jiejies-corner-store

[jiejies-corner-store]

dreamer's envy

|| dan heng x reader || E/18+ || first time, comfort, lore || wc: 13.4k  || ao3 ||

Dan Heng is haunted by the memories of a man he no longer is. You are all to willing to help him.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

notes: ahhh!!! beloved dh... df... yx... this fic is a bit of a love letter to reader insert character studies and ship fic. making my two faves kiss on the mouth fr. thank you so much to @yinyuedijun for beta reading along the way!! hope you enjoy 💗

CW: reader is referred to with they/them pronouns and afab anatomy, previous dan feng/yingxing, descriptions of gore, descriptions of intimacy issues, author-created lore (plot crafted prior to penacony release), interpretations of HCQ lore, multiple characters experiencing post-trauma

NOTE: this piece is written in two points of view. one is from dan heng’s perspective, where the “you” he is referring to, is you, as in the reader. the other perspective is second-person pov where the narrator ('you') is dan feng. in these portions, 'you' have a cock and the assorted anatomy. these portions are written in italicized text.

Your hands shake. Your thighs tremble. Yingxing lays between them, your cock nestled in his mouth. It’s not sizable enough to hit the back of his throat, but Yingxing, ever the sensitive man, still has tears pricking the corners of his eyes. You stifle a moan into your hand, hastily slapped over your mouth.

Yingxing will not have it.

A strong, calloused hand grabs your wrist and yanks it. He pins your hand by your side, intertwining your fingers. He pulls off your cock with spit-slick lips and smiles. 

“Beloved,” Yingxing speaks in a purr, soft and gentle and comforting against your ears. “You know I love to hear all of those sounds of yours. You’re not getting shy on me, are you?”

There’s a hint of mischief to his voice. You huff and kick at his back.

“Hurry up,” you snap at him. There's a bite to it; you mean there to be. Yingxing only looks amused by your tone— the only one on the entire Luofu who could possibly look joyful, when met with your distinct ire.

“Can’t I take my time?” Yingxing asks, licking from your balls, to base, to the head of your cock. You’re— wet. Leaking pre down your shaft. “May I undo you, my flower?”

“You’re an awful man. I will have you imprisoned.”

“You’d never.”

“You’re right, I’d do worse.” You have so many ideas brewing behind your eyes— ways to punish this wretched man for toying with you. Treating you so kindly and with such humor and wit. There is no one else like him— no one else in your many, lonely years who has lanced you in the way that Yingxing has. How treacherous of him, to steal your heart. 

“You’ll have to tell me all about the ways you’ll punish me,” Yingxing hums, pushing the tip of your cock against his lips. It’s obscene. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkle. “After you cum down my throat, though.”

Yingxing, that bastard of a man, takes you into his mouth against, bobbing his head, sucking and running the flat of his tongue over the bottom of your cock. It’s too much, all at once—

And how prettily you moan when you become undone (again) under this wonderful, awful man—

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng wakes up with such a start, he nearly vomits. He does dry heave, snatching the conveniently placed trash can nearby and dropping his head inside to sputter. Spit dribbles off his lips and falls in globs to the bottom of the basket.

He sets it aside and rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes.

Again.

Again, again, again— he has these dreams all too often. Of a life that is not his, of a lover that couldn’t possibly, ever be his. They’re visceral, vivid— as though Dan Heng is experiencing them in real time, and they’re not some awful figment that clings from a past life.

They plague him, simply. He hates every moment of them.

The pleasure of them feels poisonous. That man is not him. Yingxing— is not his. The body that writhes and gasps is not his own. He’s an onlooker, a distant stranger looking in on something intimate and dead. It’s torture, really, but Dan Heng is an expert is quiet endurance, so he copes. 

He stands, still wearing day clothes, and drags himself from his sleeping bag on the floor. His companions on the Astral Express all stated their initial concern with his choice of lodging and lack of a bed, but they’ve since calmed. Everyone on the Express has their quirks. It’s like how March sleep walks, Stelle occasionally glows from her chest, and you only sleep once every few weeks and never in your own room. Dan Heng enjoys his spot in the Archives due to the various motors and machinery that lay under the floor. It’s warm, far toastier than any other room, or bed for that matter. 

(He is not Dan Feng. However, Dan Heng cannot deny that his more draconic instincts are somewhat intact.)

Dan Heng throws on his slouchiest sweater, threadbare and worn, and wanders to the parlor car. An hour or so of pacing usually cures him of any antsiness, and he can nurse a cup of tea while he walks too.

This night, however, you sit in the parlor car as well. Dan Heng slows as he sees you.

You’re— an enigma to him really. Everyone on the express is a bit of a misfit, but you are a newer addition to the bunch, and he and the rest of the crew are still grappling with your oddities. 

Dan Heng has, since the moment he first met you, accepted he would never fully understand you. He made peace with it, moved on and has kept his distance except when necessary. It is better this way.

You’re staring, side-long, out of one of the wide windows of the car. Your chin is perched on your palm and your perpetually blood-shot eyes are half-lidded. Dark circles are punched beneath them. You look like shit. You always look like shit, and you have assured the crew that this is normal, despite March’s initial fretting. 

When you notice him staring, a kind smile curls on your lips and you wave, good-natured.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty. Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine.” It’s not the first time you two have met like this. The Parlor Car is empty, except the two of you and the dimly glowing whale fixture that hangs from the ceiling. It feels familiar, much more comfortable than the... unwelcome familiarity of his own dreams. “I’m just fetching a cup of tea.”

“Ah, a night cap?” You hum, and crack your neck. “Sounds needed. That last dream of yours was wild.” 

Dan Heng frowns, “I’ve asked you before to quit that, please. It’s invasive.”

“I would if I could,” You shrug. “But, I can’t. Besides, your dreams are loud, Dan Heng. I’d be unable to ignore them even if I was at the back of the train.” 

“Can you at least not mention them?”

“I mean, I can not. But... they clearly upset you, don’t they?” You tilt your head, eyes soft. “Would you like to talk about them at all? I don’t mind listening.”

“They aren’t your concern.”

“I’m aware of that, but that doesn’t stop me from caring. I know they’re distressing.”

“You’re prying.”

“I’m asking, Dan Heng.” You sound a little desperate. Standing, you pass by him, in the direction of the passenger car. “You can say ‘no, my fellow Nameless, I would like you to never speak of me and my upsetting sex dreams,’ and I won’t ever mention them again. I don’t mean to be a thorn in your side, but the past is easier to bear in the present if you can lean on folks.”

Dan Heng is silent, stewing and stirring under his skin. 

By the time he has a reply formulated, you have left the parlor car. The only sign that you’d ever been there to begin with is a patterned knit blanket left where you were sitting. 

Dan Heng snatches it up before he can convince himself not to and returns to his room to add it to his ground-bound nest.

...

Welt had found you outside of a space station, idling around a refueling station. You’d been wearing a dirty utility jumpsuit with the emblem of some IPC-owned subsidiary screen-printed on the pocket. Your eyes had been glassy and far away. When Welt asked if you were alright, you had smiled and told him, “Actually, I’ve never been worse.”

The Express loves strays. It’s ultimately what he, Stelle, and March are. Welt to some extent as well, especially considering his several layers of mystery. Himeko has the disposition of a kind leader and the heart of a mother, and for all of Pom Pom’s fretting, they are always interested in a new face aboard the Astral Express, for however long they choose to be there.

It’s sensical that you were given a shower, a hot meal, and a room before you even fully understood what you were signing up for with the Express.

Dan Heng was, notably, wary of you. It was the way you looked at him after the first night you slept on the Express (one where he had predictably been plagued with images of a body that wasn’t really his being fucked and loved in a way Dan Heng couldn’t conceptualize his actual self receiving). There was clear concern etched in your expression, however you never voiced it. Not at first.

It was only after a few weeks that March pointed out you hadn’t slept since your arrival that you revealed your hand.

A bloodline blessed by the Aeon of Dreams, Sacha. 

Dan Heng had heard of the Aeon, distantly. A seldom-traveled path, one for those with imagination run wild and a penchant for long naps. There were whispers that the Aeon was asleep, constantly. Otherwise, dead. Regardless, you bore the Godbeing’s blessing in some way.

You revealed this during a routine coffee break, just before Welt, March and Stelle descending to a little sandy moon. Perched on a chair, legs curled over your chest, you’d laughed when March pointed out your lack of good sleeping practices.

“I don’t need to, so I tend not to. It’s a difficult habit to break.” 

You had explained to Dan Heng and Himeko that you and your kin, a race descended from a small planet from a dead solar system, all bear this blessing. No need for sleep and—

“I perceive the dreams of others.”

Dan Heng had questioned, immediately— “Perceive?”

“That’s the best way to put it.” You meet his eye and you look slack in your shoulders. Unbearably calm and tired. “What you dream, I experience along with you. The more I focus in, the more vivid it is.”

(Dan Heng is horrified and doesn’t speak to you for a week.)

After some significant, quiet panic, Dan Heng had politely asked you to not perceive his dreams if you could help it. 

You’d told him you’d do your best.

And Dan Heng— appreciates the effort. Even if it's clear it's not working. You are so often up when he rises for his customary tea and jaunt, and tend to prod him a little. At least stop him to chat for a moment or tea. You’ll sneak in a cheeky comment or two, usually, but they’re so quick Dan Heng can’t do much more than blush and stumble over his next sentence.

You look highly amused and soft, those nights.

You never ridicule him, which he appreciates. More often you look pleasantly neutral, as if trying to emulate the aura of a familiar house plant near a skittish black cat.

(Dan Heng knows he is the skittish black cat.)

It’s— too much really. Dan Heng would rather bear it alone, take his cup of tea and do his laps, but he also can’t find it in him to tell you off too harshly. You tend to favor the parlor car, anyway. You get lost in the stars and galaxies they traverse easily. It would feel cruel to ask you to sequester yourself to your room simply so Dan Heng can brood more effectively.

Dan Heng does not know what to do about his own haunting (arousing) dreams, nor does he know what to do with you and your unfazed smiles.

...

You straddle Yingxing’s lap, thighs tense as you roll your hips. Your lover’s length grinds inside of you, stroking something small and hot and so good you could get drunk on it. You chase the sensation, selfish. Your hands are braced behind you, on Yingxing’s thighs as he is sprawled below. 

His cheeks are flushed and his hair is a knotted mess. A hastily ripped piece of fabric binds Yingxing’s wrist together and secure to the stained wood of the bed frame.  You were kind enough to carefully pull out his favored hairpin (a gift, one you commissioned him to make... for himself. Without his knowledge. Yingxing was moderately huffy about it until you tucked it into his hair yourself.) and set it aside. 

Yingxing is not a weak man, but you are a Dragon, and therefore keeping him restrained and tethered is not difficult. Usually, you allow Yingxing the privilege of carving out your insides at his leisure and pace. There’s a sweet torture to it you have found yourself having grown fond of. 

There is no other soul, mortal or otherwise, short-lived or long-lived, that you would allow to exert such control over you. Yingxing is an exception for you in so many ways. How dear this (foolish) craftsman has become to you.

“B-Beloved,” Yingxing’s voice is tight, strained. There’s sweat beading on his temples. “Might I persuade you into moving?”

You hum. Your tail wraps around his leg, from ankle to thigh and squeezes. The feathered tail flicks at Yingxing’s tense muscle and he jolts under you. A glittering laugh leaks from the corner of your mouth.

“Persuade me then.”

“Y-You’re not making this easy, are you?”

“I told you I wouldn’t. And you still agreed.”

“I thought the great Yinyue Jun would grant me some mercy at least. Excuse my wishful thinking. I thought that my dearest husband would forgo being a brat for at least a single night—”

You scoff.

You roll your hips, slow and deliberate. Yingxing’s words are cut off, killed in his throat as his eyes roll back into his skull. Keeping your core tight, you bury his cock in your hole to the hilt. You’re flush together, panting. It’s a tight squeeze, it always is. But the slight burn is familiar and welcome as you throw your head back and moan.

The sound is sin. If any of the Preceptors knew what this man did to you, he’d be drowned in Scalegorge within the day. 

Yingxing curses in a tongue you don’t know— it’s his mother’s language, he once told you. He tries to buck up into your heat, but you hold him down and steady. Clicking your tongue and racking your nails down his chest. Thin welts rise in your wake. Yingxing lets loose a choked gasp as you slide down on his cock. The stretch is so, so good. You crave this ache. You fantasize about it when you surely shouldn’t. It haunts your—

Dreams?

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng wakes up so hard it physically hurts. He gasps, muffling a half-there sound into his pillow. It’s shameful. He feels out of his mind as he flips onto his stomach and ruts into his nest of blankets. The friction is dry, scratchy, and barely enough. However— the phantom sensations of a dead lover crawl over him. Nostalgic and tragic and nauseating.

He comes with a sob that he prays no one hears. He stains the front of his boxers as he grinds his oversensitive cock against the wet fabric. It’s too much. He’s too sensitive. It hurts, but Dan Heng doesn’t know what else to do.

He feels ashamed as he sits up and runs a hand over his face. 

It’s usually not this bad. Usually he can will away any arousal with logic. Reminding himself that the pleasant touch and face he remembers is long gone and was never his to have to begin with. Only on a few occasions has he woken up disoriented enough to forget himself to actually get off.

He needs to shower.

Dan Heng blearily leaves his room with his towel slung over his arm. The showers are on the other side of the passenger car. Dan Heng turns the spray on the highest heat, cooking himself as much as he can bear. There’s a latent energy in him that always swirls, begging him to push and pull the water around him, harness it for even a moment—

Before Dan Heng can entertain such things, he exits the spray, flushed bright red with his towel around his waist. 

As he exits the shower, he finds you. 

You’re perched one of the plush couches, tucked into a nook in the passenger car. Your signature blanket is not with you. You look— like shit. Dark circles stamped but your eyes look alight.

Dan Heng freezes as you notice him.

“... You alright?” You ask him.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure, bud?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.”

”You’re patronizing me.”

You stumble, “I don’t— I don’t mean to. That was just—”

“Please do not—”

“A lot.”

Your cheeks are flushed as you rub at them. Your gaze flits up to his then averts to the floor. You look... shy. It’s an expression he’s never seen you wear before, even when you were pulled onto the express filthy and in a heavily patched jumpsuit. 

Something in Dan Heng’s chest squeezes. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels entirely too exposed. He’s not fully dry, and he can feel droplets of water dripping from his hair down to his shoulders. His throat bobs as he gulps you watch the movement with rapt attention. 

He coughs.

“I asked you to refrain from viewing my dreams.”

“That one was loud.” You frown. “Incredibly loud. Like banging pots and pans, fireworks and explosives kind of loud. I couldn’t have ignored it, even though I very much want to. I’d love to give you your privacy, Dan Heng, but sadly the intricacies of your mind happen to make your dreams essentially unignorable.”

“Must you comment on them?”

“... I heard you crying after.” Your expression looks uncharacteristically torn up. Your lackadaisical smile and humor are nowhere to be found. “I was worried.”

“I can assure you, I am fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I do, regardless. The whole Express does.”

“I appreciate it. Though, it’s unnecessary.”

“Of course. Sure. Because you’re the paramount example of ‘not needing care’.”

“I’m self-sufficient.” This time, he frowns.

“You are.” You stand up and walk toward him. “‘Sufficient’ implies adequacy, not prosperity.”

“What are you implying?”

Your hands ball into fists at your sides, “That you, Dan Heng, seem like you could use some help. I won’t pry at your past, I’m aware it’s not my place to do so— however routinely having uncomfortably vivid sex dreams about a man who you clearly have complex feelings about, probably isn’t good for you. There’s an inevitable amount of strain. One that I think that you’re ignoring.”

“What help do you think I need?” His voice remains level, but your proximity has him wriggling under his skin.

“... I— could be a decent listener. I have all the time in the world. I’m always around at night.” You struggle to meet his gaze, but after a moment, your usual, easy smile erupts on your face. “Or, would you prefer more... direct assistance? I could help with that too.”

“Speak plainly.”

“Was the last time you had sex with the man in your dreams?”

Dan Heng’s throat closes up. The cloudhymn that are under his skin thrum and encircle him, for just a moment. Your eyes widen at the colors and hum of it and jump back. You almost stumble. The surge of power and energy shakes the passenger car. The whale-shaped light fixtures dance above you. 

Dan Heng swallows.

“And if it was?”

You look at him, really look at him, and your eyes soften. Your center looks wide and vulnerable despite the churn in the air, “Then, do you think it could, perhaps, be helpful to add some more recent, pleasurable memories for your dreams to play with?”

Dan Heng flushes so quickly, he feels faint.

The instinctual cloudhymns around him die in an instant. He retreats, a firm grip remaining on the towel around his waist to keep it in place. He mumbles out a hasty ‘goodnight’. 

He is unsure if you hear him.

... 

In the days that follow, neither Dan Heng nor yourself, bring up your proposition. 

The next morning, you look expectedly exhausted, but do not prod or pry at him any further. You sit at the long table for breakfast and munch on a piece of bread and some jam while Himeko goes over your next destination. 

The few times you look at him, your smile is lazy and easy, however you turn away quickly. 

You continue to skillfully avoid him. 

Dan Heng— feels a bit bad about it. Maybe a lot. If he enters common spaces like the parlor car or dining car, you quickly leave after a peripheral greeting. You must be doing so as to not tip off the rest of the crew that there’s some amount of… tension between the two of you. Under different circumstances, Dan Heng would have appreciated the purposeful discretion, however something about it irks him. 

The Express’s next destination is a repurposed space station at the edge of a solar system. A false sun, powered by a Stellaron— something to that effect. Stelle’s bodily composition is of some intrigue to the scientists looking to craft a replacement, while other factions wish to harness the Stellaron more directly than a not-so-distant source of light and heat. 

