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messrmoonyy · 1 year

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And she would rescue me

Tess Servopoulos x Fem!reader

Summary- Tess doesn’t know why she stopped to help you. She doesn’t know why she thought bringing into the QZ was a good idea either. But now you’re in her apartment and she’ll be damned if she’s about to let you die. Snippets of the days you spend with her

A/N- this came to me so randomly in the middle of getting extremely frustrated over a request I couldn’t get my mind to wrap around, and I smashed out a few thousand words and decided I loved it. I feel like there’s a lot of injured reader x Joel fics but not enough Tess ones. So here’s my spin on it.

Warnings- 18+ || light discussion of injuries, I think this is sliigghttllyyy ooc tess, tess realising she can actually let someone in, tess learning to trust tbh, smut towards the end( it isn’t as detailed as usual cause Lord this OS is long I had to chop things out ) : oral ( reader receiving ) , fingering ( tess receiving), tess gets a little panicked during one part of the smut but she’s totally okay, can I get a hell yeah for tess being vulnerable?!

Word count- 13k only proof read once

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Reblogs and comments are always appreciated/ encouraged <3

She didn’t really know why she’d done it. Why she hadn’t just… kept walking. Minded her own fucking business and gone home. But how could she? She still had some kind of humanity left in her, enough that meant she wouldn’t just walk past a girl dying.

Which, when she thought about it, was almost laughable. She’d left her fair share of people dying, most of them dying because of her own actions. So. Clearly her humanity liked to pick and choose its moments. And maybe if this scenario had happened 10 more years into the apocalypse, she would have left you there.

But it hadn’t. The world was still yet to rip the final shreds of humanity out of her.

You had been in a heap at the bottom of a slope, where the concrete of the road had been bombed and now created a jagged rocky mess. She’d thought you were dead at first. No one really ever survived outside the wall on their own, so it wasn’t wrong of her to assume. And if she was truly honest she thought that checking on you was worth it, even if you were dead because you might actually have something decent on you.

Well that’s what she’d told Joel anyway. Her and Joel were close, ridiculously close. They knew each other inside and out but she always noticed she had held onto a little more of her humanity of the years where as he seemed to have buried his deeply away. She was the one that still had a tiny candle flickering in her chest, a warmth that allowed her to hope and care. Even if some days she did feel like snuffing it out. No matter how twisted and dark her mind had become over the years, she still had some light trapped in there.

And so even with Joel’s complaints she had gone over to you. Using the excuse of simply hoping to pull something useful from the corpse. But no. You’d been alive. Barely it seemed. But alive.

Firstly she’d checked you over for any sign of a bite, carefully pushing at you and moving your clothes for any sign of fungus crawling through your veins. Last thing she wanted was another infected crawling around out there, as if their journeys out of the city weren’t difficult enough as it was. So she checked, ready to shoot you in the head if she found even a single sign of a mushroom. And when she’d found none… she’d stood up to leave. You had nothing on you. Even your clothes were fucked. Nothing worth her time. You’d be dead soon and just another body littering the streets. She should just go home and get out of the rain.

But she found herself unable to move. Even when Joel chastised her for wasting time when he just wanted to get back inside the wall and drink himself to sleep.

“ I am not taking some damn girl back inside the wall “ he hissed “ This isn’t you Tess “

“ she’s dying Joel “

“ and so let her die. People die every goddamn day. Including us if we get caught tryna smuggle some girl through the wall. And what’re you gonna do when you get back? What if she dies anyway huh? “

She’d looked down at you again, debating listening to him. If you did die on the way back she’d be stuck with the task of trying to dispose of a dead body. Which she had done plenty of times before but, if they found you without any records of ever being accepted into the QZ? That could cause some problems.

But you were still alive. Somehow. Somehow you had managed to survive out there, and from the flaking dried blood on your face you’d been there a while. You were strong. She liked that.

Joel was wrapped around her finger so even with his protesting it didn’t surprise her that she’d managed to talk him round.

The real surprise was that they’d managed to get back inside the wall, through the tunnels and into her apartment unnoticed. Joel unceremoniously dumping you down on her bed and leaving with muttered curses under his breath that he wasn’t gonna help if she got caught. Which was bullshit. Of course he would.

That had been 2 days ago.

You were still where Joel had left you, but she made you more comfortable. Changed you out of your filthy clothes and bandaged your ankle. From the bruising and the swelling she assumed you’d broken it. But there wasn’t much telling what exactly you’d done, X-rays weren’t exactly easy to go and get now.

She’d also cleaned the injury on your head, washing away the dried blood and stitching up the wound. It wasn’t exactly neat. But she didn’t think you’d mind. She’d saved your life after all. She sat you up every now and again to coax water into you, smashing up painkillers and dissolving them in some hope you weren’t in too much pain.

You’d barely woken up the entire time. Occasionally your eyes would open for a few seconds, gaze around the room in a way that made you look drunk, and then pass back out again. She was starting to get worried. Because you needed to eat sooner rather than later. Dosing you with water and pills was one thing but it would be useless if you didn’t eat anything.

She kept a close eye on you. Locking the doors whenever she went out for work assignments and hoping you wouldn’t wake up and freak out whilst she was gone. But you didn’t. She came home, gave you water and meds, and then went to bed.

She’d been sleeping on the couch. The bed was big enough for two. But she guessed you waking up not only in a strange place but with a strange person next to you might just kill you anyway from the shock.

It made her want to laugh sometimes when she lay there at night. Maybe she was getting soft. Running around like Florence fucking Nightingale looking after a stranger that was probably gonna die anyway. And for what? What solid reason did she have for it?

None. Absolutely none.

But she couldn’t help it. Continuously tending to you and keeping you clean, keeping your bandages fresh. Wiping at your face and wondering where you’d come from, how you’d ended up out there. She had so many questions.

She was getting soft.

You woke up properly a few days after she’d found you. She wasn’t entirely sure if your bouts of unconsciousness had been due to the head injury or the painkillers. Maybe it was both. Either way, your eyes were fully open now.

To her surprise you didn’t look afraid. She found it made that little candle in her chest burn a little brighter for a moment. She was so used to people being afraid. She liked it, of course she did. But the change was nice for a brief moment. To see kind eyes looking at her like she was… a person.

You were both silent. Neither of you seemingly knowing what to say in the moment. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. And she was confused to find herself stuck for words. Unsure of what to do. She usually was ten steps ahead of everyone, could read a room in an instant and know exactly what her next move would be.

But not now. Not there with you looking at her like that. It was frustrating.

“ welcome to the world of the living sweetheart “ she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest and watching you closely “ or half living I suppose “

“ where am I? “ your voice was hoarse. Probably because you hadn’t used it for so long. It was curious though. Not afraid. No fear laced your words as you glanced around the room, landing back on her and tilting your head slightly to the side like an inquisitive animal.

“ Boston QZ “ Tess finally spoke, grabbing a chair from the kitchen table and pulling it to the end of the bed and sitting down. You watched her every move, eyes following her from the table to where she sat “ I found you outside the wall. What the fuck were you doing out there huh? “

You seemed to ponder on the question for a moment, flickers of confusion flashing across your face. You didn’t know. How hard had you hit your head?

“ I’m not- I’m not sure - how long have I been here? “

“ few days “ your eyes widened at that, eyebrows flying up in a way that clearly hurt the wound on your head. Your hand came up to touch it, gingerly patting the stitched up space in your hairline. You then pulled at the blankets to see your ankle neatly bandaged up.

“ I fell “

“ I guess so “ she said with a sarcastic tone seeping its way into her words. Of course you’d fallen. It didn’t take a genius to work that one out.

“ so you… brought me here? “

“ a thank you would be fuckin nice “

“ oh! Thank you. Yeah of course “ you said quickly, blush creeping across your cheeks. She surprised herself by immediately thinking how… cute… it looked.

“ you feel okay though? “ she asked, immediately trying to rid herself of her previous thought. You nodded and yours eyes fell back onto her, sheepishly avoiding her gaze for more than a few seconds.

“ kinda hungry though “ to her surprise that made her smile, exhaling shortly though her nose in a small laugh.

“ yeah I bet “ she felt your eyes on her the entire time she was pottering around in the kitchenette deciding what food to get you. A small part of her did think she should’ve been smarter than to turn her back on you, you could’ve gotten out of bed and found one of the numerous weapons littered around the place. Killed her and escaped thinking she’d kidnapped you or something.

It made her glance over her shoulder.

“ you’re not gonna hurt me are you “ you said suddenly. It came out as more of statement or a fact than a question though, like you were telling yourself out loud to confirm it. Not really asking her.

“ if I wanted to hurt you I would’ve done it by now. Fuck I wouldn’t have even risked my ass bringing you though the wall “ she made her way back over to you, placing down a couple of the rationed food bars she had in front of you “ they taste like shit. But apparently one bar equals a whole fuckin meal or whatever propaganda bullshit the Military wanna tell us. Just tryna make us eat less “

“ thank you “ your eyes suddenly seemed ravenous, grabbing at the bar and taking a large bite

“ fuck. Slow down. You haven’t eaten in a week you keep going like that you’ll puke the whole thing up in ten minutes “ your cheeks flushed and you nodded, taking smaller nibbles from the shitty food bar. Looking at them already made her crave the fresh food from Bills. It’d only been days and she’d do anything for a vegetable that actually crunched. And had taste “ you can stay here till your ankles fixed… just be quiet. Stay out of sight. Last thing I want is my neck hanging from a fuckin rope because i got caught with an unregistered citizen. Okay? “

“ thank you “ she moved back to the table then, not really knowing what else she was supposed to say to you, and made herself look busy by counting ration cards. As if she hadn’t already gotten the exact number already twice over.

She was mildly regretting bringing you back. What was she supposed to do with you now? At least when you were asleep she didn’t have to worry about you drawing attention to yourself. Now you were awake, what if someone saw you. Or you decided you were in fact scared of her and started screaming or something.

She was such a fuckin idiot. Always acting on impulse when she was tired. And she had been after that hike from Lincoln. She was usually quite rational, but that all went out the window with you clearly. She should’ve listened to Joel. She probably wouldn’t even remember you by now if she’d just left you there. And now? Now she was stuck with an unregistered citizen in her apartment for fuck knows how long.

Way to fuckin go Tess.

“ I didn’t think.. I didn’t think you’d actually hurt me you know? “ you said as she stacked the cards, her eyes flickered up to find you watching her “ I just. I don’t know why I asked really. I actually feel pretty safe here. That’s stupid isn’t it? “

“ a little bit stupid. Yeah “ she agreed.

“ No one’s kind anymore. But you are. You helped me “ was she kind? Was she? She used to be. She wasn’t so sure anymore “ and you’re a woman “

“ nice observation “

“ no I mean. Men were shitty before but now? We ran into this group on the way here… I can’t remember their names but. They just took girls because they could. Kept them like slaves. Infected aren’t the scariest thing out there “ she knew that was true. Not to say that some women weren’t just as shitty. But the men were having a field day with the apocalypse. All rules had gone out the window.

It was stupid of you to trust her so easily, woman or not. She could very much have been planning to hurt you. Or demand something in return for her good nature. She wasn’t going to of course. But most people would’ve done that. If they’d even bothered to stop to help you at all.

Maybe she was kind.

By your third night- well. Nights that you were aware of anyway- in her apartment she was starting to miss when you were passed out. You woke up screaming somewhere in the early hours each night, thrashing around in the sheets and sobbing about things you couldn’t seem to explain to her.

So much for not drawing any attention to yourself.

She knew you couldn’t help it. Not really. She knew first hand from Joel. From her own nightmares that liked to sneak their way into her dreams from time to time. But you needed to be quiet.

She wondered if you’d been trapped in an endless cycle of those dream when you were unconscious. If you had been watching them on a loop as she attempted to care for you, looking so peaceful but screaming on the inside.

“ you wanna talk about those dreams of yours? “ she asked on morning number four. Remembering some slight memory of her mother telling her that talking about bad dreams would make them go away when she was a kid. Something she probably would’ve then gone on to tell her own kids. One of those small twists of the truth that parents did to try and make their children feel better. Something little and mostly useless that they took into adulthood. Even knowing that it wasn’t entirely true. But it worked a little bit.

So it was worth a try. Wasn’t it. Just because she needed you to be quiet. Not that she really cared. Of course she didn’t care. Why would she.

She couldn’t. Caring was dangerous.

“ I’m sorry I know you said about the noi- “

“ yeah you’re waking up the whole fuckin block every night sweetheart you need to get that under control “ she watched your face flush slightly in a way she had noticed you did when she slipped in the pet name. But maybe it was a mixture of embarrassment too.

It didn’t make you special. It was almost… condescending. Her way of keeping herself that one step above on the ladder, she didn’t care.

She didn’t.

“ I’m sorry I’m trying “

“ try a little harder “ you sighed and dropped your head into your hands, shaking your head. Were you crying?

“ I’m sorry “ you were “ I just keep seeing… seeing all the people and the blood and the rain and- “ she walked over to you, observing you like a injured animal that wasn’t quite sure what to do with. The kind where she didn’t know if it was kinder to kill it and put it out of it’s misery or to attempt to console it and bring it back to health.

Though clearly she was already doing the latter.

“ I told you. Tell me about them “ that came out a little lighter than she had initially meant. But she didn’t linger on it “ get it out. Probably won’t make them stop but. Might help “

You seemed to debate it, wiping at the tears on your cheeks and sighing.

She had to admit she was curious to know what was tormenting you. In the world they lived in there was plenty of things it could’ve been. They were 10 years in now and she still saw flashes of outbreak day in her dreams sometimes. Still remembered the first person she had seen infected. The first she had killed.

Death no longer bothered her. She had become numb to it in every way. Paths she had had no choice but to take, that had lead to her ending up that way. She did what she had to do to survive. But you seemed to still be coming to terms with the world around you.

You shuffled to move next to her, hanging your legs over the side of the bed with a small wince as you moved the ankle that was bandaged up.

“ me and a group. 9 of us? We were heading for the QZ. There was more of us at the start but… Pittsburgh is falling apart. A group of us snook out before it could get any worse. If that place lasts another year I’ll be surprised “ she’d heard of QZs falling apart all over the country. Boston was one of the only ones that FEDRA still had a relatively tight grip on “ we made it to the outskirts of the city… these runners came from no where and- “

She sat down on the edge of the bed as you tried to compose yourself a little, surprised to find her chest hurting a little as she watched you. Maybe it was because you seemed so… vulnerable. Somehow avoiding the hardships of the last ten years and behaving like the outbreak had only just begun.

She couldn’t help but feel inclined to protect you.

“ and how’d you end up at the bottom of that slope? “

“ me and 2 others. We made it pretty deep into the city, one of them said we should cut through the buildings. The road was fucked so I agreed. We got separated. Runners. Clickers. I just ran. Last thing I remember is the rain and and tryna get around the mess on the roads… guess I fell. Then you found me”

You’d escaped runners and clickers, and outlasted your entire group. You were really stronger than she thought. Vulnerable, yes, but still strong.

“ and that’s what you keep seeing? In your dreams? “ you nodded and sighed.

“ the others being ripped apart. Clickers chasing me. It’s so stupid I’m sorry. I’ll try to be quiet… I just wish they’d stop“ you dropped your head against her shoulder with a small sigh. Tess didn’t really know what to do. The gentleness of the act was almost alien to her now.

No one had been gentle with her for 10 years. Not even Joel.

You were doing something to her. Had done from the moment she’d seen you lying half dead on the floor outside. The fact that she had stopped at all. That she had brought you back. That in the 3 days you had been awake, the near constant 72 hours in your company, you had declared feeling safe with her. That you trusted her. That you looked at her and believed she could be gentle.

And Tess didn’t know how to react to it. What to do with it. She didn’t have a snarky remark to give you, simply out of fear of hurting your feelings or upsetting you. Which was ridiculous. Since when did she care about people’s feelings?

“ I promise I’ll try control it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe talking about it helped “

“ yeah. Maybe “

She had the sudden urge to tell you it’ll be okay. That she had nightmares too. That she’d lost count of the amount times she woke up in a cold sweat, images of her husband in a pool of his own blood flashing behind her eyelids, the sounds of her son fighting to escape the basement she had locked him in ringing in her ears.

Nothing haunted her more than that day. Everyone had their ghosts.

She didn’t even tell Joel but there she was wanting to tell you. To relate. To console.

She stood up before she could. Clearing her throat and heading for the door. She needed to get out of that apartment.

“ where are you going? “ the look on your face was like that of a kicked puppy, eyes wide and sad. She really needed to get out of that apartment.

“ I have shit to do. Stay quiet. Don’t open the door. I’ll be back in a few hours “ she pulled on her boots as she spoke, grabbing her bag and heading out the door in a hurry.

She needed to get back out among people that feared her. People that knew how dangerous she could be. Just to remind herself she was feared. She was dangerous. She wasn’t soft.

She. Didn’t. Care.

The fourth night was the same. She woke up to the clock on the wall showing 3:30am, you screaming at the top of your lungs and begging for help.

She got up from her makeshift bed on the couch and headed for the kitchen to get you some water, in the way that was becoming routine now. Usually by the time she reached you you’d stopped, but not tonight. You were thrashing around in the sheets, eyes still clenched tightly closed as you sobbed and screamed.

She placed the water down, her brows furrowed and sat herself on the edge of the bed. She grabbed at your arms to stop your thrashing before you hurt yourself

“ hey! You’re okay, look at me come on. Sweetheart, look at me. Just a dream. C’mon now “ your eyes flung open, terror swirling in your dilated pupils “ that’s it. Look around. You’re awake. You’re safe. You’re safe “

Clearly talking about it hadn’t helped. If anything it had made it worse.

“ no! Please- no! “

“ you gotta be quiet. Look. At. Me! “ she grabbed at your face, forcing your wild eyes to focus on her instead “ that’s it. Look at me. You see me? Not a fuckin clicker. No mushrooms in sight. You were dreamin again “ you seemed to register her words, slowly calming down as you took in her face in front of you.

“ Tess “ you whispered it with such relief, like some kind of wish in a prayer had been granted.

“ yeah. That’s right. It’s me “ you leaned into her touch, apparently grounding yourself again against the feel of her hands against your cheek. She watched you intently, the way you had known her for such little time but so clearly found comfort in her. In her touch.

She wondered if you knew the things she were capable of… if you knew the things she had done. Would you be so willing to sit there with her like that?

She let go of you and stood up.

“ no “ you said suddenly, fingers wrapping around her wrist as she attempted to return to the couch “ sorry I- “ she looked down at your hand, the way you held onto her “ I mean- can you. Could you… would you… stay? Here. With me “ she didn’t quite know why the word ‘ yeah ‘ flew into her mouth before she could even think about what you’d said. But she stopped it before it could escape “ please Tess. I’m so scared… I’d feel better if you were here “

“ I’m just around the other side of the wall “

“ please. You make me feel safe “ that took her aback. She didn’t have a single idea how to respond to that. Safe. She made you feel safe.

