end neared for Eddie, his release so close to completion. He shamelessly sought after his pleasure, spitting onto his cock to amplify the lewd sounds tenfold. It thrust him headlong back into his dream where he had you so close you trembled and begged for more. Fuck, he would give you more. He would give anything to have you hot and wet around his fingers, his tongue – oh Christ, his fucking tongue –
Eddie’s climax washed over him in waves as he chanted your name to match how screamed his, over and over as your release soaked him. Rich, honeyed sweetness would drip from his chin as he coaxed the prettiest noises from your pussy and your mouth, wringing every last pulsing spasm of your orgasm from your body like he knew he could.
He sighed then, only partially satisfied. Eddie’s spend littered his toned abdomen and chest in warm, sticky ropes; he swiftly tucked himself away before he could get mindless at the thought of you licking him clean and batting those long lashes as you begged him to fuck you.
Taking his chance, he disappeared into the night. He never was good at telling you no.
Eddie clears his throat and stops, trying like hell to be subtle as he adjusts himself in his pants. He tosses you a sheepish glance.
“Sorry. I, uh… sorry.” Though he detailed his first night outside your window with as much censorship as he could, the memory of it is still as arousing as ever. “You just smell really fucking good and… I’m really happy you’re not freaking out more about this.”
He’s close enough that he senses that spicy, bashful heat creeping up from your neck and into your cheeks. “I haven’t showered in at least a day or two,” you try to reason with a whine. “There’s no way I smell good.”
You might try to be coy, but it doesn’t escape him how your breath shudders just slightly as you exhale. “You do,” he purposefully roughens his voice to a deep husk, “you smell so sweet, princess.”
Smiling into the crown of your head, he buries your scowl into his chest. He wills his now-stirring cock to settle down as he shares one more bit of honesty with you.
“I’m just really lucky you’re not freaking out more about all this.”
Quick as a whip, you reply, “Oh, I am. A little. I guess.” You return his smile. “But from being without you to suddenly having you here, talking to me? Eddie… you have no idea – I feel like I can fucking breathe again.”
It’ll do no use to spin in circles, but his anxious mind just won’t let it go. “I’m not me, though.”
“You are.” Drawing his body closer to yours as both arms circle his waist, he finds comfort in the steady beat of your heart. “I swear to you, as I’m looking at you, you’re still my Eddie.”
“I’m yours, huh?”
A genuine smile is drawn from his toes as you whisper into his parted lips, “Always.”
He takes his time, pressing his mouth against yours, molding and shaping your lips like they’re his second skin. He’s yours. He’s yours, just as it should be.
Eddie’s world begins to right again, despite being faced with so wrong.
Next Chapter
Taglist open: @morningberriesao3 @canwepleasehavefun @rip-quizilla @eldermayfield @nymqphet @unverifiedmeatsuit @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @chloe-6123 @pagesfalling @angel-ann-pops @kthomps914 @clarafornerlyknownasclaire-blog @dashingdeb16 @darkyuffie-blog @munsons-queen @lottie-90 @duncanhillscoffeecups @wendyxox @veemoon @gnrquinn @boxofsmittens @ginger-haired-queen @hunter-in-the-upsidedown @corkadymu @b-irock @ahoyyharrington @cripilingdepression-blog
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Blood of My Blood: Something to Cry About
Consider this a spinoff of a spinoff. Based on @ibrithir-was-here's Blood of My Blood and directly jumping off of @bluecatwriter's chapter, Overindulgence.
In which the Master of the castle runs into an unexpected concern regarding his dear vassal and being the monster in the picture is not quite as fun as he recalls.
(Warnings for suicidal ideation and domestic abuse.)
His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping.
It was not the first time his friend had greeted him so. Back in that first private summer there had been something of a game made from it. Whenever his friend was caught supine in bed or on a couch without the will to drag himself to consciousness and perform for his Master, the latter would sometimes test the limits of the act. A hand on his throat. Another under the shirt and over the drumming heart. That had been back when only one of them carried a chill.
What a distant thing that season was now. The dark-haired youth had only been able to hide his expression because fatigue still left its miserable countenance stamped on him. He had not been able to fully hide his shudders then; not when the hands began to move. Now here was his friend just shy of the full metamorphosis, human by the thinnest wisp of definition, a marble statue in his bed.
Stained marble. He was so drained as to nearly match the silver-white corona of hair on the pillow. There were the usual shadows under the eyes and the mottling spots that showed where his family nursed at throat and wrist. But the palette broke anew along one side. Even if it was to allow space for the bandages.
Bandages that had started white but now flared in spots of scarlet. Rings, rather.
Bites.
Ah, he had indulged deeply.
Enough to sand the years away to those earliest days when he himself had been a youth peddling soul and sacrifices away beneath the Mountain. Amusing as it was, and infinitely worth the woman’s face upon seeing the full claim of her husband in action, he did catch himself counting the hours until this whipcord stage would fade out of him. It would be a pain in and of itself for bone and beard and build to all even out again into full manhood. Just having his own voice in his ears would be a relief in itself. Unquestioned as his rule was, even he could not play deaf to the absurdity of the lord of the castle sounding a year short of his first shave.
He could almost fool himself into thinking dear Jonathan was playing ignorant because he did not recognize his Master’s voice. Almost.
“She wrapped it poorly,” he hummed. He sat at the faux dreamer’s hip. “The stain should not be visible.”
Jonathan’s eyes stayed shut. His breathing did not change, thin as it was. Perhaps the woman was in his head, whispering behind his back. But a simple check showed otherwise.
Mother and child were both out from underfoot for the moment, amusing themselves with animals. The boy maintained the wolves as his most cherished creatures, as was right, but the other beasts in the dark had hooked his eye as well. Bat and rat, owl and fox. The latter had scared him once, hearing it scream for the first time—a human shriek from an inhuman throat. The woman was out with another of her husband’s doting gifts, a book of fauna with all the airy definitions and dissections that mortal science had seen fit to cage the local range of species in. It was something to keep them busy and another little facet to add to the boy’s knowledge.
The woman felt him prying and a reflexive response tried to leap back at him. He shut her out before she could know where he was. Not that it would matter. He could revoke her meager privilege with his friend as he liked. But this was not for others to intrude on. Supposing Jonathan dropped his act sometime this decade.
“Oh, dear. I had not realized you were so depleted. Perhaps I should fetch some donors from the village and have them pipe their veins into yours. It worked so artfully for other patients. Or,” he made a show of slitting open a wrist to let the dark vein ooze, knowing the gesture was sensed even behind closed eyes, “since you are so set on the repose of death, we could go ahead and rescind all the playacting and reach denouement early. It would surely save much in time and tears and—,”
Jonathan’s eyes were open. Not looking at him. The pale hands remained folded atop the sheets. One was limp. The other was lax only from the effort to avoid becoming a fist.
“There you are. Ah, and there is the opportunity gone.”
His wrist was already healed. Sealed shut almost the instant it was cut. Even two nights on, he was swollen with his friend’s draught. He had to admire the vitality required for such a task. Poor Lucy would have wilted at the first two bites, with or without her impotent ring of suitors dumping their blood into her to drag out the inevitable. In truth, he had half-hoped that the sweet diversion of the Lesson would end with Jonathan’s heart stopping altogether. The feeding of blood was only a requirement if the transformation was intended to be a slower process, as it had been meted out to the woman.
Had Jonathan died, he would be undead within the same night. Perhaps even the same hour. Being siphoned for almost half a decade by three vampires would leave no room for the process to drag its heels. What a treat it might have been to see the woman realize what she’d done. All her beloved’s sacrifice thrown away because she’d grasped beyond what was hers. And better still to have the weight of the farce finally shrugged from his shoulders as it was ripped from Jonathan’s. The boy would have cheered, he knew, to see his Papa finally in their ranks completely.
And then would come their first hunt…
But he was woolgathering. And, in the fashion of a youth, chasing mere impulse when he knew the fruits were not yet ripe. Let the game play out, young man. He would have his way by the end, do not throw the foreplay away now.
Jonathan still did not look at him.
“You seem unable to turn your head, my friend. Did I truly spend so long with your neck? Memory does not lie and I can see myself that the shoulder received far more attention.”
Jonathan did turn his head—to face the wall. The ghost-light eyes hovered on the calendar, brow furrowed in reading the weeks. His lips moved in silent muttering.
A clawed finger reached out, hooking the pallid chin until Jonathan turned to him. There was a genuine wince as he did so. He had bitten deep and not with the usual set of teeth. He’d called upon the Wolf’s rows to be sure of strength and for the demonstration made before his greedy audience. But even with the heady extra helping of blood, even with the Lesson successfully taught, there was no sidestepping the fact of the method’s sloppiness. Intentional in the moment, yes, but…
But what? He will heal. And if he doesn’t, he will die and do better than heal. Call it a Lesson for him too. Such is the lot of one who clings to the role of livestock. Really, it is probably a boon to his penitent soul. A belated lashing for what he still considers his sins.
“Does it hurt?” he asked aloud.
Jonathan did not answer. Only stared at him. There was no fear there, nor even that constant element of melancholy. There was only a queer flatness. It might nearly be mistaken for the same glaze of placidity the woman tried to hide her rages with. But no, it was not even anger. What, then?
“Have you lost the use of your tongue as well?” The question came with a flicker of mesmer. It hooked the root of Jonathan’s tongue and yanked.
“No,” Jonathan offered blandly. And no more than that. As if there were truly no other words he had to spare for his Master.
“I had not realized you stored your vocabulary in your arteries.”
“Even if it were otherwise, I imagine I’d have little to say worth sharing.”
My friend, is this you sulking? It has been years!
Years since that last pregnant silence as he showed Mr. Harker the wolves at the door. Since he watched the young man sit and stew and struggle against tears before ascending wordlessly to his room. What a raw little thing he’d been then.
But the thing staring back at him was not raw. It was something leaden and tired and…bored? Was that it? Something near to that, perhaps, but sharper.
“Now, there is no need to pout. You know I have never ceased to cherish our little talks. But I do see you are making do with only water and bread. Dear Mina has left you like a lame pet up here.” In reality the water was fresh and the bread, baked the day before, was joined by what non-perishable goods the woman had scrounged by way of a breakfast. Even the boy had left him with what he considered a treasure by way of a bowl brimming with wild berries he’d picked himself around the castle. All this had been sampled, if thinly. “Yours is the only tongue here left to appreciate a vintage in its original state rather than filtered through a vein. Shall you have a claret or something stronger?”
“Neither. Thank you.”
Flat as a skipping stone. He did not even reach for the old half-joking insistence that he did not dare risk an overindulgence of wine or liquor as, quote, ‘If I drank every time I felt I needed it, I would be an alcoholic within a week.’ Instead, the stare. Still ongoing. Seeming to realize this, Jonathan made himself blink before trying to turn his head away. Back to the calendar.
His Master locked a full hand around his jaw and twisted him back. Another wince.
No fear. No sorrow. No anything. Just that blunt void of acknowledgment. That unknown thing hovering between ire and lethargy.
“Might I ask what it is that so fascinates you about the date? It must be some worthy holiday to outweigh your Master’s presence.”
“Not a holiday,” Jonathan allowed. “Though I suppose I should mark down the evening three nights prior as a milestone. Something to keep on record.” Three nights prior. When the Lesson was taught. “Your first bout of physical abuse on me. I had thought you couldn’t hold out beyond two years. Most of you don’t even make it past the first two months. Yet you are patient, so I figured there would be an insulation period.”
It was his turn to stare back. Jonathan waited as he did, seeming oddly like he was itching for a pocket watch to tally how many minutes he was wasting breath on this exchange. His Master’s hand moved from the pale chin to the bandaged shoulder.
“Most of who?”
The hand squeezed. Jonathan grimaced, but didn’t blink.
“The demographic of men I had hoped you were better than. There was evidence enough to suggest it. At least a ratio of odds that favored something less predictable. Despite what proofs there are to the contrary, you are not a violent man, Sir. Not when you can happily do worse than violence. Certainly not when the prelude to it provides better results and entertainment. Why else would you take such care to drag out a season of captivity or play your games on the Demeter? Why feed on a victim by drops rather than ravage outright but for the joy of watching their comprehension of the inevitable? The only instances in which you resort to straight aggression are when you want something over with.
“A mother eaten by wolves. Sacks of children thrown like scraps. Your own aide waiting ashore, slaughtered and stuffed in a stone wall to muddy your trail. Quick, quick, quick. Violence bores you in the same way doing linens bores a laundress. If it must be done, fine, let it be over with—but it is no more or less than something to scrape from the schedule. At a guess, that night’s violence was for Mina’s sake. I had not changed anything in my routine. Quincey had done no ill. Mina, I suspect…what? Blinked incorrectly? Asked to see me for a heartbeat beyond the scheduled feeding? Dared to request a moment of make-believe where you do not own us all, as if the very act of imagination equated a challenge to you?
“But that is all beside the point. You have stepped fully into the cliché. And I had accounted for that. The first round tallied. Fine. The issue comes with the timing. Your insistence on who else ought to be in the audience.” In his lap, one hand finally lost the fight and hardened into a fist. The other, attached to the bitten arm, only twitched. “Mina was the point of the show. But our son? Was he part of the Lesson too? Did you order him to stay as yet another hoop for her to jump through, to make her act and lie beyond all extremes? No, I should not ask. Of course he was.”
The ghost-light eyes burned.
“This, when he loves you as his Father. When the entire point of all this is giving him a life he can trust in. You saw him smile for you in this room. He held you and beamed and heard your stories. And then what? What did he ask before you left him in his coffin?”
The woman had not been in his mind at the time to overhear. She could not know. She could not have told her husband what the boy asked.
The boy, his smile fading, his eyes sunset-bright and wondering, blankets fidgeting in his hands.
‘Are you sure Papa is alright? He looked really tired…’
His Father had told him yes, of course, but Papa had been so enchanting that night that Father had not been able to help himself. Not to worry, his Mum would take care of him as she always did. All’s well, diavol. And the boy had tried to smile. Tried to believe him.
And couldn’t.
“He turns five next year. Five. And you are already blasting holes in the foundation of his faith in you. In what we have been building out of debris to produce a happy reality for him, in which his parents are not monsters.” Now a note of true venom slipped through his voice, the hollow-burning eyes narrowed to cold angles, and at last the feeling was recognized for what it was, and it was... “In which he does not have to be yet another actor for your benefit.”
…Disappointment.
Cold and grey and coarse with recognition. With experience.