Himeko’s engineering expertise is being requested, along with Welt’s understanding of Imaginary energy. March wants to go due to the complex system of bioluminescent algae that teems in the space station’s plentiful aquaponics infrastructure. (“It looks so pretty! I need photos!”)

There are very few reasons for Dan Heng to accompany them; the party’s already full. There are even fewer reasons for you to join, who, despite all of your assurances, looks particularly haggard and worse for wear. Both March and Himeko mother hen you into staying aboard the Express to keep Pom Pom company.

Dan Heng should make an excuse to leave as well. Something in his gut tells him it would be best to keep his distance from you.

(It would be easier that way.)

However, Dan Heng finds himself waving goodbye to his companions as they dock at the small port. Pom Pom has requested at least a single treat from their excursion while they wave exuberantly from his side. 

You stand on Pom Pom’s right, lazily waving as well. Your shoulders are slumped.

As Pom Pom aways to dust the fixtures in the parlor car, Dan Heng faces you and speaks without thinking.

”You should rest.”

You blink owlishly at him. “… That’s not necessary.” 

”You don’t look well.”

”You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?”

”I am being serious.”

”So am I.” You roll your eyes and shrug. 

You attempt to walk away from him, but Dan Heng finds himself reaching out to grab your arm. His hand wraps around your forearm securely, firmly. 

You still, wide-eyed.

”You can sleep, can’t you?”

”… I mean, yes?” You frown, glancing at his hand then back to his face. 

“Would it help?”

”Help what?” 

Dan Heng deadpans. “You’re exhausted.”

”… Dearest Dan Heng, I am always in this state. I apologize if my withered countenance has caused you grief. I am fine.”

You attempt to wrench your arm from his grip, but he doesn’t let you go. Your frown deepens. 

“Being intentionally daft isn’t wise.”

You stare at him, “I’m not being ‘intentionally daft.’”

”I beg to differ.”

You mutter something in a tongue that Dan Heng doesn’t recognize. “What’s your deal? I apologize for getting into your business previously. I have been trying to give you ample space and shut out your dreams to the best of my ability. Is that not enough?”

”No.” No, no, no— that’s not really. It. Dan Heng isn’t sure what it is, but at this moment, his mood has little to do with your knowledge of his horrible, awful, persistent wet dreams, but something else. “I’m not upset at you for that.”

You stare and your hands ball into fists, “So, you’re really pestering me over my well-being?”

”Yes?”

”Aeons, Dan Heng.” You say his name in a croon and it makes him shudder. He wants to scream. “It really isn’t a big deal.”

”Is it straining you to not… perceive my dreams?”

Your expression goes blank. “I mean. Yes. But, it’s not a big deal—“

“You look awful.”

”You can’t have both.” You are clearly frustrated. Dan Heng’s grip is unrelenting. “I can’t— I can’t attempt to block out your silly sex dreams without a not-insignificant amount of effort. I’m either going to be very keyed into that pretty silver-haired man who you clearly wish was in your bed, or I’m going to look a bit more worse for wear. The latter, Dan Heng, does not bother me. Fretting over me isn’t going to make me less worn down.”

”And you just… don’t care that you’re tired?”

“I’m always tired.” You smile then, the same lazy, curling quirk of your lips that you so often wear, ever since the Express dragged you aboard from that rest stop. Dull-eyed and wearing a filthy utility jumpsuit. “I don’t want to cause you all any additional grief. I wish you wouldn’t worry about me.”

Dan Heng doesn’t know what to say.

“... That isn’t your choice.” The words feel paltry, half-there.

You pull your arm from his grip, thumbing at the spot where he held you. Your soft day clothes have rumbled under his grip, “That’s hilarious, coming from you, Dan Heng.”

“This is different.”

“How so?” 

“Because—” Dan Heng clicks his tongue. Something— something simmers just under his chest. Something bigger than himself, salty like the sea and heavy like green stone that writhes as you stare him down. “Because my dreams are my business. The man— men— in my dreams are my ills to carry. They should not affect my present. You shouldn’t be affected by them.”

“Well, crazy, but I am—” You go nose-to-nose with him and huff. Dan Heng backs into a railing behind him, back curving. “Because I don’t like seeing you in pain—”

Something kicks Dan Heng’s shin and he hisses. You jump away from him with a stumble, looking down at a glowering Pom Pom. Their tail twitches.

“No fighting in my parlor car!” Pom Pom huffs. “Does Pom Pom need to get Miss Himeko’s ‘get along’ shirt?”

“That’s not necessary,” Dan Heng rushes to say.

You’re already walking away, out of the parlor car with a shake of your head and one last wistful look.

...

You tear your heart from your chest.

It is expectedly painful, even if you braced for it. Even if in your deepest meditations, you simulated the pain of such a loss with cloudhymn to prepare for this moment, on the off chance you would need to lose your heart from between your ribs and give it to your beloved. So few of Long’s scions retain the ability to rebirth with multiple hearts— only a handful of high elders, really. You can imagine what they will say about you, think about this act you’re committing.

Sin. And a painful one.

The blade in your hand clatters to the ground as you hold your heart in your own palm. It’s large— a dragon’s heart. It will not fit in the chest of a mortal. 

(But, you will make it fit.)

Yingxing is— is— he’s dead. He’s a corpse on the ground below you. One of his arms is missing, while the other is twisted at a most unnatural angle. His star silver hair is a tangled knot in the dirt, Yingxing’s favored hairpin shattered somewhere in the foreground. The color is no longer pure. It’s a dirty scarlet. A mix of your beloved’s blood and Shuhu’s. 

Yingxing’s eyes are half open and dull. Purple turned bruised-petal lilac. His lip is split and blood trickles from the corner of his lips,

This is not to say anything about his middle which is—

Not really there.

It makes inserting the heart easier. You think so anyway. Your hands shake (they never have before, not like this) and you cry (you have not cried like this before) as you shove the heart into Yingxing’s necrotic chest. You have to further break his ribs to shove your heart into him. Cloudhymn spins around you— a storm, a gale for you. It dulls the screams from your younger companion begging you to stop. A beast roars in the distance, above it all. The sound makes the air tremble and split. Your ears would bleed, were you a weaker species. 

(A necessary sacrifice— she— she was already dead. Past saving. You only have two hearts. One which is yours and one which is now—)

Yingxing’s.

Your beloved flinches. Lurches as unnatural growth burgeons from him. He wails on the ground as magics spin within him. You are doing the most unholy thing to him. But, you must, right? You cannot lose him. You cannot lose Yingxing. You have given everything, always, as every self, to your role and its meaning— can you not have this one thing? May your beloved not stay by your side, however unfair and painful the circumstances?

Unblemished, ghostly pale tissue regrows from Yingxing’s body at an alarming pace. It rejoins his upper and lower halves together as he screams. 

Yingxing’s hands wrap around your neck and you’re shoved into the dirt. You are not expecting the force and the impact, even less so. The air knock out of you and the cloudhymns shudder. The magics are thinner for a moment, you could see your other companions if you chose to. You could see how many Xianzhou cloud knights have fallen to the beast you created.

You ignore them.

You ignore them all to look up at your beloved. Eyes now a wild red, teeth glimmering white and stained with blood. His hair has darkened, silver turned dark, like it had been dipped in thick, viscous oil. Yingxing bares his teeth and screams at you. 

“WHAT DID YOU DO!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, DAN FENG!”

—!

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng awakens to a silent Astral Express. The trainship is still docked and it’s running on ancillary power in the meantime. 

It’s entirely too quiet. All he can hear is the pounding of his own heart.

He scrambles to grab at his own chest— there’s no gaping hole. There’s no— there’s no blood on his hands (not real, material blood anyway . Various parties would beg to differ as to if he has any actual blood on his hands. But, the past is the past, isn’t it? These dreams are the afterimages of the life of a deadman. That’s all they can be. The man that chases him across the universe bears a different name and a younger face. The man who will always make time for him on a Godship, so very far away, may use his name ‘Dan Heng’, but is that who he truly sees when he looks at Dan Heng?)

Dan Heng dry heaves into his hands.

He barely manages to crawl to the little bathroom attached to his room to puke his brains out. He hasn’t had much of an appetite over the past few days, and most of what comes up is water, pile, and half-digested rice porridge.

By the time he withdraws and flushes, wiping his hand over his mouth, he feels winded. Disgusting. Sweaty and entirely too wet. 

Shower.

Dan Heng methodically grabs his few supplies and walks across the silent Astral Express to the showers. He could take a bath— maybe it would help. March keeps minty bath products out and available that are so strong that they tend to pull any of the Express’s passengers out of a funk if used. There’s a little basket of them in the tiled common area of the baths. There’s a hand-written note in March’s perfect scrawl that says “Please take one❤️!) 

Dan Heng snatches a few before picking his favored, individual shower. There’s a little atrium before entering the shower itself, where he sheds his drenched bedclothes and hangs them, along with his towel. He turns on the shower and idles for a moment, listening to the dull roar of it.

Water splashes onto him in droplets. There’s a (dormant. Dormant. He swears it’s dormant) instinct to ball the errant water up and toy with it with cloudhymn. The pearl that idles in the center of Cloud Piercer has many different ways to harness its power beyond a weapon of steel that—

(Isn’t his, is it?)

Dan Heng wants to vomit again. He steps into the spray before the nausea overtakes him.

The spray is cold— he usually takes cold showers, regardless of if it’s after a particularly intimate dream. He prefers cold water. He enjoys cold baths, but they’re a luxury he enjoys only once in a while, and usually for the better part of a day. He’ll stay submerged for what would be a worrisome amount of time (if he didn’t bear the spare parts of imbibitor lunae) and, despite his assurances, worries the rest of the crew. As sedentary and reclusive as Dan Heng can be, camping out in the baths for the better part of a day causes a stir amongst the express.

They’re a treat, a bothersome one.

Now, he washes himself thoroughly. It’s a mechanical and rhythmic thing. It soothes him. His breath comes steadier.

Dan Heng hasn’t had a dream that unpleasant in quite some time. He has always had the more gruesome— of tragedies beyond this knowledge. But, they’re rarer. He is haunted more frequently by memories of pleasure and that almost makes the shadow of Dan Feng more cloying. The gruesome are just that— gruesome. He has put together pieces of Dan Feng’s sin, though he refuses to touch the Archive’s documents ported from the Luofu on the subject. 

Ignorance is bliss and Dan Heng feels knowledgeable enough. The breach between his own memories and Dan Feng’s is less solid than it once was. Dan Heng will more than likely find out with time.

It despairs him for a moment as he turns off the water and towels off. He feels— more lucid. Better. 

He’s surprised that you haven’t sought him out.

There’s— no way you didn’t perceive that dream. Dan Heng can’t be entirely sure what you mean when you call a dream ‘loud’, but he knows the very real pain he felt during it could constitute as such. He listens closely as he dresses in new bedclothes. The Express is still quiet aside from machine hum.

Dan Heng could check on you. He thinks about it. Your room is just past Stelle’s and considering you weren’t in the parlor car, you’re probably there.

You shouldn’t have seen that. But, it’s not like Dan Heng can help it, right? 

The tangle of feelings within Dan Heng writhes as he exits the showers. It grows even more unruly as he notes a change in the parlor car.

Resting on one of the plush seats is a hastily folded blanket, a still-steaming cup of tea, and a small, folded note.

Dan Heng approaches and reads.

DH

i’ve noticed you like my blankets. take this one. it’s one of my favorites.

have some tea and rest if you can.

— [name] ╰(*°▽°*)

The penmanship is shaky, and clearly quickly written. None of the paper’s folds match up with each other. There’s a spill of tea on the coffee table that looks half-wiped away. 

Something heavy settles in Dan Heng’s gut. He gathers the blanket, the tea, and your note and heads back to the archives with a pit in his chest.

Like he’s still missing a heart.

...

Things come to a head a few days later. The rest of the Astral Express crew is still sorting things on the space station, and you and Dan Heng only have so much space to dodge each other.

And, truthfully? Dan Heng stopped avoiding you the day before yesterday. Now, he is actively (read: passively but passionately) trying to seek you out. This involves listening keenly for when you leave your room, but lately, those trips are few and far between. And always occurring while Dan Heng is asleep. Pom Pom confirms this, looking increasingly uneasy at the clear tension between the two of you.

Dan Heng— doesn’t know what to do. He is good at running from his problems. He put Cloud Piercer through— Blade’s chest any number of times and hopped to the next planet more times than he cared to think about. He ran from the shackling prison, the Luofu, and its General without looking back even in a cursory way. Dan Heng finds sentimentality to be a new feeling, a new fixture within his person and does not know how to handle it. He does not want to run away from you— he wants to run toward you.

The blankets of yours (three in total) are in his nest. He paces the passenger car each night hoping you’ll reveal yourself. He hovers outside of your door, hand poised to knock, but he never does.

He does not know what he’d say. 

Dan Heng does not have confidence in his words in that way. He can speak well— it’s an overhang from Dan Feng, and he is grateful for it, but on more than one occasion, March has (rather explosively) shouted at him for being so... blank-faced in the heat of an emotional conflict. The two of them occasionally do butt heads, usually when March is attempting to run headfirst into a situation without proper forethought, and those encounters have ended with March tearfully screaming at Dan Heng to just be “honest with his face!” 

His lack of expression is also an overhang for Dan Feng. 

No matter how well-crafted his sentences and well-spoken his words, Dan Heng cannot connect them to how he feels... effectively. It’s disjointed. Like armor made with incorrectly sized plates that cannot possibly be pieced together. Clothing created with a misdrawn pattern, never able to be sewn in a wearable way. 

If he were to face you, he is certain he will not be able to voice how he feels.

He can at least— do something. Give you something, since you seem so hellbent on leaving him special tea blends you’ve stashed away and BLANKETS. 

(Do you have any idea what you’re doing to him?)

Dan Heng stops trying to run from you. He resolves to do something or say something because it's better than the widening rift that’s currently being run through the Astral Express, between the two of you. 

Dan Heng gets his opportunity in the late evening. He’d— feigned sleep. Intentionally. A deep state of meditation for long enough that you might think he was enjoying a dreamless night of sleep, however, he’d only be idle, waiting for sounds of any of your activity in the direction of the parlor and meal car. 

Dan Heng hears your door slide open down the hall as he sits upright, cross-legged in his nest of many blankets and pillows. Your steps are quiet, the lightest pad against the flooring outside. He strains to hear you.

He does notice, however, how you move even slower as you walk past his door. So clearly intentionally trying to keep quiet for his sake.

Dan Heng waits a few minutes until he’s certain you’re either in the Parlor Car or Meal Car before uncrossing his legs and bounding from his room. He means— to be more put together about this. But, he’s nervous he’ll miss his chance, and you’ll retreat, and be gone for longer—

Dan Heng finds you in the meal car, poking over cold dinner leftovers with a sullen expression. Your brows are heavy, eyes dull. You look— awful. You always look awful, he’s sure you’ll assure him, but now you look bad. You look ill. Unwell. The oversized shirt hanging from your shoulders billows in an uncomfortable way. It has too many undone buttons, leaving a deep v, exposing too much of your chest.

You look up at him, eyes widening.

“I thought you were asleep.” You say softly, putting down the tongs you had been using. You didn’t bother picking up any food, your little bowl is entirely empty. 

Dan Heng opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He snaps it shut a moment later.

Your eyes soften and you sag. You look like you could melt into the Express’s floor at any moment. Your eyes radiate... pity. 

“Did I wake you? I try to be quiet.” You laugh, looking sidelong, out one of the many windows. “Sorry about the fuss. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Dan Heng is frozen.

You idle, only for a moment, holding your breath, before shaking your head minutely. It— it makes his palms sweat. You try to shuffle past him. Dan Heng is blocking your only exit, and you attempt to side-step him as he gapes at you, unmoving. Unsure.

Dan Heng grabs you by the forearm as you pass.

He holds you there. Steady. His grip is firm and unyielding. Maybe too tight, based on your sharp intake of breath as you wobble in place. Dan Heng steadies you with his other hand. Without— thinking, his palm lands on your ribcage and you jump with the contact.

You stare at him, wide-eyed. 

And you face each other.

“You’re avoiding me.” Dan Heng speaks first. His words feel sure, but there’s a sticky feeling in his chest.

“... Perhaps.” You smile easily, despite how worn you look. “It seems like you have a lot on your mind. I didn’t want my presence and what it entails to burden you, dearest Dan Heng. I apologize if that wasn’t clear.”

“What do you mean by your ‘presence and what entails’?” 

You look like you’ve been punched. Dan Heng feels ill. 

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Please be straightforward. 

“Kind Dan Heng, I am—” 

“Please, explain yourself.” Dan Heng feels— frustration bubble up into the back of his throat. It’s acidic. He looks from the grip he has on your arm to your face, lingering on the chapped lines of your lips before meeting your eyes. “Why do you think you would burden me?”

You look at him sadly, “I thought we’ve been over this.”

“We haven’t, to my knowledge.”  Dan Heng frowns. You look like you’ve been slapped.

“I apologize.” You shouldn’t be. “Dan Heng, don’t I know too much?”

He locks his jaw. 

You continue. “You’re an incredibly private person. I don’t want to know about a past you’re clearly not comfortable sharing. I cannot help what I am able to perceive, however I can create some distance between the two of us, so as not to suffocate you with the fact that I know about your dirty laundry without your expressed consent.”

Dan Heng’s mouth is dry. 

You’re an unbearably earnest individual. As mysterious as you make yourself, you don’t tend to lie. You’re blunt in a way that’s disarming, heart flayed open as if rended with a short, sharp blade, on display for anyone who would like to view and poke at it. 