People didn’t feel safe around her. They felt afraid. They felt submissive to her power, they begged for their life, they felt dependent on her for their pills. They didn’t feel… safe.

But hadn’t that been what she had been trying to achieve? Hadn’t she wanted to make you feel safe. That you could exist around her and not be scared she’d hurt you. And it felt different yes, but. It felt nice too.

“ okay “ it came out far less confident than she’d wanted it to and she cleared her throat, trying to shake off the clearly obvious confusion she was experiencing “ yeah. Yeah. I’ll stay if you want “ you closed your eyes in relief and gave her a small smile, letting go of her wrist.

She watched you pull back the covers beside her and she got in, keeping a nice distance between you both. She had to admit it felt nice to be back in her bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable of things but anything was better than the couch for another night.

It felt strange laying next to someone though. She hadn’t done that for a long. Long. Time. Even when she had made her way through her string of flings and one time things, she hardly ever brought them back to her apartment. And they never slept in her bed if she did bring anyone back. She never let anyone invade her space. That felt too personal.

And yet there you were. In her bed. In her clothes. Finding herself annoyingly thinking about how much better that T-shirt looked on you than it did on her. And trying to ignore how unbelievably normal it felt having you there now. Even more so how normal and comfortable she was having you sleeping beside her.

She turned on her side to look at you, see how at peace you now looked. Your face no longer screwed up in terror, or eyes flashing wildly around the room. The only evidence of your dream the dried tear marks along your cheeks.

She reached out before she could stop herself, wiping at them softly with her fingers. There was a small scar on your left cheek below your eye, she let her finger trace it and wondered how you’d gotten it. She had too many scars to count now. Her face littered with nicks and dotted with freckles from the sun. She wondered if the face she was looking at now had changed in 10 years. If the face you now owned had looked different before the world fell apart.

She instinctively tried to pull away when your hand suddenly moved, placing it over hers gently and holding it in place.

She waited for the embarrassment to come, to ramble some excuse and probably excuse herself back to the couch. But your eyes remained closed, maybe in fear of embarrassing her. Whatever it was. She was grateful. And she let you hold her there, her hand still cupping your face as she fell asleep herself.

“ alright. Come here come look at these “ Tess broke the comfortable silence that had settled over the apartment for the last few hours, drawing your attention away from the book she had given you. She watched as you hopped your way over to the kitchen table, grabbing onto things to keep your balance whilst keeping your injured ankle off the floor.

She’d been working on papers for you for most of the day. Some half cooked insurance policy that made it look like you were a registered citizen if FEDRA happened to come knocking.

Even if they didn’t work entirely they’d still give her enough of a window to get you out before they returned again. And something was better than nothing she supposed.

“ FEDRA do random door to door checks, checking for infection “ she explained when you slumped into the chair next to her “ When they can fuckin be bothered to do it anyway… but if they do there’s a chance they’ll question why you’re here. This apartments only assigned to me, but as long as they think you’re registered it won’t matter. So. Fake papers. According to FEDRA your name is now Christine Hurley “ she didn’t mention that the real Christine Hurley was in fact in a ditch in one of the back alleys of area 2.

That the real Christine Hurley had thought trying to scam her and Joel with fake ration cards was a good idea, and had gotten a bullet in the forehead for her troubles.

“ and these will work? “

“ yeah. I make fake papers all the time to get me and Joel in and out of different areas. Should’ve been a forger pre outbreak. I’d have been rich as fuck” you laughed at that and she almost hated the way it made her heart skip. You were making her too fuckin soft and it was annoying. It was frustrating. She’d known you barely two weeks now, some of which you’d been unconscious, and yet you were making her soft. You were making her feel. Which was ridiculous

“ won’t they still question why I’m here?”

“ yeah but. They won’t really care. As long as you have papers they don’t give a shit. Found me with a girl here before. Idiot didn’t carry her papers with her. Arrested and… well fuck knows where she is now “ your face seemed to change ever so slightly at that and she wondered why “ just keep them with you”

“ you’ve had girls here before? What make a habit of rescuing people do you? “ she scoffed at that. Did she seem like the type to go around rescuing people every day?

“ no. She was here for… she was perfectly healthy. No rescuing “ it seemed to take you a moment before your eyebrows arched and you gave a nervous laugh.

“ oh “ she wasn’t embarrassed, she never had been when it came to sex or her enjoyment of it. She wondered if anyone else would’ve been. Maybe because you didn’t seem uncomfortable at the thought, in fact you seemed quite pleased about it. Something mischievous almost flashing in your eyes. “ interesting “

“ interesting? “

“ yeah. It’s interesting “ Tess raised an eyebrow but you simply shrugged, a smile tugging at your lips that you were seemingly trying and failing to suppress.

It didn’t seem mocking. More… knowing.

She changed the subject.

“ well. There’s your papers. Keep em with you “ you nodded and scanned over them, learning the new information about yourself whilst you were inside Bostons walls. Tess packed her stuff away and stood up, taking it over to the kitchen counter to hide it away in the small stash behind the back of one of the cupboards.

“ was she your girlfriend? “ Tess froze for a moment as you spoke, glancing slightly behind her to look at you. You were still looking down at the papers, like it was a casual topic to simply make conversation.

“ who? “

“ the girl. The one who didn’t have her papers “ she quirked an eyebrow and turned around , folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter

“ why’d you ask? “

“ is that a yes “

“ it’s not “ you hummed a response, flipping the first page over to look at the other which listed all of the work assignments Christine had completed “ she wasn’t my girlfriend. I don’t… I don’t do girlfriends. Or boyfriends for that matter “

“ ahh. You’re one of those people. Alright “ you said, smiling down at the paper and clearly no longer reading it

“ what’s that supposed to mean? “

“ nothing bad. I’m just observing “ you finally looked up, sitting back in the chair with amusement on your face. It was a nice change from the sadness that seemed to be settling over your face every now and again “ let me guess. You get bored. Or lonely. So you go out, find a find a girl. Or a guy. Fuck them. Then leave them. That right? “

It was right. And she hated that you’d read her so easily.

“ no “ you scoffed at that

“ sure. But lemme ask you. Do you really feel less lonely? When you’re with them? Or is it something else? “ she didn’t like where this conversation was going. At all. Or the fact that it genuinely made her think. No. Of course it didn’t make her feel less lonely. If anything it simply made it worse

“ I’m not lonely. I’m better on my own “

“ I don’t think that’s true “

“ yeah. Well you know nothing about me” her words were a little harsh. Defensive. She didn’t want people knowing about her, didn’t need someone trying to figure her out.

“ but I want to know “ you didn’t seem shocked by her tone, or her words.

“ you don’t “ she didn’t want to tell you. She didn’t want to tell you about herself or reveal things about her.

Because it would only scare you off. She knew it.

“ hmmm. I do “ you smiled as you said it and she couldnt help the way it eased the tension brewing in her muscles “ you don’t have to tell me bad stuff. Just. Tell me fun stuff. I’m so starved of like… girl talk “ Tess scoffed

“ there were no girls in your group? “

“ there was two. One was a kid. And the other liked to grab me when her boyfriend pissed her off. Then tell me after it was totally a ‘ one time thing and she was literally so straight ‘ “ you said with a laugh and bending your fingers into air quotes.

“ oh I’ve known a few like that “ Tess found she didn’t actually mind that topic of conversation. Because it was something she was comfortable with and something she could control. And didn’t directly reveal anything about herself. So she sat herself back at the table with you.

“ so was I right then? You just fucking your way through the QZ for the fun of it? “

“ I wouldn’t exactly put it like that “

“ so how would you put it “ you leant forward, chin on your hand and a cheeky smile plastered across your face. You were loving it. And Tess did have to admit talking to someone other than Joel was a decent change.

“ the worlds a pile of shit. I won’t deny myself small pleasures “ your grin grew at that

“ bet you have them lining up for you huh? That scary thing you do… yeah. I bet the guys don’t like that though, you whip them into shape too? “ you said and wiggled your eyebrows in a way she couldn’t help but laugh at. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really laughed.

“ I prefer women. They’re more interesting to look at “

“ agreed “ even before the outbreak she’d preferred girls. It was true, they were far more interesting, softer, squishier, easier to navigate. Prettier. She couldn’t help the way her eyes wandered over you, mind suddenly running wild. And from the look in your eyes, so was yours.

Two evidently touch starved people in such close proximity, with that topic of conversation was never going to end well.

And so she distanced herself before she could put herself in a compromising situation.

“ I have to go do some work. But I’ll be back soon “ she said and stood up, heading for the door and grabbing her backpack “ don’t- “

“ open the door. Make any sound. Draw any attention to myself. Yes ma’am “ you said, that grin still stuck on your face “ oh and don’t go bringing anyone else back here. You might make me jealous “ you looked back down at your papers then, leaving Tess’ mind still reeling as she opened the door and headed out.

—————————————————————

The nightmares came again that night, seemingly worse than the previous, leaving you in floods of tears after you woke up. And to Tess’ surprise you fell into her arms, clutching at her tshirt as you sobbed and sniffled. She felt her previous annoyance at being woken up fizzle away in an instant, replaced with a deep ache in her chest. Pain at seeing you so upset when you had been so happy during the day.

It concerned her slightly how much she enjoyed your smile. The way your eyes lit up around her. And how much she hated the tears and the sadness now plaguing your features.

“ you’re okay sweetheart. I’ve got you “ she said softly, tucking your head under her chin in a way that surprised her as your sobs turned to hiccups and sniffles. You were gripping her tightly, fingers twisted into the material of her shirt as if you were afraid she was about to push you away and leave you there.

Maybe if you had done that on night one she would’ve. It was strange how much had changed in days. How being around you practically 24/7 had changed her thoughts. She didn’t know if she liked it. if she liked how you seemed to be wiggling your way through the cold exterior of her heart, like a worm trying to reach the core of an apple. Burrowing through until it could reach the centre and stay there.

That almost did make her let you go.

She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have herself worrying about someone else. Caring about someone else. That was dangerous. And you didn’t care for her. You didn’t worry. So why should she? Why should she allow herself the stupidity of getting into something so clearly one sided. And something she so clearly didn’t have control over. It scared her.

She felt like she was in a car that had had its breaks cut, hurtling towards a brick wall and she had no way of bringing it to a stop.

She really was getting soft. Ridiculously so. There she was sat at her table flicking through a faded and damaged medical book she’d traded for on the black market the previous day, so she could try and figure out how to get you back on your feet again.

She was reluctantly letting it happen now. Just accepting that she was doomed. That for the short time you would be with her she would allow herself this pathetic softness. And the second you were gone she would have her control back. It was all your fault. Yours completely. Luring her in to believe she could feel. To believe she was allowed to feel. To believe that someone could possibly feel for her.

It was stupid. So. Fucking. Stupid.

“ so I’m pretty sure just a super fuckin bad sprain. Says here… two weeks it’ll normally start feeling better. But can take up to eight to fully heal “ she said, clearing her throat in some attempt to distract her thoughts.

“ it does feel better than when I first woke up. So two weeks is accurate “ she placed the book down and went over to where you had your ankle up resting on a couch cushion. She peeled away the bandages she’d wrapped tightly around it to give it some support, pressing and poking slightly at the fading bruises.

“ can you move it? Wiggle your toes and shit? “ you did just that and she shrugged. She was no doctor. But she patched herself and Joel up enough over the years “ alright. c’mon. Up “ she held out her hands and you took them, they looked so soft and delicate compared to hers. A scar here and there but somehow mostly clear. Nothing compared to the scratches and scrapes on hers. The scars on her knuckles from the numerous times she’d split them open.

Hands like that didn’t fit together. Didn’t meet. Hands like hers didn’t deserve the privilege of touching hands like yours. Hands like hers didn’t deserve to touch anyone in a gentle way. They were for business. For hurting. For pain. Yours weren’t. Yours were soft. Smooth. Yours were made for caressing and soothing, for receiving soft kisses on the back.

She was losing it.

She guided one of your arms around her shoulders and helped you get your balance.

“ don’t try walk. Just. Just try put your weight on it “

“ what if- “

“ don’t worry. I’ve got you. Just be careful yeah? “ she watched you carefully as you gently placed your foot down, eyebrows furrowing as you did and hissing in pain through your teeth “ I said carefully “ you sighed and put it flat on the floor but still heavily leaning against her “ feels okay? “

“ hurts “ Tess nodded and held you tighter around the waist

“ try not to lean on me so much. You won’t fall over. I’ve got a hold of you “

“ oh you’re gonna catch me? “ you said with a small laugh, eyes flickering up to hers briefly. The tone of your voice made her throat a little dry and she couldn’t figure out exactly why.

“ yeah. Yeah I got you “ your face screwed up slightly as she watched you out more of your weight onto it and get used to the feeling.

She held you there for a couple of minutes to regain your balance before slipping your arm off of her and holding your hands in hers.

“ now try walk. Hold onto me “

“ I don’t think I- “

“ just try. Look at me “ you watched her face carefully as she took small steps back, helping you to get used to the feeling of the ankle being used again.

She was glad Joel had work assignments that day. She didn’t think she’d ever live it down if he turned up at her apartment and saw that. Saw her holding you so carefully and helping you walk again like a child.

But she found in the hour or so that she did it, her cheeks began to hurt from smiling. For once in her life feeling like the world wasn’t on her shoulders, happy. Smiling. You smiling with her.

It was nice.

“ you got it! Nice work sweetheart “ she watched the utter joy on your face as you managed to keep your balance on your own and walk before falling into her arms.

“ fuck yeah “ you laughed seemingly now exhausted from the small amount of work. But she didn’t blame you after so long unable to do anything “ can we rest now? “

“ we can do whatever you want “ she said with a small laugh, arms wrapped around you to keep you up right.

“ anything? “ you asked quietly, smile fading slightly and looking up at her intently. Tess furrowed her brows, slightly confused at what exactly you were asking her.

It took her completely by surprise when you leant up and kissed her. Standing practically shell shocked as you pressed your lips to hers. It was only a few seconds and then you were pulling back, cheeks flaming red and closing your eyes with a shake of your head

“ god I’m so- Tess I’m sorry I don’t know why I- “

“ you need to rest “ she said and cleared her throat, not wanting to think about had just happened for even a second. Not prepared to deal with the spiral it would inevitably send her down.

All she knew. Was that she was fucked. well. And truly. Fucked.

“ just stay close to me. Try not to talk to anyone. And don’t touch anything“ Tess instructed as she pushed back a palette keeping one of the exits out of the tunnels covered

“ yes ma’am “ you said with a smile and a mock salute, following her through the gap and standing patiently as she dragged the palette back into place “ will there be officers? “

“ maybe. But the ones around here are just as bad as the smugglers. They’re some of our best customers for pills. Turns out sending people to the gallows everyday can fuck you up. Who’d have guessed? Just do as I say “ you stood ridiculously close to her, eventually wrapping your fingers around her wrist as you both entered the courtyard. She wasn’t in the mood to loiter and headed straight for the people she needed. Trading off cards for boots, a new jacket, some shirts and jeans.

Stuff you’d need. That she didn’t have a surplus of.

Ration cards were as precious as gold those days. And she was spending her hard earned ones on you. She definitely wouldn’t telling Joel about that.

She found she didn’t mind though. She wanted you to be prepared. Safe. And the boots she’d found you in barely had any soles left. You wouldn’t get far in those.

It had been a week since you’d kissed her and neither of you had mentioned it since. Falling back into that comfortable thing you’d been developing before. Where you could make her laugh and smile. And you would tease her for being too grumpy which would make you smile.

It was odd how normal it was starting to feel having you around. But she always ruined the moment by thinking about the future. About how empty her apartment would feel when you leave. She’d gotten used to you. And she almost didn’t want to let you go.

Maybe she could work something out, wrap some officers around to her thinking and get you some official papers. She could train you up to help her with her smuggling, show you the ropes and tell you who the best people to deal with were. And who to avoid like the plague.

It could be nice.

“ Tess. Haven’t seen you around for a few days. Where you been hiding? “ she felt you tense beside her as one of the FEDRA officers on her client list made his way towards her. He was a cocky son of a bitch, one who constantly tried to make her lower her prices and was notoriously known for being too heavy handed with the girls he paid for. And had been trying to get his way into her pants for months. Seemingly thinking offering her his dick was worth a half price deal on his pills.

“ don’t. Speak. Let me do the talking “ Tess said in a low voice close to your ear, looking like she was entirely too fascinated by the piles of clothes in front of her “ I’m not selling today Marcus. You know I don’t get shit until the end of the month “

“ I know. I know. Cant I be friendly and say hello? “ she rolled her eyes, hoping he’d just fuck off and leave her be now that he knew she didn’t have what he wanted “ who’s the new pet? Following you around like a little lost puppy? “ you shuffled closer to her if that was even possible, fingers tightly gripping at her wrist.

“ that’s none of your concern “

“ pretty thing “ he said with a smirk, craning his head to try and look at where you were attempting to hide behind her. She surprised herself for the millionth time since she’d found you, when she felt a burning jealousy in her chest. She didnt like the thought of anyone talking about you. Even looking at you. Thinking about you. Which was fuckin. Stupid. But she hated it “ maybe you come give me a visit when she’s done with you huh? “

“ I don’t think so “ her voice was bitter, unable to stop herself from appearing as jealous as she was

“ what? Cant she speak for herself? Come on Tess. It’s nice to share “

“ not this one “ she freed her wrist from your grasp and draped her arm around your shoulder instead, pulling you against her body. You sighed a slight sigh of relief at the contact, pressing yourself against her. She tossed down some more cards for the clothes and handed them to you “ put ‘em in your bag “ you did as you were told, the slightly worried expression that had been on you face still there. But a little less now she had a hold of you.

“ settling down? You’re not the type. You send her my way when you get bored. I’ll be waiting. I’ll even pay you double on my next batch “ Tess scoffed and turned to face him, trying to ignore the burning anger boiling away in her chest at the thought of him anywhere near you.

She saw the state he left some girls in, the thought of that happening to you was enough to make her want to put a bullet through his head in the middle of the courtyard.

“ you know that’s not my game “ he shrugged and raised his hands in mock surrender “ go talk to Robert he’ll point you in the right direction. But this one? She’s mine. So back the fuck off. And come find me at the end of the month for your shit. Okay? “ she enjoyed the way that even the officers listened when she commanded it, that the simple tone of voice and the reputation she was gaining was enough to make anyone do as she said.