“All of that being said, Sir, if you feel you must make another show of the obvious,” the fist uncurled to gesture at the mauled shoulder, “I ask that you reserve it strictly for the adults.” Finally the lambent gaze skidded away, looking not at Master or calendar, but at his still-resting hand on the covers. The fingers still hadn’t curled further than halfway to his palm. “Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.” Then, as if the entire topic were dismissed, he reached across to the nightstand. A notebook sat beside the dish of food. Not another diary, but a weighty planner. Jonathan folded it open to the latest page. The fountain pen’s cap was worked off with some difficulty by wedging it between the fingers of the lax hand. “Most of the itinerary was cleared a week ahead. The triplicates will take a little longer than I’d hoped, but they should still be ready within the month.” The nib poised on the page. “Was there anything else that needed attention, Sir?”
Besides you? said the ghost-light eyes.
His Master regarded him for a moment. Another. A third. As he regarded him, a clawed hand floated out and pinched the book out of Jonathan’s hold. The book flew like a discus into the furthest wall. Outside, a summer storm grumbled. He felt a distant twitch of his senses as the woman and the boy both prickled with worry. Storms were never just storms around the castle.
Jonathan capped the pen and waited. Even devoid of a psychic voice, his eyes spoke with an articulation so clear he might have talked aloud:
Go on. The moment fits the criteria. We are our only witnesses. Fetch a switch off a tree or a broken bottle while you’re at it. Really round out the scene.
“I came here,” his Master grated with rigid courtesy, “to offer some manner of respite. Perhaps even a token of reward for so expertly assisting in a much-needed Lesson. But I see I was mistaken. If I had known you were in such an ungrateful state, I would have waited. As it stands, it appears you need educating of your own. Poor Mina, she will be so disappointed to learn that her dearly-bought visits are now revoked.” He feigned his own interest in the calendar. Then at the vast window that looked out on the plummeting height of the tower and the half-moon squinting through the thunderhead’s cracks. “Our son’s as well, I think. He really is so spoiled in his free time. Bothering his poor beset Papa night and day when he has so much to do…
“Ah, but then, perhaps this is remiss of me too. I am no child despite my current face. I have run the entirety of this castle and its domain singlehandedly for centuries, all without any novice solicitors to flutter around my office. Likewise for the tending of the castle itself. Really, my friend, what reason is there for you to be so abused as to leave this room at all? To be bothered by maintaining the performance for mother and child? Such a labor, such a trial.
“Well, no more of it! You can stay here, they can stay without, and whenever it comes time to feed, you may empty your veins into a cup. Far tidier that way, and so much closer to the human façade besides! You do want the boy to learn how to pantomime humanity in full, yes? Of course you do. So that is how it shall be from here out. You in your tower, they in the crypt, and I shall endeavor to play go-between for all to the best of my ability. How does that suit you?”
He bared his teeth to the gums with his grin. Waiting for the tears. For the shattering of the dull mask. For the bribe, the plea, the grovel. He did all quite beautifully when the occasion called for it over the years. His wife did well enough, especially for one grappling with the impulse-weight of the Vampire, but Jonathan had it down to an artform. Indeed, he saw the first shine of dew come over the brilliant white-blue of the eyes, the quirk and twitch of his face into a grimace—
No. No, not a grimace.
A rictus.
The corners flinched up before Jonathan could hide it behind his hand. By then it was too late. Assuming the man could’ve stopped himself. A noise that tried to be a sob leapt through his teeth. It came out as a laugh. As did all the sounds that followed. A long hideous string of giggles boiling over into a cackle that brought rivers of tears to his shining eyes. It was not a man’s sound, but the mock-laughter of hyenas, the baying racket of jackals.
Unbidden, he leaned an inch away from his friend. Several inches. The movement snapped Jonathan’s eyes back to him, wide and wild and blazing and for one lunatic instant they seemed to brand the afterimage of the house in Piccadilly on the room, that surreal moment in which he first saw the uncanny Thing that wore his dear friend’s skin; a Thing that could and would kill him with his steel or his own hands. Even in a crowded street.
But that moment passed—long, long ago now, back before the insurance of the woman and her collared will were his precious cudgel—and Jonathan himself seemed wholly oblivious to the recollection. In his face there was only a madness of such profound despair and scorn that the effect dizzied.
“You do not understand. You really truly don’t, do you?” The words were cracked and brittle, barely holding an intelligible shape. “You talk of tokens and punishments. As if I have ever dared to hope, to even think of wanting anything for myself, since that night in October. As if I have not already imagined and lived, expected and met every possible nightmare that God could throw in my path and hers. I lived the first twenty years of a pointless joke of a life already under every bootheel the civilized human world had to offer, as did she. We grasped at crumbs of joy, of hope, of respite from the reality of our lots. This we could do because we had each other and our faith. Faith that for all the ills that humanity dealt out with the good, there was at least a chance for us. There was, we prayed, something better waiting on the other end of life. If we were good. If we did good.
“But then you had to prove it all wrong. To burst the lie. Not that God is not real. He so very clearly is. But you—all that you are, all that you’ve done, all you will continue to do without so much as a slap on the wrist from the divine Powers that Be—proved that He is fickle. That His love and protection is wholly conditional. That someone as good, as pure, as blisteringly virtuous as Mina could be burned by the Son for another’s sin, abandoned and denied like a used rag for the crime of someone else’s violation. All to have the ransom of her humanity dangled over our heads to spur a handful of strangers onto the hunt after…what? Four centuries’ worth of you owning these mountains and its people, all of them dutifully cowering and dying behind their own half-helpful crucifixes?
“But oh no! Too late! Complications abound! The mother is with child and it does not matter to the good men who swore to slaughter her! And God must have declared them good men, for they did so good with Lucy. Lucy, who has surely gone to Heaven with her slaying…or not. What proof is there? What guarantee is there that anyone with your poison in them can hope for salvation, alive or dead? They saw her corpse and nothing else. They choked on hope and called it evidence that this was the right thing to do. God’s will be done.
“I have already murdered to go against His will. I slew those good men to keep them from making an Isaac and a slaughtered lamb of my Loves. I damned myself then as I had been preparing to damn myself since the moment I woke to her screams and your work. Do you understand?”
Despite the sultry rainstorm air trying to bleed in through the window, the room was cold. Somehow it had grown outright frigid around the bed and the Thing hunching out of his sheets.
“I have nothing. Nothing at all but purpose. Nothing I would dare to want, knowing it will be lost. Nothing I have left to lose, having ceased to believe the lie that I have any potential for joy beyond a reflection of my Loves’ peace. Nothing resembling anything so laughable as respite on any level. I am reduced to a talking trough for the sake of a family who deserves worlds beyond the stain you and I would leave on them without supreme effort. So, go ahead. Play jailor. Play glutton. Play king of the castle and lord above all and whatever else you stopped being able to play with your last captive audience once they were worn down to cackling husks that only had room in themselves for hunger and jeering, knowing that you had no more to threaten them with after taking all that they had.
“In fact? Here. Since I still have some feeling in my left hand. Wouldn’t want you giving me a holiday from work without due reason, and it shall save you the trouble of inventing an excuse to maim the rest.”
As he spoke, Jonathan tore at the bandages. They fell away in grisly ribbons to reveal a far grimmer map of injury than expected. It was worse still when Jonathan twisted to show his back. Bites and bruises patterned him like gruesome puzzle pieces. There were stitches closing two flaps of skin together. In one portion there were small chunks of flesh entirely gone where the teeth had torn them loose.
“Go on. Get on with it. Or would it be better for you if I threw in a scream and a plea to top things off? Pick a script, Sir, let me know.”
Jonathan kept his back to his Master. His Master only stared. Then, with a hand laid gentle as a feather on the ruined shoulder:
“I believe you were right at the start. You do have little to say worth sharing.”
The hand traced the first of the marks. A broad bite clamped along the carotid; the kind that could have torn the entire throat out, Adam’s apple and all. If its maker were not cautious. It was only the ensuing that had been ragged, tearing at muscle more than vein. To make a necessary a point.
As if his friend cared. As if he should care whether his friend cared.
His thumb brushed over a small crater where a canine had torn away so thickly that the flesh dimpled.
Jonathan waited for it to be joined by others like it.
Waited. Waited.
It was almost a full minute before he realized the light touch on him was no touch at all. He turned to see his Master was gone. If he’d had the energy to leave the bed, he might have gone to the door. His Master was on the other side, turning the key over in his hand. As he lingered, a bat summoned to the window. Beady borrowed eyes peered through the glass, waiting for Jonathan to rise, to go to the door and see if it was open.
Should he lock it as he rose? As he tried to turn the knob? Or did he skip the key entirely and simply hold the door shut to watch him scrabble one-handed at it?
The bat watched Jonathan hobble from the bed and to the chair of the writing desk. He dragged the chair to the window. Sat. Stared out through the glass at the moon.
His Master willed the clouds to cover it.
Jonathan stared still.
Still.
Still.
His good hand was the only part that moved. There was something white being fidgeted with. A stick of chalk.
It was only when he felt the woman and the boy heading for the tower that the key was pocketed unused and its owner drifted as a mist through another window. The bat watched as Jonathan pocketed his chalk and stood from his chair upon hearing the child’s chirruping voice echoing up the stairs. Papa-Papa-Papa-are-you-up? Papa hid the bandages and donned a robe before grabbing a book at random for his lap while his good hand pinched cold food from his plate. The boy bounded in, mother in tow, Papa, Papa, look-look-look. Jonathan looked dutifully at the new drawings he’d made, including one done from life of a red fox that let them get this close before running off. Jonathan was duly impressed. His weak hand was in his woman’s fingers, gently held, more gently curling and testing the limp knuckles.
Their Master did not linger long enough to know whether Jonathan would tell her of their visit now or later. It was moot. The scene cloyed.
The bat flew and the mist sank away.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been in his women’s chambers. Even the sole woman left in the castle hardly bothered with them. Antique treasures were buried under the modern trappings he’d tossed their way in preparation for England. They would have been with him once he set the groundwork in London. Them and his good friend.
All dust now.
Like the dust now glazing so much of the old rooms. Jonathan had taken a Herculean task upon himself some years prior to try and chip at the disuse and damage of a room at a time between his usual work. The paperwork, the horses, the errands, the cautious playing of mouthpiece and shield between Master and subjects. Between all that, he set himself to the tidying of this hall or that chamber. It was as impressive as it was embarrassing to note whenever his Master passed by one of these rooms in a state of surprise. He’d half-forgotten most of them existed, let alone what they had looked like before the ennui set in. Even the tarnish on the fixtures and doorknobs was cleaned away.
‘Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.’
He curled his lip and shoved the thought away. Then shoved over a bookcase for good measure. Novels in half a dozen languages went tumbling alongside a few expensive baubles. Old gold bookends, glass statues, cut gems so large and hollowed they could hold a wealth of rings and bracelets. All to pair with the tailoring of the wardrobes. These stood at attention beside abandoned easels, instruments, and myriad other distractions. All things given to be taken away. Only as was merited, of course. Such lazy mincing things, his old Loves. Coaxing anything but bile or idleness from them was like convincing a snail to run.
And most of what was goaded had been—
‘You yourself never loved. You never loved!’
—not a fraction of what they had given at the start. Not even their beginnings had amounted to much after the consummation. Stolen or bartered or lured, his Loves had lapsed so quickly into backhanded camaraderie. They had made cats of themselves, knowing they were craved simply for the fact of their presence and it gave them as close to free reign as their Master would ever give. Not enemies, but pets. Pretty faces and musical laughter to populate the nights with more than his own echoes.
For there had been laughter. With him. At him. Sometimes he had even let them claw or snap at him just for the excuse of the punishment he would inflict after. Really, for the sake of something to actually do with them beyond their nightly sniping.
He left the chambers and frowned down the hall. Moonlight fell through the nearest southward chamber, the window clean for the first time in ages, the interior righted and swept. It held books he had read two centuries ago, an old chessboard he had lost a century before that, now with its polished crystal men standing at attention, fallen curtains beaten from their dust and hung anew, paintings and an elderly world map peppered with monsters reframed and set upon the walls. The latter had been drawn to his attention by Jonathan himself, smiling with the boy in his lap, mentioning idly that he had found a map of fascinating creatures he had no name for, might Father know them..?
Father had, of course. The boy had been enraptured for nights with his definitions, with the monsters proven wholly imaginary or simply animals or, he knew from experience, terribly real. Tales he had relayed giddily at the next family meal, his Papa wasted but smiling on between him and his mother who had already heard her dose of legendry down in the crypt. Holding his Loves with two good hands.
He knocked a dresser over as well.
What did he care? What did he possibly care whether his dear friend took some overdue recompense for his betrayal? For upending meticulous plans and striking a scar into his Master’s brow and daring to haggle for the chance to squat here, under his lenient aegis rather than order the woman to tear into him and their brat and bash her own skull to gruel? Really, his friend was lucky to have such a meager toll to pay.
Other than vassalage. Other than slaughtering in Love’s name over God’s and sending the hunting party’s scraps limping away. Other than complaining of his mangling only because it upset the child; because the child had to hide that he was upset, just like Mum and Papa hide from Father. Other than actively laying foundations for a second invasion of England once the boy is grown, selling himself further down the layers of Hell, for Love’s sake. Other than this, yes, most meager. Practically nothing. You are many things, old devil, but the least you can be is honest with yourself. Or are you not still preening to yourself even now at your bargain?
Your losses: A scratch on the head. A two-decade wait. A handful of women.
Your gains: Your mind. Your future no longer being a mere checklist. Your Harkers.
Your friend.
Draga ta.
He first bristled, then sighed. His mind was walled off. There was no spying. He could admit the obvious to himself.
Not now, not tomorrow, but eventually. No need to fret over it. Time is the sea that eats away all stone, however stubborn. He will break given ages enough. It took the weight of the Mountain and its Lessons, but you broke too. And you were better for it. This sour period will pass. They will all break and learn and be pieced into proper shape.
Obvious, obvious. Of course.
His feet took him to the southward room. Map, art, chess, books. One of many rooms with forgotten treasures. Converted and cleaned and left like little oases. For the boy, for the woman, for his Master.
And yet Jonathan’s own room remained bare.
There was a little bookcase, he knew. But was it used? Was there anything else in the man’s room but a bed, clothes, and a desk? Memory ticked back along his mind. All the visits made to drink or talk or, in his friend’s sleep, simply to watch. What was there to that room that was not already waiting for him when his Master first ordered him in?