“I apologize for communicating that more effectively,” You add more softly. You place your hand over his, the one bracing your arm. You squeeze. “It must be hard to bear those things, and you’ve made it clear you wish to do so alone. I want to respect that and you, Dan Heng. My door is always open, but I thought it might be easier for you to not... be reminded so easily, by my presence.”

Your eyes are wet as you look away from him, to the floor. You take the smallest, most guarded intake of breath. It looks like you’re trying not to cry.  

Dan Heng feels something cold and large in his chest. Big enough to swallow him whole. 

He says your name, even and unwavering, with the weight of the sea behind it. You glance up at him, straining to give him your same lazy, forced smile—

And he kisses it off your lips.

It’s not an action Dan Heng thinks about. You’re almost close enough to feel each other’s breath regardless. One moment, he is staring at you with his own frown, and the next his lips are on yours, tilting his head to search for the best angle. The force of the action has you stumbling back into the wall behind you. The hand he kept on your ribs moves to your waist, bracing you.

It takes a moment for you to react. A startled little (whimper, a whimper) sound gets muffled by his lips as he cradles your jaw. Deepening the gesture. You react and— return it. Moving your lips against his, leaning into his grip. 

Only to freeze, and shove at his shoulders a moment later, “W-Wait.”

Dan Heng pulls back, panting.

“You don’t have to do this,” you tell him. There’s an urgency in your voice like you’re scared. You nervously run your hands up and down his arms. Dan Heng doesn’t even think you’re aware you’re doing so. “I— I offered sex to you seriously, but— don’t just take my affection because you want to close the distance. There’s other ways to be intimate, you know?”

“I’m aware,” says Dan Heng. Your lips are just barely kiss bruised. He wants to make it worse. It’s an easier expression of the gulf in his chest that writhes with your closeness. “However, I want to fuck you.”

The dullness of your eyes is stolen as they widen. Heat rises in your cheeks. You’re stunned speechless.

...

Dan Heng wants to eat you.

As in, he wants to have you in his mouth, under his teeth and tongue, and get you in his gut so you never go away again. It’s— a draconic instinct. Something carnal and old that could swallow him alive. It is another overhang from Dan Feng. Such bloody impulses aren’t... uncommon for Dan Heng. However, he has learned to temper them with training, combat, and more recently, some expression of cloudhymn.

Never sex, however. Because your initial guess was correct. Dan Heng has not ever had sex, and the last time Dan Feng had had sex, he is fairly certain was a teary, bloody affair with a half-dead, bloodied Yingxing. 

This encounter, however, is very different.

There is no swirling Scalegorge and broken, coral-lined streets. There is no sand grating against his knees over Yingxing's almost-corpse. There is no tempest of his own making, cracking the sky in two, and tearing the world asunder.

Rather, there is his nest of blankets and pillows, and your soft body below him. He straddles your waist, protecting the curve of your thighs with his own. The lights of the Archive’s room are dim, the machine hum below is lulling background noise and comforting. And you— you’re warm— not cold or bloodied. Your eyes are soft, but keen in a different way from the man in the echoes of memory. There’s no sharpness to you, not in your words or your presence.

You’re gentle as you cup Dan Heng’s jaw and drag him closer to kiss him.

“You’re thinking pretty hard.” You murmur against his lips. “Are you sure you want this?”

The question makes him— angry. He still doesn’t know how to voice it, so instead he pressed you down into the floor. A bodily expression.

Your hands tangle in his hair and stroke at the lower curve of his skull. It’s gentle, rhythmic and lulling. It’s nothing like—

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing tears at your scalp, hands wound into your long hair. His cock is buried in your throat, bullied there at your request. He’s seated so deep that your nose is buried in the bristly, silver hairs at the base of him. His scent is intoxicant, musky and unclean. Instinct tells you it’s impure, but you have learned that’s conditioning.

You want to swallow him whole.

You swallow around his cock as Yingxing grinds into your throat. You gag, you always do, but Yingxing ignores you in favor of fucking your face with more vigor. The sounds that drag from you are obscene. Ugly things, guttural sounds. Tears drip down your cheeks, spit down your chin—

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You kiss him softly, pliant beneath him and snake a hand lower, easily. It’s practiced. Like you’ve done this a hundred times. The rhythm of intimacy seems easy. You palm over his increasingly hard cock and smile against his lips.

“Does it feel good?” you ask, voice soft and curling. 

Before Dan Heng can reply, you’re licking up his jaw, to his ear. You nip and suck and Dan Heng can’t help the way his eyes roll back in his head. He groans, rolling his hips against your hand. The friction is dry, but it’s something. Something new and different and not an arousing nightmare. But an arousing reality.

He moans at the contact. The sound startles him.

You seem pleased as you hum against his ear and kiss down from his most sensitive spot, lower, licking over skin with practiced motions. You nip at his collarbones, laughing under your breath when Dan Heng twitches with the pressure of it.

Dan Heng feels— thoroughly disarmed. The feeling grows more intense as you coax him to flip your positions in the next moment.

His back hits the mound of pillows softly. You cradle the back of his head as he moves and massage his scalp.

It’s— the care of it that feels different. There was clearly care between Dan Feng and Yingxing. Too much, in Dan Heng’s opinion— (they shared the kind of care that tore history asunder, love so brilliant and cloying that it could only bring sticky destruction). The kind you give him is different. There’s a warmth in your gaze which is foreign. Yingxing held passion and a brightly burning heat that would surely burn itself out too young. Branding heat.

Yours is tender, the warmth of a hearth you stacked and lit yourself. You beckon him closer with a smile on your lips and hands tangled in his hair. You tug on it, with the barest edge of pain. Dan Heng likes it. 

Your knee slots between his thighs, something to grind onto. He can’t help the way he yearns for more contact, and seeks the friction. His pants are too tight, but he doesn’t want to remove them yet.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing tears off your clothes. Your finest robes— the ceremonial ones, silks with intricate embroidery and beaded with perfectly cut crystals— are in tatters by your bedside within moments. Yingxing’s want is unyielding. The lips that move against your own are so much, and so good. You crave it. Yingxing licks into your mouth and you moan loud enough for your entire home to hear. Never mind your attendants and preceptors. 

Let them talk. Let them gossip. You have never cared for legacy regardless.

Yingxing rips away your undergarments. Gossamer things, thin and mostly see-through. You’re already hard, leaking, aching for touch. Yingxing spits on his palm and strokes you. He doesn’t stop as you squirm. You’re not used to touch, especially not like this. No matter how often Yingxing takes you like this, your body cannot fully acclimate quickly. 

It takes a moment.

Yingxing uses this to his advantage. He holds you like he has something to prove as he swipes away pre from the head of your cock and licks it off his thumb. He looks smug, smitten, vibrant, and enthralled.

“How many times can I make you come tonight?” Yingxing purrs, voice rough and silken all at once. You feel your cock twitch in his hand. He smirks. “What if I break you?”

“I’d throw you through a window.” You snap at him.

“You wouldn’t.” Yingxing rubs down to the base of your cock and plays with your most tender parts. You try to kick him and he catches your ankle. Yingxing, the bastard he is, presses a kiss to your ankle. Reverent. “You like it when I break you.”

“You’re terrible.”

“And I’m yours. And I’d like to make Yinyue-Jun cry tonight.” 

It’s— humiliating the way he speaks to you sometimes. He adores you. He loves you. And for that reason, he knows he can get away with goading you on and shoving you around as he does. He knows intimately what it all does to you. The way your cheeks flush and your cock leaks down its shaft are enough of an indicator. No one sees you bare. Just— him.

Just him.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Dan Heng starts to remove your clothes. 

You seem surprised when he does. You try to take over the task yourself, but Dan Heng bats your hands away.

He wants to do this.

Dan Heng is methodical with each button and overly careful. He watches the rise and fall of your chest, noting how it hastens as he works on the last few buttons. The garment is pushed off your shoulders and discarded into his nest.

Seeing you bare is— vulnerable. Surely. You attempt to smile but— Dan Heng sees the cracks in it. As lax as you try to be, this is something different for you as well. Another mystery woven into you that Dan Heng wants to pick apart.

He rubs at your hips, up your ribs and to your chest. You gasp with his touch, leaning back to brace yourself on his thighs. It exposes you more, and— gives him more room to indulge. He cups your breast and steels his resolve when you whine.

Dan Heng has never done this. He wasn’t sure he ever would. It feels foreign and odd to touch you this way, but Dan Heng likes it. The heat that rises in your cheeks when he pinches your nipples. The soft puffs of breath and the sweat of arousal that’s growing on your temple. You roll your hips down onto his clothed cock, seeking the same contact he does. 

There’s a tumble to it then. The task of disrobing continues, and you end up entirely nude on top of him, while Dan Heng is still fully clothed.

“... Is this more comfortable for you?” You ask. You aren’t... shy about your body. But there’s an unfamiliar squirm in your upper half that Dan Heng reads as discomfort.

You’re exposed. He is not.

“Somewhat.” Dan Heng lays his hand flat over his navel. He imagines what his cock would feel like inside you and he nearly blacks out.

“Why?”

Dan Heng thinks for a moment—

(It’s because Dan Feng liked power. He loved the games where he could have all of the power and control in his hands, and those where it was torn from him as well. He reveled in both. This— want is an afterburn. One that is not Dan Heng’s. Just like every other thought of intimacy and sex that Dan Heng has ever felt—)

“Dan Heng,” You breathe his name and pet his cheeks. You’re closer now, chest to chest. “Can you tell me why? It’s okay if you can’t.”

“It’s too complicated.”

“... Could you try to tell me, still? We have time.”

“I want to fuck you.”

“You can. After.”

Dan Heng frowns at you. He wants to tell you that— he wants it now. And that patience is something he has in spades but you are testing the limits of. Your poking and prodding, he wants to toss it aside in favor of the literal you in his lap.

He wets his lips as you look at him expectantly. You stroke over his cheek, soothing him as if he were an angry kitten.

“I like that—” Dan Heng starts, and his words die in his throat. What he wants to say—

(“I like that I can see all of you, while not revealing any of myself.”)

You seem like less of a mystery like this, bare and sweaty over top of him. There’s less of you that you can obscure. You’re not hiding from him, dodging him, or flaying him open with honesty while so much of you remains tucked away. You cannot hide your own arousal. Your cheeks are hot with it, your pupils dark and dilated, and your lips are licked and wet. 

“Hm?” You hum, a devious smirk stretching over your lips. You grind down onto his cock, with enough pressure that it almost hurts. His eyes roll back into his head. “Can’t you tell me, Dan Heng? Why do you like hiding the way you do?”

Dan Heng stills, opening his eyes to blink at your incredulously.

“... Why do ‘I’ hide?” Dan Heng asks. His tone is rude. He internally slaps his own wrists then forgives himself, because in the next moment, you have your palm over his cock, gripping the length of him through the fabric of his pants. You flick your thumb over where the head is concealed and look smitten with the way his hips jolt.

“I am not a fool.” You toy with the button on his trousers. “Dan Heng, the Nameless, who hides and hides and hides. And feels so infinitely bad when a single card in his hand is revealed. The shame you carry, doesn’t it burden you?”

Dan Heng’s mouth is dry, “I—”

“You can hide like this. I won’t stop you,” You hum, still smiling, still lax in the shoulders. You run a hand up his navel, over his shirt, careful to retain his frail modesty. “Perhaps a bit bashful, yes. But, you’re hiding. How can you crave intimacy when you’re seeking it from behind a veil? Dearest Dan Heng, I will indulge you, because you are dear to me, but will it be fulfilling—?”

You prattle on.

Dan Heng is... seething. Quietly and carefully. Because, you are not wrong. There’s truth to your accusations. You speak no lies, yet the way you’re... delivering the truth is frail and in fragments. Your own eyes look hazy. Your touch grows shaky. Your voice is too soft around the edges for the sharpness of your words. 

Dan Heng—

He knows that look.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You have never had sex before. 

You’ve read about it, because your Preceptors made sure you did when you were young. This was in the case that you were raped, that you would know what the experience was, so it could be reported in an appropriate and timely manner. 

Your exposure to sex beyond that was minimal. Though Vidyadhara copulated, it was not for the sake of procreation. It was based in pleasure, supposedly. You had learned that the humans and foxians of the Xianzhou had sex for the sake of pleasure and power which... you cannot understand. You don’t endeavor to understand it, as you have all of the power that you need. 

(You are naive for this, you will learn in time.)

The first time Yingxing implores you to have sex, you know the rote motions. You assume— that since he is a human, this is what he wants from you. You let Yingxing push you down on your own mattress, and you lay there. Yingxing speaks as he disrobes himself, then tends to you.

Each layer of clothing he removes from your body feels like you’re being cut with a knife.

You haven’t let any attendants dress you since you learned to adeptly use Cloudhymn to assist yourself instead. You frequently wear three, sometimes four, layers of silken clothing, even when you are around your own home. 

No one sees Yinyue-Jun bare.

And yet, Yingxing peels back each garment without much reverie. He undoes metal and mother-of-pearl clasps with a dexterous flick of his fingers and a dashing, sharp-toothed smile over his lips. 

You look down at his own chest when he pushes away the final layer. Your skin is milky, untouched cream. You’re too skinny, the muscle you have is wiry without enough fat. You watch your own chest rise and fall— so quickly. Too quickly. 

When you look up at Yingxing, whatever smile he had worn is gone. He wears concern so transparently over his brow as he cups your cheek. His lips move, and you do not hear him. Your own lips still move, an instinctual reply even if you do not register your own words. You can predict what you’re saying.

(“I am fine.)

(“There is no need to worry about me.”)

(“You are foolish for worrying about me.”)

Yingxing softens after you speak, and thumbs over your lips. The pads of his fingers are rough. You can feel the heat callouses, born of friction and incidental burns. It’s so much different from your own flesh, constantly-healing, pure and so rarely bruised.

Yingxing deftly falls to your side, and scoops you in his arms. He smells like iron and smoke. You’re stiff at his side. 

He speaks directly in your ear, nosing the shell of it, “As much as I would love to bed Yinyue-Jun, I can recognize when I need to be a gentleman about it.”

“... Pardon?” You swallow. Your voice is foggy in your own ears.

Yingxing’s hand settles on his hip. He pulls back just enough to look at you, nose to nose, violet eyes soft in the amber sway of candles in the room. 

“Yinyue-Jun is very brave, for a virgin.” This time, Yingxing smiles like a menace. You punch his back and he seems unperturbed. “Let’s take our time. You have plenty of it, and I have enough to show you how to enjoy this well.”

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Dan Heng understands, then. 

In a smooth motion, he raises his palm to fit over your mouth. You stop speaking beneath it, and you snatch his wrist up in your own grip.

“If I am hiding, then so are you,” Dan Heng says. There is no waver to his voice anymore. “And you are terrified.”

You freeze above him.

It’s enough of an opening for Dan Heng to knit his legs with your own, and drag you down into his nest. He wraps his arms around you, chest-to-chest (covering you, hiding you himself, keeping you safe and sating that fanged, draconic howl in his chest that will never fully quiet). You remain stiff in his arms, eyes wide and you’re not smiling. 

Your gaze flickers up to his and holds it, unrelentingly.

“I don’t mind doing things scared.” You tell him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“Will you enjoy it if you’re scared?”

“... Maybe less, but it’ll feel nice.” You shrug, nosing at his jaw. “I like you, Dan Heng. I wouldn’t have offered sex if I didn’t want to have it.”

Dan Heng locks his jaw. He noses down your jaw, down your neck, to the juncture where your shoulder meets it. The flesh is tender. You have your free arm draped carefully over your chest, covering your most exposed, vulnerable portions as he tries to do the same to you. Your breath is soft, bated as he hovers.

“I don’t want to have sex with you if it will only feel ‘nice’,” Dan Heng says into the hollow of your throat. 

“How demanding.”

The bar is on the fucking ground. “I do not think so.”

Dan Heng slides a hand lower, between your thighs. You’re only wearing shorts, soft amiri-cotton that sparkles in the lowlight of the archive’s room. It’s a thin garment. It takes nothing for Dan Heng to cup a hand over your sex. With dexterity and focus, he presses his middle finger closer. The seam of your cunt is wet, even through the fabric.

“Are you scared or nervous?” He asks.

“Hm, what about you?”

“Do not dodge my question.” He squeezes over your cunt and you clutch at his shoulders with a gasp. “Just answer it.” 

You consider his question, and open your mouth like you’re going to attempt to parry him, then close it again. Your lips are smooth, petal-soft as he thumbs over them, urging them to stay closed until you have an answer. 

Dan Heng struggles with eye contact, but forces himself to stare you down. 

“Both?” You ask behind his finger. There’s a hint of mirth behind your words.

Dan Heng frowns, “How can it... be enjoyable for you?”

“... That’s a good question.” You look far-off for a moment, not there in his nest. “Not quite sure, but I’m sure I can.”

There’s an implicit ‘I have before’ that you do not say. However, with the way your head falls limply to the side in his grip, Dan Heng immediately knows he hit one of your rare soft spots. He— he immediately regrets it. He’s in uncharted territory that he strong-armed his way into. And he— he doesn’t know the way out. He’s a sexless virgin who masturbates once every three months and his most emotionally (and sexually) charged relationship is with the living ghost of a man insistent on killing him.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing does not remember much of his youth.

Dan Feng knows this intimately. 

The short-lived have expiring memories that seem to muddle the old over time. Dan Feng cannot understand, as his memory is pristine and clear from the time he emerged from the ancient sea in a jade-colored egg.

Yingxing remembers the Zhuming, vaguely, and then remembers arriving on the Luofu. He vaguely remembers his first meeting with Baiheng, and sleeping on a little cot in her tiny apartment while he worked his way up in the Artisanship Commission. Lucidly, these are his earliest memories.