“ alright alright. Stay out of trouble “ he said with another smirk, but not as smug as it previously had been “ and you “ he said, throwing a wink at you and walked away.

“ let’s get you home yeah? “ she said it loud enough that she hoped Marcus heard it. That you were going back with her. Not him. Never him.

“ yes please “ she could feel your eyes burning into her as you walked back, almost tripping up because you weren’t paying attention to where you were walking.

You seemed flustered. Frantic almost. She wondered if Marcus had shaken you up, overwhelmed you.

She couldn’t have been more wrong if she’d tried. Once you both got back into her apartment she realised what had gotten into you.

You grabbed at her arm when she closed the door, yanking at her with a confidence she hadn’t seen from you before. You pulled her close and to her surprise yet again, you kissed her. For the second time. It was a lot more confident than the first, more… desperate. Your lips pressing harder against hers than she’d expected.

She found herself kissing you back that time, turning you around and crowding you back against the door. She knew she shouldn’t haven given in, shouldn’t be letting her desire her in the way of what she knew was right and wrong.

But she couldn’t help herself.

Maybe it was the pent up jealousy and anger from down in the market, kissing you being the safest form of release for it. And the most enjoyable. Not that battering the fuck out of Marcus wouldn’t have been thoroughly enjoyable. But making out with you? It beat anything else by miles.

It made her regret not kissing you back the first time, when your lips felt like that against hers. Tasted like that. It felt cruel to have denied herself of it.

It was the feel of your fingers gently pushing at her shirt that snapped her back into reality, made her see some common sense again.

“ hey. Hey we can’t “ she said softly, hands soothing over your arms and closing her eyes for a moment. She sighed and looked at you, your cheeks flushed “ we can’t “ she didn’t explain herself. Couldn’t. Couldn’t tell you that she was getting far too attached. That sleeping with you could well and truly be the final nail in the coffin that she was burying herself in.

“ I’m sorry “ you said, clearly embarrassed. Tess couldn’t tear her eyes away from your lips. Parted and glossy with saliva. She wanted to kiss you again.

“ it’s okay. Don’t sweat it “ she looked away before she could.

“ just. The way you were out there. With that officer and and the way you spoke about me I- god “ she found a smile tugging at her lips as she watched your flustered attempt to explain, groaning and putting your head in your hands. She nudged her fingers under your chin to make you look at her, noticing the way your breath shuddered slightly. You were so easy to work up.

“ don’t be embarrassed “ she could practically see you melting under her gaze, the low tone of her voice and intense gaze making you look ready to drop to your knees. And wouldn’t that be a sight.

A sight she had to remind herself she did not need to see.

“ go empty your bag, take a shower or something i don’t know about you but that market makes me feel grimy as fuck. Then we won’t talk about it. Yeah?” You nodded your head and gave her a warm smile

“ yeah “ she stepped away from you, watching you head for the bathroom and close the door behind you. She ran a hand over her face, a deep sigh shuddering past her lips. What was she doing?

Usually she would’ve kept going. Would’ve happily fucked you and been fine about it. She was no stranger to doing just that and then moving on. But there was something about you. Something about the anger she had felt around Marcus, the jealousy and the possessiveness.

Even the fact that she was still sharing a bed with you. And most nights now she’d wake up to find you pressed against her. Cuddling like a couple as if it were the most normal thing. That she enjoyed waking up to your smile, your eyes. You.

What had you done to her?

“ I think you’re gonna have to go soon “ the realisation of the fact had hit her like a ton of bricks that morning. Or maybe it had been sooner than that and she had been forcing herself to ignore it.

Your lack of reaction told her you probably knew that.

Staying with her had never been a permanent thing. But she felt she was pushing her luck now, the fact you had managed to stay as long as you had was a miracle in itself.

“ they found a whole group of unregistered people in an apartment in area 3 the other day. FEDRAS upping their random checks and… look I’m good at fake papers but they can only do so much. If they find out you’re not a registered citizen they’ll have you up on the gallows before you can even tell them your real name “ she ran a hand over her face with a deep sigh “ and I can’t fuckin see that happen to you sweetheart I can’t “

You didn’t say anything right away, which she hated. It meant that her words hung there in the silence for a little too long. Gave her that minute too long to think about them and wish she could yank them back and shove them back down her throat.

Then your hand tentatively reached out for hers that was on the table, fingers ghosting over her knuckles before gently squeezing in what she assumed was your attempt at reassuring her.

“ I never thought I’d even make it into Boston and with your help I wouldn’t have. I thought you’d kick me out the moment I’d woken up. I never expected you to let me stay as long as you have and put yourself in a position… I’m trying to say thank you I guess. And that… I know… I know you wouldn’t tell me to go unless I really had to “

She glanced up at you and couldn’t quite read the expressions on your face. It annoyed her still. How she couldn’t get a grasp on you, couldn’t get into your head in the way she could with others. But that didn’t matter anymore did it. You were leaving.

“ I know this couple in a town not too far from here. That’s where I was coming from when I found you… Bill and Frank. I spoke to Frank last night on the radio and he said you can go there for a few days. They have more supplies than you can fuckin imagine they’ll give you what you need. Franks real good with the radio he’s gonna listen in, see what he can hear and find you a QZ that’s letting people in “ you nodded and gave her a small smile

“ how do I get there? “

“ I’ll take you “ there was never any question in that. You’d almost died on your way in. Never mind the way out. You nodded, processing the information.

Talking to Frank on the radio the previous night has been hard but now she was discussing with you it made it feel far too real. The stark realisation that you wouldn’t be in the room after tomorrow. You wouldn’t be in her bed, smiling at her when you woke up, loudly commenting on the book you were reading when a character did something you didn’t like. Just your presence .

“ c’mere for a second “ you rose to your feet instantly walking over to her and standing between her legs. She ran her hands gently along your legs and looked up at you, her gaze soft “ I’ll make sure you get there safe. I promise you Bill and Frank will help you out “

You straddled her thighs, looping your arms around her neck and pressing your forehead to hers. It felt too… romantic. Intimate. It felt exactly what she had been so terribly trying to avoid. but maybe she was stupid for ever thinking she could live with you and be around you so constantly and not end up in such a position. You were like a siren luring her in, filling her senses and overwhelming her with desire no matter how hard she attempted to fight it. No one would’ve been able to resist you. No one.

“ I’m gonna miss you “ you whispered, so close your lips brushed hers as you spoke “ I’m gonna miss your stupid face “ Tess chuckled at that.

“ stupid? “

“ mhm. So stupid “

“ so stupid you try kiss me any chance you fuckin get? “ it was the first time you’d both actually mentioned either of the kisses out loud. But she guessed it didn’t matter if it made things awkward now.

You were leaving. What did she have to lose.

“ I have a head injury I don’t think my thought process can be trusted “

“ it can’t “ you twisted a lock of her dark hair around your finger, another thing that felt casually intimate.

“ I guess I cant be blamed then. Cant be blamed for this either “ she refused to let her fears get the better of her that time. Taking the chance whilst she still had it, kissing you back with the same gentleness you were. It felt bittersweet. Nothing could be bad about kissing you, but the knowledge she might never get to kiss you again? That was painful.

“ I’m really gonna miss you “ you whispered once you pulled away, short breaths hitting Tess’ lips.

“ yeah sweetheart. I’ll miss you too “

Tess hadn’t anticipated the heavy feeling in chest on the last night with you in her apartment. Unable to sleep and simply staring up at the ceiling as you lay curled up beside her.

She reminisced on the weeks you’d spent with her. How much you’d managed to wiggle into her heart and make her feel things she thought she’d forgotten.

She felt stupid. But it was okay. You would be gone that time tomorrow, she would drink. She would forget. She would carry on. She would go back to normal. She tried to ignore the small voice in the back of her head telling her that wasn’t what she wanted now. But she had no choice.

She startled as your hand moved, sliding over her arm with a soft sigh

“ cant sleep either? “ she looked down to see your eyes wide awake and watching her. She’d miss the way you looked at her. Admired her. Never afraid.

“ no “ she turned onto her side, reaching out to tuck your hair away from your face “ it’s gonna be weird when you’re gone “ she confessed in a whisper, almost hoping it was too quiet for you to hear. It wasn’t of course.

“ yeah. I got used to looking at your grumpy face everyday “ she huffed a small laugh and rolled her eyes “ maybe I can write or something when I find a new QZ. Send radio messages. I don’t know. Something “

“ yeah. Maybe “ that would only hurt you both more she was certain of it. But she wouldn’t tell you that now. She’d let you hope and think of something good that the future may hold “ do you wanna try get some more sleep? “

“ No I can’t “ you said with a shake of your head and shuffled a little closer to her “ I can think of something to pass the time time though “ Tess smiled and slipped her hand around to the back of your neck

“ funny. So can I “ she pulled you towards her, capturing your lips with hers and pulling a soft sigh from you as she did. She regretted not kissing you more. Regretted not giving in to her thoughts whilst she’d had you, some half ditched attempt to protect herself. As if it still wouldn’t hurt.

You kissed different than anyone else she’d been with. Which sounded cheesy and she felt stupid for thinking it. But it was true. Girls that were being overly dramatic to try and get paid more or girls that were just like her. Lonely and looking for some form of human contact.

But you were… invested. Kissing her like you actually meant it. Tender and careful, soft moans into her mouth that were slowly working her up.

“ I thought of. Of something else. That. We could do. More than…kissing “ you whispered in between soft kisses “ if you want “ she didn’t need to second guess or even give it a single second of thought. You were leaving tomorrow whether she or you liked it or not. So what did she have to lose now? Nothing.

And who was she to deny herself of such pleasure in world full of a whole lot of pain. Especially now. Especially with you.

She pushed at you, placing her body on top of yours and caging your head between her arms, not giving you a second to even attempt to take control from her. Not that she thought she would really. Not when you had been so willing to do as exactly as you’d been told the entirety of your stay with her.

She felt ever so slightly out of practice. It wasn’t a lack of experience, Jesus if anything she had too much experience. Which she wasn’t entirely proud of but who the fuck cared? The world was ending. Had ended. She’d take any small ounce of pleasure she could seek out. You didn’t seem like the type for that. She couldn’t picture you slinking around in the less desirable areas picking up girls just because she wanted something- or rather someone- to do.

No. You seemed too… pure. For that. Tess wasn’t pure. Not at all. But she could pretend. She could pretend if that’s what you wanted. Though she wasn’t entirely sure it was. Not with the way your hands were grabbing at her, hands restless as they slipped under the hem of her shirt to touch her skin.

She kissed you until she had no choice but to pull away to breathe, immediately moving to your neck instead. Your skin was like a blank canvas and she was going to take great joy in marking it.

“ Tess “ you practically whimpered her name, pushing at her tshirt in some silent request to get it off. But she’d be damned if she was gonna let you get her naked first. Her fingers worked at the button up you’d gone to bed in, still working at your neck as she did. She hadn’t really liked the shirt on herself, so had happily let you take it when you’d picked it out. But on you? She almost didn’t want to take it off you completely. There was something about the thought of fucking you in her clothes…

She had to sit up to admire the view, reluctantly detaching her lips from your soft skin.

“ fuck “ she couldn’t help it, it left her mouth without her consent. The sight of you was enough to ruin her for life. Her shirt open and revealing your heaving chest, the blush creeping across your cheeks and the blossoming marks on your neck… oh she was fucked.

She reached out, grabbing at your tits and sighing heavily at how heavenly your body was. You’re back arching into her touch as she moulded the squishy flesh beneath her fingers, dropping her head down again to get her mouth on you too.

She was like a greyhound chasing a rabbit. Tunnel vision and a singular end goal, you the only thing in her sight. In her mind. Desperate to touch and taste and fill her senses with nothing other than you.

“ oh god “ you whined as she flattened her tongue, licking across your nipple and testing your reaction. She knew you’d be whiny. Knew you’d be someone she could work into a whimpering mess with ease.

She had a knack for knowing these things.

“ you’re fuckin beautiful “ she said as she rolled a nipple between her fingers, peppering kisses across your chest as she did “ so fuckin beautiful “ she was stupid to think she’d be able to forget you with a bottle of whiskey. How on earth would she ever get the image of you underneath her out of her mind.

You squirmed around beneath her, small sighs and whimpers escaping past your lips when she grazed her teeth against your skin. Your fingers lacing into her hair and scratching your blunt nails against her scalp.

She didn’t let herself get side tracked for too long, she had an end goal to reach that resulted in her head happily between your thighs. And with the sounds you were already making and the way you were squirming around, she got the picture you were more than ready for that.

She moved back up to be level with your face, kissing you again and letting her hands wander. Mapping out your body with her fingers so she could commit the thought to memory.

“ please Tess. I need you. God I need you just- please “ you whimpered into her mouth, raising your hips up against her in desperation. If you had been anyone else she’d have denied you. Made you beg and edged you until she was bored “ I waited weeks don’t make me wait any longer “

But she couldn’t do that to you. How could she possibly deny you of anything you wanted from her? When you were underneath her looking like that, making sounds like that.

“ weeks huh? “

“ yes “ that made her feel pretty fucking smug. But also made her feel slightly less stupid for… whatever it was she was feeling for you.

So she didn’t waste any time. Moving down your body after another kiss to your swollen lips.

She pulled your underwear down your legs soothing her hands over your thighs before pushing them apart. Making a point to leave the shirt on. Part of her felt like she shouldn’t be rushing. But she was desperate to taste you.

The noise that left your mouth when she parted you with her tongue was heavenly, she felt addicted in an instant. She wanted to hear it again. Over and over. She never wanted to hear a single other sound for the rest of her life. It paired with the look on your face had a small shuddering breath passing her own lips, in complete and utter awe of you.

She had wanted to draw it out, to have you writhing and whimpering and wreck you for anyone else. But the sounds you were making and the blissful look in your eyes… she was desperate to make you come. Desperate to see what you’d look like, what sounds that would draw out of you. Maybe it was a little selfish, but she didn’t care.

Your taste flooded her tongue and she was like a starving woman eating for the first time in days. She was feral.

Her arms looped around your thighs to keep you in place and she went to town. She wanted to feel you coming on her tongue, wanted to see the exact look on your face, know the taste.

She felt like she could stay there for hours. Days. Weeks. Trapped between the pillowy flesh of your thighs, senses flooded with you. Your taste on her tongue, your moans in her ears, soft skin beneath her fingers.

Your fingers pulled at her hair, whining her name in a way that made a smug smile creep its way onto her face.

“ you know it’s… it’s been a while so- “ you attempted to form a sentence, gasping and arching your back in between your words “ I don’t think I’ll last- fuck Tess “ that was practically music to her ears. And a lively boost to the ego that she had you on edge already.

“ that’s okay sweetheart, you wanna come for me? Yeah? “ you eyes were screwed shut and you nodded quickly, pushing her face closer to your cunt again which made her smile “ I got you”

It was only another minute or so until you were pulling almost painfully at her hair, holding on for dear life as you came on her tongue. You were stronger than she’d expected, managing to trap her head with your thighs even with her holding them, keeping her in place until your body went slack and she she came up gasping for air. With the biggest fucking smug grin on her face.

She looked up at you from her spot between your legs, admiring the blissful look on your face, the droplets of sweat along your sternum, her shirt still hanging open on you.

She made her way back up to your lips with a trail of kisses. Wet, soft, open mouthed kisses that made goosebumps rise on your skin.

“ you good? “ she asked, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips

“ good doesn’t even cut it “ she laughed as you beamed a smile, open your eyes to look up at her “ I wanted you to do that after the market “

“ I know you did “ she’d wanted to do it too. But she’d stopped herself like the idiot she clearly was. She moved to lay beside you, still watching you closely. She wanted to remember every detail of you. No matter how painful it would be. She wanted to remember.

“ you know what else I wanna do? “ you said, shuffling closer and trailing your hand along her waist and across the front of her. She grabbed at your hand before you could move it any closer, effectively stopping you in your tracks

“ please let me “ you whispered, eyes wide and glassy looking up at her like she was the last woman on earth. She wasn’t used to being looked at like that. Even with you. Even with you who had never looked at her with anything but some seemingly deep rooted adoration and affection. Never fear.

“ you don’t have to “ it was rare she let anyone reciprocate. She didn’t like the way it made her feel so… exposed. Vulnerable. Like some baby animal being lured into a lions den ready to be mauled to death.

You reached up with your other hand, gently brushing her dark hair away from her face and behind her ear. She didn’t entirely know how to react. She didn’t now what to do with such tenderness. It made her brain flash with an error code like some janky 90s PC. Her mind coming up blank when confronted with such care and compassion.

“ I know I don’t have to. But I want to. Please “ she was used to people wanting to please her. She could have any fucker running doing whatever she asked if she dangled a bag of pills in front of them, like donkeys working for carrots. But someone wanting to please her like that? To give simply because they felt like that, to not expect a single thing in return.

She didn’t know how to respond. Simply looked at you in silence. You seemed to see the cogs coming to a grinding halt in her head, eyes flickering over her face.

“ you’ll let me Tess? “ she still didn’t really now what to say. And it was starting to piss her off. She always knew what to say. She always knew what to do. But not with you.

You pushed lightly at her shoulder, urging her to lay on her back. And to her own surprise she found herself doing it, head falling against the pillow and your face re appearing above hers. That alone felt a little wrong. She never let anyone on top. Ever. Never sacrificed that power to anyone.

“ after all you’ve done for me “ you whispered against her lips, nudging your nose to hers “ you deserve something in return. Let me make you feel as good as you made me feel “ she could feel small tendrils of panic starting to wind their way up into her chest, twisting around her ribs and tightening. So she took back some control, hand slipping to the back of your neck and pulling you down to kiss her as hard as she could manage.

She knew you weren’t about to do anything bad. But it was simply the act of letting someone have her so vulnerable to them. It terrified her.

“ trust me “ you whispered in between kisses “ you trust me don’t you? “

“ yeah “ she surprised herself with how quickly she said it, how unbelievably certain she was of the fact. That she did trust you. In the weeks since you’d woken up she’d grown to trust you as much as she’d trust Joel. Maybe she was stupid for that.

She took a sharp intake of breath as your hand pushed past her underwear, fingers dipping into the wetness between her folds and softly circling her clit.

“ see, you’re wet. Pretty proud of myself for that “ you were trying to lighten the mood and it helped a little. A small smile trying to creep its way onto her face.

She was used to her own fingers and only her fingers. But yours were something else. Those soft gentle hands that she had felt looked so out of place in an apocalypse, felt like velvet. You watched her face intently and she almost felt embarrassed, it was odd for her. To be so exposed and so closely observed.

You slipped your fingers inside of her with ease, her eyes falling closed as she attempted to steady her breathing from the intrusion. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let someone do that, she’d forgotten how it felt. It was nothing like how it felt to do it herself.