Sometimes there were drawings or wild bouquets from the boy. Food from the woman whenever he worked into one of those stupors that made him forget his meals. No more than that. Almost five years under the castle’s roof, diving in and out of the place’s uncounted rooms, going to and from the towns or ordering from afar, and there was not a single thing within his personal four walls to suggest it. And was that not strange in itself? True, he might occasionally be locked inside the tower, but not as a constant.
If the point of giving something was to have it taken away, the reverse held true too. He did let his friend roam where he may more often than not. And his friend did make use of it and his limited access to his Master’s coffers.
For anyone other than himself.
Yes, well. He does have his chair and his window. If he has gone so long without need of more, so much the better. Far easier upkeep than some hangers-on you could mention.
The thought failed to raise a smile on him.
He gripped the bookcase before him—jammed end to end with hardcovers of multiple eras, not a volume out of place—and thought for several minutes of tipping it over. Perhaps throwing it into the courtyard. Instead, he walked his fingers along until they landed on a history text. Written in the native tongue, it was one of the less maddeningly misinformed volumes of the late 17th century. Even the illustrations were passable. Jonathan must have overlooked it. He had been as adamant as their son once upon a time when it came to unearthing old histories. More, he was making more than fair leaps with his practice in the different languages of the mountains.
The book left the room with him.
The book stayed with him for the rest of the night and all of the day.
His eyes were sent elsewhere.
The bats slept, but the rats were busy. Or they would be, if he’d had need of more than one left loitering in the shade under Jonathan’s wardrobe. Animal-fear waned to animal-confusion waned to animal-annoyance as hours ticked by and its verminous little belly went empty as it continued to keep watch for its Master. Eventually it was swapped for another, this one peeking through a crack near the roof. Fear-confusion-annoyance under his thrall again. The same went for a third and fourth rat. Their eyes all showed the same tedium.
Jonathan Harker only ever allowed himself leisure when he had no choice. He only had no choice when he was recuperating from exsanguination. It turned out that his idea of this amounted to either laying in bed or shuffling to the chair to look out the window. Sometimes he even stood and gripped the windowsill. And once, just once, he undid the latch and swung the pane open.
Looking out. Looking down.
His good hand moved on the windowsill as he stared. The chalk had returned. Scratch, scratch, scratch it went, all the way along the stone, like a student writing out a long verse. It was the damned shorthand, of course. Yet it couldn’t be a message for the woman. Her mind was sunk deep in the torpor. Deep enough that her Master could filter into her unnoticed. There was hardly anything worth digging for beyond the usual infantile fantasies of his brutal demise and carrying her Loves off into the sunset. All he needed was at the surface.
Just a few notes. Just enough to make sense of the arcane little dashes.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, Jonathan wrote.
His Master angled the latest rat so he could read it all and filter it through the woman’s knowledge. The rat squealed and flinched away into its hole as its Master’s own shock prodded its speck of a mind.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT
FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
He twitched in his coffin, almost rising wholly from the anchor of the death-sleep.
But then Jonathan sighed and closed the pane. The chalk was erased. A return to the chair, a return to the stare. This time with new tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t move again until his stomach snarled. The doorknob was checked—unlocked—and he took himself away to eat. His Master’s borrowed eyes followed him all the way down, watching him cook and carve a fish without relish. Watched him try and fail to open the office door—locked—before idling down one of the in-progress halls. He worked in the dust and the decrepit furnishings for a few hours before marching back up to the tower. His hands were empty despite having handled an array of oddments and literature and art.
Up. Chair. Stare. Bed. Wait.
It is nothing but a recent spell. He has been here almost half a decade. He’s not spent his time only in his little labors and bloodletting. Who could? Perhaps he dwells on the pending retribution for his outburst. Waiting for the sword to fall.
And what of the threadbare room? What of the trips that brought home nothing but sustenance to let him feed his family, give or take a new treat for them bartered from what allowance was spared for him?
What of it?
He did not answer himself. Only waited until the woman made her exit to the tower. The boy was called to under the level of her psychic awareness.
Come here, child. I have an important task for you.
The boy was still in his coffin, reading in the heap of blankets and fairy books. He poked his head up over the rim with a look that balanced between worry and curiosity.
A Lesson?
Not at the moment. Unless you wish for a Lesson on why not to keep your Father waiting.
But the boy was already scurrying out of his box and up the steps of the tomb. He paused to look up in wonder at his Father.
“Your face is coming back.”
So it was. Finally. He felt the itch along his cheek and jaw which told him adolescence was waning finally back to his prime, just as the shiver of bone announced the return to full stature. There was a reason he rarely drank this deep.
“It is. The body prefers its natural shape even after an indulgence too far. It may only be another night before I am myself again. But that is too long a wait for this. Here.” He passed the history text down into the boy’s small hands. “Be mindful of not turning to the wrong page. There are sights inside that your poor parents would not approve of.”
An easy bait, that. The boy’s eyes glittered like a little Pandora’s. For an instant. But then a cherubic moue passed over him as he mouthed out the title. What little blood he had in him flamed up to his cheek.
“I don’t think I can read this yet, Father.” The boy admitted as much as though it were a crime.
“I would be stunned if you could, child. No, this is something to bring to your Papa. He is a fiend as much for history as the trudge of modernity and I know he is as eager as you to master all tongues in the mountains. This shall be a fine practice for him as your little tales are for you. Come, I shall walk you up.” He reached to tuck the boy under his arm in the usual way only for the child to shrivel under his hand. His gaze had flicked away from his Father in the same moment as his buzzing little mind tried clumsily to bury something. “Diavol. Is there something you wish to tell me?”
The boy started to shake his head, knew better, and simply shrank deeper into himself. His eyes were nailed firmly to the hardcover. He hugged the volume like a paltry shield.
“Child.”
The lips trembled and cracked at the same time those brilliant ruby eyes rolled up to him. Fear hovered there, but it was not quite of his Father. It was the kind of fear a Father was meant to dispel.
“Are you and Papa fighting?”
“Where would get such an idea?”
His hand reached out again. The boy still cringed, but did not shrink from him. They walked from the tomb and on toward the stairs.
“Since our last meal he hasn’t talked how he used to.”
“Oh, dear. He has gone mute?”
“No. No, he talks. Only he skips over things now. Things he used to bring up all on his own.”
“We are not playing a guessing game, diavol. Speak plainly.”
They had made it to the floors aboveground now. The boy paused mid-step to look up at his Father, his face turned pale as ivory in a window’s moonlight.
“He has not talked about you, Father. Before he brought you up at least once whenever we were together. Asking what you taught me last. Sometimes he’d bring things up like you do. Little hints and edges of things I would have to go to you or Mum to ask about. Papa was the one who brought up journalism—the power that records the world—and told me to ask Mum about it. And he told me that you knew how to find buried treasure on a magic night, that everyone else was too scared to try. And…” His narrow throat worked with a strain. “And he told stories about before me. About how you and Mum and him all came together.”
A crest of the innate fondness rose and fell in the boy’s look at that. He was ever a fiend for the romance of his parents’ history before they came to live in the castle. The romance as their Master had scripted it.
Yet the child’s cheer over it blew out like a candle.
“He won’t talk about you at all now.” The ruby stare flicked up at him. “Not since we ate.”
Not since you tore at Papa like a wolf with a rabbit, Father.
“It has been less than a week, child. For all that I am an occasional favored subject,” he failed to ignore how something twisted in his chest at that, “it is nonsense to expect he keep a checklist of things to speak of. He is recuperating and things will slip a hazy mind. But, to answer your question, no, Papa and I are not fighting.”
The boy did not look away. Even the expected smile could not follow the rules.
And since when does he have rules of acting to follow?
“Was there something else?”
The fear was back. Redoubled. Not the kind dispelled by a Father.
“Father, are you the one who’s been making him sit?”
They had been walking again. Halfway to the tower. Now it was Father’s turn to freeze. Even to gawk.
“What?” The boy shivered at his tone, half-hiding behind the history book. He winced as the white hand at his shoulder grew out its claws. A long breath was forced. The claws retracted an increment. Then, again, “What do you mean ‘making him sit,’ child?”
“Do you remember when I had the Lesson about trancing?”
The one in which mother, child, and Master sank their psychic teeth in dear Jonathan’s mind and almost tore it three ways down the center with their mesmeric quibbling? Yes, vaguely.
“I recall.”
Now the boy looked away entirely. Facing the tower’s direction. Dread came off him like a perfume.
“Do you remember the sharp thoughts in Papa’s head?”
“…I do.”
“Mum said before—,” another lurch of the little throat, almost choking, “before we all jumped in him, when the Lesson started, that she could make him do things. Things people aren’t supposed to do to themselves. Like walk in a fire or make him stay in one place for hours and hours, not doing anything. No sleep or food or anything that keeps Papa alive. She could do that. But she didn’t. She hasn’t been. Papa would know and he’d not be so mad at her that time when she used him in the Lesson.” The child rattled where he stood, intent on the shadows that led up to the tower. “He was sitting at the window before that night. Lots of nights. And days. The first couple times, I thought he was waiting for me. Back when I first learned to do climbing. I snuck up to his door to surprise him. Watching in the keyhole.
“And he sat and sat and sat there, looking out the window. Sometimes he stood up to look closer, sometimes he scratched something out on the stone and wiped it off. Then he’d go back to sitting. It was strange. I didn’t know what it was. But then the Lesson happened and I saw—I saw him—,”
He could not finish and did not need to. His Father remembered.
Vision of a daylit escape. Rising from the chair. No message written on the sill. Just the open pane, his feet on the ledge, and a tipping over into gravity’s arms. Down, down, down. Gone. Among other methods by rope or steel. But the fall came first and crispest to his flailing mind.
Before. He was thinking of it even before that night. Since the boy started climbing. At least two years. And that was just when it was noticed.
The boy was making noise at him again. Accusing.
“Are you the one doing it, Father?”
He would have been mad if it was Mum. We all know no one is allowed to be mad at you. Right, Father?
He struggled with a sudden urge to snatch the child up by his scruff and drag him the rest of the way up to the tower. To hurl him squealing into the room where the loving couple roosted, watching their faces drop slack with horror, and then—
And then..?
Then his mind fell into a red haze. A livid shapeless blank where something like release from the growing storm behind his temples would finally come.
“No, child. I am not responsible.” He stole his hand back with a twitch. “Go the rest of the way yourself. There is something I must see to first.” The boy peered up at him. Doubt in miniature. “Do I need to tell you twice?”
The boy fled. Not walked, not ran, not ambled. Fled. From him.
What of it, old devil? Is this not the proper way? Your adversaries and their spawn cringing and scrambling from you at every turn, quailing under your thumb? This is victory at its height. Is it not so?
He thought of three harpies who mocked and robbed and tittered as he piled their centuries up with gifts and weeping sweetmeat.
He thought of the spur of a delightfully infuriating woman and the admiration of an impossible child.
He thought of his friend, red-handed with the enemies slain for his wife and his Master, slipping silently into servitude and his tithes of blood and obedience, the quiet misery free of charge, Sir.
He thought of his friend, sweeping dust from his mind as blithely as he banished it from his forsaken rooms, varnishing and whetting his nights to an edge finer than a surrendered kukri.
He thought of his friend, who had begun as a mere pending addition to his colony and was now evolved into a thing worth bartering for, worth sheltering and hoarding and honing despite a betrayal paid triply in death and deeds on his Master’s behalf.
He thought of his friend, screaming in his jaws. Clawing his way towards a laugh, look, son, see, son, it’s alright. No, Mina, no, let it be, let him do it, please, Mina, don’t, Mina, do not risk yourself, our boy, please, please.
He thought of his friend, mauled for another’s Lesson, half-dead, streaked in gore and sweat and tears, patched together with inexpert hands.
He thought of his friend in his desolate box of a room, staring out the window with a piece of chalk as the only barrier between life and death.
He thought of all these things and many more. He went on thinking them as he stalked away to his own room and went to work.
An hour had come and gone since he finished what was needed.
An hour and fifteen minutes since he masked himself from their senses and planted himself outside Jonathan’s door. He listened to the cadence of them as one might strain for snatches of birdsong. Only Jonathan and the boy were audible, but even the woman’s mental chatter carried a bristle on the air. His Harkers made such a warm sound all together.
The sound stopped as he turned the knob.
Three heads lifted like a trio of deer hearing a huntsman’s boot disturbing the grass.
They were huddled together on the bed, as always. The woman guarded her husband’s wounded side. The boy sat under his Papa’s good arm with two books open across their laps. Here was the history book and one of the fairy tale collections. They had been taking their turns reading a page apiece, son reading meticulously through a moment of fantasy in Hungarian while his Papa overdid a silly dull drone in the same tongue over the drudgery of an overpacked page for the child to groan at. Mum would cap the whole act by way of glancing at the page and then thinking a flash of knowledge into their heads. There, done. Thank you, Mum. Laughter abounded.
Until now.
“Goodness, such a hush. Do I interrupt?”
Jonathan, the immaculate actor, smiled and shook his head.
“Nothing that did not want interrupting. For some reason I’m failing to win any appreciation for the recital of 200-year-old politics across the Carpathians. Perhaps it’s my delivery.” The latter was directed half to his Master, half to the boy. He even cupped the child’s shoulder. Hinting. The boy offered him a smile in return.
And tried, “They didn’t make it like a story. Just a lot of, ‘This happened and then this and then this and then this.’ You and Mum could write it better.”
The woman offered a sing-song rebuttal of, Or you could, Dearest. It would make for very thorough writing practice.
The boy made a face of dismay and denial, pretending to take cover behind his book of fables. Cute. Precious, even. The whole charade was. Their Master felt his own grin strain to hold in place as he strolled to the bed. Anxiety thick enough to gag floated on the air.
“I leave such judgment to mother and son. For now, Papa and I must speak in private.” He set his gaze level with Jonathan’s. “There is something I require your assistance with, my friend.” His hand uncurled to take. “Come.”
“Of course,” from Jonathan. Not so much as a tremor. He turned to the woman as his good hand gave the boy a parting hug, then raised it to set in his Master’s palm. “I’m afraid you must take up the mantle of inflicting ancient territory disputes on him—,” But then found his good hand was trapped. By the boy. The woman tensed. Jonathan froze. “Sweetheart…”
“Papa, don’t go. Please don’t go.” The boy held fast around his Papa’s hand and half his arm, a feeble anchor whose attention jumped fitfully among his parents; not including his Father. “Mum, tell him not to. Please?” A hesitant thread of mesmer squirmed in his voice. His Father could have rolled his eyes. This tug-of-war again? Was the child dense? “He’s going to do it again.”
The room chilled.