Outside of lucidity, Dan Feng knows Yingxing remembers more.

Occasionally, something will make Yingxing remember his unpleasant, smallest youth. The loud boom of the Luofu’s biggest fireworks. A snarling dog. Splintering wood. The scent of burnt hair.

It makes Yingxing stiffen, tense, and draw up in himself.

Dan Feng has done his own research early on. In his adolescence, Yingxing was nothing more than a scrappy refugee with nothing to his name.

Yingxing’s home planet, a lush-planet... abundant in jungle lands and river systems, was plundered by abundance. Borisins. Most of its population was wiped out. Yingxing escaped due to good fortune, luck, and no doubt sacrifices he couldn’t remember.

He understands Yingxing’s passion and revulsion much better after he learns these things. 

It all enrages Dan Feng.

Yingxing’s fragmented memory, which continues to weather with time, can only give him the basest impulses when faced with something that makes him remember that frightening time. Even if he cannot remember in the mind, then he does in the body.

Dan Feng does not tell Yingxing that he knows. Yingxing is too proud a man— he’ll take offense and cause trouble. Dan Feng thinks it is better that he himself hold the knowledge, and soothe him how he can. Dan Feng can stew within himself, hone Cloud Piercer, and cut those who slighted his beloved. 

It is something beyond duty. 

An expression of care, one that tastes briny and bloody on Dan Feng’s fangs.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

“Can I help?” Dan Heng asks.

You blink at him. He strokes down your cheek. You hum and press your lips into his palm.

“Can you?”

“I— I will,” Dan Heng stammers. “How can I make this less... scary, for you?”

Can he?

Your gaze penetrates him. It’s something sharp, seeking. Looking for his weak spots for a moment. You’re searching for danger in him.

You soften and cozy up closer, a moment later.

“Just... take your time, and I’ll take mine.” You kiss him, and speak against his lips. “It’s easier if we both can ease into it.” 

Dan Heng nods. He... he wants to fuck you. He will.

...

You pick each other apart. Bit by bit, piece by piece. 

It is a slow affair, one neither of you truly lead. You spur Dan Heng on, and he follows. 

He guides you when he can, when it feels natural and normal. You seem content in those moments, more relaxed and soft-eyed.

You do not wear a full facade all of the time, but Dan Heng now knows that you are careful to keep yourself skillfully hidden. 

Dan Heng finds this out, intimately, while he is between your thighs, tongue against your slit. He laps at you, in the motions you describe. Your hands are buried in his hair, directing him with your grip and the gentle grind of your hips against his face. It is— heavenly. Your thighs around his ears, the scent of you. He left a few pointed bite marks on your thighs, which you had yelped at.

He enjoyed giving them.

You fall apart against his mouth in a way he hasn’t seen before.

It’s— so good to watch. When he looks up at you, you gasp, you whine, and throw your wrist over your mouth to muffle the sounds you’re letting out. Each gasp has Dan Heng earnestly trying to wring more out of you. He watches your eyes roll back as you crest. Your thighs clamp around his skull and a broken sound rips from your throat. He guides you through it, then moves to your hole, lapping at your essence until he’s sure he’s drenched in it.

You pull him up for a kiss, and lick into his mouth. Your hands shake as they pet over his cheeks and jaw. Against his lips, you tell him— “you did so well”, “that was so good”, “thank you” —

The praise is almost unbearable Dan Heng has to hide his burning face in your neck to escape the vulnerability of it. 

You pay it no mind, and just laugh at him, smothering your lips into his mused-up hair.

It’s— it’s good. It’s good and soft and nothing like the dreams he’s carried with him for fair too long.

“Did you enjoy that?” You ask him, forcing him to look at you.

“I did.”

“Good.” You’re smitten with the answer and rub at his waist. You’d— clawed off his shirt at one point. Bare to each other. Dan Heng only has on his final layer of underwear that is increasingly tight and wet, with a growing patch of pre on the front.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” You ask. Your hand, gentle, slides down his front, between your bodies to rub over his cock. 

Dan Heng— struggles to find words as you tease the head of it with the tip of a finger. The smile you wear is devilish. 

“Maybe later—” He manages. “I want to— be inside you.”

He wants to be closer.

You look content with that, and pet him some more.

“In due time,” You kiss his cheek. “Will you allow me to be cruel, and make you wait a little longer?”

“It’s not cruel.”

“Okay, mean then.”

“You’re the furthest thing from mean.” Dan Heng frowns. He bites your cheek in retaliation without thinking and you squirm, pinned beneath him. A laugh bubbles from your throat, and Dan Heng can’t help but twin the sound. 

“So kind.”

...

Time stretches out, between languid kissing and the feel of your bare bodies so close, the night and day cycles the Express regulates do not seem of consequence. It’s the most relaxed Dan Heng has been in recent memory. You make it easy to be so.

You have no expectations when you touch him, other than the easy exchange of heat and spit. 

By the time Dan Heng has your legs wrapped around your waist, cock against your hole, he’s light-headed. He wants, so much. The image of you laid out before him, bare and covered in various marks of his, will be with him for years. There’s nothing lazy or unfocused about your gaze now, there’s only desire, so hot and needy that it makes Dan Heng’s throat feel tight.

You flex your hips, pushing the tip of his cock against your clit. You both gasp.

“Please, Dan Heng?” You say smugly as you play with the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I—” The words die in his throat.

He strokes up and down the flesh of your stomach. Your muscles are relaxed, soft. You’re no longer playing a role, he thinks. You’re here, wanting, edging toward begging him. The head of his cock is purple from strain and prolonged arousal. 

He presses into you slowly.

You are stretched, and Dan Heng isn’t particularly large, so he does not see any strain cross your features. If anything, there’s relief. If you were relaxed before, you’re boneless now, taking as much of him as he will give you.

Dan Heng fucks you in earnest then, under the glow of the Archive’s many machines and fixtures. You grab at his shoulders and bury your face in his neck. Dan Heng didn’t think he shared Dan Feng’s proclivity for pain, however the way your nails wrack down his back has him throbbing from inside you.

By the time he spills inside you, he’s gasping, sobbing with each thrust because it is so much. Closeness— like this— that’s real and tangible and in his grasp and within his body (only his, no one else’s) feels so vibrant and violent, it cleaves him open. He comes with a broken sound muffled into your throat, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh there. You let him, spasming with the pressure and letting out your own half-cry with the pain. Dan Heng fucks you through his orgasm, until he can’t support his weight on his knees, and he falls on top of you.

You let out a little ‘oof’, and then laugh, wrung out and happy. 

Dan Heng cherishes the memory.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You are most tired, but you must continue to move forward.

Despite your aching rear and scratchy eyes, there are duties to attend to. Never mind that your husband is in your bed, knocked out, regardless of whatever regenerative cloudhymns you could give him. Yingxing is mortal, and no matter how much of you he consumes (figuratively), it only slows his aging, never stopping it completely.

Yingxing will die, long before you do. And that is if he dies of old age and not the diseases and maladies of the short-lived. Or some violence that you and the rest of the Quintet will be unable to protect him from.

This will not do.

You enter your study with sweeping, loose robes. You tell your attendants to leave you be. Your ritual obligations are not until the evening. Until then, you will be confine yourself in your study and continue to pour over the scrolls, documents, and books you have been able to find. It has been hard to procure some of them— having Sanctus Medicus texts brought to the home of the High Elder would be treasonous. It has required careful planning to amass the library you have, and you are diligent in keeping it hidden. Even from your lover.

He would not forgive you, were he to know.

You have never been selfish, not once in your life. In any of your lives. You have lived for your people, the Luofu, and a dead Aeon that you remain the after-image of. You have played the part well, smiled when necessary and remained cold enough to rarely stir dangerous interests. You have healed many without complaint.

As you settle into your nest of pillows and blankets, and pick up your newest scroll, you don’t feel that guilty. You will let yourself have this one thing. If nothing else in any of your lifetimes, this one fucking thing will be yours. 

You unfurl the scroll with a yawn. It’s a text, an old one, from the High Elder that followed Yubie. They lived a short life for a high elder, two hundred years. However, they were a prolific scholar. Most of their works have been hidden away with time, as some are downright blasphemous and utilize the Abundance in a way that both the Vidyadhara’s high council and the Luofu’s Charioteers could not tolerate. 

This particular one has not seen the light of day since that High Elder’s time. It is titled:

[The Twin-Hearted Dragon Theory: The Permanence and Abundance’s Coalescing] 

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

“What a weird one.” You say with a yawn. Dan Heng can hear your voice through your chest, where his cheek is pillowed on your bare chest. He— there’s a spot of drool that’s cooling unpleasantly. He blinks awake and rises off you, to rub the stickiness away, blushing furiously.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It was cute. You were sleeping good, for once.” You tell him and muse up his hair. “Besides, you’ve gotten me far messier than that.” 

You both are messy. Dan Heng can feel the stickiness on his softened cock, and he imagines you’re leaking between your legs. He sneaks a hand between your body and gently feels along your thighs to confirm his suspicion.

You gasp when he grazes your core. You— you are dripping. Cold, too. It must be uncomfortable. Dan Heng frowns.

“Don’t worry about that.” You assure him, voice shaking. “We can clean up in a little bit.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“Maybe,” you hum, unsure. “I don’t mind it, regardless.”

Dan Heng raises himself up off of you, and braces his hands on your inner thighs. He’s warmed with the combined heat of the Archives, his nest, and you. You’re chilled under him and— Dan Heng. Can’t have that. He can’t totally trace why, he pulls a blanket up and over your bodies. 

You let him arrange you as he sees fit. He brings you to his chest, and fits your head under his chin. He tangles your legs, indulges in the contact and tries to transfer some of his volcanic heat into you. You look content as he does, nuzzling into his throat. 

Your own eyelids droop.

“Are you going to sleep?” He asks. 

“... Probably not.” You say with a yawn.

“You look tired.”

“I am,” You nod and push closer. “But, I don’t need to, and it’s hard to get myself to sleep. It’s more trouble than it's worth, trying to sleep.”

Dan Heng doesn’t think before speaking. “Has it always been hard?” 

You pause, breathing even and slowly, “Not always.”

“Why did it get harder?”

You choose your words carefully then, despite your evident exhaustion. Your brow droops, and you rub at Dan Heng’s sides. Your thumbs skitter over his ribs.

“How much do you know about the Kin of Sacha, Dan Heng?” You ask. “It provides context. I’d hate to bore you.”

“... Very little. The databanks only has limited information.”

“Oh, you looked for me?” You nip at his jaw, playful, even as Dan Heng prepares a nervous rebuttal. You soothe his distress before it can get anywhere. “I’m kidding— and it makes sense there’s not much about us out there. There aren’t that many of us to begin with.”

“... How many?”

“I’m not sure, truthfully. Probably less than a thousand. Maybe half of that. Unless Sacha has... awoken to bless more. But I doubt that.”

You rarely mention the Aeon who provided you your sleeplessness and dream-seeing. You even more seldom mention anyone you knew prior to your time on the express.

You sign, “Typically, the Kin of Sacha work as mystics or laborers. Some societies we encountered saw the Aeon’s gifts as a psychic boon to be cultivated. Others, like the one I was raised in, saw the Kin as a well of infinite, tireless labor. You learn quickly under those expectations that even if you could sleep, it’s more ideal not to.”

Conditioning, then.

Dan Heng thinks back to when he first saw you at that rest stop. How you’d swayed on your two feet, eyes glassy and far away. How long they took to focus. How the embroidered logo on your breast must’ve belonged to whatever company you’d been under the employ of. Pieces fit together, and Dan Heng feels slightly sick.

“You don’t— need to be like that, now. You should sleep.”

With your hands braced on his chest, you lean back to look at him. Your gaze is soft, unguarded. You look almost plush with it. 

“... I guess I should.”

(I guess I could.)

That’s all it takes, really. You nearly collapse back into the nest, and Dan Heng settled himself to be curled around you. If— If he still deigned to manifest his Vidyadharan tail, perhaps it would be curled around you both. 

But, Dan Heng does not manifest any tail. You do not need to stay awake. You both rest under the filtered, soft light of the Archives, and that is all you must do. 

[jiejies-corner-store]

THE AVENTURINE FIC 😭😭 OH GOSH IM CRYING 😭😭

i’m so sorry, anon! here this should make it up 😭😭 the devil knows you're dead

pairing. aventurine x reader

tags/tw: fem!reader, references to a complicated childbirth, mother!reader, father!aventurine, spoilers to aventurine's real name, spoilers in reference to 2.1 trailblaze questline, aventurine’s nihilism and depression, references to death, hurt/comfort, ooc aventurine probably, i make shit up at the end because i want a happy ending—bite me.

sfw

a/n: ouchie. i finished 2.1 and it hurt. it hurt a lot. the ost for the “all the sad tales” is genuinely so beautiful. the trumpet just feels so melancholy yet hopeful it just goes so perfectly with aventurine’s story. but i need something that feels good now. ABSOLUTELY NOT PROOF-READ pt. 1

“As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.”

It was cold. Cold and warm. Almost feverish feeling. The type of feeling you’d get when you were freezing but your skin was hot to the touch. There was this frustrating beeping noise somewhere off in the distance that you just couldn’t tune out, finally you opened your eyes to see a sea of darkness, and seemingly at an unreachable horizon, a large circle of white light that looked like a gate.

“You’re not dead, if that’s what you’re wondering,” a voice came from beside you. How you didn’t realize there was a whole person standing next to you, you had no clue.

“Well, that’s not originally what I was going for, but now I’m a bit worried I might be,” you laughed, nervous, but curious all the same. This… person you couldn’t quite make out an exact face, or even a body for that matter, but ther was this distinct feeling that it was in fact a person. Like your instinct knew, but your brain couldn’t quite fill in the details.

“This is a place beyond mortal comprehension, if I tried to explain it to you, you would only be more confused. Walk with me,” the entity said, and without even willing your body to do so, you followed. Ripples emanated from each step as you followed and soon the inky void around you melted into an unfamiliar planet.

The sky was a deep purple, streaked with red that looked like lighting that crackled along the sky. Instead of the fluid, black ground, sand now shifted as you moved foward. Inside a small hut made of rock, you saw a woman cradling a swaddled child.

“Such a lucky child, such a blessed child… Just like your name. A gift from THEM to Avgin… my boy…”

You turned to the figure beside you and hesitantly asked, “Where are we?”

“A land of rock, but not water, lightning, but not rain, blood, but not tears,” the entity responded cryptically, which only caused a crease in your brow. You went closer to the mother in the hut and sat next to her. She whispered a blessing onto her child, but none of the words made sense to your ears. Similar to the entity, it’s like your brain scrambled them from your understanding.

The mother cried. You tried to wrap your arms around her to comfort her but only phased through her like a ghost. The baby too began to cry.

Then, the scene changed again, suddenly it was a cell with iron bars. A blond young man sat next to you. The blond’s gaze was downturned, but you could recognize that voice anywhere.

“—Thirty tanba… that’s all my life is worth.”

“That’s not…” you said, but realized it was all in vain. You tried again to take Kakavasha’s hands into your own. You wantd to take the cuffs off his wrists and cradle where the skin was rubbed raw.

“It's all or nothing…”

“Kakav—agh!”

Your future never existed You█ future never existed You█ future ne█er existed You█ fut███ ne█er existed You█ fut███ ne█er ████ted You█ fut███ █e█er ████ted Yo██ ██████ █e█er ████ted

Your mind felt clouded, a searing headache, followed by an inability to even pin down a coherent thought. The scene shifted once more.

“What’s going on!” you shouted at the figure that stood only silently next to you, crippled on the ground, clutching at your head, fingers pressing in to try to find the spot that would alleviate this awful pressure.

When your senses were no longer blinded by pain, you were back to that inky void you started in, but this time you weren’t alone. Not far away, maybe twenty feet or so, was your Kakavasha, and a woman you didn’t recognize.

“Why are we born into this world if it's just to die?”

You stumbled to your feet to try to run to him, but with each step closer he only got further away. He walked towards that gate of light. In your head, you heart was pounding faster and faster. You failed to catch up to him. He only got further and further away until he disappeared like fireflies dispersing into the night, “Kakavasha! No—!”

Utterly devastated, you sunk back onto your knees. You didn’t know why but you had this distinct feeling of loss. Tears rolled from your eyes freely. He… he wasn’t gone surely? The entity’s presence reappeared next to you.

“Why did you show me all of this,” you asked, not sure if you actually wanted an answer.

“Because you need to go back,” the entity answered and your jaw locked, gritting your teeth so hard they hurt.

You screamed into the void, “You’re the one who brought me here!”

“I never call anyone to me… you mortals believe that it is US that determine when your time to go is… but in truth it is your own doing, whether it is your body or your mind that gives up first,” the entity said, “It is only the strength of your will that will allow you to continue down your destined path… but many give up on that path and someone else must be chosen.”

“What does this have to do with me,” you snapped. “Why are you meddling in my life? What does Kakavasha have to do with this?”

“Kakavasha still has a long road ahead of him. I have supplemented his journey all his life. It was only recently he was able to live on his own will,” said the entity ”Your body is giving up. I do not have the power anymore to keep him alive. That lies with you.”

Your surroundings melted again. You were in a hospital room and on the bed was you. Eyes closed and steadily breathing, but your heartbeat was weak. The annoying beeping from before was louder and more prominent.

“You wanted to help him. During his past, you reached out each time. There is nothing you can do about that now, but the future and the present… you still have a choice.”

Laying a hand on your unmoving body, there was a slight resistance, but with just a bit more pressure you felt as if you could phase through it entirely.

“What do I need to do,” you asked the entity.

“Live.”