You were reaching places she never could, breathy sounds escaping her even when she tried to stop them.

“ I wish you could see what you looked like right now “ your voice was almost awe filled, like you were simply amazed the sight of her. Maybe you were

“ shut up “ she said, breathless, pulling you down to kiss her again in some attempt to change the subject. Not wanting the attention on herself, sinking her teeth into your bottom lip to make you whimper into her mouth again.

She figured she’d be done just as fast as you had been, especially when you seemed to know exactly where to touch. You hit some place devastating, the tight knot in her belly growing and growing

“ fuck. Stay right fuckin there “ she gasped, fingers gripping your wrist as you did as she’d asked. Focussing on the same spot over and over again. She kept her eyes on you. Kneeling over her, in her shirt, the sight alone was enough to finish her off.

She pulled you down to her mouth again, scared she’d do something embarrassing like make noise, kissing you as she came on your fingers. Holding you firmly in place as her walls convulsed around you and her body rushed with heat, every muscle tensing before going limp and leaving her feeling like a rag doll.

She was breathless as she let you go, her skin on fire and prickling with heat.

“ well fuck me “ she mumbled. Throwing an arm over her eyes for a moment and to her surprise, laughing. You giggled beside her laying down and slinging a leg over hers, both your skins slippery with sweat. But she didn’t care.

“ I just did didn’t I? “ you said in the most innocent tone, simply making her laugh again. You both settled into a comfortable silence then, lazily kissing until you dropped your head.

As you both lay there, your head resting on her chest and hand over her heart, she almost wanted to cry. Which was fucking stupid. She didn’t cry. That wasn’t her.

“ you know you’re still gonna have to leave “ she whispered “ it’s not safe for you to stay here “ she felt your breathing stutter slightly and she knew you were crying. But she didn’t mention it. Didn’t want to embarrass you or risk making herself cry too by acknowledging it “ you know you still have to go “You gave a small nod. You knew. You knew this was always going to be the outcome, both of you did.

“ yeah. I know “ she was silent for a few minutes before gently pushing at your body, urging you to turn on your side. She pressed herself against your back, her arms sliding gently over your waist and her nose nudging lightly at the back of your neck.

“ couple more hours “ she whispered against your skin “ couple more hours. Then I’ll take you to the wall… couple more “ you rested your hand over hers and nodded again, tears welling in her eyes as you did. She refused to let them fall. She wasn’t that pathetic.

“ couple more hours “ you echoed softly, voice barely above a whisper in some attempt to hide the evident crack in your tone as you seemingly failed at keeping the tears in “ just a couple more “

#this took ridiculousy long to transfer but here you go #tess servopoulos x reader #tess servopoulos #tess tlou #the last of us #tlou #the last of us fanfic #x you #smut #fluff #Anna torv #other characters for exposure:#Joel miller #Ellie Williams #Tommy miller

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iidylllic · 7 months

Text

Restraint 🖤

Dark!Pantalone x reader | 1.8k words

Summary: You hold one part of yourself close- the ability to restrain your desires.

Reader specifics: GN, doll analogy used

Character specifics: If you’re reading when he’s released in game, he’s probably OOC, no nationality specified

Tags: DARK, non consensual relationship, blurred lines and unstable relationship, “colleagues” lines blurred, eula voiceline lore used, no smut

Notes: I think this is a little abstract

I am 18+ have read the above, and consent to seeing this content [yes ⬇️] [no ↩️]

You never wanted to get involved with the Fatui.

Hardly anyone does. Growing up around them, you’ve seen a blurred slideshow of changing faces- the ones coming back from their duty to the Tsaritsa, swapped out with the ones embarking. The lack of continuity shaped your young mind with a dream of stability. You wished for a reality shaped by consistency, where nobody was desperate for money or improvement of their rank.

That’s how you ended up with Pantalone.

He doesn’t give you his real name. Not yet, so he says. The level of secrecy is surfeit for someone who has nobody to tell it to.

And you see him every day. You devote your full attention to him. You’re a secretary, turned personal assistant, turned…

You can’t bring yourself to address it.

Initially, you had believed that secretarial work would be the no-strings-attached experience you needed. Take the money, go to Liyue, carry all your records and papers to avoid accusations of being a spy (apparently nothing gets past the Tianquan anyway) and settle down for a stable life.

If you left now, you wouldn’t choose Liyue anymore. Too many connections to the market.

“Ah, darling-“

You snap out of your haze. He’s stretching himself backwards on his seat, looking up towards the ceiling. Quickly and lightly, you get on your feet and walk over to him, going to his back so you can massage your fingertips into his shoulders.

“Mm…”

You press a little harder. He lets out a long sigh through his nose. A mild wave of nausea rolls over your body.

“You looked lost in thought there.” He says plainly. Across your time with Pantalone, you’ve learned that most of his statements are demands, and many of his questions are rhetorical. In your responses, you know better than to be vague.

“I was thinking of places I would like to visit one day.”

Not exactly a lie.

“Is that so?”

You nod even though he can’t see it. He brings his hand up and gently motions to the side, indicating for you to move out of the way.

“Try not to stall so much during work. We’ll always have plenty of time for discussion once it’s over.”

You hadn’t planned on discussing it, but Pantalone automatically assumes himself to be privy to your thoughts. It’s amusing how intensely professional he remains, given that he had offered that you stop formally working for him the month before, and become something of a “companion”. You had refused, because who would possibly accept a role so vague and unsettling? He had only chuckled, leading you to believe he wasn’t all that serious, but ever since that day he’s been very… rigorous … on the clock. It could be read as a display of passive-aggressiveness.

He stands up. You dread the moment he’ll lay his eyes on you. The papers you were working on sit at your own desk in neat piles, nearing completion. He wouldn’t be angry. He never is- or at least, never shows it. There’s more work than normal recently. But there’s still a fear that sits in your gut, constricting around your organs, a fast beating heart and shallow lungs.

But having some extra work to do isn’t a bother, especially if you can complete it after dinner-

“Finish that up for me, dear. I don’t want you preoccupied when we come back home.”

“Of course.”

You don’t miss the way his eyes glance to the side in restrained disappointment. He hates being called “Lord Harbinger” by you. And he’s stopped you from calling him “sir”. You believe he expects you to return with an affectionate nickname of sorts, to meet his constant “darling”s and “dear”s but so far you’ve been unable to muster one up.

Pantalone leaves you to the rest of your work, returning a few minutes later with your coat and boots. After sorting the last of the papers, you start putting your boots on, becoming startled when you stand up to see Pantalone ready to help you into your coat. He hums as you put each arm through its respective sleeve, and your hands race to do up your buttons lest he intervene before you. There’s a moment after you retrieve your gloves from the pockets where you look up at him, and he sweeps a hand across your cheek under the guise of tucking back hair. In his eyes there’s a sickening sense of admiration, like a child lovingly gazing at a porcelain doll.

You are his doll, you suppose. His toy sounds depraved, but it would be equally true. Dressed up and taken everywhere, introduced to strangers like a show-and-tell, cradled in his arms as he sleeps, a fragile substitute for a love he never once received. You watch with glassy eyes as he touches you with reckless abandon, your eyelids shut dully when you lay down with him, and when the string is pulled on your back, you tell him how wonderful he is. You commend his success and offer him reassurance you doubt he needs. Despite this, you are defective. He has never once managed to hear you squeak out an “I love you” from your battered voice-box. He treats you with a certainty that it is there, that it will manifest into reality if he simply persists. In this respect, you and his monetary treasures are similar.

-❤️-

Another dinner passes with him across the table from you. He’s started taking you out at least once a week, and you’re unsure if these count as dates. You would rather just believe he’s attempting to show you his wealth with his choices of restaurants.

Returning home brings him to his favourite part of the day. Time for recreation is a luxury in Snezhnaya, and though Pantalone can certainly afford it, he restricts himself (and simultaneously you) from indulging in it too much.

You don’t think you can run off to your own room like you used to do when work was finished. What you would give to fall asleep on the unused bed, to stretch out on the fresh sheets. The room is dull and grey, but it’s your own space, a guarantee of privacy. It’s a place you hardly ever visit, swapped in favour of the red and gold of Pantalone’s bedroom. The extravagance of his tastes has always left you uneasy.

Trying to stall making contact with him for as long as possible, you sit yourself on one of the armchairs and idly fiddle with a book from the table beside it. This doesn’t last long.

“Don’t be like that,” He chuckles, playing off your antics as a joke. “What’s wrong with sitting beside me?”

You reposition yourself next to him on the sofa, trying not to look like you’re clinging to the edge of it.

He doesn’t slide along, but his body tilts towards you. Magnetic attraction. Drawing him in.

Your mouth is dry and your fingers are trembling along a tattered page. The wine from the restaurant, offered but never received, is a faraway dream. He’s all too eager to buy your affections, and probably would’ve gotten the entire bottle for you if you’d hinted at trying a glass. Maybe every single bottle in the restaurant. But when it comes to intoxication, you restrain. To loosen up could be a great relief… or a fatal error. He has another glass of it in his hands, white wine, almost golden, and you could just as easily ask- but you never want to put yourself in a position of debt to him. He sees you glancing at it, and catches your eye in a way that captivates you. His eyebrow raises slightly before he begins speaking.

“You should get more comfortable asking for things from me.” His voice slices through the thick air, as if reading your mind.

You don’t know what to say. Instead, you just look at him, with eyes glassed over and motionless. Frozen. Silent rabbit in the mouth of a wolf. Fearing the crush. If you linger long enough, he fills the silence himself. Whether he realises it or not, he has the initiative of a desperate man. Unable to rest without getting in his words, his say, his influence.

“I’m not forcing you to, but I think we’ve grown rather close-“

You’ve grown rather close to me.

“- and it’s a dreadful sight to see you restrain yourself with the world at your fingertips.”

You swallow. It’s in this moment that you realise he’s still too prideful to simply invite you into a relationship with him. Instead, he’s coerced- no, swindled- you into a kind of pseudo-domesticity. You realise that after this, you’ll go and sleep in the same bed as him, and he will guard you and guide you like one of his investments, not stopping until he’s guaranteed returns. This is a dead end.

“Maybe it’s just my tastes.” You say sedately. A masterful facade borne of a childhood where you could never show fear.

“Mm…”

His eyes are transfixed on his wine, which he swirls lazily.

“When I was… not as financially successful, I used to refuse to drink anything except water. You couldn’t have convinced me to steal leftover tea leaves because I refused to get accustomed to the taste.”

When he glances up at you, his gaze seems to melt you down like frigid ice to malleable water. You nod.

“When I grew wealthier, I still drank water and chose to forgo other drinks. I had my tea weak and tasteless in business meetings, I refused coffee- I claimed it gave me headaches- and I restrained from alcohol. It wasn’t until an associate of mine insisted I try some of Mondstadt’s dandelion wine that I ever indulged in a full glass. They held an entire ceremony for the wine- they pour it into silver goblets, did you know?”

You shook your head. Fascinating. Distracting. Your tongue feels like sandpaper on the roof of your mouth.

“I didn’t know either at the time. And I thought that it seemed uselessly extravagant. They pour it out into the goblets, they let it sit, and then serve it with ice. But the taste was… incredible, unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. I finally looked around me, and darling, I observed that I was in a position to ask for anything I wanted, and get it,”

He raises the wine glass a little, not to his own lips, but outwards. Then towards you, until it hovers beneath your face and the sweet smell is almost enough to taste.

“But know that even from when I was young, I understood that ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ And perhaps others believe the opposite, that remaining distant and unobtrusive brings them the best in life,”

You grasp the wine glass gently in your hand, and his own retracts.

“Which frankly, I’ve never understood.”

You stare down into the glass. It feels like staring into an abyss. The golden hue shines like mora. Your breath hitches, and you finally squeeze out a high-strung, “May I?”

Pantalone nods, smiling gently with the eyes of a predator.

It’s bittersweet and reminiscent of a freedom you may never know.

#pantalone x reader #yandere pantalone #genshin impact x reader #fatui x reader #yandere pantalone x reader

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eisforeidolon · 6 months

Text

In regards to that post [X]:

We could talk about the same old fallacies - OMG, Dean's siren is a guy! Yeah, a brother. OMG, Dean was supposed to say I love you in the Crypt scene! Yeah, it was removed and replaced with what the writer explicitly said was the less OOC version of what he meant anyway, "We're family". We could talk about the blatant absurdity of statements like "Dean liked men it happened on my screen" which bear no resemblance to the SPN that aired. But we've done that before and others have got this reiteration of it well covered.

So I wanna focus for the moment on this particular even more repulsive gem: "Like he literally doesn't need to verbally tell us he's bisexual we just know. He may not know but we do. This is an unmovable fact sorry."

It tells us a few things. One, this person is a fucking idiot. Two, this person, yet again, thinks that ~*interpreting*~ sexuality from the way someone looks/stands/makes eye contact/eats pastry/whatever numbnuts conspiracy bullshit you like? Is more valid than how a character identifies and is identified by those who created him. People can just look at you and know what your sexuality is better than you do, there's nothing repulsive about that idea at all! I've got a mountain of shiny pennies that says if Dean had literally never interacted with a man for the entire span of the series, they would have insisted it was because he was so afraid of how much he wanted to fuck them. There was no way the writers could have written Dean that someone like that would have accepted as actually heterosexual, because that's not what they personally wanted, so that's not what they were going to see.

I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how relatively questionable some of the gay jokes in SPN are, especially in the early years in terms of making queerness a punchline. But if we're going to talk about that? We need to do it not only in the cultural context of 2005 rather than 2023, but in the context of portrayals of real world men - and particularly those in fairly rural settings who aren't going to be particularly conscientious in the way they rib each other. Which becomes a whole other discussion about where to draw lines when you're writing fiction and dealing with things that might be realistic but also potentially offensive.

Furthermore, I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how SPN continually used romantic tropes for platonic relationships and how it's not entirely absurd for that to land different with the audience when the characters are not blood-related. Except that discussion needs to include not just how maybe the writers shouldn't have treated it as such a joke that a relationship between two male characters might have been possible, but also how fans should absolutely not have equated a relationship being theoretically possible with any specific relationship they wanted being owed to them. Especially in the context of those romantic tropes being used so so so much more between brothers all the fucking time setting the tone. As well as how it's not just problematic to treat the possibility of homosexual relationships as a joke, but problematic to insist literally any closeness between two male entities is gay, reinforcing all kinds of nasty toxic stereotypes about sexuality and masculinity which underlay a lot of modern adult men's issues with expressing their emotions and having genuinely close and open relationships outside of their romantic partners. I've seen fans wonder how heterosexual dudes can watch this show and love the brothers' relationship without seemingly noticing the weird undertones of how claustrophobically intertwined they are, and I think it's very much that when it comes to wanting a fantasy of platonic closeness, they're looking for realism as much as most women reading trashy romance novels are - but that's a whole other digression and this is already too long.

At the end of the day, not only was SPN not created in the cultural context of Very Online Tumbrites in 2023, convinced that nothing should ever be is heterosexual and every fictional story should be about them and what they want? The fact their ostensible original point misses is the real world and most other media of 2023 aren't like that either! Some of these shippers come across like they've literally never seen two adult male friends interact with each other or any actual love stories in media - and it's not just early 2000's television characters getting this treatment from entitled shippers who want to use representation as a weapon against creators as to why they're owed things they absolutely aren't.

#destihellers #faux social justice #long post #Dean *exists* = OMG SO BI!

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yveltalreal · 8 months

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OOC POST. ABOUT TARAKA AND CURRENT COMMUNITY DRAMA

im gonna be real im so fucking glad that like shit about taraka has finally been brought up because i, among others, had to deal with his bullshit and inability to learn from his mistakes or understand consequences for months.

from not understanding basic rp etiquette, to repeatedly harassing and guilt tripping people about plots he did not like but was not involved in at all, many people were made uncomfortable by him, and several people outright set boundries while telling taraka that he had made them uncomfortable. taraka would regularly guilt trip us as well by threatening to leave the server whenever we pointed these things out, and when we pointed out it was guilt trippy, he would say he was simply expressing his feelings.

THAT IS NOT EXPRESSING YOUR FEELINGS. THAT IS A THREAT.

obviously i'm not going to say i am an unbiased person. i am incredibly biased because i had to deal with taraka from around mid to late febuary all the way to mid july, and have only just now been able to rant about and discuss the quite frankly childish behavour taraka demonstrated for that entire period of time. but i will say that i am among SEVERAL who have made their issues with taraka clear to me and discussed his behaviour at length on discord.

there is a lot of screenshots i wish to send, but as several people are not online for me to ask their permission, as well as the fact i sure as hell am not asking taraka for permission for any of these, i will refrain from sending most of them. a screenshot from me setting a boundary (which admittidly, taraka regularly brought up in a manner that felt guilt trippy and seemed to regularly try and get just close enough to crossing without actually doing so) was already shared with my permission in the reblog thread anyways.

i have a lot more i could share, but without my ability to share screenshots at this time, i am refraining to. i don't want to throw around accusations that while i know are true, and have many friends who can back me up, i don't have photo evidence of.

in the end though, i, as well as many others, were often made incredibly uncomfortable about taraka and to see he has not been able to learn from his mistakes even after being removed from a discord server and spoken to by both mods and players about it is saddening. taraka is an adult. many people involved are minors, myself included, and the fact that we've had to be the bigger person is upsetting.

#ooc post #pkmn irl #pokeblr #community drama #i need to share this sorry

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almightygremlinblob · 9 months

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Listen...I just like the idea of a dysfunctional family dynamic between them, ok?! Platonic ficlet (in which Legato and Zazie discuss the bible) under the cut!

CW: One mention of dismemberment. Overall tho, just sibling fluff between Zazie and Legato (and him being secretly soft with Zazie if you squint). My only knowledge of both of them is Tristamp (I have yet to watch 98 and I'm downright TERRIFIED to read Trimax), so this may be a little OOC

Word Count: 592

"You've been staring at that thing for ten minutes now."

"Leave, Beast."

"What's so special about it, anyway?"

"I'm. Reading."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Nails almost, almost dare to rake against the book he's holding. Legato takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself from becoming lightheaded because of how annoyed he is; his shoulders relaxing but his hands still visibly tense around his Bible. He sends a death glare to the dark-skinned child at his side, and it has absolutely no effect on them whatsoever.

Though their face is obstructed by that beetle-like insect, another part of them, no doubt, he can practically see the smirk on Zazie's lips - happy to annoy one of their favorite humans. They tilt their head at him. Annoying...

"Well?" He hears the faint buzzing of flitting wings. "You didn't answer me."

Legato lets out a long sigh.