Jonathan flicked a frantic gaze to his wife, blasting silent urgency through his thoughts. The woman fought an enormous urge of her own to spare her Master a glower before addressing her son:
Dearest. You know that night was only an accident. We are a long way from another meal besides.
Then, thrumming with the weight of a lie:
It’s alright.
But the boy would not swallow it this time. He was an amateur at playing pretend in the way of his parents. A child fed on blood and fairy tales full of monsters who lived in the house as much as without. The boy held onto his Papa and shook his head. Fear crashed up against sorrow and sorrow up against anger.
“It isn’t! You all keep saying it is, and it isn’t! Papa, he hurt you and he did it on purpose! He didn’t kiss you at all! It was just tearing and hurting and—,” a word stuck, choked, flew, “—and lying. He says you aren’t fighting, but you are, or he wouldn’t hurt you and make you sit and be sad and sharp all the time and…and…” His eyes were close to running now, the words melting into a hiccough. “…and he never even said sorry…” The boy forewent his Papa’s arm and clamped around his middle instead, hugging tight and hiding his face in the man’s side. “Papa, don’t go with him…”
Him, him, him.
Was he not even Father anymore?
“Quincey, I promise you we aren’t fighting. Even grownups make mistakes. That’s all that night was.” Then, silk-smooth, “Father apologized already.” He turned to the woman, expecting reinforcements, “Mina, you remember—,” But the woman was looking through him and into the boy. The boy, who had peeked up enough from his sniveling to think out at her, showing the little chat shared between Father and son on the way to the tower. Inhaling it, she looked to her husband with renewed alarm, reflecting their child’s tattling into Jonathan’s mind.
Jonathan lost another shade in his pallor. He turned all but snowy as his wife turned her attention to their Master. A blazing thing, all horror and hate and, surprised that she could still feel it, a new level of shocked disgust.
Even this is not beneath you?
‘This’ being the vision scraped from her son’s spying through the keyhole. Hours and nights and days’ worth of the sight of Jonathan Harker mesmerized by his window.
Her hands had drifted by reflex to grasp her husband, her position shifted in paltry protection of her prize. Likewise for the boy who now clung wholly around his Papa’s waist. Jonathan, meanwhile, appeared truly and entirely terrified to a degree his Master hadn’t seen since their last nights together in that long-ago summer. Afraid for them.
He held them each as best he could before lifting his good hand again—
“My Loves, it’s alright, I promise, I—,”
—and having it caught in his Master’s.
His Master, roiling with ire, pulled him forward. His kin, roiling with fear-hate-love, pulled back. Three iron grips all working against each other.
And what was begun in a battleground of the psyche not so long ago was made flesh upon the bed. Briefly. Just before they heard the pop.
A muffled sound, almost comical. Wet and cracking and quick.
Pop went Papa’s shoulder.
Papa made his own noise to go with it.
The iron grips turned to jelly, their owners flinching back as one. Jonathan caught himself on his working elbow and fought down another agonized note as its own pain throbbed up to the mangled shoulder. This he tried to turn into another smile as his breath came in a huffed stutter of a laugh.
“Oops,” he panted, wavering up on his knees. His only hand went to the sagging shoulder, the hold still too weak to hoist it. “See? Accidents happen.” A hoarse noise, fighting not to be a sob. “Darling, could you..?”
But she was already on him, aligning shoulder to socket, bracing, shoving—
Pop!
—the arm back in place. Another noise from Papa, this time through locked teeth.
“Thank you. See?” The fingers of his right hand flexed experimentally. Weak, but functional. “It’s fine, Sweetheart, it’s fine, you didn’t mean it, no one did, it’s alright…”
But the boy was past mere sniffling. Now he bawled. Red rivers of tears emptied from his eyes, turning his little face wax-white as he scrambled to his Papa, blubbering fragments of apology, of denial, of no no no, Papa, it isn’t alright, no no no. The woman’s eyes were running too. Shame and rage and pain streaked her face like a mask of grief as she wrapped herself around her husband, her mind a litany as garbled as her son’s.
Jonathan Jonathan sorry so sorry Darling my Love sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysosorry—
“It’s alright,” Jonathan echoed mindlessly back, the most he could do by way of dialogue through pain and panic. “It’s alright,” as his arms, now both water-weak and crippled, folded around wife and child. His back to his Master as if he might shield them.
His Master felt somehow as if he had ceased to be in the room. Now he was watching a lackluster play unfold. See here, the poor little family menaced and ravaged by the monster. The monster looms over them, gloating over the injuries left, waiting to strike again as they weep. The boy cries, the woman cries, Jonathan cries. And why not? The monster gives them something to cry about. As monsters should. As is right. The family belongs to the monster, not the reverse. The monster has no place within the family. Fragile and grating little thing that it is.
See how easily it’s wounded? How quickly it turns on the monster for a mistake? Not even his own! Not entirely his own, at least.
This time.
So. You can admit it.
The boy, the woman, Jonathan, all crying. All huddling against him. Away from him.
As if any of them can spare the loss of blood. As if they expect him to open his veins and refill them to make up for their own idiot blubbering. As if he can waste more of himself on their fumbling and failures. As if he has not hollowed himself of everything, feeding his blood and his time and his toil and his soul until he has only a husk left for himself, picture of the good husband and father, give give give, work work work, feed feed feed, and all they offer him is more need, more pain, more excuses, sorry, sorry, I did not mean it, Papa, I did not mean it, Darling—
He watched Jonathan raise his head enough to look over the heads of his Loves. A single pining glance at the window.
I did not mean it, draga mea.
“Enough.” It was not the bark he wished it to be. He was not even sure if his Harkers heard him. But they didn’t need to. Within a heartbeat he had shot forward snaked his arm around Jonathan’s middle. He hoisted the man like a doll, shock alone making him flinch and scrabble at the hold. The child keened piercingly and the mother’s mind erupted with hate-panic. Her Master flung an order out.
Hold the boy. Do not follow.
The woman spasmed against the order until every cord of muscle stood out from her like wire. Then she was giving a mute howl as she fell upon her son, snatching him up and trapping him in her arms. The boy shrilled deafeningly and fought his mother in a blur of little limbs, tugging, reaching, kicking, begging.
“Let go! Mum, let go! Papa! Papa!”
The boy’s face was a horror of running blood, his eyes turned to marbles of red glass.
Jonathan was little better. His Master had not allowed him to stand. He would waste time if he had; would have tried to dawdle, to scramble back and soothe the tantrum away, to trap himself and his Master another endless minute in this squalling hell of a room. So his Master had hoisted him up first as a farmer might trap an errant lamb under his arm, then threw him over his shoulder.
Then moved to the window.
The boy shrieked.
“Papa! Papa! No, let him go! Papa!”
“Please,” Jonathan’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His hands clung without strength to his Master’s back, trying to drag himself loose, straining towards mother and child like a dying flower bowing toward the sun. “Please, Sir, not like this. I have to go to them, have to explain things, I have to—,”
SLEEP.
Jonathan became a dead weight over his shoulder. The window was opened. Another scream from the boy, this one so great it turned into a nigh rupturing cough.
“Papa,” a reedy sound, “Papa, wake up, Papa..!”
Out the window they went.
Mid-descent, monster turned to mist, carrying his prey like a leaf in a breeze. Down and away and around the castle’s side. Finding the way back in that no eye or mind within the castle could discover.
Jonathan woke half an hour later.
He did so with a surprising lack of pain. As sleep melted off, he became aware of new wrappings layered on both shoulders. The left’s ragged side was plastered with a cooling sleeve of linen strips. His right was bound with something that felt like a fuzzing velvet numbness trapped under its bandages. Each side ate away their respective aches.
“Alchemy as men know it never did manage to turn iron to gold. But it bridged many gaps between simple medicine and magic’s bending of bodily law.”
Jonathan raised his head enough to see his Master sat at the opposite end of the bed. If one considered it a bed. They were in a nest of blankets and cushions that had been layered into a den of alien stonework. While not musty in the way of other ancient bedding strewn around the castle, they carried the spiced stamp of aromas from the work that was done in the adjoining room. Over his Master’s shoulder he could see a heavy oaken door left a crack open. A lamp glowed there, highlighting glass and clay vessels arranged on a far worktable. Some smoked. Some glowed. Some seemed to look back at him.
“Nature would have you heal over the course of weeks. Likely months. Supernature,” his Master gestured at the bandaged shoulders, “will see you healed within the next two nights at the latest. Of course, this will hardly matter if you decide to forsake your little chalk notes and throw yourself from the window.” Jonathan held his tongue as his Master sunk both eyes into him like brands. “The boy did not catch what you wrote on the windowsill, if it’s any consolation. You could let them go on believing I have been so monstrous as to force my poor friend, poor Papa, poor Darling, to sit dull and dead before the window for hours upon hours whenever he does not work or sleep or bleed. I am so suddenly the only monster under this roof as well as Master.”
Jonathan swallowed. Once, twice.
“Apologies. I shall—I shall explain things to them. Please, forgive me, Sir.”
“No.” Jonathan stared at him. Worry and confusion clashed and crumbled into each other behind the ghost-light eyes. “No,” his Master echoed, “this is not something that is forgiven any more than it is forgotten.” His hands clenched to white stones in his lap. “How long have you been like this, Jonathan?”
Do not lie.
Jonathan twitched but failed to catch his tongue in time.
“The first time was in mid-May. Back when I first started to suspect you. The prospect rose and fell in me more than once until the end of June. If it were not for the chance of seeing Mina again, I would have walked into the wolves on that last night together. I was still thinking of cliffs and wolves the day I escaped, prepared to take that route rather than have the Weird Sisters’ teeth pin me here forever. But those thoughts came and went.
“It wasn’t until October 3rd that the urge came back and never left. That was when I stopped being sure whether or not Mina would heed the threat of death potentially leading to undeath. I know she still thought of high buildings. Of train tracks. Fires. So I started thinking of them too. Just in case. After November, after the killing, I just kept thinking it. Whenever I was not busy or seen or sleeping. I have heard that suicides are damned outright. Murderers of good men too. I have thought sometimes that I could take that leap and die, but I would not know the difference once I woke to Hell. Sometimes I think I jumped an eternity ago and just can’t remember.
“I know I cannot risk it, of course. It would risk them too and leave them hurting besides. All it amounts to now is a sort of meditation. And I do appreciate the view. It is no more than that, I swear.”
“You swear,” his Master nodded. “You swear in this particular moment. Just as, not so long ago, caught in a snare, you thought of taking yourself away in earnest. The leap or the rope or the knife reached for in full daylight. A most effective slap to rouse your greedy little family from their play. But it does not bode well for this, your current oath. Only a thought, only a meditation. Not to worry. This is what you would have me believe?”
“Thought is not action, Sir. I would not still be here if it was.”
“Indeed, you are here. And doing what? Ah, let me specify. Doing what, besides working and bleeding?”
Jonathan frowned at him.
“Raising my family.”
“Which falls under work.”
A deeper frown, almost stormy.
“It hardly feels so, Sir. My Loves are not the burden you would paint them as.”
“Even if I believed you, you still have not answered my question. What are you doing, Jonathan Harker? What are you doing solely for yourself? You stare out a window that you must convince yourself every day not to leap from. You clear dust away from every room in the castle but your own. You touch a book only when you must be seen reading, you sing only when there is an ear besides yours to hear it, you wear your smiles the same way a maid dons her uniform. You do not answer me because you have no answer to give.” Lantern eyes burned. “In the five years since you have been here, you have done nothing but hollow yourself of everything. Blood and fealty and life and love. Yes, true, you live. Because that too is in your itinerary. Just another chore of maintenance.”
Jonathan sat up fully now.
“And?” A whisper. A thing of lead. “What does it matter?”
Why do you care?
“It matters because, even without a stomach, I am not immune to nausea. Call it secondhand indignation if you like. I have made deals with many devils and played pupil to the best of them. You see what bounty such Lessons have afforded me compared to,” he waved a clawed hand in Jonathan’s direction, “the usual lot of misery that comes to the would-be hero and the practicing martyr. If I should ever get around to some dire retribution from kismet, it will only be after nigh half a millennium of unchecked power and slaughter with nary an angel flying by to chide me for my play. Even Faustus got to have his allotment of pleasure before Mephistopheles tore him to shreds and flung his soul to Hell. But you? You spoke the truth before.
“You have nothing. You began with scarcely more than that. A narrow starving life with only the distraction of a woman who hardly merited the pedestal you lifted her on for playing nursemaid and starring, as so many muses do, within a theatre of high romance you painted around her; she, a soul as commonplace as a grain of sand in a desert. For her, you damn yourself. Her and the unholy miracle of the boy. You started with crumbs and gave away all you had and more, gaining nothing but the safeguarding of others’ fortune. Others’ lives. While you whore your life and veins away and tell yourself a chair and a window are sufficient for the last dregs of self you permit to exist.
“Do not mistake me. It is hilarious in the abstract. I would laugh if you were on a stage. But you are here and real and proving insufferable with your insistence on denying yourself any opportunity to do something other than play the role of grist in a mill.” He bared his teeth. It was not a grin. “But I waste my time telling you what you already know, yes? You have clearly made peace with this Spartan half-life. You did not even bat a lash at the prospect of mother and child’s visits being stripped away.” Jonathan’s breath stopped as his Master looked down on him. Lantern eyes now infernos. “Until tonight. There is a crack in the performance now. Father is suddenly a monster and he has stolen poor Papa away.
“And here, in this space, Papa can never be found. Not even by his wife’s prying mind.” White knuckles rapped against the strange black stonework. “It was not easy making this place. A genius loci can only flex so much. But the Scholomance exists in a space that is not possible and it was with brick from that Mountain that I formed these walls. A little sanctum away from Earthly meddling. Back before my condition required the grave soil. How nice to know it will not go to waste.”
Jonathan’s face fell as his Master stood. In less than a blink his Master was at the door, then through it, filling up the threshold. Perhaps too late it occurred to him that the nest of a room had no light lit in it. Not so much as a candle. The only illumination left was the faint glow at his Master’s back and the fires that were his Master’s eyes.
“You have a new task before you, my friend. Something to meditate on without distraction. No work. No window. No wife or child. The task is this: Think of something to do, to be, to want, that serves only you. An addition to your life that you can drop into the raw pit you have carved out of yourself to feed the clamoring maws of your dear family.”
His hand curled around the handle.
Jonathan’s eyes were wide and bright as stars.
“Wait—,”
“In the meantime, for as long as you fail in this endeavor, you will be here. To the boy and his mother, you will be a ghost. Undetectable by mind or sound or scent. They will only know you live by the taste of you in the cup. But do not rush yourself. Take however many nights or years you need.”