You furrowed your brow at that. Of course you wanted to live… right? The entity gestured for your hand, you obliged. Against your palm was an oddly soft feeling. Warm. Like a mother’s touch against your’s. Your palms pressed together, the entity spoke,

“May the goddess Gaiathra close HER eyes three times… Keep your blood eternally pulsing… Let your journey be forever peaceful… …and your schemes forever concealed."

You lifted your head and your “body” began to disappear similar to how Kakavasha disappeared. Just before you disappeared into sparks of golden light, you had the sense about you to ask:

“Who are you?” you felt like you were shouting, but your voice was quiet.

“You could call me Fenge Biyos.”

You opened your eyes with a deep gasp for air. Your surroundings were blurry, and you rubbed at your eyes, only to realize Kakavasha was up, standing next to your hospital bed with an anxious expression, hands already grasping the one that was wiping crust from your eyes.

“You’re awake,” he choked out, holding you as if you would break, “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry I did this to you that I—”

“Kakavasha, slow down, what… why are you—no, don’t be sorry,” you finally found your words, sitting foward on the bed to wrap your arms around him. You racked your brain, trying to figure out what was going on. Your mind was still foggy, but finally that haze disappated and you remembered everything leading up to now.

“Kakavasha~” you hummed in a song-like tone, a small wrapped box with a blue and purple bow tied around it. You skipped over to his desk and wrapped your arms around his shoulders where he sat, and placed the gift in front of him, laying your head on his shoulder as your arms tightly hugged him. “I have a surprise.”

He smiled with a small laugh, “Doesn’t this usually work the other way around?” He pecked a kiss onto your check before pulling the bow off and opening the lid of the box, when he froze.

The smile on your face faltered bit when he didn’t say anything after a bit. The corners of it tightened into a more forced position, “Kakavasha? You’re gonna be a papa…”

The joy in his face from earlier had completely vanished. Only replaced by a stony, cold, poker face. He pushed his chair back and you stumbled into the wall behind. He gave you a tight smile and kissed your forehead before heading for the door and grabbing his hat. “I’ll be back later.”

With that, the door slammed shut behind him, leaving you at a loss as you fell into his chair, feeling suddenly so very empty in this large office alone.

He came back after that, apologetic for leaving you, but nothing felt truly right. He continued to reassure you that he did want to have this child, but it was a strenous time. The entire pregnancy was stressful. The doctors warned you that the level of stress you were under put you at risk for a premature birth, but you brushed them off. It was just the hormones, you were sure. Kakavasha still loved you. The ring on your finger should’ve been proof enough of that.

“How about the name Ilyas?” you suggested, laying your head on Kakavasha’s lap, “I was… looking at some databases about Avgin names and I thought that one was nice. What do you think?”

Aventurine hummed, but his mind seemed elsewhere. You let it go.

The next few months continued on in similar fashion.

But it all came to a head.

The two of you were standing in the kitchen. It had started off small. The hormones and the stress were getting to you. It was an off hand comment about him not fixing dinner, and you were tired and hungry from carrying around his child.

From there it had escalated. It turned into you were tired of feeling like you were walking on eggshells when you talked about the pregnancy. About how he was barely around for the appointments, and when he was he seemd emotionally distant… finally he exploded

“I never asked for this!” he shouted. “When did I ever say I wanted to be a father? Did you even ask me? Did you think about what I felt about this whole thing at all?”

You paused, feeling tears well up in your throat as a white-hot fear flashed through your body. You laughed, a hollow sound, “I’m sorry, Aventurine, I thought it took two people to make a baby? And you certainly made no attempt to use protection.”

He didn’t have anything to say about that. Even though the argument seemed over, you felt a nauseous feeling crawling up in your throat. Your tears felt like acid burning through your skin. Then a pain in your stomach. Your knees gave out and the last thing you remember was the scared expression on Kakavasha’s face before it all went dark.

“I was scared…. I was so scared that bringing another Avgin into this world would only bring misfortune onto you… that Gaiathra Triclops would take you from our child, just like my mother was taken from me,” he openly cried into your shoulder. “I took it out on you. I made something that should’ve been a beautiful experience something that was awful, and I understand… if you never forgive me for that but please…. please don’t leave.”

Now you were crying with him, one hand tangled in his blond locks and the other rubbing his back. Quietly, so quietly that you almost didn’t hear it, he whispered, “I can’t lose you too.”

You thought for a long time. In front of you wasn’t one of the Ten Stonehearts of the IPC. Not a calculating or cunning man, who’s only interest was in things that benefited the IPC’s bank accounts. In front of you was a broken man, who’d had everything stripped away from him when he was only a child. Who was shattered and forced to put his life back together with nothing but fear and anxiety as glue.

Did it excuse what he'd broken?

No.

“I’m here… I won’t leave Kakavasha,”

But maybe with time and effort, you could help re-glue each other with something a little more beautiful.

“Ilyas! Don’t run so far!” you called after a small blond haired child who was already ahead of you by a longshot, you turned exasperatedly to your husband, “Honey, can you go after him please? I don’t want him to get trampled by some idiot who’s not paying attention…”

The man only smiled at you, one hand firmly wrapped around your ever expanding waist, “It’s okay. There’s some of my squad that’s following him incognito. He won’t get out of our sights without them dragging him back. We can let him get his energy out. He’ll be cooped up in a hospital soon.”

You huffed conceded. Already tired from just getting through the theme park’s entrance. You were due in about two weeks, but Kakavasha was insistent that a week before you’d be under hospital supervision until you brought your second child into the world. It had taken about five years before the two of you had healed enough and there were roadbumps along the way… but you were both ready to give Ilyas a little sister.

But for now, the two of you wanted to let Ilyas have one more day as an only child. The reconstructed Penacony was nothing like the Dreamscape of the past. Fear and secrets no longer were trapped in the gilded cage of the former prison planet. With the help of the IPC and the Harmony, New Penacony was entirely real. No more dreams, just reality. They’d kept many of their old franchises and built a true theme park.

“Mama!! Picture! Let’s get a picture here before we go in!” Ilyas screeched, pointing at Clockie statue in front of the Clock Studios main attraction. You set a hand on Kakavasha’s arm, glancing up at him to try to get a read on what he was feeling. He’d let you in on the parts of his past that he’d kept a secret. The scheme behind Penacony, his proposed “death” and his encounter with his Past and Future.

He took a breathe and looked back down at you, giving you a smile that said “I’m okay” and relief flooded your bones. After walking you over in front of the camera, he crouched down and scooped Ilyas into his arms.

“Ready?” the cameraman asked and you nodded. After a brief countdown the camera flashed, and for a moment in that bright light, you saw the hopeful future that lied ahead.

#aventurine x reader #hsr aventurine #honkai star rail #hsr x reader #aventurine x you #hsr 2.1 #penacony

[jiejies-corner-store]

that’s fucking it. 2.1 broke me. aventurine did nothing wrong

#aventurine #honkai star rail #hsr 2.1

[jiejies-corner-store]

this cruel world

pairing. aventurine x reader tags/tw: fem!reader, pregnancy, complications with pregnancy, references to childbirth, angst w/ open ending, spoilers to aventurine's real name, mostly 2.1 spoiler free i think sfw a/n: i did not proofread this at all, but i'm playing through 2.1 and i have to keep stopping because baby aventurine is hurting my soul. might make a follow up to this pt. 2

The more you had, the more you stood to lose.

Aventurine lived his life holding onto this one fact.

“--vasha…”

So why… why did he ever aspire to gain more than he could handle to lose.

“Sir, you need to leave the room we need to stabilize her,” the nurses ushered him out of the room. The cold white lights of the hospital room made his head spin. The smell of sanitizer burned his airways. Everything was happening all at once and there was nothing he could do. He was about to crash out. He was about to lose it all.

From there it was a blur. It wasn’t until he felt a hand touch his shoulder that he even realized he’d been standing staring down at this… glass box for an hour. His neck strained but he couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

“He looks just like you,” Topaz said, joining her colleague, staring down at the small infant encased safely in the clear incubator. All sorts of things were attached to the steadily breathing Avgin child, monitoring… waiting. Just as he imagined you were at the moment. Hooked up to a hundred machines as the nurses and doctors worked to try to keep your brain alive and your heart pumping.

“I’ve… not even been able to hold him yet,” Aventurine said quietly. It was wrong. It was wrong to acknowledge his son’s existence. It was almost as if the second he did, he would lose you. A sick gamble.

Topaz broke her gaze and instead looked to Aventurine. “She’s going to be okay you know. These are the best doctors that the galaxy has to offer—”

She shut up when Aventurine had nothing to offer her except for a dejected look. After watching over the young Avgin in silence for a few more minutes, Topaz left with a simple pat on the father’s back, and left him to his thoughts.

Outside, rain poured in heavy sheets of water.

Finally, Aventurine sat down next to his newborn child and finally swaddled the child into his arms, closing his eyes as tears began to build up in them, “Welcome to this cruel world… Ilyas.”

When he opened his eyes again, an identical pair stared back in wonder.

#aventurine x reader #hsr x reader #aventurine x you #kakavasha #adventurine hsr

[jiejies-corner-store]

Random Dot analysis:

The interesting thing about Dottore is that while the most popular fanon about him is that his underlings fear him, canonically it's the complete opposite.

He deadass has an army of simps working for him, I had never ran into a Fatui NPC that has expressed fear about him, and instead they speak about him in reverence.

The most obvious one is during the AQ where a fatui agent expressed disappointment upon realising that Dottore would be leaving Sumeru soon, saying that he had only seen the lord once.

And it seems that Dottore actually talks to his subordinates often, especially when in the same conversation, the agents (who didn't know about the segment's existence thus not realising that they spoke to different versions of the Doctor) casually compared how their conversations went, one said that Dottore was dismissive while the other said he was all smiles.

The people who work for him are ridiculously dedicated, the fungi event with that one guy who for some reason - thought that a device that controls fungi would impress Dottore, he did all that to earn his recognition. (It would have been more impressive if the device controlled literally ANYTHING besides fungi, but eh whatever) Note: The guy has said in CN expressively something along the lines of "beloved/dear" lord, not the direct translation but it was affectionate.

Then there's that one dude who stayed behind after the (failed) aranara lure experiments, I don't remember much about him but I don't think he said anything bad about Dottore, other than saying that he had stayed behind because he felt responsibility to take care of the kids after subjecting them into a mission like that.

Cut to the two Fatui peeps on Mondstadt who gush about him after the Sumeru quest, and I'm pretty sure we met another fatui dude in the desert who decided to go against orders and go the extra mile of attempting to kidnap desert dwellers to present as test subjects to again - impress Dottore. I think this was a Jeht quest?

Oh, and in the manwha, it's briefly mentioned that Dottore does reward efforts handsomely.

Tldr:

Fanon - Dottore is cruel, he terrifies everyone who works under him and they always walk around eggshells with him.

Canon: Dottore gives high reward for efforts, he has too many simps that sings him praises and they're literally scrambling to be in the same room as him.

Conclusion, we need more dottore simps in fan content. Because not only is it more accurate, but its also funnier for Dottore to be followed by a hoard of fans.

ALRIGHT YOU HAVE ME THERE... I went back and reread the dialogue for the agents for when Dottore was leaving and phew you're right, lol now that i realize it's pretty entertaining!!

But now i have questions. How many agents know that Dottore has segments? The ones that do know, are they not allowed to spread this...? I'd think the news would be all over the recruits but I guess not. And I guess these segments are ridiculously similar physically/appearance wise too. 😭 And the ones that don't know, do they just think their Harbinger has multiple different personalities or something?? I need more NPCs talking about Dottore.

ELCHIGEN. THE FUNGI NPC GUY WAS SO FUNNY. I still have screenshots of when he spoke about Dottore omg, bro was DEDICATED. Literally created a whole scheme and put his life on the line just to get Dottore to notice him... i respect the energy tbh. I do wonder why he loved Dottore so much in the first place, i really think there's a lot more to his character than we've seen firsthand. I also went back and reread the other stuff you mentioned on the wiki and omg 😭😭 i cant believe i forgot this stuff happened, it's been so long since Sumeru 😭 it's so funny to think about how they're piling more crimes on themselves just for Dottore 😭 i wonder if he's aware of how favorable these agents view him?

Though I do think it may differ from segment to segment. Krupp was pretty scared of Webttore. It's also kind of funny to think people were more scared of Scaramouche than Dottore. 💀

You have me thinking many thoughts, and this has given me much brainrot, will keep in mind for future fics, i have been enlightened.

[jiejies-corner-store]

challenge

Tighnari knows you didn't mean anything by it, but a challenge is a challenge. His instincts demand a response.

minors and ageless blogs do not interact.

fem reader x tighnari, accidental dominance challenge, feral/instinct driven tighnari, dubcon, scenting, one use of "good girl", no prep, doggy style, pinning, marking/biting, knotting, brief breeding kink, creampie.

He knows you don't mean it.

The two of you have exchanged playful nips before—little catches of your teeth against skin, a little shock of pain that smooths into something silken—throughout your friendship. It's familiar. The salt of your skin under his sharp teeth almost tastes like home.

Still, Tighnari realizes, just a moment too slow—he should have warned you.

You bite down into the meat of his shoulder, sinking your teeth into the muscle with enough power to bruise, and Tighnari shudders.

It’s been years since someone has challenged his dominance. 

He knows you don’t mean it.

But his blood has gone hot beneath his skin, the rushing of his pulse filling his sensitive ears. He bares his teeth with a low growl, all rumbling summer thunder. 

You go still. You pull back from him slowly.

“Tighnari?” you ask softly. “Are…are you okay?”

He’s trembling, his fingers sunk into his thighs, trying to rein in the instincts that have roared to life in his very core. You didn’t mean it. You aren’t challenging him; he’s not a kit anymore, setting his status in the pack. 

You ghost your fingers over his shoulder, murmuring his name again, and he breaks.

He strikes quick and true, looping his lithe, callused fingers around your wrist and using the leverage to flip you over and bundle you under him. You yelp, a chirp of sound, and he tugs you back when you try to wiggle out from under him. There’s heat to you, like the sultry warmth of a summer day. He presses down against your back with another rumbling growl, your ass nestled into the cradle of his hips.

“Tighnari!” you cry out. “Hey! What are you—”

“Stay down,” he grits from between his teeth. You try to push up again, your ass brushing against his hardening cock, and he snarls. He sets his teeth into the nape of your neck, the tip of his tongue dragging against your skin, a whisper of wet heat. He can hear his own rabbiting heartbeat. There’s something twisting beneath his skin, something carved into his bones pulsing to life inside of him.

You shift. 

It feels like the promise of a fight.

Tighnari bites, sinks his teeth into your skin like an anchor. “Down,” he growls. He bites down harder, until he hears you choke out a little noise. He presses forward against you with a little roll of his hips, and you go limp under him.

He relaxes his jaw a hint. 

You don’t move.

You’re panting against the floor he’d knocked you down to. Your heartbeat reminds him of the crash of the waves against the shore. Wild and loud. He can hear each beat of it.

He can also smell you. 

It’s not the first time he’s been able to scent your cunt; it’s been on your fingers before, when he caught you between shifts. He’d heard you long before he’d scented you, the wet schlick of your fingers in your cunt practically all he could hear as he headed to your quarters. You’d just cum when he’d knocked. 

With the sound of his own name on your lips ringing in his ears, Tignari made sure to have you sign your patrol notes with his own pen. He watched as you hesitated before taking it. You could barely look at him when you handed it back, and he pressed his thumb into the small, damp smudge you’d left on the barrel. 

He thought it was a thick, sweet scent then, even when it was just lingering on his pen. But now—now it’s so heavy he can almost taste it. 

His ears quiver; his tail whips. He doesn’t think about it. He puts more of his weight on you, grinding his hard cock into the softness of your ass. He slips a hand into the hem of your loose sleep shorts and yanks them down with a low snarl. It’s hard, with you pinned under him, but his strength makes up for it. They get caught around your thighs, but it’s enough.

“Tighnari,” you hiss out. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

He sinks his teeth back in. 

You croon out a low moan, a heated song. He rocks his hips against you; your scent goes heady, lush like sticky-sweet fruit. 

He pulls back, dragging your hips up with him until you’re forced to your hands and knees. You’re pliant, letting him manhandle you as he pleases. It makes his cock twitch. 

Tighnari isn’t sure when he gets his own pants down far enough to expose his throbbing cock, too lost in the instincts that have sunk their teeth into him. He comes back to himself as he hooks his fingers around the gusset of your panties and draws them to the side. 

The cotton comes away from your cunt with a wet squelch. Your scent billows around him, and his fingers tighten on your hip. Your pussy is already glistening, practically shimmering in the lamplight. 

“Wet,” he grunts, rubbing the tip of his cockhead against your hole, coating himself in the growing mess of your slick. It catches on the rim. “So wet.”

You jolt. “Wait, wait, you didn’t prep—”

He rolls his hips, and you hiccup as you spread open around him, stretched tight over the thick head of his cock. He grabs a handful of your ass to spread you further, so he can watch himself disappear into you. 

“Fuck,” you whimper, clamping down on him. He can feel your walls struggling around his girth as he splits you open. Your back bows as he presses forward, as he bullies his way deeper and deeper into your cunt with mean little thrusts. 

You mewl when he hilts in you. You’re hot around him, pulsing as you wiggle your hips to try and ease the way he’s spreading you. He rumbles a warning, the sound rolling through him. You go still.

“Good,” he says. “Good girl.” 

You breathe out a moan at that. Your cunt pulses, fluttering around him. 

Tighnari draws back. His cock is soaked with you, your slick shining on his skin. You roll your hips back, trying to take him in again.

He snarls, setting one of his hands between your shoulder blades and bearing down. “No,” he growls. He pins you in place under him, caught between the way his cock is spearing deep and the hand heavy on your back. He wraps his tail high on your inner thigh, ignoring the way the fur starts to dampen immediately.  