"This book details the stories of the first humans and their...leader, so to speak, throughout different eras in their early history. Before we left Earth to look for a different planet to destroy...and because of that, it's also a devotional. One that I must read daily." Zazie puts their face close to the pages, observing the letters and then following Legato's slim fingers as he runs them through an illustration in the book; pointing to different parts of it as he explains to the smaller one, who was seated at the side of the big armchair he was in. "It tells of monsters and false gods. Of our creator, and his sinful, immoral creations...humans. And of their punishments for being so abhorrent."

"You were created like this? How interesting..." The Beast hums. "What kind of madman would create creatures as flawed as you and then punish them for being so?"

"That's..." 'That's a good point, I'm not actually sure.' Is what goes completely unsaid and, instead, Legato lets out an annoyed groan to mask the fact that he has no answer to that. "It's beyond us why we were created this way. So weak and feeble, too..."

"Ah, that's right..." Zazie leans back. "You Humans don't have generational memory, no? These things are how you pass down knowledge."

"That's correct, yes."

"But..." The Beast's body language is showing genuine curiosity, now. "Except for you, I don't seem to see many of you with very good memory..."

"Yes...humans are generally less capable than a lot of animals." Legato's eyes widen slightly, and he realizes where the conversation is going. Zazie tilts their head.

"How can you be sure this is history if you have no way of directly preserving the knowledge?"

"That's..."

Zazie pauses for a moment, before poking him in the cheek. "Do you actually read this as a devotional?"

"Enough!" Legato bats their hand away. "It's none of your concern why I read this!"

"What's actually in this book, Legato?"

"I-I already told you!" Legato grits his teeth, trying to keep the book away from the monster child - who flits about the armchair, hands reaching out to take it from him. Though it's of little use, Zazie eventually grabs hold of the book and flips about it - seeing strange illustrations of people burning or being dismembered; not at all looking surprised. "...Oh. That's why."

Legato grabs the book from the smaller one. "Enough! Just let me read while I ca-"

The door to the room opens, and Elendira huffs as she walks into the room, scowling at the both of them. "Beast. Bluesummers. Quit your squabbling! It's time for us to move."

Zazie snickers as Legato slams the book shut.

If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee!

#trigun 2023 #trigun stampede #trigun fanart #trigun #vash my beloved #legato bluesummers #legato trigun #zazie trigun #zazie the beast #my writing #my art

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slutterhaus · 11 months

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.growth

AN: Started this during lunch and finished it now before bed so it might be rushed lmao just wanted to write something kinda sweet with and older Adam. Ngl I’m extremely rusty and sick (also very tired lmao) so this may be clunky to read. Anyways, go show @you-and-him some love. CWs: None. However, a small talk about toxic relationships does happen. Also mentions of dropkicking someone lmao. Other: Fluff, Second Person POV, AFAB!Reader, Female pronouns are used. Not proofread. Probs ooc Adam. Under read more because it's around 1k words.

Adam peacefully washed the dishes while he listened to you help your daughter with some homework. Both of you chatted about random things every once in a while when you needed a break, and even though he wasn’t really paying attention, the background noise gave him a sense of calm that brought a smile to his face. Life with you had been everything he could’ve dreamed of and more. Hell, he never would’ve imagined something like this before he met you, before going through everything. Sometimes he wondered what good he had done to deserve such a loving and happy life after everything he put you through.

And while it was all in the past, some guilt lingered whenever he was too caught up in his own thoughts.

It wasn’t until he heard you let out a chuckle that he turned around, watching your daughter pout and puff out her cheeks when it was time to get back to work. He knew that face, the look of dread when she had to write for English class. Neither of you knew why she hated it so much considering she enjoyed reading just as much as the two of you did, though he couldn’t help but wonder if she was just growing up to be too critical of herself.

You both gave her a sympathetic look, and Adam was quick to turn back around to fetch her favorite snack from the fridge, along with some canned green tea with ginseng and honey for you while you tried to reassure her doubt.

That was going to be a topic both of you would have to discuss later seeing as she was eleven and too young to be worrying about anything other than being a kid. For now, however, Adam slid into the seat next to you at the dining table, where you playfully bumped shoulders with him and giggled. He smiled sheepishly, a soft blush dusting his cheeks even after all the years together. “What’dya have to write about, kiddo?” He asked.

“Free topic. But I dunno what to write about.” She sighed. “I’m not good at coming up with things.”

Both you and Adam took an instinctive glance at one another before you spoke up. “You can't rush or force yourself to make something. School doesn’t determine how creative you can be when you got six more classes cramming stuff into your free time.” You genuinely tried to make her feel better, but the look on your face let Adam know you needed some reassurance yourself when it came to your parenting skills. He brought an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to squish your sides together and give you a big smooch on your temple. “Your mother’s right, you know.”

For a moment, your daughter was silent, staring at the two of you with a focused look. Both of you could see she was thinking deeply about something, almost as if she was embarrassed to ask. “How… did you and dad meet?”

Adam tensed at the question, and you choked on your drink. How were you going to explain that to your kid? How would that conversation even go with anyone?

So, you cleared your throat and tried your best. “Well… Dad didn’t like me too much when we first met.” You started and Adam seemed to feel a cold sweat coming on, only relaxing a bit when your hand gently placed itself over his. Your daughter gave you a look that blatantly expressed how much she did not believe that. “With how mushy you two are? Doubt it. Dad follows you around like a puppy.”

“Hey…!”

She wasn’t wrong, but it was a bit embarrassing to hear from his own kid.

“It’s true. People grow and change over time depending on who you surround yourself with. Some people aren’t good for you, no matter how much you love them, because they don’t want to change, and there’s nothing wrong with taking care of yourself by distancing from them.” You began, squeezing Adam’s hand to reassure him you didn’t say it because of him. “And sometimes they break whatever chains held them back from changing. You never know what someone’s been through growing up, so always be kind while sticking up for yourself and for others.”

Nobody had given either of you a parenting manual, but a small smile came to Adam’s lips as he looked at your daughter. She was quiet, taking what you told her and processing it. “Besides, mama would dropkick anyone who touches you.” You added, trying to give the conversation a lighthearted touch. “And dad’s going to bail mama outta jail.”

The table was silent for a moment before the three of you broke into a round of laughter. Adam reached over and ruffled the head of brown hair that wasn’t unlike his own when he was younger. Granted, he had forgotten how it looked on him long ago with how he still rocked his purple mop into his 40s, but it was healing to him in a way. Your daughter only grinned, surprising the two of you when she picked up her pencil and quickly started writing on the composition paper in front of her.

Adam could faintly make sense of the title from his seat, tilting his head slightly to angle and accommodate his gaze to the upside-down writing. However, as he followed the sentences, he pulled you close once more and rested his head on top of yours while you rested on his shoulder.

'My parents love each other very much, and they love me very much. They’re embarrassing and dorky sometimes, but they mean well. When I grow up, I hope I have friends that I love and protect just like they do each other…'

As she scribbled away, Adam got up and stretched, but not before giving the both of you a quick peck on top of the head. “You two finish up, I’ll get started on dinner.” He began. “And I’m not dorky, your old man’s still a rockstar.”

“Uh huh.”

With a snort, you got up and wrapped your arms around him, humming contently. “And the light of my life~”

Adam groaned in embarrassment at your addition, his face heating up as he dragged you with him toward the fridge to grab some ingredients.

He really wouldn’t have his life any other way.

#—mobile upload #—you and him #—Adam James Gaudin #—Adam x Reader #—Sweet like Candy #—my writing

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pochapal · 1 year

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Umineko Liveblog: Thoughts/Theories [Episode 1 Chapter 10 Edition]

Today in Umineko: people died. Six of them, in a horrible nightmarish way. In between the horror and the terror we also get a lot of set-up and clues for the mystery of “who what how and why” as well as a bunch more delicious thematic meat to chew on.

So, this writeup will discuss the following: What Is Up With The Narration (part 34204: this time I promise I actually have something substantial to say), Natsuhi’s position in telling us how hard it is to be the person you want to be, Kinzo in his shifty little study with his shifty little ooc moment, how all these occult symbols may tie into Rokkenjima’s deeper sin, how Eva and Hideyoshi cannot stop being sus for three seconds, a multi-part analysis/speculation on the first twilight, and a shot in the dark at who’ll be next on the chopping block.

Get comfortable. This will be a big one.

In accordance with my newly-emergent liveblog tradition, let’s think about the narrative again. This time, rather than going on about minute POV shifts and whether or not there’s some deep secret in a single pronoun, I want to talk specifically about who gets to witness which events.

Throughout Umineko, events have been fairly neatly squared into one of two broad categories: things Battler witnesses and things Battler doesn’t witness. Even though I know my methodology keeps being wrong, I am pretty confident that there is some form of narrative discrepancy between Battler moments and non-Battler moments. Be it a shift in POV, a metanarrative narrator, or something, I think that this distinction between the two exists for a purpose. After all, a close first person POV where we don’t leave Battler’s head would be a perfectly serviceable way to tell a mystery VN. We could have gone through all of Umineko only seeing things through Battler’s eyes, but we don’t.

Why is that?

I think until now, I’ve struggled majorly with the “why”, in that it’s been hard to figure out what showing events outside of Battler has to do with the reader accessing the mystery. It could be easy to say that stuff shown through Battler is trustworthy, and stuff not shown through Battler isn’t, but you immediately get contradicted by the fact that events that happen away from Battler get consolidated by his POV without contradiction (the siblings are arguing over the gold, Rosa storms out of the mansion in an emotionally fraught way consistent with what we saw of her during the inheritance fight), so what we are seeing there is obviously truth. But that loops back again to the same question: if both narrative voices are correct in what they are presenting us in the same way, why have the distinction at all? The confirmation of how things went down is nice, but most of it could be very easily inferred through Battler’s viewpoint anyway. And yet. The distinction.

So I had to ask myself “what is it that we can only get through an outside perspective that is impossible to obtain through Battler’s?” and I thought about this question through the lens of the Detective/Romantic dichotomy I’ve been using to interpret the story. And I reached a conclusion that, given the key examples we’ve seen, I think has a good shot of being right.

The third-person POV exists to convey to us the reader the emotional truth, the Romantic’s Truth, while Battler’s POV exists to convey to us the reader the logical truth, the Detective’s Truth.

To convey this, I’ll refer to two scenes that concern themselves with a similar core thesis, and their radical difference in presentation: the scene between Rosa and Maria in the garden, and Natsuhi’s “I am Natsuhi but I am not Ushiromiya Natsuhi” internal monologue. Both of these scenes serve to show the long lasting harm that the cycle of abuse within the Ushiromiya household has inflicted on these women, and the way it’s shaped them into presenting a contradictory conflicted psychology. Natsuhi is uptight and proud and represents the Ushiromiya ideal better than anyone else on Rokkenjima, but is incapable of believing it herself. Rosa is cruel and merciless to Maria because she is tormented in equal parts by the memories of her own abuse and trauma and a pre-emptive fear that Maria is inviting that same tragedy by being herself. Both women are shaped into having contradictory impulses by the years of hardship and torment inflicted upon them by the systems that govern the Ushiromiya family. Both scenes present us with an opportunity to examine the nuances of who they are, however, both scenes are not equal in their presentation.

Rosa’s conflict with Maria occurs within eyeshot of Battler, while Natsuhi’s moment occurs away from the prying eyes of anyone save for the narrative itself. What this means for us is that we get the Natsuhi/Ushiromiya Natsuhi internal dilemma told to us without issue, granting us immediate access to a deeper more sympathetic consideration of Natsuhi as a character, but with Rosa, for the bulk of the scene all we get is Battler’s shock and disgust at what he sees, and outside of a brief flash into Rosa’s mind once Battler departs (where it is discussed how Rosa leaves the garden not because she doesn’t care about Maria but because she doesn’t trust herself not to start beating Maria again), all we have to work off are physical actions and context clues to access that same character depth. As such, Rosa in her pivotal scene becomes a much harder character to understand/access without the reader having to do a lot of detective work to piece together what is up with her, unlike Natsuhi whose heart is bared to us in a fairly uncomplicated manner.

With Rosa we get the factual truth of her abuse of Maria first and foremost, with Natsuhi we get the emotional truth of how the things she has suffered has put a barrier in the way of her accepting herself first and foremost. One narrative slice dedicated to the Detective’s Truth, one to the Romantic’s.

To go further, what I am trying to say is that, by this framework, scenes seen through Battler’s eyes are logically true, but emotionally obfuscated. And scenes not seen through Battler’s eyes are emotionally true, but logically obfuscated.

Outside of the above example of how a Detective/Romantic narrative colours our perception of individual characters, I’ll go deeper and examine how at key moments, Battler’s factual truth sheds itself for a more ambiguous, emotional truth even when there’s no need.

When coming to scenes with Battler, I think there’s a distinct emerging pattern of when he is seemingly kicked out of his own viewpoint, and the trustworthiness of information is thrown into question. In the first half of episode one, pretty much every one of these incidents occurs whenever the topic of the Golden Witch/magic is brought up.

When the cousins discuss the portrait of Beatrice for the first time, Battler’s perspective shifts outside of himself when Maria calls into question his belief in the Golden Witch. When the letter is read out after dinner and “Beatrice”’s challenge issued, we once again step outside of Battler. And then, in chapter ten, certain moments surrounding the discovery of the First Twilight massacre are not given to us through Battler’s eyes when they very easily could be.

In essence, it’s almost as if the witch narrative overpowers the Battler narrative whenever the two come into conflict. Logic cannot stand up in the face of Beatrice’s story permeating every inch of Rokkenjima, and all we are left with is a sense of feeling through which to navigate these scenes.

To use the letter scene as an example, during the reading of the letter we do not get a single thought/observation from Battler, and thus all we have are the words of him and the other characters, and our choice to take them at face value. At various other points in the story, the third person scenes have already proven themselves to be untrustworthy, via lies of omission at the very least (the hard facts of Shannon’s emotional state are not given to us in 1-9 in favour of an ambiguous sensation that only translates to a truth if you actively seek it out). So isn’t it just a little bit curious that when it comes to matters of the Golden Witch, we are blocked from the factual reality in favour of a harder to decipher emotional core?

Battler doesn’t question or doubt where it counts in the letter scene. What we are left with is instead a narrative voice that is interested in presenting the Golden Witch as a formidable and foreboding agent. There is no question as to whether or not the adults in the room will believe in the witch’s challenge. The narration doesn’t permit us anything but belief in Beatrice’s “existence”. This letter will be the catalyst that sets murder in motion. Why would anybody doubt that? Certainly not Battler, who very notably is not thinking in these scenes.

With hindsight, we know that the letter does directly lead on to the murders that occur overnight, but the how and why are hidden from us. The physicality of the scene is obfuscated. Key cues, like body language and gestures, are not given to us. The murder mystery narrative is thoroughly blocked. Nothing that isn’t in service to the notion that the Golden Witch is upon us is permitted.

A witch narrative which is, on a purely material level, almost demonstrably false. Going by Kinzo’s occult ramblings and the sinister interpretation of the epitaph, it makes it clear that Beatrice’s manifestation is the end point of the killings, not the inciting incident. But through the narration’s perspective, the unreal becomes real. The narrative creates the illusion of the real Beatrice, denying any textual room for doubt or debate. All we have to lean on is confusion, fear, and the gut feeling that this will end in bloodshed. Magic over mystery.

In chapter 10, there are two disruptions to Battler that I think are part of this pattern, and thus worth examining. The first concerns the discovery of the iron cross magic circle on the shed’s door and the ensuing response of the adults as they mobilise to discover the bodies. The second concerns what happens when we reach the emotional tipping point of seeing the aftermath of the slaughter of the six chosen by the key.

The iron cross is discovered by Kanon, Genji, Eva, and Hideyoshi as they look for the missing six people. Battler is not present for this, and thus its presentation is naturally told through the third person. This is unremarkable on its own. However, this needs to be considered with future events related to this initial moment.

The four of them open the shutter door and promptly discover the bodies. Then, Genji returns to the mansion to inform Nanjo and Natsuhi of the discovery. Battler is physically present to see this, but this chain of events is not narrated through his POV – that only returns once he actually lays eyes on the bodies himself. Whatever information is conveyed precisely in this instant is lost to us, beyond the emotional sense of mounting dread.

And then, for the third and final time, the magic circle is seen again once the cousins (and Kanon) have left the scene and the shed is locked up. The magic circle is only present when Battler isn’t. The facts of its existence are never validated through Battler’s own eyes.

If you consider that the Battler POV is concerned with the logical truth, and the non-Battler POV is concerned with the emotional truth, it then becomes curious that this magic circle, which you would assume to be a glaringly crucial piece of evidence worth scrutiny, is never examined in the way that the bodies are. The magic circle exists to scare us, not as a mystery to be solved. That is all that the story presents it to us as.

The magic circle, signifier of occult terror, is an aspect of the witch narrative. It is placed in such a way as to facilitate your belief in Beatrice’s “existence”. It is a Romantic object, in the sense that its significance is wholly immaterial. The feelings triumph over the facts. And thus it is antithetical to that which Battler narrates.

Battler doesn’t set eyes on the magic circle because him doing so would call into question the narrative mythology being built up around the First Twilight murders. If you think about the graffiti logically (someone had to have painted this; who had the means and opportunity to paint this; when would it have been painted; etc) it abruptly becomes a puzzle piece to solve, and its occult illusion is dispelled. For some reason, it is very important that Umineko persuades the reader as much as the characters that there is a powerful occult force at play, because why else spend so much time on an unsettling sight that Battler never even directly interacts with anyway?

In this way, the story is playing a game with the reader, trying to bait and persuade them into believing a magic/witch explanation for anything unusual. It already has an advantage in getting its way by leveraging the third person – traditionally seen as the more reliable narrative form – as the staging grounds for these symbols, relying on the reader to be too busy questioning/doubting Battler’s first person perspective – traditionally an obvious tell of an unreliable narrator – to notice that the manipulation is coming from both fronts.

As to why the narrative feels the need to convince us that Beatrice exists? I don’t have an answer yet. But I do think that this is one of the goals of this story, and is at least one reason for the way that the perspectives are split like they are. Of course, this does not preclude the fact that the inverse of both of the prior arguments can also be true – that there are unreliable elements to Battler’s narration just as sometimes the third person offers utmost clarity in some areas – but I think at the very least in moments like this, the story wants our perspective on the mystery to be obfuscated through omens of the Golden Witch, forcing us to ask which side of the story we trust more to be true, if either.

The second instance of this in 1-10 is much more evident, and much more baffling. The discovery of the bodies in the storehouse is shown to us through Battler’s eyes. We get his terrified, disoriented, despairing perspective as he is forced to confront the reality of the slaughter before his eyes. We get descriptions of strewn bodies, of mangled faces, of blood and flesh and gore. We see Battler pushed to the breaking point in the face of the sheer horror.