Jonathan fought his way out of the tangle of covers.
“Please, wait—,”
“I’m certain they will take it well.”
The door shut and bolted. A moment later there was a hammering in the dark interior, fists drumming against the thick oak. From the exterior it sounded barely louder than the patter of rain. The shouting only the buzz of an insect. Rain and insect grew slightly louder when the laboratory’s light was put out, erasing even the outline of the door. All was dark. Hammer, patter, shout, buzz.
Silently, the Master of the castle sighed.
He just as silently took a seat outside the door. His eyes were their own strange points of light in the pitch and they glanced down into the open face of his pocket watch. It stood out clearly enough to him. One hour. Two. Three. His friend carried on at intervals through them all. Shouts or sobs, pleas or pounding.
Out in the castle, mother and child were hunting. Father and Papa were nowhere to be found. They threw out the feelers of their psyche as far as they could go, scented the air, raced and called to each other on every floor and through every room. Nothing, nothing. The woman even dared to breach her Master’s bedroom.
Ah, close! So close! Did she detect her husband there? An echo of his presence?
Of course she did.
Her husband was the only one other than her Master to be allowed in that room, and then only with their Master’s beckoning. Even if she had no reason to doubt the freshness of the hint, there was still no following. Not into this space that only a student of the Mountain could detect, let alone enter. She came and went within walking distance of her beloved. All as he screamed out for her. For their boy. For their Master.
By the fourth hour the room had quieted.
He held his ear to the crack:
“Please…” came a croak almost too thin to count as a voice. “Please, I don’t understand this. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to say? Just tell me, please…”
I did. I did and you still cannot make sense of it. Draga mea, has this been you your whole life?
He wanted to laugh.
A curse was mouthed instead.
He stood, relit the lamp, unbolted the door, and found his arms suddenly full of his friend. The bandaged arms clung to him while a face streaked in tears and sweat ground into his chest, eyes somehow still running. He made a note to force a carafe down the man’s throat before he passed out. For now, he let his friend hold to him, shaking.
“Sir, Master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for angering you. I only want to understand what has to be done to mend this. Please.”
He held his friend in turn, stroking through the white cloud of hair.
“That you say this means you have not taken the order to heart. How is it such a trial to want something? Whether you fear it being taken or not, how is it you cannot even name a thing you desire?”
“I don’t know.” The words left his friend like millstones. He seemed almost to deflate in his Master’s arms. “I don’t know.”
“You could not have been so before you were here. Before you were mine. Even the destitute will dream. Did you not want for anything then, however meager?”
Quiet unspooled for almost a minute. There was a small breath. He waited.
“…Wanting gets conditioned out of some lives,” was his friend’s answer. “Need comes first. Need is always there, taking up your mind and your time. Urgency. Efficiency. Every cent and minute hoarded. Books were a luxury. Second and thirdhand purchases, the rest from the library. Theatre was a treat to reserve once a season at most. No concerts, no revelries, no records playing in the apartment on a phonograph never afforded. The first time we did not know need was after the man I considered a father died and left the gift of his will behind. A house and a business and a bank account that finally did not sting to look at, traded into our hands at the loss of another precious life.
“Between Lucy and Hawkins, there was not even a heartbeat in which to be more than performative in appreciating our changed fortune. Not before the trap of you sprang again. Van Helsing’s call to arms. You know the rest. Even Mina, even the blessing of our child, those priceless wants above all others, were made into another thunderbolt from Fate. Another proof that some people are just not meant to want, let alone have. No matter how great or small a treasure. I learned that Lesson well enough even before you. And so I have schooled myself out of it. Wanting.
“The part of a mind that craves for itself has been atrophied and beaten into dust in me. But if you say I must want, I can perform otherwise. Tell me I am sick of the window and I shall board it up. Tell me to read, I will read. Or sing a song. Or dig up old recipes to enjoy even when I am not cooking to flavor myself. Or whatever else. Even while you all sleep. Even with no one looking.” Jonathan pulled his face away from his Master’s heart and turned bleary eyes up to him. Blue ringed in rose. “Whatever fixes this. Please.”
Throw him back in. He will do better in a week. A month at most. Do it.
He sensed mother and child outside the castle now. Running, circling. They had taken clothes from Jonathan’s wardrobe and, against the Lesson so gravely taught, son watched mother order the wolves to her, demanding they take her husband’s scent and search, go! The wolves would lead them to the usual route Jonathan took to the towns, no more. But they were desperate. Still weeping. Bloodless and starving for grief.
Do it.
Jonathan stared at him. Waiting for another blow. For a laugh, a sneer. A cold hand tossing him back into the dark. The dog laying before his Master’s rising boot, knowing the fine quarry brought home was no excuse for not wagging his tail as he did so.
A fine dragon you are, old devil. Are you so soft now? You laid out the terms. He has not satisfied them. Do it. Do it!
“Fifteen years. That is how long the boy has left to nurse from you if you have your way. Fifteen more years until he is a man, innocent of taking a single life. Likewise for his mother. Because you feed us all. Wasting and wasting until that final night. Do you expect to die and remain dead at that hour? Do you think I would lose you, even if Mephistopheles himself came up to collect?”
“No,” barely a breath. Jonathan seemed to wilt another inch as it left him.
“No. The wait ends. Your unlife begins. Which means what?”
Jonathan could not bring himself to speak. Only looked away. His Master thumbed away another tear.
“Eternity in potentia,” he answered himself. “Centuries. Longer. We both know the Vampire is made of its wants before anything else. Such is our nature. I will give credit to dear Mina for her control. She has far more cause for loathing me than her Sisters did and she does admirably against her own desires. Even if she only has as much will as my own allows, it is a thing of iron in itself. But what of you, draga mea?”
Recognition pinched Jonathan upright again. The ghost-light eyes gaped with what was uncertainty or else the wish to be uncertain.
“You will no longer be as you are. No more playing vassal. No more wearing the yoke of mere servility. No more stalling in your martyr’s Pit. You will be Vampire, you will be want. And what will you do if there is nothing of the latter there to catch you? What shall you do with infinity? Will you only be as my missing shadow? Only your woman’s faithful dog? Will you still have the boy, grown and whole, pulling at your apron strings? A servant, forever caught between bowing to others or laying as a corpse in the moonlight for lack of anyone to serve. That you would be for eternity?”
The hand that wiped the tear moved to Jonathan’s jaw. It held like a strut against his attempt to turn away.
“I always kill my pests. I may torture an enemy before his end. But I would ultimately be rid of them, not leave them to such a Hell as the one you seem so dedicated to crafting for yourself.”
The hand was a snare and it kept Jonathan facing forward. Straight into the basilisk gaze and the mesmer at its heart. An order that was a plea.
“Think. Think of one single thing you want for yourself tonight. Just one.”
The trance worked deep. Snapping at the heels of Jonathan’s mind like a hound after a fox. Further, further, down, down, through a pinhole of a tunnel into the abandoned gloom where the carcasses of hope and yearning had been thrown away. The trance dug. The trance prodded. The trance found a coin’s worth of treasure, like dead men’s gold hidden under a blue flame.
Here was another view from another window. After the departure of a captor. Before the arrival of the hypnotic mists and their hungry smiles. Sweetly in-between, here was the sight of the moonlit world back when it had been a beautiful balm. A sole comfort in his terror but a heartbeat from being spoiled by his hostesses’ threat.
Jonathan Harker had seen small shapes moving on the wind. An owl soaring far below. Moths fluttering past like living petals. So high, so close to the peaks and stars, a needle of nostalgia had found him. The boy within the young man who had wished with the hopeless fantasy of all hungry children looking up from their sparse plates and miserable families and through tatty curtains at the open and untouchable sky. Wished with sweet-somber futility for escape. For…for…
Jonathan spoke the wish aloud. A last wet trail fell from his bloodshot stare. His Master wiped this too.
And found Jonathan’s mouth with his before willing him back to sleep.
Mother and child were returning from the road. She had taken the boy up in her arms again, cursing as she half-ran, half-flew. The child had ceased sobbing, at last, but he rattled in her embrace. This had never happened before. They had not thought such a thing could happen. That anyone, let alone Papa and Father, could simply disappear. Especially from her senses. It was impossible to lose track of them. She always knew where they were. Always.
And now…
“Mum?” She had stopped. Her head cocked like a wolf’s, ears pricked high, eyes flaring. “Mum, what is it?”
There. They’re right there. How?
“Where, Mum? Are they close?”
She didn’t answer. Only took off at another rush, firing herself and her son like a spectral bullet through the forest. Perhaps the boy would have been more stunned than afraid that his mother could be such a blur if not for his worry. His senses were smaller than hers, still reaching and searching for whatever it was she’d found. It wasn’t until the outline of the castle came into view that he skimmed the presence of his fathers on the air. They were at the castle, but not within it.
Two frantic sets of eyes hunted around the grounds, trying to make sense of how the mingled presences could be so near and invisible at once. Closer. Closer.
Up.
They craned their heads until the moon met their gaze. That and the two shapes against the sky.
Jonathan was held close in his Master’s arms. The two of them were a speck against the stars. A moment more and they were drifting down to the ground. Jonathan was set lightly on his feet and almost knocked off them as his son clamped around his waist. His wife almost finished the job by locking her arms about his mending shoulders. Their Master watched on at a careful distance; no sudden moves to alert the herd.
The next hour was devoted to running both men’s tongues ragged.
Yes, diavol, he had lied. There had been a fight and he was embarrassed for it. But it was not what caused his Father’s tearing at Papa. That was his Father forgetting himself, forgetting how easy Papa was to break. Father grew angry at himself first for the mistake, then again when Papa was upset for frightening their son, and then most of all when, old man that his Father was, he had forgotten a remedy he had once known to cure away the injury and make Papa well again. It made him stormy, as all saw. He hated having a solution just out of reach.
But he had remembered at last. That was why he had come to take Papa away that evening. To put his mistake right. But then had come all the hurtful words from their harsh-tongued child, the tears, the fretting, and then that nasty surprise of a second mistake. Again, poor Papa was forced to pay the price for an unruly family. And Father had snatched him away before more pains could add up.
He had gone to a place that, he will be honest, did not exist properly inside the castle. Like a ballroom tucked into a woodshed. It was where his older magic was stored, back before Father was all that he was, back when he had need to worry about skin and bone. There he took Papa to heal. And to talk.
About his sitting and staring. About how he did this for lack of joy alone. Papa made himself so busy and tired that there was nothing left in him to play or take pleasure all on his own.
Was it the sharp thoughts again, Papa?
A tremor here from the boy. Begging, but bracing.
No, son, only absurd ones. The kind that grownups do not like to admit out loud because they do not wish to seem foolish or idle. Other things too. Little things that would need asking for. But your Papa hates to ask for anything, and so he hid all that in his head too, so he would not ask at all.
Yet Father had made him talk and ask and it turned out it really wasn’t such an absurd thing at all.
“I asked to fly.”
“Like us?”
“Like you. Isn’t that silly?”
“It’s silly that you didn’t ask! I always wanted to fly too, seeing Mum and Father do it so easy.” The boy held tight to him again, grinding the coagulation of old tears against his Papa’s neck. In a small voice he shuddered, “I thought you wanted to do something else. I thought…”
“I know, Sweetheart. I’m sorry for scaring you all before. I would never listen to the sharp thoughts like that. It’s just a sour part of imagination. That’s all.” He rested his chin atop the boy’s head. One hand cupped him close. The other looped around the woman’s shoulders, the ease of the gesture proving the strength of the medicine. Her eyes dug in his. Knowing and shelving the truth for later. “I promise,” Jonathan breathed.
…Do you still want to fly?
“Once you have another meal in you, Darling. I think we are all too worn out for now.”
“No,” the Master intoned from the castle’s shadow, “You need not soften it. You are worn out, all of you. I remain the only one overfed and hale. I shall still be so once you are ready to feed again.” He waved his hand. “I shall skip my helping at the next feeding, lest I burst like a tick.” The boy perked up in his Papa’s lap while his mother narrowed her eyes. Father never skipped his taste of Papa. Not ever. Father only grinned. “But before Papa plays family dinner again, it must be agreed that he needs a holiday. I believe he had some ideas he wished to share with you.” His gaze flicked to Jonathan. “Is it not so, draga mea?”
Mother and child each recognized the term as it hit the air.
The woman was considerably less enthused than her son, who knew the words from the fairy tales. The magic words between one true love and another.
Jonathan distracted them both with the first small thing: A phonograph and new music to play on it. Perhaps even sheet music of their own, if any of them would dare to risk each others’ ears with the practice.
What was a phonograph, Papa? Was that like the music boxes he’d brought home for them?
Something like that…
Chatter carried on under the moon until Jonathan’s stomach growled. The woman stopped just short of carrying him off to the kitchen. Master and child dawdled behind. The latter pretended interest in a moth that had landed first on a flower, then a stone, and then up on his Father’s shoulder like a great grim tree.
But the moth flew off and still he did not look away.
“…Yes, child?”
“I’m sorry, Father.” Thank every god below the Earth, he did not bring himself to tears as he said it. Though he looked close. “I should never have thought you’d hurt Papa.”
“Ah, but I did hurt him. We all did. By accident, with carelessness, without ill intent, still he was hurt. We are fortunate that he is so forgiving a soul and strong enough to weather us. Such men as him are rare. I do not think I have met another like him in four hundred years.” The child’s eyes shined just short of another bloody tide he could not afford to lose. Sensing this, he snuffled and squinted and fought the weeping back. Good boy. “He will be alright. Amends will be made and we shall not repeat our mistakes with him. Papa does so much out of love for us. We will do the same, yes?”
He held out his hand. The boy forsook it to duck wholly under his arm in his accustomed spot, huddled close as a pup to his kin. The open hand drifted down to stroke his hair.
“Yes,” the boy nodded against him, scrubbing the last dry tracks of tears away on his suit. “Promise.”
“Good. No more tears tonight, diavol. There is nothing to cry about.”