He fucks back into you with a sharp, hard thrust. You yip with it, shifting under his hand. He puts more of his weight onto it, tugging your hips up with his other hand. You tighten around him, and he groans with it. 

You arch as he starts to fuck you fast, with little strokes that keeps him close, that keeps him filling you as much as he can. The sounds of your messy cunt echo around the room, each wet noise accompanied by a soft, broken moan. He drives into your pussy hard, keeping your chest pinned to the floor. 

“Tighnari,” you whimper. “Please, please—”

He curves over you, rolling his hips deep, until you’re kicking out with each thrust. He snarls and sinks his teeth back into the nape of your neck, slotting perfectly into the teeth marks he’s already left behind. 

You cum on his cock with a sound he’ll never forget, your cunt clamping down. He hisses between his teeth. It’s hard to keep fucking you through it, your fluttering walls gripping him. His knot is starting to swell, too, popping in and out of the rim of your hole with more and more difficulty. 

Sparks skitter down his spine as you spasm around him before slumping down, only his iron grip on your hip keeping them up. You’re wet down to your inner thighs now, and you tremble with each shove into your swollen, overworked pussy. Your panting echoes in his ears. 

When he fucks back in, his knot big enough to be noticeable, you whine. You lift your head and try to turn enough to peer back at him. Tighnari catches a glimpse of your profile, already fucked-out, before presses down between your shoulders again. You give in without a word, slumping back down to the floor.

He strokes in again, feeling his knot catch before it pops out once more. He snarls, grabbing your hips with both hands and grinding deep, until his knot pushes past the rim of your hole and flares wide, locking the two of you together. You jolt. 

“Fucking you full,” he growls, his thighs going tight as the knot of pleasure in his gut breaks. “Get you round with kits.” 

You twitch in his grip as he bites down on you again, sinking his fangs deeper still, as he cums. His cock kicks in you, spilling hot ropes of cum in your cunt, buried deep inside. Another moan spills from your lips. 

Panting, Tighnari lets go of your nape and laves gently over the brutal teeth marks there. He sinks down on top of you, though he’s careful with his weight. “Don’t move,” he tells you, turning both of you onto your sides to be more comfortable. “Stuck together.”

“Do I even want to ask?” you mutter sleepily.

“Dominance bite,” he says, voice hoarse. He’s still caught up in it a bit, grinding into you as he cums again. He cups at your belly without thinking. “Triggered my instincts. Knotted you.” 

“I triggered you?”

“When you bit me,” he says, licking over his bite mark again as he starts to truly come back to himself. You shiver. “Tried to assert your dominance.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Later,” Tighnari says. “You should rest.”

You try to glance at him over your shoulder. “Why?”

He fucks into you again with a mean little thrust, instincts flaring at your cry as his knot tests your limits.

“Not done yet.” 

[jiejies-corner-store]

And If the Sun Comes Up

pairing: vampire!leon kennedy x fem!reader

summary: leon knows that you and him are meant to be. if the only way to show you that is to sneak in during the night, then that's just what he'll have to do.

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, oral (f receiving), fingering, somnophilia, non-con, biting, blood, reader is tied up, spitting in mouth, overstimulation

word count: 4k

a/n: hey everyone. when he fucks u so good, u think u love him, am i right? i wanted to get one more done for halloween and i'm kinda late, but it's still halloween here so idgaf. i hope everyone enjoys. also i'm trying a new style with the header image so yeah. as always i really appreciate reblogs and comments <3

tags: @sleepyluxe @kaitkatme @tosuckmyweenis @pupthepokemonenthusiast @bizzarethirst @death-paint @petitecolibri @iron-toxinz

i made a playlist of songs i listened to while writing here.

It’s the middle of the night with moonlight shining down through the slits in your blinds. You’re sleeping off a stressful week tonight. You lay between your soft blankets with your head resting on your cool pillow. You had been in a peaceful, dreamless slumber, but now whimpers erupted from your unconscious form as you felt a persistent sensation between your legs.

You still aren’t fully awake. Your eyes briefly flutter, and your hips shift, trying to alleviate the disturbance that was disrupting your rest. A long whine escapes your throat as cold hands wrap around the tops of your thighs and keep you in position.

You gasp softly as your mind struggles to differentiate dream from reality. When you try to close your legs, you’re met with resistance. You start to come to as your limbs tug more forcefully on whatever was keeping them spread. You could vaguely feel the sensation of restraints around your ankles. It’s difficult to see in the darkness of your bedroom, but you can hear something unfamiliar. Soft grunts and groans emanate from the bottom of your bed.

You weakly lift your head to figure out what was happening. Your eyes were still sleepy, and your mind was still fogged from returning to lucidity, but you could still recognize the sensation of someone lapping at your cunt like it was their final meal.

Looking down between your thighs, you see a mop of blonde hair. At first, the sight brings you mere confusion. It didn’t make sense, and you struggled to process it. But as the gears in your brain began sliding into place, terror coursed through your veins.

A strangled cry leaves your lips, and you thrash harder to get away. You realize your arms are bound too, connected together by your wrists that were secured at the level of your navel. The adrenaline in your system makes you much more alert. You could now see the long, toned body of this stranger. He wore tight, black clothing that allowed you to see his definition. His strength was obvious from that alone if you couldn’t already feel it from how he held you in place so easily.

Once he notices you’re awake, his head pops up. Your eyes widen as they connect with his piercing irises through the dark. Fear moves through you in sickening waves. Every cell in your body yearns for him to just get away.

“Shhh, sweet one. It’s alright,” he whispers. He rubs his fingertips on your inner thigh in an attempt to soothe you. His voice is husky yet familiar, and his eyes are glazed over with arousal. From what it looked like, he had been doing this for a while.

You don’t stop squirming. Your heart pounds so erratically that it feels like at any moment you’ll go into cardiac arrest. As your breathing picks up and becomes shallow, your cries become breathless. 

His brows furrow momentarily at your response, but then his expression softens. You felt like you recognized him, but you couldn’t be sure.

“My darling, there’s no reason to be afraid,” he says and presses a few small kisses to your thigh, “Calm yourself, my love. I’m not going to hurt you.”

You’re still so freaked out by the fact that this is even happening that your brain fails to formulate a response. You stare at him in horror as your squirming becomes weaker and your muscles begin to freeze out of fright.

“Good girl,” he whispers and caresses your hip, “This is for your pleasure, angel. Just relax. I know I may have startled you, but there’s no need to carry on.”

He leans in and presses a gentle kiss to your clit causing you to softly yelp in both protest and pleasure. He chuckles and pulls his face back. His thumb begins lazily swiping through your folds, up and down. As soon as he cracks that smile, you’re able to place him.

“Leon?” you ask, your voice still raspy from sleep. Your drowsy mind couldn’t figure out why the man you’d seen only in passing at your job as a waitress was eating you out in your bedroom in the dead of night.

“Yes, beloved?” he answers, looking up at you with genuine curiosity as if nothing was off.

Now that you know the identity of your mysterious trespasser, your fear fades, and anger takes its place.

“Leon, what the fuck? What are you doing? And what are you doing here?” you say, your voice wavering. You try to stay focused and not let yourself be distracted by his thumb sliding around your slick. He doesn’t seem too fazed by your reaction.

“What does it look like I’m doing, pretty baby?” he whispers, “Making you feel good. You had a hard week, little doll. Let me make it better. Then I’ll explain.”

With that, he returns his head to the junction of your thighs. He parts his lips and begins making out with your pussy. Your eyes widen at his words, but the feeling of his tongue on your most intimate spot pushes your protests back down your esophagus. Instead, you whimper and take your lip between your teeth.

Erotic, wet noises from his lips and tongue working on your cunt spill out into the bedroom. Your cheeks heat with the shame of how good it felt, but there was really nothing you could do but take it. His tongue circles and laves at your clit with intense dedication before gliding down and fucking into your dripping hole.

His fingertips trace soothing circles onto the soft skin of your thighs while his mouth continues working you to the edge. He starts grunting again like he had been doing when you were sleeping. From the sounds alone, it seemed like he was getting as much pleasure from this as you. His breathing was heavy. You could feel it fanning across your pelvis.

You whine, your physical resistance dying down as release gets closer. You can feel his smug grin against your skin.

“L-Leon…” you stammer out through moans.

“Hush, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “Let it feel good. Your body knows it’s right. It knows what you need.”

He flicks his tongue on your swollen bud a few more times before you come undone. You jerk and spasm against the restraints on your wrists and ankles. Broken whimpers fall from your lips as your head fogs with the euphoria of release.

He watches from below with wonder. “There you go, pretty girl,” he breathes while thumbing your clit, “Give it all to me. You don’t need to worry about anything else.”

You ride out your release on his tongue. When you finish up, you look down at him with half-lidded eyes. He continues to gaze up at you with a look of love, his pupils dilated and his chin covered with your arousal.

“Leon. Explain,” you say, trying to sound firm, but your voice was hazy from your release.

“Why so many questions, little one? Did that not feel good?” he asks, “Did that not feel like everything you needed?”

“Leon. What are you doing in my house at three in the fucking morning… touching me like that?” you say, your voice picking up some of the intensity you initially intended.

He sighs and shakes his head, but still sports that smug smile. “You’ll see in time, my love. I know you’ll feel it too,” he says.

My love. Those two words struck you like an itch you couldn’t scratch. All these weird pet names. You barely knew him. He was always nice to you, but in a cordial kind of way, remembering your name and little things you’d told him about your day when you gave him his order. You weren’t even friends. You definitely didn’t consider yourself to be his love.

“Feel what? What are you talking about? You sound crazy,” you say.

“You’re my mate, sweet one,” he responds. He looks at you as if it’s a fact and speaks as if this was the most normal conversation, like you weren’t tied up and nude from the waist down.

You blink at him in disbelief. The words ring through your mind.

“Your mate?” you repeat incredulously, the only response you could think of.

“My mate,” he confirms, “I know you can’t understand it now. But you will. I’ll-”

“I barely know you!” you raise your voice, “Just cause I smile at you and can remember your order that doesn’t mean I want to fuck you! And it sure as Hell doesn’t mean we’re mates.”

He remains calm as he continues to speak. “You may not know me, but I know you, sweetheart. I love you, but you aren’t the most observant. I’ve been watching, and I know we’re meant to be. I know it’s right for you.”

The thought of him watching you while you went about your life, clueless as ever, disturbed you to the pit of your stomach, but you tried not to let that show. 

“Oh my God, you’re delusional. Fucking delusional. You think we’re soulmates? Like what? Like we’re written in the stars or something?” you mock.

“No, darling. Not written in the stars. It’s written in our DNA, something tying us together. I can sense it. You have the sweetest smelling blood I’ve ever come across.”

Your eyes widen at his explanation.

“What… What are you talking about? You can’t smell my blood, Leon,” you say.

“If only I couldn’t, maybe then I wouldn’t have to do this,” he says, his voice growing more hushed, “But I can. You have to understand, little love. I’m not a man of normal appetites.”

The way he spoke freaked you out. Various horrific ideas ran through your head about what he meant by unusual appetites. Your anger was slowly exiting, and your fear was seeping back in. Your limbs tremble as you try again to pull yourself out of your bindings.

“Sweetheart, all throwing a tantrum will do is tire you out,” he chides, "And while it’s not required, I would prefer if you were conscious to see how good I can make you feel.”

“You’re fucking insane!” you exclaim with a shaky voice, tears of terror pricking at your eyes, “I don’t know what gave you this sick fantasy that we’re true love and meant to be or whatever. But that’s all it is. Leon, I-”

“Enough,” he says, his voice dropping to a more commanding tone, “If you’re not willing to understand, I’ll just have to make you more agreeable.”

With that, his mouth returns to your cunt. He sucks your clit between his lips and flicks his tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerves. One hand holds your thigh like it was before while the other comes between your legs and prods at your entrance.

You’re whimpering in no time, still being tender from your previous release. Your hips squirm and writhe as he pumps two fingers in and out of you.

“Quit moving,” he growls and tightens his grip on your thigh.

The gravelly harsh tone lights the pool of arousal in your belly like a match falling into gasoline. You clamp around his fingers and mewl softly. A sharp exhale leaves his nose and smirks.

“Good baby, deep down you know you want this. You’ve only had my fingers so far, and she already knows to get nice and tight for me,” he breathes before returning his attention to your pussy.

His fingers continue working you open, scissoring inside your hole as they move back and forth. The whole time he relentlessly plays with your clit, flicking, sucking, circling. Short, strained cries come from you as your back arches off the bed.

“There we go, pretty baby. Cum again for me,” he purrs, “I doubt you’ve been with a guy who could make you cum even once.”

You didn’t even fully register his words because you were so wrapped up in the throes of ecstasy. Your body convulses as release washes over you again. You shiver in waves, whining and babbling as he continues pleasuring you through the high.

As you come down, he doesn’t ease up on you. His fingers tease you a bit before applying enough pressure to overstimulate you. He adds a third finger into you and continues maneuvering them skillfully, hitting all the right spots.

His mouth doesn’t stop either. He spits onto your pussy and dives back in, licking up your slick and flattening his tongue to massage you into bliss.

He brings you at least two more peaks, eating you out until your mind is nearly melted and you’re a whining, drooling, nonsensical mess.

When he finally feels that you’ve had enough, he moves up, coming face to face with you in a blur. You flinch at the quick movement, and draw a chuckle from him. His hand wraps around your throat while his eyes give you a predatory scan. He lowers his head to the crook of your neck and inhales deep.

“Smells like cherries,” he mutters before laying a few soft kisses up your neck and behind your ear.

You shiver at the gentle contact and a quiet whine escapes you. Your nipples are hard beneath your top from the countless highs he brought you and the fluttering of his lips against your skin. It’s not long before his other hand is sliding up your body to squeeze and fondle your breasts, his thumb teasingly swiping across the hardened buds a few times.

“I don’t need you to understand this, my love. I don’t expect you to. It’s a little out of your depth anyways,” he whispers and nips at your earlobe, “What I expect is for you to take it like a good girl and let me show you what you need. I think you can already see that you’ll be begging for more by the end of the night whether you understand it or not.”

Your thoughts are too muddled to formulate an actual response. Instead, you just watch him with your blissed out stare. He leans back and pulls off his shirt, exposing his muscular torso and chest to you. The moonlight coming through the blinds illuminates him just enough for you to feel more desire building in your abdomen. He smiles at your impressed reaction, and that’s when you see it.

He has fangs.

It’s only a glimpse, but you would swear on your life that it was the truth. His canines are clearly sharper than normal, it can’t be your imagination. And with all his talk about blood… You felt like you were losing it. There was no way he made you cum so hard that you’d believe in vampires.

“What is it, precious?” he asks softly as he undoes his belt and starts lowering his pants. His tone projects innocence, but the look on his face makes you think he knows exactly what you’re fixated on.

“Nothing, I- I- it’s-” you stutter. Your jaw almost drops as his hard cock springs free from his boxers. It was long and thick and you weren’t even sure that it would fit.

He climbs on top of you again, his strong, thick arms boxing you in on your bed.

“What’s the matter? Like what you see? Or is it that you don’t think I have a pretty smile?” he asks, flashing his teeth again. The fangs are in clear view now. Their existence is undeniable.

He can hear your heartbeat speeding up and your breathing getting shallow. It brings him a twisted sense of pleasure that he doesn’t dwell on. He lazily strokes himself in preparation to enter you.

“What are you? You… you can’t be…” you say, your voice dropping to nearly a whisper.

“A vampire?” he asks, “That’s probably the term easiest for you to understand, so yes, my little doll. I am a vampire.”

Your eyes widen. Your fearful gaze locks onto him.

“It’s not like a movie, baby. I can eat garlic and clearly I don’t need to be invited into your house,” he explains, almost as if he’s trying to lighten the mood, “But I have a bloodlust.”

You’re stunned. This couldn’t be real. “So what? I’m like your personal blood bank or something? Is that what being your mate is?”

“No,” he scoffs, “Being my mate is what it sounds like, angel. In all my years, I’ve never met another who makes me feel like you do. You’re my love, the light in the darkness I’ve been existing in. My personal heaven and hell wrapped into one perfect vessel.”

Your head is spinning with everything you’re hearing. He presses a gentle kiss to your lips before leaning back onto his knees and positioning himself at your entrance. He stares at you with his eyes, glossed over with lust. He reaches for your confined hands and brings them to his lips.

“It will all make sense soon, darling,” he says, “Soon enough you’ll be together in this.”

He takes one of your fingers into his mouth, keeping eye contact with you the entire time. One of his fangs presses into the pad of your finger, and draws a small drop of blood. You wince at the pain, but you’re quickly distracted by the guttural groan Leon emits as he smooths his tongue against the warm liquid.

He pushes inside you and tilts his head back. Your finger slips out of his mouth and smears some blood on his lips.

“Tastes so fucking sweet too, Christ,” he grunts as he begins thrusting.

Despite the circumstances, he felt good. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was the best you ever had. He filled you up perfectly. A string of whines and whimpers expel from your mouth into a long moan.

“That’s right. You know it’s perfect,” he mutters, “Soon, it will be just me and you. For all of eternity No one else. The entire world could burn, and you and I could fuck on top of the ashes.”

Your own head falls back, and he sucks your finger back into his mouth to taste more of your blood. He moans around your digit, his hips beginning to piston with more intensity. His hands lock onto your hips, so he has a firm grip to slam into you with.

You felt a mix of shame and fear, but you started to believe him. You felt something inside you that told you this was right. This was what you longed for. What you needed.

He starts leaning over you more. He had to see you, had to see your mind changing about him, the look in your eyes shifting from fear to lust. One of his hands rises to hold your jaw and direct you to look at him.

“Open your mouth,” he commands, eyes boring into you.