We don’t get a description of Shannon. By which I mean, we are treated to a description of her body, and extradiegetic confirmation of her deceased status by the character bio screen, but we don’t get it through Battler. Shannon, dead in the back of the room, is not seen by Battler.

Shannon’s body is found when George asks if one of the six dead is Shannon, and Hideyoshi confirms it to him. Hideyoshi and Kanon then confirm to George that Shannon is wearing the ring on her left hand. It is a very heartbreaking and a very wretched scene, perhaps the worst gut punch at the end of a long line of gut punches.

In essence, Shannon’s half-mutilated body bearing the engagement ring sits as the emotional core of the First Twilight. An emotional core told through an emotional truth. This final part of the body discovery is firmly presented through the lens of the Romantic’s truth. Battler never sees Shannon.

This means that the story decided for us that the emotional feelings of discovering Shannon’s body were to be prioritised over physical facts. Like the proposal scene in 1-8 overwhelming you with the romance/cringe of it all to distract you from paying attention to the deeper insights into Sayo’s character, Shannon’s body is such an overwhelmingly sad scene to get you to focus on the way you’re feeling and nothing else.

Which means that there’s potentially something to do with Shannon’s dead body that could unravel some kind of truth about this whole mystery that would be more evident under a calmer detached examination of the fundamental movements of the scene.

From the top of my head, one thing that becomes apparent and worth scrutiny is that Hideyoshi is immediately positioned as the gatekeeper of information concerning Shannon’s corpse. He controls who gets to look upon her and he is the one that definitively states that she is dead. This means that our reliance on what we know about what happened to Shannon entirely depends on how far we can trust Hideyoshi’s word. Hideyoshi as a character is defined by his inability to convincingly conceal an ulterior motive – several times in the buildup to the argument with Krauss he nearly lets slip his and Eva’s gambit and Eva has to step in to take control of the situation. However, almost giving up the truth still means he has a capacity for lying in the first place.

As to what he could be lying about and why, I can’t say. I have some ideas, but that’s something I’ll get into a little later on.

Drilling down beyond Hideyoshi, we have another fact about Shannon’s body to consider that is reliant on our emotional expectations to accept it as truth: the ring being on her finger. We of course are relayed this truth through the third person narration, via Hideyoshi’s words, and Kanon’s actions.

What’s interesting here is that Hideyoshi doesn’t automatically confirm that the ring is here. It’s not until Kanon points it out that he tells George that the ring is there. From a narrative and emotional perspective, Shannon finally deciding to wear the ring instants before her death increases the intensity of the emotional gut punch. That does not necessarily make it true.

So then, a few possibilities. The first is that the ring is in fact on Shannon’s finger, but it was put on her hand posthumously. I’m not sure how likely that is, considering that all in all it seems like an irrelevant gesture to perform. Would Shannon’s killer really care about broadcasting their victim’s heart to the world like that? Perhaps, but for that to be the case it limits the pool of people who could have killed Shannon pretty much to those who would know about the ring’s significance, which at most encompasses two other people, George and maybe Kanon, who would categorically never murder her.

The second possibility is that there never was a ring on Shannon’s finger; Kanon made it up and Hideyoshi went along with it to placate George. As to why that would happen, giving George that emotional truth bomb would satiate his last shred of curiosity and make him more likely to leave Shannon, and the other bodies, without much argument. Having third parties verify this information again controls who actually gets to examine the bodies in scrutinising detail (out of everyone, the cousins never really get to have a good look at the bodies, which is interesting) which may indicate that there is something up with the bodies that needs to be kept a secret. This would, of course, make Kanon and Hideyoshi look suspicious as all hell. For what it’s worth, I think they are both suspicious, so perhaps this theory holds weight.

The third possibility is that Shannon is wearing a ring, but it’s not the engagement ring. It is the headship ring that Kinzo tossed out of the window and was used by the person claiming to be Beatrice (most likely Kanon) in order to seal the letter. The assumption here would be that Kanon, upon finding the bodies, realised he had a prime opportunity to dispose of Kinzo’s ring in a way that wouldn’t raise suspicion – he knew George was likely to propose to Shannon, and would thus be aware that it wouldn’t be surprising for there to be a ring on Shannon’s finger. This would then potentially safeguard him against future suspicion if/when the rest of the family thinks to scrutinise who could have written the letter that kickstarted this whole chain of events in the first place. The stumbling blocks in this theory for me, however, are that it’s mostly just a very inconvenient way to do this? It’s a neat sleight of hand, sure, but Kanon could have equally just tossed the ring out somewhere outside the minute he was done with it. So, unlikely, but not impossible.

One final piece of dubiously true information we have to grapple with concerning Shannon is the actual status of her corpse. We are told that, like Krauss, Shannon has had half of her face torn off, in contrast with the rest of the corpses which sit totally faceless. I’ll get into my thoughts on the how/why of the mutilation later on and instead focus on the “what”.

We know through Battler that Krauss’s face is half-destroyed. We are never outright told that Shannon’s face is half destroyed, only that George asks if she’s “like uncle Krauss” and that Hideyoshi (and the character status screen) confirm that for us. What this means is that we don’t know for an absolute fact whether or not Shannon’s face is genuinely destroyed. We don’t even get dubious confirmation through the narrative, just through objectively unreliable character dialogue.

So, if we assume Shannon’s face to be half-destroyed, we must ask: why? With Krauss, it is very likely his half-mutilation was done either to send a message, or to indicate that he was killed in a different way to the other corpses. If we go with the first theory, then we need to consider if both Shannon and Krauss could be used to convey the same message by the killer. That also means that we need to have an inkling of what the message could be – the highest and the lowest ranked corpses both presented in the same way. Perhaps to convey the narrative that status does not protect you from Beatrice? There are things that Krauss could be used to convey a message for (his knowledge of the gold, his status as second-in-command and deputy abuser in chief) but very little that overlaps between both him and Shannon.

In that case, the second possibility seems more likely: that Shannon and Krauss were killed in the same way. This one is harder to prove, given that it relies on knowledge of what happened overnight that we simply do not have access to, but if it is true, it could offer us some insight on how the killings actually went down. If the other siblings and Gohda were all killed in one way, and Shannon and Krauss in another, this creation of two distinct sets of victims already throws a wrench into the seamless murder narrative. Perhaps Shannon and Krauss were killed in a different place/at a different time to the others, which then leads us to consider how/why that would be the case. For Krauss and Shannon to be in a separate location to the others indicates that Krauss at the very least left the other siblings alone momentarily, which leads us to ask why, and so on. If they were killed at a different time to the others, we then have to ask if they were killed before or after the other four. If it’s before, we have the similar questions of what led to Krauss and Shannon being distinctively grouped off. If it’s after, we then have to ask how did they both survive what the others did not.

I have theories here, but I’m saving that for when I give my full runthrough of what I think happened overnight.

But leaving that, we now have to consider the counter-possibility: Shannon’s face is not in fact half-destroyed like we’ve been led to assume. In that case, it is most likely either fully destroyed like everyone else, or it is actually completely in-tact. If it’s fully destroyed and we’re misled to believe it’s half-destroyed, then that serves as a useful tool to obfuscate any truths surrounding Krauss (since then he becomes the only conspicuous outlier in this whole situation) and makes the mystery more dense by forcing us to grapple with impossible circumstances. If Shannon’s body is actually not mutilated at all, then that opens up even more interesting possibilities – that the mutilation was not an essential part of the killing, that she was killed in a way that left a mostly untouched corpse, and/or that the person who did the mutilating chose not to mutilate Shannon for whatever reason. In the latter case, I think it does a better job of potentially narrowing down the involved parties in this whole affair, and illuminating what they may/may not have done.

And, I think, if you consider the commonalities between all these contradictory scenarios, a specific kind of pattern emerges. One that forms the strong basis for my “what happened in the first twilight” theory, and one that I will detail when the time is right.

But first, let’s continue down the pattern through contradiction path and think about something totally different: Ushiromiya Natsuhi and the dichotomy of self.

One prevalent theme common to almost all characters in Umineko is the dichotomy of self: each individual has essentially two contradictory forms of identity inside them, and they are defined by the tension inherent in trying to appease both halves. This is seen most evidently with the split between Shannon and Sayo, and more subtly with George’s businessman persona versus who he is around the other cousins. The most prevalent example for this chapter, and the one I will be discussing in this writeup, concerns Natsuhi.

Natsuhi has been almost entirely defined by her conflict between who she is and who she strives to be – in her own words, between being Natsuhi and being Ushiromiya Natsuhi. For Natsuhi, the effective manager of the Ushiromiya household, she spends her life striving for an ideal that has always been denied her. This is in spite of the fact that she is leaps and bounds a better individual than Krauss and Kinzo who sit above her hierarchically and who are the ones who systemically denied her status for so long and so cruelly.

On a purely factual level, Natsuhi more than qualifies as an effective and deserving member of the family: she exhibits a deep understanding of how the Ushiromiya family operates, manages the household’s affairs with an efficiency very few could attain, and is, all things considered, probably the best parent out of the bunch. But because the Ushiromiya identity is itself a twisted poison, Natsuhi is stung every time she tries to reach for it.

The better a person Natsuhi becomes, the further she feels she is from being Ushiromiya Natsuhi. Punished and abused beyond belief for something beyond her control, and held at spiteful metaphorical knifepoint by the other siblings, the Ushiromiya family makes sure it rejects her at every turn while equally berating her for not truly being one of them.

Eva dismisses Natsuhi from the argument about the gold for defending her husband’s honour because she does not have the right to bear the family crest and thus does not have the right to an opinion. Unsaid here is that even Kinzo’s personal “furniture” servants have the right to wear the wing – under this hateful system, Natsuhi is on some level regarded as even less than furniture.

And still, despite all this, due to the corrosive nature of the Ushiromiya hierarchy and the nature of her abuse, Natsuhi still believes her worth is reliant on external validation. The dichotomy of self becomes a staging ground for the alienation between the objective value of a person and that which a cruel outside world imposes on them. To refer to an earlier framework, the cruel Romantic’s truth without physical basis overrules the Detective’s truth of a person that speaks plainly of their value.

Natsuhi, so embroiled in this struggle, is powerless to believe in herself or her worth for the majority of the story at this point. Not even when she retires from the rest of the cast and has a moment of reflection and introspection can she break free from the conditioning.

The only thing that works, the only thing that allows Natsuhi to believe in the existence of Ushiromiya Natsuhi, is the approval from the Ushiromiya head patriarch himself. It is only when Kinzo explicitly tells her that she is more competent than Krauss and the other siblings by a solid mile and is therefore worthy of bearing the eagle on her heart if not her clothes, that she is able to undergo that shift in confidence. Beginning to end, Natsuhi’s worth is never defined by herself.

Although, even this moment of character transformation is troublingly complicated. Kinzo himself undergoes a bizarre shift in characterisation in this scene, seemingly warming up to Natsuhi in contradiction to the years of abuse he inflicted upon her for no clear or obvious reason. Mere hours ago, Natsuhi reflected on how Kinzo never really forgave her for not being able to conceive a child with Krauss for so long, only for him to pull a complete 180 after decades of torment and abuse.

Natsuhi rationalises this interaction as Kinzo finally recognising her worth and hard work as a member of the Ushiromiya family, and this bolsters her self-esteem enough that she can interact with Eva without getting riled up. Except, this is almost certainly not the reason behind Kinzo’s sudden and bizarre respect for her. It is likely that the reason why Kinzo even gives Natsuhi the time of day in the study is that she survived the First Twilight, despite almost certainly being chosen by the demon’s roulette to die. Kinzo, notorious cheater of the odds, must therefore begrudgingly acknowledge another who also managed to rig the roulette in their favour.

Of course, Natsuhi isn’t aware of this, so she is inspired by believing that Kinzo has finally changed his mind about her. What actually happens, then, is that Natsuhi herself decides that Kinzo respects her, and so she grants herself permission to be Ushiromiya Natsuhi via a proxy.

However, even if you boil down Kinzo’s reason for the sudden kindness, there is no acknowledgement of Ushiromiya Natsuhi, even through a layer of obfuscation and metaphor. Kinzo respects Natsuhi for having survived where she wasn’t meant to. Natsuhi survived the night due to her ownership of Maria’s protection charm, bestowed to her by Jessica after a mother-daughter heart to heart. She survived by genuinely reaching out as a mother with no spiteful ulterior motive – reaffirming her love for Jessica saved her.

Natsuhi managed to survive the night by not being Ushiromiya Natsuhi where it mattered most. She stepped out of the Ushiromiya constructs to bond with her daughter, and that sincere love rewarded her with survival. If she had been Ushiromiya Natsuhi, she would have remained embroiled in the argument over the gold, and would have almost certainly been discovered mutilated in the storehouse.

Ushiromiya Natsuhi is an identity to be avoided. And yet Natsuhi can only become happy by misinterpreting an already bizarre interaction to grant herself validation in that cursed identity. And so the contradiction goes on.

And all the while, the weirdness of Kinzo in the study goes unremarked upon.

Kinzo is steadfast in his presentation as the harsh, spiteful family patriarch. He has no time or patience for anyone on Rokkenjima who is not one of his personal furniture servants. All attempts to interact with him or to ask him to present himself at the family conference are met with vicious dismissive scorn. Natsuhi is no exception to this rule. She fails to convince Kinzo to show his face just as Krauss did.

However, unlike prior instances, Natsuhi is bafflingly spared the scorn and abuse. For no apparent reason, Kinzo’s whole personality shifts on a dime and he chooses to bestow on Natsuhi the respect she has been owed for years.

The question that needs asking is: why did Kinzo suddenly pull a personality 180? Ostensibly, the answer is that he finally recognised Natsuhi’s worth, but the logic behind that decision is opaque to us. And without evidence, it begins to ring hollow.

If you seek a more subtextually-approved reason for Kinzo’s bizarre shift in mannerisms during the scene in the study, the next most likely candidate for why is due to the fact that Natsuhi survived the night where she shouldn’t have. Every indication in the story points towards the fact that Natsuhi was initially chosen by the demon’s roulette as the sixth sacrifice (if the bloody mess outside her bedroom is any indication) and the rules that govern this sacrificial magic seem to indicate that any decision made by the whims of the roulette is final. Yet Natsuhi, in possession of a charm imbued with protective properties by a true believer in the Beatrice myth, survived.

There is another question that could be asked of these circumstances that concerns how the killer operates and how strictly they must adhere to the rules of Beatrice/magic (the killer could have easily killed Natsuhi anyway, but doing so would have disrupted the witch narrative fairly absolutely) but that is not strictly relevant to Kinzo’s mindframe. What matters is that under the witch narrative Natsuhi was supposed to die, so going by the logic that governs Kinzo, Natsuhi cheated the demon’s roulette and won.

This, of course, puts her on a much more even footing with him. Kinzo has spent countless days and weeks preparing himself to beat the odds and survive the whims of the demon’s roulette and the summoning ritual in order to be the person that bears witness to the resurrected Beatrice. Natsuhi, in comparison, is supposed to be a mundane person at the mercy of magic. The fact that she defied the roulette’s whims would, to Kinzo, be something deeply impressive. She succeeded where all of his children failed. Perhaps that is enough to engender a change of heart, presented to Natsuhi devoid of its true context.

However, there is a further complication to even this logic – this is not the first time Kinzo has undergone such a shift in attitude. Kinzo has often been described as mercurial with an erratic temperament by numerous members of the family, and his mood swings have been clearly documented through his “uoohhh Beatriceee” episodes. But more than that, there are additional instances where Kinzo’s personality shifts are so sharp that it’s as if he’s been replaced by “a different person”.

A few chapters prior, there is a moment where, with Genji, Kinzo suddenly becomes incredibly even-tempered and fond towards his oldest friend despite viciously lashing out/crying for Beatrice moments prior. The switch in outlook happens for no seemingly apparent reason, and even Genji remarks that it is as if a “different Kinzo” had taken over, like there are two people in one body.

The erratic, bitter Kinzo obsessed with the Golden Witch, and the kind, respectful Kinzo. Or, to put it another way, the Kinzo who lives for Beatrice, and the Kinzo that is exactly what the other person wants him to be.

For Genji, Kinzo turns sentimental and placid. For Natsuhi, he becomes the ideal patriarch doling out validation and respect. For both Genji and Natsuhi, their respective versions of Kinzo are precisely the versions of Kinzo they want and need the most. Wish-fulfilment versions of the Ushiromiya head.

Something weird is happening here, something that goes deeper than Umineko’s standard dichotomy of self stuff. Unlike every other person with two personas, Kinzo’s other side only ever emerges around people who specifically want/need a kinder Kinzo at that exact moment – Genji who has had to endure the decline of his friend/master, and Natsuhi who has had her self-worth torn to shreds over the course of the family conference. The second Kinzo does not reflect on Kinzo himself, but only on those who benefit from the other Kinzo’s existence.

Pulling a detective/romantic reading on the scene, and the emotional truth that underpins both scenes is that of exhausted people obtaining the validation from Kinzo that they so desperately need. Outside of any logistics, both Genji and Natsuhi interact with Kinzo who undergoes a personality shift, and he issues profound words that serve to bolster their mood and resolve.

This facet of Kinzo has nothing to do with Kinzo himself and everything to do with the people that need something from Kinzo. But unlike Sayo and her people-pleaser Shannon persona, there is no indication that Kinzo is consciously choosing to become this person, or that these versions of Kinzo even exist outside of the perspective of those who benefit.

Excluding these weird moments, every other part of Kinzo produces a consistent character: a super-wealthy abusive man who dabbles in occultism, likely as a by-product of a murky, fascist past. He is bitter and violent and obsessive and deeply selfish, the patriarch in his rotting ivory tower. You can plot a throughline from the young man who profiteered off of the war to the old man using occult magic rituals to murder his children with suspiciously European names in service of resurrecting the witch he lusts after whose gold is in his possession.

The kindly Kinzo who remarks fondly towards Genji, or the Kinzo who validates Natsuhi’s self-esteem, do not fit with the pattern in any way. They do not even fit in a mirror-self dichotomy way where this represents a buried side of Kinzo. It is, well and truly, as if he is a different person entirely in these moments.

It is narratively incongruent in a way I cannot fully wrap my head around. My first instinct is to consider how Kinzo is never seen through Battler’s eyes, and therefore these accounts of his behaviour could be filled with falsehoods, but even that doesn’t really help or explain why. The emotional truth dictates that these moments Genji and Natsuhi experience exist and did happen, and since there is no kinetic motion to these scenes there is no way or reason to disprove that – because nothing physically happens, it wouldn’t make sense for there to be scenes that are wholly irrelevant.