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the return of the dirty nerd
the day had finally arrived. @dirtynerd-83 had made his return from going MIA. a simple hey your back! was not going to cut it. i needed to up t he ante here. thats why i found myself on his door step, wearing a black trench coat, a bag in hand and knocking at his door. a few moments went by and the door opened up and he was standing there. he took a look at me, his head starting at my face, slowly looking down my body, to my feet and back up at me. with the trench coat there wasnt much to see, but saw i was wearing black stockings and high heels under the coat. his imagination ran wild. without saying a word he stepped to the side and allowed me to come in. he closed the door behind me and i turned back to him. "so youre back...i think its time to have some fun." he didnt say a word, he didnt need to with that grin on his face, he nodded his head to me. i handed him the bag, and took of my coat revealing i was only wearing black lingerie.
he was enjoying the view when he told me to turn to the wall, which as a good girl, i did. he had unzipped the bag and found some rope. he lightly, but sternly, pushed me against the wall. my face inches from it, my breasts pushing up against the wall, felt him pull my hands behind my back and begin to bind them with the rope. he wasnt going easy with me, the rope digging in my wrists as he pulled tightly on it.
with my hands dealt with, his hands were free to roam my body. starting at my shoulders, tracing down my back, making his way to my ass. his hand cupping my ass from below, and then SMACK! a swift, strong slap to my right cheek. it caught me off guard, i let out a whimper, i could feel the heat coming off my ass where he spanked me. once again, his hands moved around my body, now cupping my breasts from behind me. my breathing was increasing. i was at his mercy. i was now just a toy for him to take out his-SMACK! out of nowhere his hand left my breast, and slapped my right ass cheek again! i squealed like a whore. i couldnt see my ass, but it felt red after the second hit.
he had enough of this now. he had been waiting for this moment since he went MIA. he grabbed me by my hair, dragging me through his house. he wasnt waiting on me catching up, i struggled to keep up with him trying not to trip in my high heels. he dragged me to his bed room where he sat on the edge of the bed, leaving me standing in front of him. he began to unzip his pants, "down on your knees" he tells me. i do as he says, struggling to keep my balance as i lower one knee, then the other. his half erect cock is now out of his pants, he has no further instructions for me. he knows i know exactly what to do. this my purpose. i scoot a little further in shuffling my knees to get closer. my mouth opens wide, and i lean forward wrapping my lips around his dick.
i can hear him taking a deep breath, feeling my soft, wet lips wrapping around it. my head begins to move slowly, my lips traveling further down his shaft. im leaving a wet trail along it, my saliva acting as a lubricant for his cock. he can begin to feel the force of my mouth sucking in around him. i can feel him starting to grow bigger. i love the feeling of his cock growing bigger in my mouth, it means im doing my job. i begin to get my motion and pacing down in rhythm. the slight sounds of my lips sucking in, the sounds of wet sucking are music to his ears. my eyes glance up at him, he puts his hands on my head, cupping the side of my face keeping the hair out of my face. a whore with her mouth full of his cock, exactly what he needed right now. he can feel his blood pressure right, the blood rushing to his cock. i can see his chest beating out as it rises. that soft grip on me becomes stronger. his hand moving to the back of my head, he is now guiding me.
he begins to push my head down further. his now fully erect cock is feeling what my throat feels like. it pushes over the top of my tongue to get there. it hits the back of my throat, and for a moment cuts off air for me. i begin to cock before he pulls it back. he loves to watch me struggle with him in my mouth. he pushes me on it further again, another cough. he can now see the start of some straining in my eyes. this only makes him want to do it more. it comes constant now, pushing me further onto his cock and taking me air from me. my eyes flicker as more air is cut off thanks to his big dick. the next time, he holds me there in place. my eyes wandering side to side, he can feel my body naturally try to pull back. he doesnt let me. his cock now staying put in my throat. what feels like forever, then he lets me pull back. i try to gasp for air, only getting it for a moment before being deprived of it again. i can see the muscles in his arms tensing up. i am now not controlling anything. he begins to bounce my head up and down. the wet sounds of his cock slamming into my throat fill the room. i can feel his cock starting to pulsate. i know its coming. my face is turning red from the lack of oxygen. when i look at him, he is a blur. my head being thrusted up and down as fast as he can go. drool and precum splattering out of my mouth. he holds my back down once more, as he releases all of his load down my mouth. with such force, i dont have the option to swallow, it forces its way down my mouth. his hand lets off the back of my head and i pull off him completely, desperately gasping for air.
he leans back, taking a moment to gather himself. he stands back up and fixes his pants. im kneeling there by the bed, trying to composure myself as well. between his attempts to get his breath back he says to me "get on the bed." i do as says, no questions asked. i lay myself down on the bed, stomach first. while i was doing that he was going through the bag i brought pulling out more rope. he comes over to me, and begins to tie my knees together, followed by my ankles. he takes out another coil of rope and links my feet to my wrists putting me in a hogtie. also in the bag he found a small roll of black duct tape. he realizes thats not enough though. he comes up to me, grabs my thong and completely rips it off of me. i feel it ride up my cunt as he does and i squeal out in pain. with my mouth open, he shoves it in and seals my mouth with tape, rending my mouth useless at this moment. he kneels down to look me in the eyes "i have a few things to take care, so why dont you stay here like this and i will be back in a bit." i look at him raising my eyebrows. "mmmmppph?!" he gives me a pat on the head and takes off out of the room. i watch him leave and i grunt into my gag. he knows i hate being left like this!
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Hiya!
Just read your recent SB fics and I'm fucking hooked. Dark Ben is ❤️🔥❤️🔥. Can I request another Dark Soldier Boy and reader being in slave/master dynamics, please? 🥹
helloooo!! thank you so much, i'm glad to know that you liked it!! i tried my best for a dark!soldier boy haha. this is maybe the first time i write this type of master/slave dynamic and i'm mostly a sub so the reader is a sub too XD hope you enjoy this filthy thing !!
event guidelines ✮ event masterlist ✮ request here!
PLAYTHING — Dark!Soldier Boy x female reader
Word count: 592 (these aren't 400 words drabbles anymore lmao).
Genre: dark smut.
Warnings: dark!soldier boy, master/slave dynamics, face-fucking, cum-play, cum swallow, hair pulling, finger-sucking, if you squint forced alcohol compsumtion, usage of word 'slut'.
Your throat hurts and you try to catch a breath from your nose as much as you’re allowed to. You shut your eyes closed, feeling his strong hands against your scalp, fingers tugging at your hair as you gag on his shaft over and over, while he’s using your mouth as his personal fleshlight.
His cock throbs in your mouth, spit is running down your chin and you try to rub your thighs together, yearning for some friction between them. Your nipples are hard and stiff now, aching for release, but you know better to not touch yourself before he gives his permission to do so.
“Shit, you’re so fucking good with that mouth of yours, sweetcheeks,” he praises and follows a chain of dirty courses between his hitching breath.
You think he’s going to release down your throat but you’re so wrong. Soldier Boy forces your head back, his dick slipping out of you leaving a string of saliva connecting the tip of his veiny shaft with your swollen lips. His dark green gaze takes in the mess you are; on your knees between his legs, eyes lost in pleasure even if he hasn’t touched you yet, panting hard, showing up your bare body only with a pair of black stockings combined with high-waist suspenders that hugged your body perfectly.
Just how he loved to see you, his little plaything. So obedient, so eager to please him. His cock begins to twitch again.
“Fetch me another glass,” Soldier Boy orders, voice low and dark.
“Yes, master.”
He lets go of the grip on your hair and you stand up with wobbly legs to fill up his glass with the expensive bottle of liquor standing on the bar of his penthouse. When you come back, he trails his eyes over your figure and takes the glass as you kneel between his thighs. Innocent eyes draw back at him, he smirks, settling the glass on the carpeted floor by your side.
“Such a good pet,” Soldier Boy praises, his thumb now tugging at your lower lip. You open your mouth as a reflex and he shoves his index finger along too. You start sucking on them and he pushes further, making you gag around his fingers. “Ain’t even touching you yet and I know you’re soaking wet.”
You moan as an answer, mouth full of his digits. He pulls them out suddenly and forces your mouth to stay open with a hand, the other taking his hard cock to shove it down your throat again, this time fucking your wet cavern like a mad man looking for his release. It’s not too long until he spends his cum until it mixes with your spittle and runs down your chin, coating the base of his cock.
“Swallow,” he commands, staying still inside your mouth and you do as better as you can.
Once you’re allowed to breathe again you lick the remnants on his shaft, moaning at the salty taste of it. He forces you to stop suddenly and grabs the liquor glass again. Your aching jaw falls open thanks to his strong hand and he pours the scotch on your mouth. The taste smoothly burns as you swallow it all.
“Yeah, fucking take it all, my little slut,” he grunts, eyes on your flushed face. “You’ve been so good today. I might have to reward you.”
You whine pathetically, unable to look away from his lustful eyes. You’re basically begging to be fucked by now. And that he will, under his own terms.
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40 q's: 8!! c:
8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
Cheating, I'm going to share something from a WIP that's been languishing in my drafts for a long time. I'm proud of it for many reasons: managing to make the dialogue sound true to character, good prose around the dialogue that also furthers the themes of the WIP, and a shift in discussion topic that I think felt quite natural. Snippet below the cut.
“I don’t get it,” Max says–Charles doesn’t really know when she appeared in her room. She’s developed a habit of doing so over the past couple of races, almost like a particularly persistent poltergeist. “Why are you beating yourself up about this?”
“I’m in the middle of a contract war,” Charles says, exhaling. Her head tips back, hits the lacquered wooden headboard with a light thud. The ceiling is ornamental–swirls of white plaster around the light fixture. She wonders whether Max’s is prettier, it probably is–only the best for the world champion after all.
Max snorts, her hand skittering up Charles’s side and poking her in the ribs, her fingers are bony and lukewarm against Charles’s ribcage through her thin-worn sleep shirt. “And they would be stupid to sign Carlos over you.”
Charles looks to her right, Max is splayed out next to her lazy, insolent, lying on her side with one hand tangled in her short golden hair, propping up her head.
“I think you’re forgetting that Carlos is a man.”
“So?” Max rebuts, quick and sure, “You’re the better driver.”
A derisive snort leaves Charles’ throat, “When Seb left, I asked to be named Ferrari’s first driver. Mattia started laughing. He thought it was a joke.”
Max scoffs, her eyebrows furrowing inwards. “Fuck him–
“He’s right,” Charles interrupts, catching Max’s fingers from where it has stilled on her ribs. “A woman leading Ferrari?” Charles snorts and shakes her head, laying Max’s hand back down to where they belong, her side of the hotel sheets. “That’s not how things work, not with Ferrari. I have to respect the tradition, the narrative, the story.”
“Write your own,” Max says, stretching out and flopping onto her back. Her blonde bob falls around her face, the dark blue of her Red Bull t-shirt riding up, devastatingly chiaroscuro against the white sliver of her stomach. Charles can’t help her eyes slipping down, down before she reigns them back to meet Max’s own. Max smiles, a self-satisfied smirk. “It’s what I did, and I’ve won three world championships since.”
Charles thinks back, the murky times when she was stuck down in the lower formulas, and Max was struggling with a car and a teammate that resented her. How Max would bare her teeth and snarl at everyone who came near her, the Red Bull PR campaigns of that time–Max in little red and blue dresses almost too indecent to mention.
She suddenly remembers a rumour that circulated around the paddock during that time, shifting to sit upright next to Max’s torso she asks, “Did you ever sleep with Daniel?”
Max is an open book, it’s one of the things Charles finds herself liking about her. Every single twitch and blink and breath is so easily readable. Which is why when Max’s eyes widen in surprise, but her mouth presses into a thin line, Charles knows the answer before Max even says it.
“Once,” Max huffs.
Charles tilts her head slightly, “I thought you said you only liked women?”
Max shakes her head, laughing. “I of course do. But I was young and-” Max hesitates, her hand coming up behind Charles’s back, her fingers warm as she lightly traces a pattern around, into the dip of Charles’s waist. Charles bites back the urge to shiver.
“I thought, I had never tried it with a man, and the speculation at that time was not too nice and I thought it would be easier, really, if I could with a man.”
“But you couldn’t?” Charles asks.
Max laughs, “I’m not like you, Charles,” she says. “I’m not imagining that your first time was a work of art either. But when I tried it just didn’t work, and the next thing I knew I was crying.” Max’s smile is wide, like she’s recalling a funny story, not something that makes the pit of Charles’ stomach snarl in something that feels a little too close to protection. “My body knew before I did–it’s always been the way I think.”
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Mischief and Angel- Part 6
A/N- I hope you remember Mrs. Mitchel (she's the one that spreads the rumors, Beacon Hills' very own Karen) because she's making a comeback in this part, and I have never hated writing a character so much in my life. I hope you like it!
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I narrow my eyes at the woman standing in front of me in the local Target, "Hello, Mrs. Mitchel."
She raises an eyebrow before smiling like she didn't accuse me of keeping Stiles from his child and that I was a prostitute that had an Only Fans.
"Hello, Y/n"
I scowl before humming, "I've been meaning to talk to you."
She nods and goes to speak but I cut her off, "What the hell made you think it was okay to make up lies about Stiles and I? I'll have you know that I'm not pregnant and I also don't have an Only Fans. Stiles and I have been together since we were 14 and got engaged because we love each other, not because I blackmailed him. Your gossiping has to stop! Ms. Richards still gets asked if she's still married to some random dude in Bora Bora. She literally went there for a week for vacation, with her best friend and now she can't escape the rumors."
I take a second to catch my breath before I'm going off again, "You're a lonely old woman that takes pleasure in making up lies about others and it's appalling. I have enough going on and I don't need your lies making it any worse. I'm planning a wedding, I'm looking at houses, I'm trying to finish high school with good grades, not to mention all the other stuff going on in my life that you don't even know about. I'm just warning you that if you make another story up about my life, or Stiles' life, or anyone's life for that matter, you're going to end up with no one. You screw people over one too many times and before you know it you won't have anyone, and there will be no one to blame except you."
Mrs. Mitchel stares at me with wide eyes as a small group of people that had gathered during my rant nod in agreement with what I said. She clears her throat, "Well then, no need to be rude. It's very unbecoming for a young lady. How you're engaged I'll never know. He must have brain damage."
My jaw drops as I watch her with wide eyes, "He has brain-what?! I'll have you know that he maintains a 4.0 GPA, currently stands as the valedictorian, and I'm damn proud of him too. I get that you're lonely and miserable and have no friends but that doesn't give you a right to be so rude to others. Maybe if you stopped being a bitch you'd be able to make some friends!"
Mrs. Mitchel's face turns red as the group of people grows and they all murmur agreements at what I said. I go to say something else when Stiles appears around the corner holding up a fluffy blanket, "I know you said we didn't need anymore blankets but this thing feels like a cloud. Can we plea-..." He stops mid sentence when he looks up to see the group of people and an angry Mrs. Mitchel. He looks at me before sighing, "Lord, what did you do?"