You do it with no hesitation. Your lips part and your tongue lolls out obediently. He smirks, still rolling his hips as he slowly spits into your open mouth. His saliva leaks from his lips, lands on your tongue, and starts sliding to your throat. The feeling combined with that look in his eyes almost made you cum on its own.

He feels the same. Watching your pretty eyes become unfocused as you accept what’s happening had him digging his fingers into the flesh of your cheeks in order to hold on. Once he felt you had enough he pats your cheek.

“Swallow,” he grunts and reverts his primary focus to fucking you into the mattress.

And you do this too. You swallow it all. A garbled moan erupts from you afterwards, and your eyes roll back as he strokes all the sweet spots inside of you.

“Good girl,” he coos with a low tone, “Taking it perfectly. Just like you’re meant to do.”

You lift your arms and loop your bound wrists over his head to pull him closer. He follows your guidance, but his face looks almost pained. He keeps his face further than you want. You whimper and try to pull him down to the crook of your neck more.

“Sweet baby, you have to be careful. I can’t… I have to make sure you’re safe my love. I don’t know if I can control myself if I’m that close,” he breathes.

“What? Control how?” you babble, still not really focused because of how his cock is battering your insides at the moment.

“Your blood, baby. It’s too strong. I won’t be able to hold back. I could hurt you,” he says.

That almost snaps you back to reality for a moment. “Like what? You wanna bite me?” you ask with a curious expression.

For a change, this time he has no words. He nods, still maintaining eye contact.

It wasn’t your smartest moment, but you don’t hesitate as the words leave you.

“Do it.”

His eyes flash with a look you can’t read in your state.

“Sweetheart, I… I want to, but it’s not safe,” he whispers, but you can hear the desire in his voice.

“If we’re really mates then you should be able to stop yourself. Prove it to me. Prove that I’m yours and you’re mine,” you say, your voice taking on a whiny quality from how close you were getting.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist when you were asking for it like this. He slowly lowers himself to be level with your neck. His thrusts become slower but deeper. He takes another deep breath of that scent before baring his teeth and sinking them into your flesh.

You gasp and pull your arms around him as you feel the punctures. At first it hurts, but then he begins to softly suck, coaxing your blood into his mouth. You both let out simultaneous moans. His eyes flutter now and his grip on your hips tighten.

He’s getting lost in his own world of euphoria now as he feeds off of you, gulping down that sweet, hot liquid. You tremble as pleasure courses through you too. It was unlike anything you’d ever felt before. It was light and airy while being grounding and all consuming. You couldn’t hold on for any longer.

He growls as you cum, the feeling of your cunt latching onto him is almost too much. He manages to hold it together for a handful more thrusts. His breathing is rough as he cums and his thrusts are sporadic. You feel his muscles tensing as he groans into your neck. He spills rope after rope of cum into you.

When you’re both done, both of your bodies are trembling. Your sweaty skin is pressed to his which is still ice cold. He goes limp on top of you, breathing deep as he comes down from the high. You could feel blood trickling down your neck as his mouth disconnects from your throat.

You didn’t know what to say. The fog of lust was clearing and while you didn’t regret your decisions, this was still weird. You remove your arms from him, and he takes that as a signal to pull out and roll off of you.

He pushes his disheveled hair out of his face and gives you a crooked smile. His mouth was still red with your blood. He reaches over and starts untying the restraints around your hands. You watch him quietly.

“So you said soon… we’ll be in this together?” you ask awkwardly.

He lets out a short laugh as he gets the bindings off and drops them to the side. He runs his fingers through your hair and kisses your forehead before getting out of your bed.

“Soon, sweet one, I’ll change you to be like me. A vampire,” he says, using a teasing tone for the last word, “But not yet. I know you’re not ready, and my goal isn’t to scare you. I truly love you.”

You just nod because you honestly didn’t know what to say to that. Even if you felt something for him, you wouldn’t say it was love. Yet. 

You watch him put on his clothes as you reach down to start untying your ankles.

“So… you’re just leaving?” you say, almost sounding disappointed.

“Yes but don’t be too sad, my love. You’ll see me as soon as the sun sets again tonight,” he says.

He finishes putting on his clothes and leans in to give you one more passionate kiss before he leaves. You could still taste your blood on him.

[jiejies-corner-store]

BANGTAN OT7 FIC RECS VOL. 1

Aight, here we go

Keep in mind that the 18+ warning does NOT only apply to smut, so please read the individual warnings on EVERY fic, thank yeowww :)

OT7

Idol!AU

Little Do You Know by @yoongiofmine Complete 18+

Relax, It’s Our Honeymoon! by @birchandspruce Complete 18+

You Complete Us by birchandspruce Complete

wild, wild, wilderness by @kimnjss Complete 18+

home sweet castle by kimnjss Complete 18+

The Plot Twist ft Soulmate!AU by @blog-name-idk Ongoing 18+

The Line Between Love And War ft Soulmate!AU by @purpleyoonn Ongoing

baby (you complete us) ft Soulmate!AU by purpleyoonn Ongoing 18+

Unorthodox by @beahae Ongoing 18+

The curious move-in to apartment 27 by @sor-vette Ongoing 18+

Got the music in you baby by @minniedaisies One Shot

Love Starved by @hollyhomburg One Shot 18+

The Sex Strike by @borathae One Shot 18+

Soulmate!AU

The Book of Soulmates by @alpacaparkaseok Complete

Moonchild by @jeonggukkiepabo Ongoing? idk hehe 18+

Mafia!AU

Between The Bloodshed by @agustdakasuga Complete 18+

Ethereal ft Fantasy!AU by purpleyoonn Complete 18+

Ride With you by @jellifysh Ongoing 18+

The Way Of A Criminal by agustdakasuga Ongoing 18+

Thou Shall Not Steal by @xherxx Ongoing 18+

A/B/O!AU

House of the Omegaverse ft Dark!AU by @sopejinsunflower Complete 18+

Lone Wolf by @sopebubbles Ongoing 18+

Before I leave you ft Dark!AU by @hollyhomburg (READ THE TW FOR REAL) Ongoing 18+

Royal!AU / Historical!AU

The Return of an Empress by @you-are-my-joy Complete 18+

Fall of Empire by @aloneatpeace Ongoing 18+

Hybrid!AU

Abundance by @angelicyoongie Ongoing 18+

100% sure i've read more but i can't remember any of em rn lol

Dark!AU

Death Valley by @bangtangalicious Complete 18+

College!AU

Everything Falls (Into Place) by blog-name-idk Complete 18+

Thesis It by xherxx Complete 18+

The Apartment Games by @softiejoon Maybe discontinued but here for the aesthetics

Kings of Campus by @luxekook Ongoing 18+

Journey to the dick by @whatifyoulivelikethat One Shot 18+

Sharing is Caring by @theharrowing One Shot 18+

Fantasy!AU

Recrudescence ft Idol!AU by @chimchimsauce Complete 18+

To have, to hold, to make you stay by sor-vette Complete 18+

Other

All the Kinks ft Multifandom, Multi!AU’s by @helvonasche Complete 18+

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things by jellifysh Complete 18+

Boyfriend for Hire by @remedyx Ongoing 18+

Audios by @youmyjhope 18+

Sh. by @wwilloww Ongoing? idk hehe 18+

NOT OT7

Idol!AU

Need by @bang-tan-bitches ft KNJ, JHS and MYG ft A/B/O!AU Complete 18+

The bias room by @chimivx ft MYG, KTH and JJK One Shot

Desperate by borathae ft PJM, KTH and JJK One Shot 18+

Floored by @lavienjin ft JHS, PJM, JJK One Shot 18+

College!AU

Stretch You Out by @chateautae ft KNJ and JJK One Shot 18+

Fantasy!AU

bitten & knotted by @jamaisjoons ft JHS and KNJ One Shot 18+

Other

Magic Hands by @breadoffoxy ft PJM and KTH Complete 18+

Fucking Around by @tanniefm ft PJM, KTH and JJK One Shot 18+

The Art Of Self Restraint by @scribblemetae ft PJM, KTH and JJK One Shot 18+

The Sope Surprise by @chelsea-chee ft JHS and MYG One Shot 18+

The D Box by breadoffoxy ft KSJ, MYG and JJK One Shot 18+

Swiss Miss by @here4kpopfics ft KNJ and KSJ One Shot 18+

Bigger & Better by lavienjin ft KNJ and KTH One Shot 18+

Package Deal by @hoseokhasmyheartxx ft JHS and MYG One Shot 18+

Rain On Me by @dawnagustd ft KTH and JJK One Shot 18+

When i tell you my hand is cramped from all the clicking and my eyes are blurry for staring at the screen for 8+ hours...

AND THIS IS HOW WE CONCLUDE 1/9 REC POSTS WUUUU

Stay tuned because I still have to post the recs from each member and one final giving a massive shoutout to all my favorite BTS fic authors of all time (including everyone here and many more hehe)

You'll notice that some authors weren't properly tagged, that's cause tumblr wouldn't let me tag more than 50 users, so I made sure to tag the writers AT LEAST ONE TIME in case there where more than one of their works mentioned here :)

Btw, if any of the links don't work or there is a mistake or anything, please let me know so I can fix it :)

[jiejies-corner-store]

Lone Wolf: Master list

Synopsis: in a world where alphas, betas, and omegas live along side modern humans as second class citizens, you've fallen through the cracks of a society that wants to take everything wonderful from you. Luckily a timely encounter with the boys just might save your life.

Genre: a/b/o, omegaverse, angst, hurt/comfort

Pairings: poly ot7 x reader; Sope focused

No schedule for my sanity. I'm just trying to enjoy writing again.

TAGLIST IS CLOSED

Series warnings: bigotry, including internalized bigotry, negative self-talk, neglect, childhood trauma, mentions of SA

A/n: This story will deal with a lot of internalized negativity about and struggles with society. The plot will contain many events and concepts that have numerous analogies to our own society and multiple interpretations are possible. I certainly have my own ideas, but the only agenda I intend to push is one of self-acceptance and love. I'm open to respectful discourse in the comments. Please keep in mind that I and others are very sensitive and if you want to be mean then be mean somewhere else.

Teaser

Homo sapiens lykos (lore explanations)

One

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Three

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Five

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Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Taglist: @ellesalazar @rinkud @osakis-gf @scuzmunkie @queen-in-the-shadows

Permanent taglist: @halesandy @burningupp-replies @lilacdreams-00 @minclangyyy @yonkimint @wholockian1 @cbgdoll @babycoffeefire @theatren3rd @bri-mal @armytwist @hwayne2294 @crish-mac @kazufuyusluv @dis-tru6tion @hey-itsmina @jikooksgirl19 @jaiuneamesolitaiire @lxvelyjiminie @marvelfamily3000 @borahae-reads @shadowyjellyfishfest @yoongiigolden @staerryminimini

[jiejies-corner-store]

Steamy

Pairing

Al-haitham x reader x Kaveh

Smut

18+ only please!

Word count

5.2k

Content warnings

Polyamory, shower sex, vaginal penetration, anal penetration, double penetration, degradation, Al-haitham, creampies, reader gets slapped once but relatively gently.

Summary

Your boyfriend lets something about his old relationship with his hot roommate slip during your shower together, you see the potential.

"Gods, why are you trying to wash yourself in an active volcano," Al-haitham hisses as he immediately steps back out from under the stream of admittedly extremely hot water.

You'd been together with the scribe turned grand sage for a while now. Which means it was no surprise for him to find you in his shower and no surprise for you to find him stepping in to join you. What did come as a surprise to him though was the sheer temperature of your relaxing little shower.

You giggle. "Sorry baby but a nice shower isn't nice if it doesn't feel like you're burning your filth and sins off your body y'know?" He shakes his head, well aware that you'd keep this going if he denied, but too stubborn to just agree with you.

"Why does every other person in this house try to match the sun's temperature in their showers." He's complaining but it catches your attention anyway. He raises an eyebrow at the sly grin on your face, "what?"

"How come you know how hot Kaveh likes to shower?" You wiggle your eyebrows at him. You swear you can see him flush, although with the steam and sweltering heat in the room it is a bit hard to tell.

"We're roommates, of course I would know that," he says, deadpanning, although in a slight fit of nervousness he adds "it's not as if you need to shower together to know that."

"Ooooh but baby, I'M not the one who said you showered together." You enjoyed mentally poking and prodding at him like this on the best of days but today even more so. The revelation about your boyfriend and his heartthrob roommate making you giddy.

He reached out turning the heat of your shower down a bit before finally stepping in to actually join you. Immediately pushing you up against the tiled shower wall. "I know you enjoy riling me up like this but do you really want to talk about Kaveh right now?" he speaks, nice and low. The voice he always uses when trying to make you pliant before diving into a kiss.

You weren't quite done yet though. You hum as you pull away from him. "I don't know, judging by your body's reaction, you're enjoying talking about him even more than I am." You tease, rubbing your thigh against his arousal. You bring your mouth close to his ear and whisper, "tell me Al-haitham, did you and dear Kaveh use to fuck before I came around? Is that why the two of you can't go 5 minutes without bickering?"

You were mostly still teasing but you couldn't help but actually be curious. HAD they been intimate together? And if so was it just convenience, or were there feelings involved? Your mind started racing and to your surprise what it ended up on was not a fit of jealousy and insecurity at your boyfriend having been with one of the most attractive people you knew. It felt like a golden opportunity instead.

Al-haitham's face was undeniably red now, although if you'd mention it he'd blame the heat. "I- what." He took a second to recompose himself before looking you in the eye and asking earnestly. "Would that bother you?" You felt you heart skip a beat at his concern, here you had been almost bullying him and he's checking in on you so sweetly.

"It wouldn't as long as you're not doing anything with him behind my back, which I know you would never, I'm good." You let your hand softly stroke his face, reveling in him when he leans into you. "...Sooo did you?"

His eyes flit away from yours "...yes," he sighs. "We had a period where we were something, not quite in a relationship but not just friends with benefits either." The spicy shower he'd been planning to take with you had turned sweet, you were now washing his hair for him as the two of you spoke.

"Do you still have feelings for him?" You feel him stiffen up at your question and you gently rub his shoulders in response. "I'm not accusing you of anything, we're just talking, yeah?" He doesn't quite relax, but he leans back into you and answers.

"It wouldn't matter if I did, he's set his sights elsewhere." The last part of his sentence sounded exasperated, a tone he frequently used when the subject turns to Kaveh. "He's actually opened up about the crush he's been nursing on YOU recently."

This takes you by surprise, your body language shows it and Al-haitham is quick to comfort you. "He promised me he won't act on it, and I can promise to you that he's still a decent guy (y/n). He won't just try to steal you from me."

You blinked, your mind working overtime. "Wait a second." Your hand came to you chin in an exaggerated thinking pose.

"So you say Kaveh likes me?" He nods slowly, trying to follow your train of thought. "You like Kaveh," he hesitates but when you send him a pointed look he resigns and nods. "Kaveh DEFINITELY still likes you, don't bother trying to deny it, you might not see it but I'M not blind." Al-haitham doesn't even bother to fight it, yet he's barely nodding along anymore either.

"(Y/n), are you actually going to go there?" He seems to have caught on and you shrug.

"And I kinda like Kaveh too," you confirm.

"I see, then, how would we go about this? Do we just invite him in?" he asks, and you giggle, happy that your boyfriend seems on board. "How about we ask him into our next shower? He seems to enjoy it hot too right?" You wink at him.

The rest of the shower is nice, a bit cold for your liking but Al-haitham promised you 'the hottest shower of your life' tomorrow and you're not even entirely sure if he was talking about the temperature but you went along with it either way. The night brought along some heavy petting but no further action as both of you were far too excited about the day to come.

The next day goes by at a snail's pace, you were never good at waiting but it did give you the time to consider how you would handle this. Al-haitham was at work and so was Kaveh, you'd decided you'd make a little show of inviting Al-haitham into a shower and then have him invite Kaveh.

You though that considering the two of them have already had sex before it might seem more like a genuine offer coming from him.

And so the two came back from work, exchanging their regular harsh sounding words, over some nonsense no doubt. You made haste on your way over, excitement getting the better of you as you launched yourself into your boyfriend.

"You're back!" You announced, though they were already quite aware of the fact. Something Al-haitham was probably about to tell you when Kaveh interrupted him.

"You seem to be in a good mood, special occasion?" He smiled at you and combined with the knowledge of his little crush on you, the attention flustered you.

"A little bit, I was waiting for you guys to come home because I was going to take a nice long shower but the bathroom gets so lonely." You fake pout as your little show begins. You admit, you put it on a bit thick as you drape yourself across your boyfriend. Though the blush on Kaveh's face as he averts his eyes, mind wandering no doubt, makes it worth it.

"Needy as always I see," comes Al-haitham's reply "go get the water temperature right." The look on his face makes his intentions clear to you, he plans on being the one to ask Kaveh as well.

"Oh? Letting me decide the temperature?" You tease, before shooting Kaveh a wink "things are about to get steamy." You turn and leave before you can see their reaction, mostly to avoid seeing Al-haitham roll his eyes at you again.

You just barely got the shower running before you hear shouting. Their conversation had the cadence of their usual bickering just a lot louder. You quickly made your way to them, running into Al-haitham in the hallway.

"He doesn't believe me, thinks I'm playing a stupid prank on him," Al-haitham speaks casually, as if it doesn't bother him but luckily you know him better than that.

You pat his shoulder. "Don't worry, he's just being wary. I'm sure he doesn't really believe you'd do that but he was just caught off guard," you reassure the man who, in your eyes, was practically sulking in front of you.

"I got this!" You say, more to yourself than to Al-haitham, as you walk past him towards the blond who was still muttering to himself.