In short, I am sure that something is happening here, but as yet I am unsure as to what, and how that fits in with anything else. These Kinzo moments do not fit, and it is driving me a little crazy.

So instead of focusing on these slippery emotional beats, let’s consider some more physical extensions of Kinzo’s actions/philosophies: the occult symbols in use around Rokkenjima.

The first major symbol worth considering is the iron cross sigil painted on the storehouse door. Discovered by Eva, Hideyoshi, Kanon, and Genji while searching for the missing six, it is likely some kind of signifier or signpost for the location of the bodies. I’ve spoken before about how the primary purpose of this sigil is to authenticate the witch narrative – a dark magic summoning circle juxtaposed with half a dozen corpses makes it very easy to associate the two elements with each other.

However, I also want to consider an additional interpretation/purpose/meaning for the iron cross specifically being chosen to mark the location of the bodies. The iron cross as a symbol has two commonly-known potential meanings: one is that of a medieval Christian sect, and the other is. Well. A symbol of Nazi Germany on a par with other foul iconography such as the swastika and the imperial eagle.

As an aside, incredibly curious that the Ushiromiya crest is the one-winged eagle, a symbol which bears a passing resemblance to the black imperial eagle if it was vertically bisected and coloured gold. Not sure if this is intentional or me over-reading the fascist subtext, but if it’s deliberate, it fits neatly into the pattern.

What’s important here is that a great slaughter is marked with a sigil drenched in fascism – the iron cross dressed in occult wrappings speaks very keenly to a very specific ideology, one that fits too well when you consider Kinzo’s wartime profiteering, his obsession with the west, and his children with European names. There is a fascist rot at the heart of the Ushiromiya family, and the existence of the iron cross sigil speaks to the idea that somebody is aware of this, and they are calling it out.

Of course, this is a little complicated if you consider the fact that Battler never saw the sigil himself and thus the objectivity of the thing is brought into question, but even from a more Romantic lens, Eva, Hideyoshi, and the servants are confronted with a symbolic representation of the fascism which pervades so much of what it means to be an Ushiromiya – Eva is repulsed and immediately demands it be removed. Perhaps as a double-reach metaphor to how Eva is aware of how rotten this entire family is, and how she chooses again and again to turn a blind eye to this revelation in order to affirm her place in the hierarchy?

I think the case can be made that it speaks to the way that this ideological foulness is a kind of open secret among the family, where they’re all aware on some level that fascist alignment is very much disgusting, but the pressures to conform to the Ushiromiya ideals force them all to wilfully pick denial time and time again. That cognitively dissonant contradiction, another sort of psychological dichotomy, adds another layer to how the Ushiromiya adults operate. They are basically having to hardwire their brains to skip over ninety percent of what is before their eyes just to keep up the illusion that their family isn’t a cesspit of abuse and evil politics. Choosing denial is always easier than choosing change.

So then, the iron cross sigil becomes an open message, a challenge to the Ushiromiya family. It forces them to reckon with the naked truth of what they are and the legacy they inherit and perpetuate. The question then becomes: who would send this message, and why?

By wishing to confront the Ushiromiyas with the extreme end of what they stand for (fascism and murder), this clearly indicates that the person behind this is not an Ushiromiya themselves. Of the surviving Ushiromiya adults, neither Eva nor Natsuhi would ever deliberately toy with something that would threaten the foundation of their Ushiromiya pride. The cousins are likely too ignorant of these darker facts to utilise them (Maria is nine, Jessica and Battler wouldn’t be able to interfere with the crime scene of their dead parents, and George is, to be frank, too absorbed in the Ushiromiya ideological cool-aid to acknowledge such a truth even if he somehow knew about it). So this leaves one distinct group of people capable of producing this graffiti: the servants.

Two servants in particular stand out: the two who are best positioned to know the details of the Ushiromiya family’s bloody history, either out of experience or a desperate loathing. Genji and Kanon.

The likelihood of their involvement rises when you turn your attention to the other occult graffiti in this chapter: the “blood” stains around Natsuhi’s door. Again, if you assume their tangible existence to be unquestionable, the logistics of their discovery is that Natsuhi notices it after Genji wakes her to report that the phones are down and Gohda is missing.

Genji does not remark on the mess until Natsuhi points it out, and only then does he concede that he noticed it shortly before waking her. Either way, Genji waits until Natsuhi notices it before acknowledging it himself.

If you go back to the earlier frameworks of the witch narrative, the audience must convince themselves to some degree of the authenticity of the story before you can truly persuade them of its reality. If Genji comments on it before Natsuhi, he becomes suspicious and the graffiti becomes a whodunnit. If Natsuhi notices it first with shock and disgust, her initial fear and confusion rules the moment, and it is transformed into another piece of the emerging occult puzzle. The audience’s response dictates the story’s genre. Therefore, you must keep your reader receptive to the type of story you wish to tell.

And Genji, allowing Natsuhi to form her own initial opinions towards the graffiti, is greatly positioned to prime the conditions for a more authentic witch narrative.

And again, it is Genji, along with Kanon, who is there at the discovery of the iron cross sigil. A curious commonality. Both times, Genji silently stands by as a surviving Ushiromiya adult is forced to witness a disturbing and occult symbol, only speaking up once the seed of doubt has been planted.

If you consider the function of Beatrice in Umineko, then these incidents become stories, the Ushiromiyas the audience, and the servants the storytellers. The Beatrice narrative becomes that bit more real for Natsuhi, Eva, and Hideyoshi. The occult provides its twofold meaning.

I’ve already considered Natsuhi at length in this writeup, so now let’s think about the other audience members of this narrative performance: Eva and Hideyoshi. The only family branch to survive the first twilight unscathed, schemers and secret-keepers, who couldn’t be more suspicious if they tried.

One thing about Eva and Hideyoshi is that from their first appearance there has been a kind of suspect double-meaning scheme running between them. Circumstantially, it seems most likely that the gambit against Krauss during the conference was Eva’s brain child, and indeed it is Eva that is most committed to this plan. Hideyoshi, as her husband, is equally privy to these plans and suspicions (that they need the money, that Krauss is embezzling, that Kinzo might actually already be dead). The tension that runs between the two of them is that Hideyoshi is embarrassingly terrible at keeping his mouth closed, and Eva always has to be the one to smooth over his mistakes to keep the charade up. Eva only shows her hand when she is convinced with a large degree of certainty that she is right in what she’s doing, compared to Hideyoshi who is constantly almost giving the game away.

Given all this, we need to keep in mind two things: Eva and Hideyoshi are schemers, and they try their utmost to control the flow of information in their favour. Eva very carefully dances around the topic of Kinzo’s mortality for the longest time, never outright stating that this is what she is getting at when she ribs Natsuhi. Even in this chapter when Eva instructs Natsuhi to bring Kinzo down and the subtext is screaming as loud as it can, she never makes explicit her suspicions.

Hideyoshi, meanwhile, fumbles on the official narrative he and Eva are putting up almost immediately at the beginning of Umineko, and continues to waylay his wife’s subtlety at various points. When Eva is getting particularly barbed about the Kinzo issue, he tells her she should stop talking about it so much, thereby drawing everyone’s attention more keenly to the thing she’s saying without saying it. Hideyoshi tries, but he cannot play the doublespeak game like the other Ushiromiyas. For all intents and purposes, he is an open book.

This is important when considering his stance on certain matters related to the witch narrative and the murders. When the letter is first read, Hideyoshi is one of those who outright denies it as anything but a cruel practical joke. He does not believe in “Beatrice”. Then, in 1-10, upon witnessing the iron cross graffiti, Hideyoshi is the one who remarks that it is unnatural and demonic.

It is highly curious that Hideyoshi goes from being an out and out denier of Beatrice to immediately buying into the witch narrative. Just as it is curious that Hideyoshi is the one that takes charge upon the discovery of the bodies, and it is Hideyoshi that insists the cousins do not get a closer look at the bodies. Hideyoshi, who inexplicably survived the slaughter of the other adults along with Eva. Hideyoshi, who now is helping to peddle the witch narrative.

I think, if you consider this bizarre pattern of behaviour, and Eva and Hideyoshi’s respective personalities, it becomes incredibly apparent that the two of them are hiding something to do with the first twilight.

They survive where the other siblings didn’t. They take charge when looking for the missing bodies. They try their hardest to keep others from having a good look at the crime scene. They lean into the witch narrative where necessary.

There is an obvious conclusion here that can be reached when you consider Eva and Hideyoshi’s suspicious actions. And in a vacuum, I’d probably believe it. However, there are too many moving parts to go ahead and outright say that Eva and Hideyoshi are the culprits behind this. They are involved, yes, but just as the Beatrice narrative requires multiple components to manifest, so too does the first twilight.

That said, this is how I think it happened:

The first thing I need to clear up is that I think each component of the crime should be treated as a separate incident with separate parties involved. The six were killed, their bodies were mutilated, and they were locked up inside the storehouse. These are three distinct phases of the crime, and each does not necessarily have the same solution.

So to start, let’s try to answer the most pressing question: who killed the six victims? Off the bat, there are two overwhelmingly suspicious groups of people involved in this incident in some form: Eva and Hideyoshi, and Kanon and Genji. However, I do not think any of them are the ones who set the first domino falling.

Instead, let’s think about the logistics of the murders: everyone died at around the same time, and the way they were killed left no visible injuries. What method of murder could kill a large group of people instantly and without an obvious visible trace? A method that has itself already been foreshadowed right at the start of the sibling bickering by Eva: poison.

So, who could have poisoned everybody, and how? The simplest route is to assume via food or drinks served to the siblings as their argument rages into the night. Food and drink prepared by the only servant that is supposed to be in the mansion that night, whose schedule was altered for this specific purpose. I believe Gohda served the siblings something poisoned at around midnight, and I believe he did it at the behest of Krauss.

Krauss, serial embezzler, who uniquely stands to lose perhaps more than anyone now that the chance of someone snatching his lifeline of the Ushiromiya fortune out from under him is now highly possible. The only power and influence he has over his siblings is his certain knowledge that he will always control the Ushiromiya pursestrings no matter what they say or do. Until a mysterious letter comes along, claiming that anyone who solves a riddle will be granted ten tons of gold and full access to the money that he clings so desperately to.

Of course, for a sly coward like Krauss, this would be catastrophic. And his siblings have already shown once today that they are capable of working to undermine and overthrow his iron will. They failed only because he held all the financial cards. In a situation where one of them solves the epitaph and gets all the Ushiromiya wealth, every shred of power he has in this family is gone. So naturally, he would do anything to prevent this from coming to pass.

Midnight on Rokkenjima in the middle of a typhoon, with every threat to his power and wealth right before him? There could not be more perfect conditions to attempt to take their lives.

In order to do this, because Krauss is self-serving and shrewd as much as he is stupid, he most likely persuaded/bought Gohda off to prepare something poisoned for the siblings during the night. Perhaps he promised Gohda a portion of the gold, or perhaps he threatened Gohda that if he didn’t play along Krauss would blame him for the killings, and since Krauss has more money and status than Gohda could ever hope for, there’s no way Krauss’s version of events wouldn’t be believed.

Either way, I think Krauss got Gohda to serve poisoned refreshments to his siblings in an attempt to neatly take care of this problem. And in a way, I believe it worked: the siblings most afraid of Krauss’s power and abuse likely ingested the poisoned goods so as not to unduly upset their host at such a precarious time. That would be Rosa and Rudolf. Kyrie would, most likely at Rudolf’s behest, also unwittingly eat the poisoned food in order to prevent herself and her husband from losing face. That’s three people dead right there.

However, Eva, who is more paranoid and cautious and less afraid than anyone else, would not fall for it. And in solidarity, neither would Hideyoshi. Perhaps Eva suspected something was up with the refreshments, or perhaps she was simply seeking to make a petty remark about Krauss and the quality of Natsuhi’s servants that inadvertently saved her life, but either way, she does not get poisoned.

What Eva does do, however, is witness every single one of her siblings abruptly drop dead except for Krauss and his personal servant. Regardless of Eva’s personal characteristics, the facts stand that her other siblings have just been murdered, and that Krauss made an attempt on her life. In Krauss’s position, there are now surviving witnesses to his crime that will not easily be paid off. I’d imagine a kind of terse stand-off that can only be broken in one way: violence.

Either Krauss tried to take out Eva and Hideyoshi himself, or Eva attacked in outrage. Whichever it is, I believe that is when some kind of struggle commenced where Eva, the most athletic and fit Ushiromiya sibling, came out on top. Maybe she and Hideyoshi intended to kill Krauss and Gohda, or maybe it was an unfortunate byproduct of a desperate and violent scene. Either way, the end result is that there are now two more people dead, this time by Eva and Hideyoshi’s hands.

The only outlier to this neat series of events is Shannon, who would not be trusted enough by Krauss to be bought off, and would have no incentive to risk herself in something so dangerous. So when considering how she ended up dead with the others, I believe there are two likely scenarios: either she heard the struggle while doing her rounds and got caught up in the crossfire, or Gohda coerced her to come along with him as some kind of insurance for himself. Whichever is the case, the result is the same: Shannon was unfairly dragged into this, and was killed needlessly.

That roughly covers “who killed the six”. The next thing to consider is: who mutilated the bodies, and why?

Every corpse, when discovered, has their face torn off (or in the case of Krauss and Shannon, half their faces). This is gruesome and inexplicable and more than a little occult in nature. Most likely, Eva and Hideyoshi as the sole survivors would not think to mutilate the corpses in such a way.

I think somebody who has a vested interest in the Beatrice narrative saw an opportunity and made the most of it: Kanon and Genji.

The series of events here is, I think, that Kanon and Genji end up heading over to the mansion past midnight. Perhaps to further the next step in Kanon’s “Beatrice” scheme, or perhaps because it’s been hours and Shannon has still not returned. When they head over to the mansion, what they discover is Eva and Hideyoshi standing over six corpses, Shannon among them.

I think for someone like Kanon, whose whole purpose is looking out for and protecting Shannon, seeing her killed would change things significantly. Perhaps he believes some kind of story by Eva and Hideyoshi that they had nothing to do with her death, or maybe he doesn’t. What matters most is that six people have been murdered and the conditions of the first twilight are complete. For Kanon, now that Shannon is dead, all that is left is to continue to see the epitaph be fulfilled and bring about the downfall of the Ushiromiya family.

Most likely, he and Genji would reassure Eva and Hideyoshi that they would take care of the bodies. Eva and Hideyoshi, unwilling to ask more questions, would then most likely depart the scene and go about concocting stories and alibis for themselves. This would leave Kanon and Genji as the ones to mutilate the bodies.

One thing I am sure of is that Kanon would have reservations about desecrating Shannon’s corpse, so it most likely stands that half her face got smashed in the struggle that killed her (if her face is indeed even touched in the first place), as with Krauss. I’m not sure about Gohda here, but it seems reasonable to assume that he wasn’t killed by blunt force face trauma, and I don’t think the specifics of his murder matter too much. What does matter is that there are six bodies on the ground, two of which have gruesome face wounds.

This alone would allow any observer to very easily piece things together, and at least one aim of the witch narrative is to present an unsolvable mystery. So the faces of the others equally get smashed up in order to disguise the crime, and make it seem more impossible and horrific (I believe that at least some of the surprise from Eva and Hideyoshi upon the discovery of the bodies was genuine, indicating that their involvement ended before the mutilation).

I can’t definitively say how the mutilation was achieved, but I believe Battler’s theory of them being plowed through with a gardening tool is a fair enough assumption. Something that might also work is if the faces were blasted point-blank with a gun, but since there’s no indication that there are firearms on Rokkenjima, I think it was most likely done by Genji and Kanon with some gardening tool.

The third and final port of call is transporting the bodies to the storehouse and preparing the crime scene for discovery. The relevant facts needed to understand this is that the perpetrator must a) have enough knowledge of Rokkenjima and access to its keys to set up the scene, and b) have enough knowledge of the occult to produce these convincing sigils and pieces of graffiti. The only people who could possible be in that position are Kinzo’s furniture servants.

Most likely, Genji is the one who takes the bodies from wherever they were killed (the parlor or the dining room?) and brings them to the storehouse. Kanon, then, is the one who most likely sets about adding the occult touches to the scene to reinforce the Beatrice narrative as compellingly as possible. There is a line just before the bodies are discovered that the only fingerprints on the storehouse door would be Kanon and Genji’s. This explains how that assumption works in their favour, and yet equally reveals that since they were the only ones to touch the storehouse, they were likely also the only ones who could have put the bodies there.

The cleanup of the crime scene is likely equally easily explained away by it being Kanon and Genji: Kinzo’s furniture would have full access to whatever cleaning supplies they needed, and not a single Ushiromiya family member knows enough about the workings of the servants to even tell if something like that had happened. The class alienation allows them to further cover their tracks in setting the stage for the witch narrative that will ultimately eat this family alive to unfold.

In summary, the first twilight can be thought of as a daisy chain baton passing of responsibility between numerous actors and parties involved in the crime. First Krauss attempts to poison his siblings via Gohda, then Eva and Hideyoshi emerge as the sole survivors of the carnage, and then Kanon and Genji take over and turn these events from a senseless crime into the opening act for the story of the Golden Witch’s resurrection.

Neat and tidy. A closed case, almost. However, there is still one more thing to consider before we’re done here: this is the first of nine twilights. Given the daisy chain of culpability here that mirrors the same chain of abuser/abused seen in the family dynamics outside of the killings, it is therefore a given that something from the first twilight will lead on directly into the second.

So, what loose threads are there from this first set of murders? On the whole, this series of events is fairly clean and self-contained, except for one thing which disrupts the narrative pattern: there is a single branch of the Ushiromiya family that is wholly untouched by the tragedy that unfolded. Krauss’s death affects Natushi and Jessica, Rudolf and Kyrie’s deaths affect Battler , Rosa’s death affects Maria, Shannon’s death affects Kanon, Gohda.

In this framework, the loss of Shannon belongs to Kanon more than anyone else, which leaves George without a loss to uniquely call his own. Both of his parents are alive and well, the only couple left standing.

To put it another way, Eva and Hideyoshi are two who are close. The only other partnership of individuals left on Rokkenjima is Kanon and Genji (if that even exists outside of my theorising) but in no way can you reasonably call the two of them “close”. Everyone else is adrift and alienated: Natsuhi and Jessica still have a strained relationship, Battler is still very far removed from the rest of his family, Kinzo has nothing to do with anyone, and Maria and George both already lost the person they cared most about.

So, by every measure of the epitaph, Eva and Hideyoshi are the best fit for “the two who are close” who will be torn apart by “those who remain”. Given that we’re now fully in the murder interpretation of the epitaph, who among the survivors is most likely to kill Eva and Hideyoshi, and why?