I scoff, "Me?! I didn't do anything she's the one that started all those stupid rumors! I was just telling her how it was."
Stiles lets out a deep breath before throwing the blanket in the cart, "Well, carry on, just don't touch her. She'd try and charge you with assault."
Mrs. Mitchel takes that as her queue to start talking, and dear God does she use her words to hurt, "You are the nastiest, rudest, most crass young lady I have ever met. I hope your marriage fails and he runs off with someone who is far better than you. It shouldn't be hard he can probably go to the nearest pet store and pick up a rat."
I go to take a step towards her but an arm grabs me by the waist and pulls me back so I can't touch her, but it doesn't stop me from trying, "That's it! Stiles, let me go!"
Stiles shakes his head and I know he won't let me go so I turn my deadly glare up to 1000 and aim it at Mrs. Mitchel, "You say I'm crass and rude but you are the literal definition of both of those words!"
She scoffs and her hand tightens on the handle of her cart, "You're very overdramatic and you have no care or sympathy for others."
My mouth drops as my eyes widen but I don't get a chance to speak because she cuts in again with the sharpest, most painful words she could possibly say, "God, I hope you never have any kids, you'd probably manage to kill them within a month because of your lack of care!"
At those words it feels like a knife just stabbed into my heart and was then twisted. I deflate in Stiles' hold remembering how I lost our baby at approximately one month. I fight back tears and the look of triumph on Mrs. Mitchel's face makes me feel like I'm going to be sick.
I swallow around the lump in my throat as Stiles spins me around and pulls me into his chest trying to cradle me from the harsh words and wishes of an angry and cruel woman. Stiles holds me tight as he looks at Mrs. Mitchel, "You are one evil woman. You have no idea how personal that was you angry old witch! Why can't you just let people be happy? You know I could have you arrested for a public disturbance."
"Don't worry Stiles, that's exactly what's going to happen."
I glance over to see the crowd of people parting like the red sea before Parrish appears. He glares at Mrs. Mitchel before walking forward and slapping on the cuffs, "Gladys Mitchel, you are under arrest for disturbing the peace in a public setting. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
As Mrs. Mitchel pales Parrish shakes his head, "For a sixty year old woman you sure are a jerk."
After Parrish and Mrs. Mitchel leave, the group scatters for the most part except a couple stragglers who send us looks of sympathy. One little old woman, no younger than 70 steps forward with a small frown, "Don't listen to old Gladys, she's wrong. You will make a fantastic mother."
She pats my back before hobbling away with her cane and I can't help but smile a little bit.
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I curl up around Stiles in our bed as he turns on a random movie before pulling me even closer, "I am so sorry, Angel. I know how much that hurt but Angel, it wasn't your fault."
I know he's telling me the miscarriage wasn't my fault and it causes me to melt into him because I know he's right. I did everything right when I found out I was pregnant but it doesn't stop the pain and what ifs.
Stiles must know what I'm thinking because he rubs my back and whispers, "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault."
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The next day at school the pack surrounds us like it's their duty to protect us and the other students keep praising us like we stopped a demon from hell from burning the town down. True story, it was just last week that, that had happened.
At first it was comforting to have at least one member of the pack around me but now it's starting to get claustrophobic. I sigh as Scott slides in the chair beside me and officially squishes me between him and Isaac. I groan and glare down at my notebook before wiggling, "Okay, that's it."
Both boys look at me and I frown, "Look, I love you guys and I love that you're trying to make me feel better but I'm okay now. Yeah I know what she said was harsh but I'm over it. Does it still hurt? Yes, but I also know that she's wrong and was just saying something in the heat of the moment. I love you guys but I need some breathing room."
Isaac nods and scooches over slightly so he's not pressed right against me but Scott cocks his head to the side like the puppy he is and says, "But you're still sad. I can smell it."
I snort, "I miss Stiles, I haven't seen him in like two hours and Lily is pacing right now and acting like a mopey puppy."
His eyebrows furrow, "Lily?"
I muffle a laugh at the look on his face before answering him, "That's what Stiles and I decided to name the wolf. You guys say that I smell like lilies so we started calling her Lily."
Scott nods and finally moves so he isn't touching me, "Well, you only have like one more period before school is over and you can go find Stiles."
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I dart down the hall to Stiles' locker to see him putting his books away. I smile as Lily's tail starts wagging and she rolls over as the smell of our mate fills our senses. I blink back into the moment and the next thing I know I'm wrapped around Stiles.
"Woah! Someone's feeling cuddly."
I whine into his neck, "Missed you."
He presses a kiss to my temple and rubs my back, "I missed you too, Angel."
I nuzzle his neck before pulling back and pulling him into a kiss. He groans into the kiss and pulls me closer by the hips which causes me to wrap my arms around his neck. We get lost in the kiss before pulling apart as someone groans, "Really?! You couldn't wait until you got home?"
I turn to see a grumpy Scott who's holding Kira's hand. Kira elbows him with a soft smile, "Be nice, they haven't seen each other in a couple hours and we already know how hard that is for both of them."
I smile at Kira as Stiles turns back to his locker and Scott huffs, "Yeah, fine."
Kira shakes her head slightly before she looks at me, "Hey! How are you doing now?"
I shrug, "Meh, it doesn't really bother me anymore I've just been planning a wedding in my head, looking up houses for sale in the area, and figuring out where the hell Amelia and her pack are going to be staying, so I'm full of excited nervousness."
Kira doesn't get a chance to answer because Lydia, Allison, and Erica join our little group and Lydia raises an eyebrow, "Have you decided what you want for your bachelorette party yet? As maid of honor I need to know these things. Plus we need to decide when to get a dress fitting and what styles you want. Not to mention we need to find a venue and color scheme."
Stiles slams his locker shut before spinning around with a raised eyebrow, "Y/n/n, already decided on a few of those things."
I nod and shrug, "Yeah, Stiles and I found a venue we like and I decided on the colors a few weeks ago too."
Lydia smiles and loops her arm with mine, "Great! We need to hang out and plan the rest of the wedding."
I open my mouth before closing it again and looking at Stiles. He smiles and shakes his head, "Already told you Angel, you can do whatever you want. You don't need to have me there and I personally don't feel like sitting there and listen to you guys talk about dress styles and fabric choices."
I frown as Lydia nods with a bright smile, "Good, fantastic, what do you say we get together tonight and work on it."
I whine slightly at that which causes Lydia to look at me in concern, "What's wrong?"
I look at Stiles with sad eyes and Lydia hums, "Okay, got it. You need some Stiles time."
I nod and Lydia shrugs, "What about this weekend? We can do a sleepover on Friday and plan on Saturday, maybe a little on Friday night too."
Stiles is surprisingly the one to answer, "I think it's a good idea. We need to get used to being apart for long periods of time and the boys and I can have a boys night or something."
I sigh knowing he's right before nodding, "Yeah, he's right but no promises I won't be a buzzkill for a little while."
Lydia scoffs, "Please, Erica will be there and from what I hear she has some updates about her and Boyd. You'll be too occupied to be a buzzkill."
My eyes widen and I look up to see a blushing Erica who refuses to make eye contact. I look at Stiles and see that he's thinking the same thing as me, about fucking time.
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A/N- If everything goes to plan there is two (possibly three) parts before things get angsty and sad. I'll give a warning at the beginning of the sad one!
Tag List: @ah-blossom
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Our Angel of Brahma, pt. ix
Travelers. Friends. Mutuals.
@ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @ananxiousgenz @the-private-eye @demonic-panini @gwenlena
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING BEGINS.
MOTHERLY VOICE:
I finally got a moment to myself thanks to Eber and Camilla… Thank the Goddess… I don’t know what I would be doing without them.
(THE PERSON SIGHS)
Where do I begin? I guess… my name would be a good start.
(CLEARING THEIR THROAT)
My name is Eevee Bell, and I am one of three to four dozen Dome Wardens on Brahma. Our duty is to perform routine maintenance on the planet’s Dome, track incoming and outgoing shuttles and ships, and monitor Brahma’s severe weather outside the Dome. I love my job. I think I do my job very well. From what I’ve heard about other planets, they have robotics and computers to do this job now. Artificial intelligence that the Solar Planets spent a fortune to perfect. Of course just like with everything else though, Brahma gets left behind in the dust.
(EEVEE CHUCKLES UNDER HER BREATH)
EEVEE:
Goddess bless our savior New Kinshasa.
(EEVEE LAUGHS A BIT HARSHER)
EEVEE:
What happened to us though has been brewing under their noses for some time now. I guess it was only a matter of time before… something was done.
To be honest I’m still not entirely sure what did happen. I know that our alarms went off when the Reactor Core was removed, and I know they stopped going off when the Core was put back. I know that the Chief Constable called all of our stations, and ordered us to go home. I know that we have not gone back to our stations for nearly ten days. I know that if we don’t accept any imports within the next seven days Brahma will begin to suffer. And if we fall, New Kinshasa falls with us.
Cyrus called me while I was rushing to get home to Baird. He asked me how much I knew and after I told him, I asked how much he knew. He said it would be better if he came to speak to me in person. He lives across town with Iris. I told him it wouldn’t be wise to meet up so late, especially with a curfew in place. He disagreed, but I talked enough sense into him that he waited until morning to catch a tram over here to the apartments.
Baird was not enthused to see him. He was rather… indifferent, actually. I know it hurt Cyrus’ feelings, I do plan on talking about it with Baird when I can, but it’s so hard to talk about anything seriously right now. I’d rather keep things as light-hearted as possible.
I sent Baird over to Camilla and Eber’s apartment while I had tea with Cyrus. He looked so worried. He asked me if I saw the Chief Constable’s broadcast about the Revolutionary, Peter Nureyev. I have. I watched it with Baird the night before after I got home from my post. Cyrus said that he doesn’t know of any Peter Nureyevs in any of his revolution circles.
He surprised me by asking me for my thoughts about the Constable they allegedly found murdered by the Revolutionary. I didn’t at the time, and I still don’t now. Cyrus said that he has reason to believe that part was a lie. He doesn’t believe the Revolutionary killed a Constable. He thinks it might be an elaborate lie or cover-up for some more vain truth.
(EEVEE INHALES SHARPLY)
The revolutionaries are holding a meeting tonight. Cyrus invited me to come. He wants me there. I don’t want to get in trouble, but… I need to keep Cyrus and Baird safe. And by extension, it’s my job to keep Brahma safe.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS:
EEVEE:
What the fuck!
NEW VOICE:
What are you doing?
EEVEE:
What am I doing I’m recording you idiot! Cyrus, don’t you see? If what was discussed tonight has any truth to it, New Kinshasa isn’t going to let any of this get out. More than– I bet you my next paycheck that Dark Matters is going to play a role in covering it all up!
(CYRUS TRIES TO SHUSH EEVEE)
CYRUS:
Alright, alright– you have a point. Keep your voice down alright the streets have ears… You really hope your little comms though is going to play a role in– This?
EEVEE:
Mark my word, I think my little comms will outlive both of us. If Baird’s lucky it will outlive them.
(CYRUS GROANS. EEVEE GIGGLES)
Okay, okay… I attended the meeting–
CYRUS:
The book club. We went to a late-night book club meeting. What? Don’t give me that look. Plausible deniability, Eve.
EEVEE:
Right. The Book Club. We attended Book Club and talked about the climax of a war story. In the story, the main character kills a man with radical ideas to overthrow their government. The man he killed was not popular amongst the rebels. In theory, they should have agreed with him.
CYRUS:
In practice, however, the rebels do not condone murdering hundreds of thousands of people. Thus the whole unpopular amongst the rebels.
EEVEE:
Of course, word got out about the man’s death, and to cover it up, the government claimed him as an Enforcer. And they were getting away with it because the last clothes the man was found in was a stolen Enforcer uniform.
I don’t know if I believe the rebel or the government’s of the story–
CYRUS:
Eve–
EEVEE:
But! But. But I do believe that it was the right call for the rebels to sit back and wait for information to trickle out to them slowly… I think I’ll need to attend the next meeting to really make sure I understand what I’m getting myself into.
Oh– I’m so tired. Can we discuss all this in the morning? With hopefully less ears listening in?
(CYRUS HUMS AFFIRMATIVELY)
CYRUS:
I’ll even let you sleep in if you let me crash on your couch.
EEVEE:
Of course, I wouldn’t make you walk across town while already breaking our curfew.
CYRUS:
Thanks, Eve.
(LONG PAUSE)
Baird’s not going to be mad to see me, is he?
EEVEE:
This late at night? I doubt it. If anything he’s staying over at that Spade’s apartment probably fast asleep with Charlie. Oh, they’re so sweet together. I went to say good night to them one evening and I couldn’t kiss Baird’s head because Charlie had a death grip on his shoulders. He's always polite and entertains all of Baird’s whims… I wish you were around more to see it happen.
CYRUS:
You and I both know why that can’t happen.
(BOTH OF THEM SIGH)
EEVEE:
You know he’s only so pouty around you because you and I split up, right? He just wants us all together again. Like a proper family.
CYRUS:
We are a proper family. Mom who works too hard, dad who left to get milk and never came back– see? Proper family.
(EEVEE LAUGHS CAUSING CYRUS TO LAUGH)
UNFAMILIAR VOICE:
Hey, state your business and show your credentials.
CYRUS:
Shit, Constables. Run Eve!
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. RECORDING BEGINS.
(EEVEE WHISPERS)
EEVEE:
Cyrus and I got away from the Constables last week perfectly fine. This week on Brahma: we went to another revolution meeting. A few old timers took roll call and one of them said he had reason to believe that the person the Angel of Brahma killed was one of theirs. A man who wasn’t the least bit popular in any particular revolutionary circle. Apparently, he wanted to drop New Kinshasa out of the sky and saw it perfectly fit to kill all of Brahma in the process.
(EEVEE SCOFFS)
The nerve of some people. No one at the meeting could remember his name though, and no one still knows who Peter Nureyev is outside of the photos projected on every billboard on the planet now. He looks so young. Those dark and haunting eyes and sharp teeth. I find it hard to believe that he’s just a teenager. But– he is.
I’m trying to keep my voice down right now because Baird is asleep. The meeting was held before curfew this time so Cyrus went home to Iris and I walked alone back to the apartment. Eber was waiting for me just outside and before I could say hello he was dragging me down the halls to Hank’s apartment. His dog Missy was sprawled out on the sofa but Hank, Camilla, and Josie were all gathered around the dinner table. Mrs. Darius was upstairs with Talia, Charlie, and Baird. I sat down and told them everything I could.
The revolutionaries wouldn’t let me record anything with my comms during the meeting, but there wasn’t much that I think needed to be recorded. Just talk about who was storing what, who was leaving their doors open to help others. There was a lot of talk about going on strike. Either food or labor. They want to send a message to New Kinshasa. I don’t think I can afford to do much of anything. Me and the other Dome Wardens just went back to work two days ago, we are working through a backlog of off-planet imports and exports still. If I strike alone I’ll just be fired. If all the Wardens strike, then the Constables will take over and that will lead to certain catastrophe. And if I stop eating then Baird will stop eating and he’s already so… short.
Oh– I wish I got a chance to talk to Cyrus before we went our separate ways. He’d help me think of some way I can help. Better yet, he’d probably be able to give the others here at the apartments the answers they wanted from me. Hank didn’t say anything other than telling us to get out. Eber, Camilla, Josie, and I were silent on the walk upstairs. The kids were delighted to see us. Eber walked Talia back down to Hank, Josie was trying to fill in Mrs. Darius, and Camilla and I watched the boys play some sort of game where they kept pinching each other and trying to not shriek? I think that was the objective? Children’s games used to be much less violent when I was that age. I remember when–
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Memma?
EEVEE:
Bairdy! What are you doing awake?
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
I couldn’t sleep. You were being too loud.
(EEVEE TSKS)
EEVEE:
Then let’s put you back to bed alright baby? C’mon. I’ll even sing for you if you’d like.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS.
EEVEE:
I have either made the best decision of the revolution that will turn the tides in favor of Brahma, or the worst mistake of my life.
I told the old-timers at this past meeting that I work as a Dome Warden, and that a few of my colleagues seemed interested in joining the rebellion but were uncertain on how to go about it. The old-timers were delighted for a number of reasons and had drawn the same conclusion that I had a few weeks ago when a labor strike was first brought up. They think it would be very good if I was able to get some of the other Wardens on board with the revolution.
Cyrus was very quiet during the meeting. I asked him before we left if he had any opinions he was holding back, and all he said was to trust my gut. So… I trusted my gut.
I told the other Wardens at my post about the meetings. I told them about going on strike. A few seemed skeptical. Others wanted to know when the next meeting was. I’m going to contact Cyrus and get him to help me get the others to the next meeting.
I hope… this wasn’t a mistake. I guess time will only tell.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. NEW RECORDING BEGINS.
EEVEE:
–you turned it on. Good job, baby.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Mom, why are you showing me how to use your comms? Is something going to happen to us? Is something bad going to happen to you?
EEVEE:
What? Oh no, baby. Nothing is going to happen to me. I just think you would find more use out of my comms than I would. Look, since you got it to record you can start recording all those little songs you like to sing. Or maybe you can get Charlie to record a story for you.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
But Mom, I like your singing and your stories more. Will you sing for me? And tell me a story tonight?
EEVEE:
Absolutely not. You get one or the other. Take your pick. And whatever you don’t choose, you have to give to me.
(BAIRD POUTS)
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Fine… I want a story from you, and then I’ll give you a song.
EEVEE:
Good choice, Bairdy. What kind of story would you like?
(BAIRD HUMS)
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
I want a story about Brahma.
EEVEE:
A story about Brahma? Well… there once was a boy born on Brahma with nothing. Not even a name. He grew up just like everyone else, hungry for more. More food, more freedom, more time. The boy followed a man who dreamed of dropping the New Kinshasa on top of the planet.
The boy was very tired. Tired of being poor, tired of being hungry, tired of being alone. But he knew, that if he let that man drop New Kinshasa out of the sky, he would never be able to forgive himself. Brahma is his home. He looked down at Brahma from up high, and saw them: his people.
Starving young faces just like his looked up to the sky and stared back at the city as it trembled. The boy had the power at his fingertips to stop a tragedy.
This is it. The people thought. This is how we go out. Not with the big bang, but crushed under the heel of our jailor.
The boy heard their thoughts. He felt a rush of adrenaline and stopped the man from getting away. The city of New Kinshasa never fell out of the sky that day. The people were ordered to retreat to their homes. But that evening, everyone heard about the great threat against the Guardian Angel System. And everyone learned the name Peter Nureyev. And for the first time in the last half-century, hope bloomed on Brahma. The Boy, The Legend, The Angel of Brahma.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
That’s not a story Memma, that’s history.
EEVEE:
And what is history but a story we have to learn from? Now, I believe you owe me a song.
(BAIRD GROANS AND HUFFS)
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Fine…
(BAIRD TAKES A DEEP BREATH AND HUMS. THE SOUND GETS CLEARER LIKE HE’S BROUGHT THE COMMS CLOSER)
My angel, I must ask you keep singing for me.
How sweet your tune, like a songbird at noon.
What a lovely trill, it makes me feel ill.
O’ My heart overflows,
I could never let go.
Like chimes in the wind,
it must be destined.
I’ll find my way home,
with your voice I’ll never be alone.
Happy?
(EEVEE SNIFFLES)
EEVEE:
Very. Thank you, Baird. That was beautiful.
(FABRIC RUSTLES, BOTH BAIRD AND EEVEE HUM)
Promise me you’ll never stop singing baby.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Of course, Memma. I don’t think I could even if I tried.
EEVEE:
Good. Now–
(EEVEE PRESSES A KISS TO BAIRD’S HEAD)
Get some sleep. Okay? We have a long day tomorrow. And Bairdy?
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Yes, Mom?
EEVEE:
You know that I love you, right?
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
To the moons and back, yeah… Mom you promised nothing bad was going to happen to you.
EEVEE:
And nothing will. Good night, Baird.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Night Mom.
SOUND: DOOR CLOSING.
BAIRD (FUTURE REVOLUTIONARY):
Which button was it to end the recording? Was it this o–
SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.
- EEVEE BELL. BAIRD BELL. must contact Frannie’s friend about both of those names.
- Dome Wardens are indeed an old, out of date job. Eve is right, they’ve been replaced with robots. It’s actually kinda scary how right she was about things. About that, about Dark Matters probably covering everything up with New Kinshasa.
- Cyrus and Eve sound so fun together. I can see why they got married and had a kid together.
- Bairdy and Memma… right up there with Charls and Dearest.
- Oh Baird, he was 12 when these recordings were made. 12. Just almost a teenager, not quite. Almost too old to be called a baby.
- Eve loved Baird so much. She reminds me of my mother a bit. And she knew exactly what she was doing tucking Baird into bed that final time. There’s no doubt in my mind this is the last recording with her in it. She was taken away after this and never came back. The Dome Wardens did go on strike at some point according to Baird in other recordings, so did someone snitch to a Constable? Did she the Constable that almost caught her and Cyrus track her down?
- I think that’s the most frustrating part of my job. No matter how much I dig and research, there are some things that will be lost to me forever.
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(Psst! This write happened first!)
(And this one's happening beside it!)
Learned Behavior
“Benjin?”
Veylin’s gentle voice dips into the room at a volume somehow even softer than usual. Her melodic tone is laced with sympathy, and the sound of it twists Benjin’s stomach into knots. Does he really deserve that right now?
He casts his eyes to the floor as she joins him on the bed, smoothing her skirt as she sits.
“You don’t need to be here,” he objects weakly. “You don’t need to subject yourself to… y’know.”
“I have felt worse.”
The reassurance lays heavy between them, neither of them willing to acknowledge the full weight of it. He knows she has. God, he knows. The guilt sits in his gut like a stone.
“I wanted to hit something,” Benjin admits, eyes trained blankly ahead and fingers laced together in his lap. “I felt… possessed.”
He feels her shoulder bump lightly against his own. His throat tightens.
“I wish I was possessed. I… I don’t want that to be me.”
“You are allowed to feel things, Benjin.”
Veylin’s movements are delicate as she reaches for him, angling to place one palm atop his tense and trembling hands.
“You shouldn’t–” he chokes, ripping his gaze from the floor and turning to his moirail just as her skin meets his. Barely a second has passed before her face is wash with tears, cheeks laden with round, heavy drops that roll to her chin in a procession of shimmering blue.
When Ben opens his mouth to apologize, Veylin simply shakes her head. “You are allowed to have feelings,” she tells him again, voice shockingly steady in light of the tremendous emotion he has inadvertently shared with her.
“I felt violent, V. I don’t know what…” he pauses. Swallows. Starts again. “Did it…”
The question has barely formed in his mind when it catches in his throat. He can’t bring himself to ask. He doesn’t know if he can live with the answer.
“No.” Veylin gives Benjin’s hand a squeeze, his tears still pouring from her eyes. “It did not feel the same.”
A dry sob tears itself from his throat, accompanied by the faintest of tremors as he tugs his hands free of hers to wipe haplessly at his eyes.
Though sweeps of conditioning have rendered his own face completely dry, he cannot stymie the pitiful whimper that tumbles from his lips as the empath sets her arms around him and lays a gentle caress upon his back.
“There is nothing about you that feels like him. Nothing.”
“I felt like him,” he mewls. “If I had given in… If I had done what my body was telling me to do…”
“You didn’t.”
“I wanted to.”
“And instead you chose to exit.”
Benjin buries his face in his hands, taking a shuddering breath and fighting to ignore the pressure mounting in the bridge of his nose, hot and unnatural. “It scared me, V. It terrified me.”
She wraps herself around his arm, leaning softly against his shoulder. “I know this is rather rich coming from me… But you cannot expect to control your emotions. Only what they drive you to do.”
Her palm finds its way to his cheek, and she turns his head to face her.
“Benjin… It is natural to learn from one’s environment. You spent sweeps––formative sweeps––watching anger become violence. That is what they taught you. That is what they wanted to teach you.”
His vision starts to blur, finally overcome with the mist that he has been fighting to prevent.
“But that is not all you learned,” Veylin continues. “You know what it is like to be subject to that violence. You know exactly how easy it is to make someone feel unsafe, or frightened, or small. You know as well as he does.”
Ben squeezes his eyes shut, another tearless whine bubbling from his chest.
“But he wants that. He wants to hurt, Benjin. That is the difference.”
Even with eyes closed, he can feel as a single tear looses itself from the corner of his eye and rolls slowly down his face. Veylin’s thumb brushes it away, and soon her lips are on his cheek.
“You are kind. He did not take that from you.”
“I’m scared, V. I’m so scared,” he squeaks, pressing his face into the crook of her neck. “What was he thinking?”
Though he does little to indicate the shift in subject, his moirail has no trouble following along. She pauses briefly, considering her words with even greater care than usual. When she finally answers, there is a layer of guilt to her voice.
“He is scared too,” she admits quietly, almost pained to be breaking her cardinal rule regarding the sharing of other trolls’ emotions. “I… I do not believe he was hiding it, so much as… Hiding from it. The way I do.”
“This isn’t the kind of thing that disappears if we don’t look at it.”
“He knows. He is… embarrassed.” She averts her gaze, shoulders heavy with shame. “It is humiliating to make the wrong choices. Moreso to be confronted with them. But he knows.”
“I don’t want to be mad. I’m just… worried. If he can’t come to us… What about next time? What about when it really matters?”
“We are lucky to be faced with this now, then. If there is one thing Mallum has shown us, it is a capacity for change.”
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megumi's teacher — gojo satoru x reader
tags/warnings: fluff. fem!reader. gojo beefing with an eight year old. 700 words.
ever since megumi started the second grade, it's been (l/n)-sensei this. (l/n)-sensei that.
gojo picks up megumi's favorite ice cream, only to be scolded by the young boy. "(l/n)-sensei's favorite flavor is strawberry, so that's my favorite now!"
gojo tries to help him with his math homework, and it's "(l/n)-sensei did it this way. that means you should too!"
gojo reaches down to tie megumi's shoes for him, before his hand is promptly smacked away. "(l/n)-sensei said big boys tie their own shoes!"
honestly, gojo is starting to feel a little jealous. megumi's known you for what? two months?
he's been raising megumi for the past few years, but does that earn him an ounce of the adoration the young boy seems to have for you?
apparently not, though he perseveres nonetheless.
he and megumi are spending the afternoon out in the city and they stop at a small bakery for lunch.
while megumi is distracted looking at all the sweets behind the glass counter, the bell on the door draws gojo's attention.
his eyes fall upon a pretty young woman. actually, you might just be the prettiest woman he's ever seen.
and of course, a smirk forms on his lips when he catches you looking his way. he's puffing out his chest, running a hand through his hair.
he's always had a certain effect on the ladies, and he's never been more happy about that until this very moment—
"megumi?" you call from a few feet away. the wide smile adorning your face makes you look even more radiant.
while gojo visibly deflates, megumi's head whips around at the speed of light. "(l/n)-sensei!"
oh.
gojo very quickly comes to understand why the boy is so enamored by you.
megumi launches himself at you, while you crouch to meet him with open arms.
"i'm so happy to see you!" he practically sings, clinging to your neck.
you chuckle at his enthusiasm. "i'm happy to see you too, 'gumi."
gojo clears his throat, hoping that megumi will take the chance to introduce you two, but he is completely ignored.
"what are you going to get? i'll buy it for you," he states proudly, despite having zero money of his own.
your gaze shifts to gojo for the first time, and having your attention even just for a brief moment takes his breath away.
"that's very sweet megumi, but that's alright." you ruffle his hair when he pouts at your words, standing back up. "who's this?"
"oh that's just gojo. don't worry about him," he states with a wave of his hand.
the white haired man gawks at him in response. the nerve on that kid! he silently decides megumi will be losing dessert privileges for a week. no, two.
you stifle a giggle before offering your hand to him and introducing yourself as megumi's teacher.
he repeats your name, taking satisfaction in the way it sounds rolling off his tongue.
"that's a pretty name," he compliments, trying to recover from megumi's dismissal. "heard a lot about you. in fact, the kid never shuts up about you."
this earns him a glare from megumi, but gojo is too preoccupied with the shy look that crosses your features to notice.
gojo insists on paying for your order, a show of appreciation for taking such good care of megumi in class. you chat with the pair of them for a little while longer before eventually excusing yourself.
"thank you again, gojo-san. i'll see you on monday, megumi!"
just as you're turning on your heel, gojo calls your name and you look back at him expectantly.
"when, uh," he struggles, scratching the back of his neck. "when do i get to see you?"
nice.
"oh! well, parent-teacher conferences are only a few weeks away! i'll look forward to seeing you then," you answer sweetly, misunderstanding the meaning behind his words.
you bid them goodbye once more and they both watch your figure disappear down the street.
megumi turns to look at gojo smugly. "weeks? that sounds like a really long time—"
"shut it, kid."
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