Someone who sees the pattern for what it is and needs to keep up the resurrection ritual? A jaded, desperate servant who doesn’t fully buy their version of events and who could become hungry for revenge? An unrelated chain of events that just so happens to fall out in the required way? The Golden Witch Beatrice herself?

Who knows. The second twilight is some time off. For now, we still need to pick up the pieces of the first twilight, and see how the aftermath will shape everyone left on Rokkenjima, before the slaughter inevitably resumes.

#umineko #umineko liveblog #umineko spoilers #long post #umineko writeup

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dullweapons · 3 months

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hewwo i might spend today on some writing but my blog feeling messy ! so imma go through & delete old ooc posts & maybe fix up my graphics. but also tiny announcements that will be added to my rules . some not major , some kinda important so i would appreciate it if y’all read this ( i will be properly updating my rules when i can get to my computer ) :

🔻 i have health issues i am going through ( my heart has been having SVT episodes. basically this means my hearts being a bit odd & pumping harder then it needs to be ? i’ve having tests done so hopefully we figure out exactly what happened & what can be done . ) which makes me very tired. sometimes i can’t even get out of bed let alone write — so sometimes i will be MIA without any warning . i’m telling you this so no one thinks I’m ignoring them or anything like that .

🔻due to the anon hate i will be keeping anonymous asks closed for a bit . again, my apologies to those who have side blogs & use anon asks to send things in. simply send it from your main & i’ll put them in a separate thread ! i am also sorry to those who maybe be too shy to approach to ask questions but i truly don’t wish to deal with anon hate over petty things. which brings me to my next point.

🔻if you have any problems with me— may they be with how i responded in a thread , how i spoke ooc, or whatever it may be : please talk to me. i will not bite i promise you this but im gonna be 26 next month & i cannot handle people skirting around issues anymore . i cannot correct problems if i am not informed of them ( or at the very least explain myself ).

if i do turn anon back on — it is not the way to discuss issues with me. i understand you may be shy but hiding does not solve issues ( if i miss tagged something or requesting me to tag something isn’t an issues . i will do it even if anon asks. i’m talking about major issues . ) we’re all adults here trying to have fun.

there are things i won’t change — like i’m not going to put nsfw on a side blog but i will tag it as spicy tw or suggestive tw . ray is will always be auto angry at botw / totk zelda’s . ray will hate hylia by default . ( i’ve had ppl me upset at this, thinking their versions of these muses where better & didn’t deserve his reaction . they tried to push ray to be OOC because they preferred it … they quickly left but im using it as an example of things that could have been corrected with proper communication but they never heard me anyway so 🙄)

🔻to my last point : i understand the person in my DNI has deleted . i will be keeping them in my DNI incase they return as they hinted they might . i was informed by their friend to curate my space & i will continue to do so .

#psa / ooc.#( soooo yeah :D hope that clears things up ?? )#( i gotta take my pills cause im an old man on like 10 different meds )#( /rolls away )

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goatanarchy · 2 months

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Confession

Notes: hurt and comfort, erotic, Warden/Duncan, Warden is he/they!, AU where Duncan doesn't die and is a companion because I want to, probably very OOC but who cares.

When he let his wardens go that morning, he knew the risks, he did. To rescue the queen right from under the gaze of her father was no easy fit. But when only the queen and Alistair came back, Duncan’s heart sank.

Arl Eamon didn’t let him go to Fort Drakon - so he swallowed his anger and waited. If Duncan too gets caught, he said, the political unrest it would cause would destroy all the hard work they put into this endeavor. Loghain would call him a cowardly deserter and a traitor for not dying at Ostagar. So be it, Duncan thought, he could be a deserter if it meant his wardens were to live. If Sarikh was to not be hurt again…

They were brought back in the end and yet Duncan still felt helpless. Sarikh's deathly pale figure reminded him of a paper doll ready to softly fall onto the ground at any moment. And Duncan’s hands were in such a tight grip they’d bleed if it weren’t for the gloves he was wearing.

“Don’t worry the cell wasn’t too bad and the guards didn’t do anything bad either…” - the mage smiled meekly at him.

“I’d worry more about what our dog did to the guards, really. Those bites are going to be healing for a while.” - Alistair half joked, but there was an awkward guilt in his eyes. The kind that eats you up slowly like a caterpillar eating a leaf. Before Duncan could form a comprehensive response Sarikh was taken away from him to be doted on by Wynne. It was probably for the best, they needed to heal and rest.

He spent that day discussing preparations the group needed to make before the Landsmeet… well he tried. Truly, he couldn’t care less for any of the nobles or their little quirks and anxieties at this moment. When Ferelden was being consumed by the Blight all they did was bicker and fight each other. What use were they to the people? “Your mind is wandering today, my friend.” - Riordan told him as they left the Arl Eamon’s chambers.

“What makes you think so?”

“You have been sighing like an orlesian duchess that has been stood by her lover on a rainy afternoon.”

Duncan raised an eyebrow turning to the warden. Riordan only shrugged in return.

“I counted at least 10 sighs. I think even the Arl has noticed your ailment.”

“It seems you weren’t paying much attention either then.” - Duncan let out a tired laugh and looked out to the window under the ceiling. The sun had already set and he could barely see the moon shining sickly behind the clouds.

“Ahh, all of that political bullshit is the same everywhere. I am more worried about the Archdemon.”

Riordan looked at the moon as well.

“I assume you still haven’t told Alistair and Sarikh about how we need to slay it.” - the warden said. The statement weighed heavily in the air and Duncan let out another sigh.

“Ah, eleven now.”

“It seemed much easier before I- well I-...” - Duncan tried to explain, but words got stuck in his throat. Before he… “what”? He was too soft? Too selfish? Before he loved too much? He felt Riordan’s hand pat his shoulder.

“It is alright, friend. You don’t have to do it if you can’t. I can talk with them after the Landsmeet.”

Duncan closed his eyes and swallowed. The thought of his wardens finding out from someone else made him feel disgusted.

“No. It would not be fair to either of them.”

“Ah, I understand.” - Riordan smiled sadly. - “Well, then, I will leave it to you.”

Duncan gave him a short nod and sighed again.

“That is twelve now.” - Riordan teased as he was leaving for his room. - “You might want to get that checked with your healer.”

Duncan let out a groan.

“Oh, for Maker’s sake, Riordan.”

—

He couldn’t help it.

Instead of going to sleep Duncan kept wandering around the dimly lit halls of the estate. There was nothing good waiting for him in the Fade anyway.

Genevieve would probably call him childish if she could see him right now, spoiled even. Or, perhaps, she would just give an iron cold stare and silently sit somewhere in the corner, judging. As a warden it was his duty to be in best shape. To be ready to jump to fight the darkspawn hordes at any moment… not to count how many dogs there were in the frescoes of the main hall.

Duncan leaned his forehead on one of the supporting beams in the hall that had a remarkably realistic mabari etched into it and almost sighed again, but caught himself in the middle.

“I shouldn’t bother him right now. He is resting.” - the man whispered. He stared at the dog for a few minutes before giving it a little pat.

“You are well mannered, sir. If only Tiger was as quiet as you are.” - he said to the dog.

“...”

“What am I doing here, acting like a fool, hm?”

“...”

Once again it was deathly quiet. Maybe Duncan could take a page out of Oghren’s book and drink himself to sleep…. Tempting, but foolish.

Duncan wasn’t sure how long he was standing there feeling oh, so silly about himself. He finally decided to just go back to his room, so that at least no one else would accidentally see this embarrassment. But as he turned his gaze to the stairs he saw a ghostly shape on the other side of the hall. It was moving past him slowly and silently, clearly not wanting to be heard. Duncan ducked behind the beam and took a closer look at it, thinking it to be a maid maybe, but then realized the person was covering themselves in a thin white blanket from head to toe. Duncan couldn’t see who it was but he did feel a faint presence of the darkspawn… A warden.

“Sarikh?” - Duncan called before even thinking it could be anyone else. The person jumped and made a sharp turn to the source of the sound. And lo and behold it was indeed Sarikh’s surprised face sticking out of the blanket. Good. Because if it was anyone else Duncan would have died of shame.

“D-duncan?” - They whispered loudly in return. Duncan came out from behind the beam under the faint light of the torches. Sarikh immediately ran to him but stumbled over their own blanket and fell forward.

“Oof! Sorry!” - the mage apologized as Duncan swept him into a hug preventing the fall.

“Are you alright?” - the man asked, failing to hide his laughter.

“I am now.” - Sarikh said with a smile. Their voice barely a whisper, but to Duncan it was as sweet and clear as the sound of a creek in a summer grove.

"You know, the blanket really doesn't help your stealth."

"Oh well, it is still very fun though. I am haunting the estate."

"Scaring all the maids." - Duncan smiled and lightly tugged on the blanket to pull it down off Sarikh, who didn't protest and only hugged Duncan closer. They had no shoes and were only wearing a nightshirt barely reaching their knees. He shivered from the thought of having his feet bare on stone at this time of the year. There weren't any new scars or bruises, so the healing magic must have worked well.

"What are you doing here so late?" - he asked, wrapping Sarikh back into the blanket. - "I thought you were recovering after the escape."

"Oh, um…" - they hesitated, a visible blush on their cheeks. - "I was… I am… I slept all day and now I'm… hungry. I don't think Wynne expected me to be awake so quickly. She was asleep in the chair near the bed."

"So you sneaked away to catch a cold instead of asking. What if you got hurt?"

"I didn't want to bother, she needs rest too." - Sarikh mumbled with visible disappointment in their voice. But as they caught Duncan's worried gaze, they softened.

"I am not that fragile you know."

Duncan could only sigh in defeat.

"That is true, yes."

But I might be, he almost said and cringed at his own thoughts. Sarikh wasn't even injured and he felt his heart would run off and wither any moment now. It had been so long since he cared about someone so deeply.

It was all too easy to bury a warden when you both have promised to give away your whole lives for the blight. How does he keep his cool now? When he doesn’t want to die anymore… A cold touch of Sarikh’s hands on his cheeks brought Duncan back to reality.

“You are a mess.” - the mage stated. Soft and without accusation. Their red eyes pierced his every thought.

“And you are not?” - the man said back lightheartedly. Sarikh laughed and pinched both of Duncan’s cheeks.

“Well, right now - I am very hungry. And I would really love not to be.”

“How about we haunt the kitchen together then? I could do all the sneaking.”

“Hmm, maybe….” - Sarikh said as if he was deep in thought on such an important decision. “The cook is… very intense. I wouldn’t want to get scolded by her.” - they continued and then nodded in agreement. - “Yes, you do the sneaking.”

Duncan took their hands off his cheeks and placed a tiny kiss on the knuckles, which made Sarikh giggle, their face flushed.

“It will be an honor to steal some soup for you.”

—

Together, they sneaked into the dining hall. There wasn't anyone to hide from, not really, but Duncan enjoyed leading Sarikh on their little heist. They would get to hold hands and whenever the shadows from the dim lit torches would move a little too fast Duncan would pull them both into a dark corner to shield the mage by hugging them, obviously, from an imaginary guard passing by. Sarikh would only laugh at him quietly and Duncan would feel their warm breath tickling his chest. Truly, love turned them both into fools.

There was no one in the dining hall either.

“And that's how you sneak.” - Duncan proudly announced.

“Those imaginary guards are certainly none the wiser now.”

Duncan motioned for Sarikh to wait and disappeared into the kitchen. Sarikh climbed onto one of the chairs, put their feet up as it got too cold and wrapped himself in the blanket as much as he could. They really should have at least put the shoes on but the hunger got the best of him. Being a maleficar one should never ignore their appetite. Constant blood spilling comes at a cost.

Before they got too comfortable though, a bowl of soup and a sizable chunk of bread was put in front of him.

"Woah!" - The mage exclaimed, not anticipating Duncan to be back so soon. He looked up and saw him looming over with a chunk of cheese and an apple in one hand.

"How did you?- That was so fast!"

"Trade secrets" - the man smiled and bit into the apple. He winced for a moment as he wasn’t expecting it to be bitter, but continued to eat it anyway and sat down on the chair next to Sarikh.

"Ah, you do have the most nimble of hands." - Sarikh stated casually.

Duncan choked on the apple.

"Eat. Your. Soup." - Duncan hid his burning cheeks behind the apple but his usually firm and confident tone cracked under Sarikh's teasing.

“Hee-hee. I am not wrong.”

Sarikh gave a little sniff to the bowl’s contents. It smelled flavourful and the broth was pretty chunky with all the meat and vegetables in it. The only problem was that the soup was obviously cold. So they put their hands around it and a warm orange glow grew under the skin that touched the bowl. Half a minute passed and Duncan could feel the smell of the hot broth all around them. It made him yearn for soup even though he just had supper a few hours ago and was snacking on other things. There can never be too much good broth out there.

Sarikh gobbled up the bread and soup like there was no tomorrow. Duncan wasn't sure if the mage was even chewing, but he did feel relieved seeing them eat with a healthy appetite.

“They didn't… feed you there did they?” - he asked after mulling his anxieties over for a bit. Sarikh finished drinking and let out a satisfied sigh.

“Nope. They thought I’d bewitch them if they got too close. I would probably bite their fingers off instead though.”

“Always exceeding the expectations.”

“Mhm.” - they smiled and moved their bowl to Duncan. It still had some soup left in it.

“Here you go. I know you wanted some too.”

“No, you need it more.”

“I’m full. Besides, You can always sneak back in if it's not enough, right?”

Duncan sighed and gave Sarikh a look but finished the rest of the soup nonetheless. It was warm and hearty and he almost felt normal again.

As Sarikh propped his cheek and leaned on the table, he studied Duncan’s face with a soft gaze.

“So what were you doing here in the middle of the night?” - the mage booped Duncan’s nose and he averted his gaze in embarrassment.

“Oh. I uh- um. I was counting dogs on the walls.”

“How many did you find?”

“Around a dozen.”

“A good amount of dogs.” - Sarikh nodded in agreement and let out a big silent yawn.

Duncan stood up and offered his hand to Sarikh.

“We should really go to sleep now.”

Sarikh took his hand - warm and weathered, but hesitated to stand up, their cheeks turning red again as they looked at Duncan.

“We should but umm… can I-... can I sleep with you tonight?”

They felt his grip get firmer and suddenly they were up in the air and then in Duncan’s arms.

“Wah!” - Sarikh gasped in surprise, their heartbeat raising. Smug, Duncan whispered into their ear. - “As if that is even a question.”

As cheesy as it was It made them shiver in delight. Sarikh nestled their head on Duncan’s shoulder, as he carried them out of the dining hall.

“Good. Because I don't want to sneak back past Wynne and Morrigan and Shale who probably knows I left anyway.”

“Everyone was worried about you.” - Duncan said a bit lower in tone than he intended.

“I know…” - Sarikh whispered, feeling guilty. - “Would it be too bad to say that it makes me happy that you all were?”

Duncan let out a soft laugh and readjusted the weight in his hands to hold Sarikh closer.

“Only if you promise to not make getting caught a habit.”

~~~

The bedroom was lit only by a tiny flame of an old candle. Duncan stood by the bed, letting Sarikh take off his armour for him. And even though he would have to put it back on in a few hours, he let Sarikh take the time to slowly untie the tabard. To loosen the leather clasps of the metallic shoulder pads for him. To carefully take it off. This way the day didn’t have to end so soon for them.

Tomorrow, I will tell him about the Archdemon. Duncan thought, lost in his own head. I will. Another sigh must have escaped him because he heard Sarikh say: “Is everything alright? Are you still worried about that whole prison escape?”

Duncan was now sat down onto bed and Sarikh took his boots off. The mage then neatly folded everything by the bed, where Duncan could easily access the armour at any moment if needed be.

“I-... No.” - he tried to sound calm. There was a silence between them. Sarikh looked at him and Duncan looked at the almost burned out candle.

“Alright then. Well, I’m done.” - Sarikh said as they climbed onto the bed under the blankets.

For a moment Duncan thought he might have upset his dear friend with his dishonesty. Yet as soon as he laid beside them - Sarikh was all over him, cuddling and hiding their face in the nook of his neck. It caught his breath. He never felt so warm as he was with Sarikh. How could he give this away? Ugh.

The flame on the candle went out and Duncan found it hard to fall asleep. He suspected so did Sarikh as he could feel their thumb rhythmically caressing his right cheek.

“You are not falling asleep are you?” - he whispered.

“No. I’m too excited.” - Sarikh said and Duncan could hear it in their voice. He turned to face them but could hardly see anything but shapes in the dark.

“About what?”

They moved closer.

“Being here with you. I missed you.”

A little peck on the lips no more than a second, burned Duncan like fire. It broke something in him and he pulled Sarikh in for another kind of warmth. He placed kisses on their cheek and under the ear and down the neck.

“I'm sorry, I’m sorry.” - Duncan wept in between. - “I should have been there with you at the fort.”

His hand cupped their face and he felt Sarikh nuzzle into it.

“My dear, my sweet, there is nothing to apologize for. You didn't know. I didn't know.”

Duncan took off their shirt to place more kisses on their chest. And in return Sarikh scratched the back of his head, over the neck and down the spine with their nails. Just hard enough to make Duncan shiver. A sharp breath escaped him, his muscles tensed and he bit Sarikh on their left breast.

“Ah.” - he heard Sarikh sigh in delight.

Sarikh helped him lose his shirt tugging the fabric so that it tickled Duncan even more before exposing him to the night coolness of the room. They didn’t have to see his face to know that he enjoyed it. The way the cold burned his skin and heightened his senses, made his hair stand on ends. His grip on Sarikh grew firmer, he had to have them closer.

Duncan turned them over to be on top, holding them by the hips. He wanted to feel the weight. He wanted it to remember that it was real.

“There is- There is something I haven't told you. You and Alistair…” - he said as they found each other's lips. The warmth and softness of their kiss almost made him drunk.

“What is it my dear?”

Duncan’s breath faltered as he tried to put his thoughts into words and fight back his own tears. He didn’t want to die. But he didn’t want his friends to die either. It wasn’t fair how they always had to choose.

“You don't have to say it if you aren't ready yet.”

“You could make me.”

“It won't be fair to either of us.”

Duncan embraced them again, hot tears streaming down his face and onto Sarikh’s shoulder.

“I adore you, you know.” - he pleaded this and many more sweet words to them. He didn't know what he was saying anymore, he might have confessed right at that moment that a sacrifice is needed for the archdemon to be slain but couldn't remember, overtaken by desperate need to hold and be held.

In the end Sarikh could only stroke Duncan’s hair and listen.

#goat writes words and sentences #goat does an art #sarikh surana #this really went places I did not expect to write about #also if anyone sees any typos pls tell me

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