Before you could say anything his eyes shot to you and he started talking exasperatedly. "(y/n)! You would not BELIEVE the stupid joke your boyfriend just tried to pull on me." He was fuming and you couldn't even get a word in before he continued, "I think it's frankly disrespectful not only to me but to you as well, you should scold him for this! I already did but he needs to hear it at least twice!"

You laugh, he gets worked up so easy whenever your boyfriend is involved. You really don't know how you'd never guessed their history before, looking back now. "Kaveh," you get his attention, squeezing his shoulder for good measure "please join us in the shower?"

"A-are you playing along with his sick joke?" He looks almost heartbroken and you can't stand it. You shake your head quickly before putting your hands on his cheeks and pulling him in, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips which seems to stun him into silence.

"Haitham and I got to talking when he mentioned you and I both liked our showers hot," you speak gently, not wanting to hurt the soft-hearted blonde any further. "We connected some dots and figured out we both liked you, and you liked both of us."

Kaveh was blinking rapidly, clearly trying to catch up to the situation, which to him was dizzying. He'd just gotten kissed by his crush, his ex and best friend's girlfriend.

"Look Kaveh, I promise Al-haitham wasn't joking and neither am I, we all have some kind of feelings for eachother and although we'd have to work it all out together. We're willing to try if you are." Your hand was now gently stroking his cheek as he processed your offer.

His hand caught yours and for a second you're anxiously expecting rejection, however he brings your hand to his mouth and presses a chaste kiss to it "I'll admit I've dreamed of this, so when Al-haitham asked it sounded too good to be true."

This time, his hand on the nape of your neck is what pulls you into a kiss, a far less gentle one than before that has you almost panting when you pull away. Kaveh grins at you as he pulls you along towards Al-haitham's huge bathroom. "Think he can handle our heat?"

You arrive at the bathroom giggling, Kaveh reverting to his natural charm now that his reason for anxiety was gone. Al-haitham doesn't try to hide the small smile on his face, a moment you will cherish, before he speaks, "Finally come to your senses Kaveh? I was beginning to think you'd actually be stupid enough to think we would both joke about this."

Not one to take Al-haitham's remarks Kaveh immediately strikes back, "There's a reason people expect things like that from you Al-haitham, maybe if you were more in touch with the people around you, you'd-" you interrupt him by throwing you shirt over his head. Their bickering was cute, but you'd been waiting for this long enough and you'd be lying through your teeth if you said you weren't dying to see Kaveh naked.

As he lifted your shirt off his head you could see he was practically glowing, his face a bright red that had Al-haitham suppressing a chuckle and you nearly cooing at how cute the blond was. His eyes met yours before they drifted down, starting to take in your body as Al-haitham's hands softly started rubbing up and down your waist.

Kaveh's pupils were fully blown and you were sure they only mirrored your own as Al-haitham started speaking in that low tone again, "see this Kaveh? This is what you've been missing out on." His hands push your bra below your chest, making your tits spill out before he starts to feel them up. One of his hands was now rolling a nipple between his fingers as the other slipped down, hooking on the hem of your panties. You decided not to suppress your whines, desperate to show Kaveh everything.

He practically whimpered before surging forward, his hands joining Al-haitham in undressing you in the most sensual way you'd ever been undressed. Meanwhile his lips pressed against Al-haitham's and your heart picked up the pace at seeing the two together.

As Kaveh's fingers made contact with your slit you both moaned simultaneously. Al-haitham pulled back to remove his shirt and you pulled on Kaveh's as he speaks, "such a good girl for us, so wet already." His fingers glide over your clit and you almost double over at how light and electrifying how touches are. Just like his words, a stark contrast to Al-haitham.

You're pulling at Kaveh's pants now as he pushes a finger in, Al-haitham turns on the shower behind you but even the sound of the water doesn't hide the needy moan you let out. "Almost baby, we got you, don't worry you'll have all of us," Kaveh responds to your sounds gently and for a second you think about how he's not just a contrast to Al-haitham's harsh words, they complement eachother perfectly.

Then the scribe is pulling you out of your thoughts and backwards into the shower by your hips. Kaveh quickly shrugs off his underwear before following.

Your eyes glide over his body and you don't try to hide the hunger beneath it, making the blonde shiver despite the scorching shower he just stepped into. He's big, bigger than Al-haitham and you wonder if that's why he'd being so gentle. There's no way you'd be able to take THAT rough from the get-go.

Al-haithams hands are on your heat, one playing with you throbbing clit as the other presses two fingers into you hole, beginning to stretch you out for them. "I didn't think it possible but your pussy might be hotter than this shower." He kisses down your neck and you can feel his smirk on your skin as he says, "you're about as wet though."

Kaveh finally reaches you and his mouth is on yours instantly, the kiss down right debauched as his hand pulls one of your legs over his hip making you balance on the other one before Al-haitham presses into you from behind. You were leaning on the two men completely now, and there was nowhere you'd rather be at the moment.

"Please baby, grind that sweet pussy on my cock. I know you can do it, please just let me feel you," Kaveh whispers in your ear and you do as he asks, not being able to refuse him when he begs you like that.

Al-haitham's hand slaps you ass firmly. "Don't forget about me," he mumbles from where his teeth are pinching at your neck, and how could you when his hand on your jaw makes you face him. His kisses are different from Kaveh's, less desperation and more calculated intent to turn you on further, their passion rivaled eachother despite the difference.

Kaveh's cock was nestled firmly between your folds now, his head nudging your clit every movement you made so when Al-haitham takes control over the movements your hips make, your eyes roll back.

"Oh my god, I need to feel her," Kaveh groans as Al-haitham pushes you into him again "need to feel you around me baby." His voice softened the second he addressed you and it made you melt, the softness of it all despite the meaning of his words.

Al-haitham chuckled. "How about it little slut? Should I lift you onto his cock? Why am I even asking, I know what you need." His degrading side was coming out, probably feeling like Kaveh was spoiling you too much and the difference between them was giving you whiplash.

He doesn't ask again before he tilts your hips towards Kaveh's tip, the blond licks his lips as he looks at the man beside you. "You just gonna serve her up to me like this? Gonna put our sweet girl onto my cock? Go on, make her take all of me."

Al-haitham is not usually one to take orders but maybe that's exclusive to you because the second the words leave Kaveh's lips you're being brought down on him. It stretches you beyond belief, if Al-haitham was big then Kaveh was massive and you were loving it.

"Taking me so well," Kaveh moans in your ear, in the other Al-haitham whispers, "like the born slut you are, look at how you're sucking him in." His hand slipping between your bodies, rubbing tight circles on your clit.

You have to stop yourself from cumming right then and there but when you see Al-haitham's other hand run down Kaveh's back towards his puckered hole,  you find it near impossible to hold back and when Kaveh jolts inside you as Al-haitham presses a finger into him, you finally let go.

You're almost crying as you cream Kaveh's cock, it seems way too soon for it to feel this intense but the heat is getting to you. Kaveh is looking at you with his mouth dropped open, reverently, as he keeps up his deep thrusts inside you. Al-haitham bites down on your shoulder possesively, practically promising to ruin you further tonight.

"Oh baby, getting so tight. Creaming my cock so well. Wanna fill you up baby, been so good, you deserve my cum," Kaveh praises you to heaven and back, his hands caressing your face and despite just cumming, it does things to you.

"Please Kaveh." You barely recognize your own voice as you beg for his cum, "I want it in me, need you". The effect is instant, his jaw going slack as he grinds in deep leaving behind a thick load of his seed.

He thrusts into you gently a few more times before Al-haitam speaks up, "you're just going to keep fucking your cum into her? Or can I finally get my dick wet?" He gets so crass like this but you can't deny you like it. Kaveh opens his mouth, no doubt to argue but Al-haitham is one step ahead. "Not THAT kind of wet".

Kaveh gives you another deep kiss as he slowly pulls his cock out, the cum he'd been fucking deeper seeping out along with it causing the man to groan at the sight. "Baby, you look so pretty all filled with me," he says as he pulls away from your lips. Reaching his fingers out to push some of it back into you but Al-haitham catches them and brings them to his mouth. Both you and Kaveh look on mesmerized as he begins sucking on them, drool spreading everywhere before he brings them down to your ass.

"It's my turn now so why don't you make yourself useful for once and get her ready to be properly shared." The words are meant for Kaveh but he's turned you around and is staring into your eyes while he says them. A shiver runs down your back as you get what he means.

The smirk on his face isn't wide by any means, always one for the more subtle facial expressions, but the sentiment behind it was clear. "You've been enjoying yourself haven't you?" he says as he leans down into your neck to leave his mark. The nip of his teeth makes a shiver run down your back. Just as you were about to answer him, knowing your boyfriend's dominant streak meant he didn't like being ignored, Kaveh's fingers made contact with your ass. Your answer changed into a strangled gasp as Kaveh works his index finger into you.

Luckily Al-haitham seems to be in a forgiving mood. "Awe, is my little slut already fucked too dumb to answer? You've only taken one of us so far, don't think we're even near done yet," He says while he nudges his cock towards your pussy, still wet with Kaveh's cum. "It's time you finally use that body of yours to satisfy me, been making me wait for it for too long." He shoves his cock all the way in on his first thrust, trusting the sheer amount of cum to provide plenty lubrication.

With Al-haitham's rough treatment melting your brain you almost didn't notice Kaveh's soothing actions. While one of his hands was busy prepping you, the other was practically petting you. His motions so gentle your body relaxed into every single one of his touches. The two men were in complete control over you now.

"Doing so well baby, you can take it," Kaveh speaks near your ear as he pushes a third finger in.

"Yeah, you heard him princess. You can take it." The same words sounded so different from Al-haitham's mouth but truth be told, you barely registered either of them.

Al-haitham might not have been as sweet to you as Kaveh but the passion was definitely there and he knows his way around your body. You felt yourself clench around him as his fingers started to circle your clit. "Gonna cum? Better keep it in slut, we're not stopping until WE'RE done, you know that." You knew you could tap out at any given moment despite what he was saying, but not a bone in your body considered it. Even as your body shook during your orgasm, not even as it shivered from overstimulation.

"Haitham, give her a second. I'm about to put it in." if you'd been any more present you'd have scolded Kaveh for speaking about you as if you weren't there but you honestly were barely even sure if you were anymore.

Luckily Al-haitham really did seem to take orders from Kaveh as he stopped his rough thrusts for a moment. You panted and whimpered in his neck, pussy still spasming from the climax he never fully allowed you to stop having. His hands on you turned gentle for a second, pulling you away from his neck a bit, eyes on your partially focused ones as he asked, "are you still okay? Need an actual break?"

"Nooo, I'm okay. Please keep going, everything feels so good." Despite the clear struggle to put your thoughts into words and the slight slur to your them, he took your answer to heart. Immediately diving into a passionate kiss.

You don't know if he had meant to distract you from Kaveh but the next thing you registered was the thick head of his cock poking around your tight hole. You suppress the slight anxiety you're feeling, both men doing their all to keep you calm as the blond begins to push into you slowly.

"Baby, you gotta relax a bit." You're not entirely sure which one of the two was speaking but it was Al-haitham's thumb that gently moved over your bottom lip. You didn't even know when you started biting down on it but you're glad Al-haitham noticed before you bit too hard.

"Shhhh, almost there pretty thing. You're doing so well for us." This time you know it's Kaveh, he's practically speaking into your neck now, "sooooo good for us."

You feel him buck up into you further and another high-pitched whine leaves you. The pressure of both of them at once was unlike anything you'd ever felt before. Sure you'd taken Al-haitham before while wearing a buttplug but it couldn't even begin to compare to this.

"Oh my god, I think I'm gonna cum. It's just so warm." The end of Kaveh's sentence sounded more like a moan than anything else and you could feel him lean more of his body weight into you as he finally bottomed out.

Al-haitham's arm shot up at Kaveh's words, slender fingers tangling into the other's hair. "Not yet," the tone of his voice was deeper than you'd ever heard from him before "I know you're a needy bitch but you can hold out for a bit." He pulled on Kaveh's hair at the degrading words and you could feel both of their cocks twitch inside you.

You'd always known they'd have amazing chemistry based on all their bickering but being sandwiched between them as they started making out was really something else. Paired with Al-haitham's deep grinding and Kaveh's shallow thrusting, the sight of it pushed you over the edge once more.

Your eyes rolled back and you bite down on Al-haitham's shoulder to keep yourself together as your body convulses wildly. The amount of times they've made you cum is starting to make you feel a bit sore but you refuse to be the one to end this.

Kaveh is groaning in your ear again as he drives his cock in and out of you slowly "You're the best thing I've ever felt (y/n)," he takes a good look at your face before continuing "are you keeping up, angel? Need me to carry you?"

"Yes Kaveh, please," you say, voice sounding like a whimper. He hums in your ear appreciatively while his hands slide down your thighs to lift you up.

"I love it when you say my name like that baby, sound so pretty when you're begging," Kaveh whispers to you, though you're sure Al-haitham can hear judging by the pull at the corner of his lips.

Both of them keep going until the squelching sounds are louder than the water, at that point Kaveh seems to start struggling. He's making animalistic sounds now and it's giving Al-haitham a new reason to tease him.

"You sound like you're absolutely pussy-whipped." The intention behind his words were clear but Kaveh was too far gone to realize, he nodded into your neck in response.

"Fuuuuuck, yeah I am," he speaks as he pushes in hard, his strength shoving Al-haitham into the wall. The new position allowing the blond to fuck you into him.

You're starting to slip when Al-haitham pulls you back with a soft slap to the face. He's always gentle when he does but his words never sound like it. "Stay with us, I'm not done with you yet."

"Don't be mean to her Haitham, she's doing so damn well for us." Kaveh's reply sounds labored, his breath coming through hard as he's practically panting the words out.

"Don't get too cocky there Kaveh, I'll put you in your place next time. We'll see if you take me as well as she does," Al-haitham scolds, though the promise behind the words is not lost on Kaveh and you feel his cock twitch in response.

Your end is nearing fast and the sexy sounds coming from both of them are doing nothing to slow it down. "Please I'm gonna- I don't know if I can." You don't know who you're addressing but you feel both their hands caress your face the second the words leave you.

"You can." Al-haitham's reply is short and should not be as comforting to you as it is but with Kaveh's addition of "We got you." it's perfect and you let yourself fall over the edge again.

The next few seconds are blurry, but when the world gets sharp again you realize they both stopped. You're secretly grateful because as much as you were enjoying yourself, you really weren't sure how much longer you could take any of it.

You feel Al-haitham pull out and the water immediately washes away the cum that leaks out along with him. You realize Kaveh had pulled out sometime during your little moment and he was now turning you around in his arms, hugging you into his chest practically singing praise into your ears.

"Guys, we should leave the shower now." Al-haitham's voice comes from close behind you, and is met with disapproving whines from both you and Kaveh. "Be my guest, just know that I'm not babying either of you when you get sick from the cold water," He continues, combing his hand through your hair once before leaving the shower on his own.

"Cold?" You question, not noticing just how much warm water you guys had used up. The shower had gradually turned icy.

"Yeah, cold. Our body heat and the distraction must have kept us from noticing the gradual change," came Al-haitham's reply from somewhere outside of the shower.

"there's no way we didn't notice that, it's ice cold now! You must've just changed it!" Kaveh accuses Al-haitham, who in turn merely rolls his eyes before reaching back into the shower and turning the water off.

"Why would I? Some of us aren't desperate enough for attention to act out like that Kaveh," Al-haitham spoke pointedly as he handed Kaveh a towel.

Kaveh scoffed but didn't argue further as he turned to you again, beginning to dry you off. "Do you need anything? I could run you a bath? Or just get you something to clean up with? Do you want any snacks? You've earned them," he offered instead.

Al-haitham wasn't great at aftercare but he'd always been sufficient, knowing how to bring you down from your high gently. Which is why you didn't know how to react when the prince of aftercare himself, started pulling out snacks from places you hadn't even known had been in the house.

A giggle escaped you as Kaveh popped a candy he'd just unwrapped for you into your mouth. "How long have you been hiding all this in my bathroom?" Al-haitham sounded unimpressed but got shut up when the grinning blond booped him on the nose before giving him a sweet kiss.

"You'd be surprised at how many stashes I have around here, I can keep all of us supplied for weeks," he replies his grin now cheeky, knowing the scribe wouldn't give him any shit if he's sharing with you.

"You're lucky she likes her sweets as much as you," Al-haitham states, moving to get dressed.

"Andddd, you're lucky we both like our showers hot," you add.

"I know, I'm just the luckiest," Kaveh says, looking at the two of you fondly.

Later that night the three of you are crammed into Al-haitham's bed since it was the largest (technically his was the same size as Kaveh's but the latter had so many blankets and pillows it takes up at least a quarter of the space). The two men almost instantly fall asleep, Kaveh hugging your arm to his chest as Al-haitham spoons him.

You always knew there was more to their arguing but seeing them at peace together like this warmed your heart, looking back down at them you thanked whatever God was out there that you and Kaveh liked the same type of showers.

I lost three rounds of editing on this fic because of tumblr shenanigans so if you spot any mistakes please cut me some slack I probably had them fixed at one point.

Trying to see if it'll let me post without any media, if it does I'll try to update it from my laptop tomorrow for ✨️aesthetic✨️ reasons.

(If this goes through the ✨️aesthetic✨️ edit is done)

All in all, I hope you guys enjoyed!

[jiejies-corner-store]

Lungs Into Gills

Yandere Shark Merman Dottore x Fem Human Reader

A large silhouette approached you as your body slowly sank downwards. A shark? Not that it mattered. How long has it been since your last breath of air? Only a question of time now until you met your end.  Your vision darkened, and you opened your mouth, unable to hold off the inevitable any longer. Water flooded your lungs, and the last thing you felt was a pair of strong arms wrapping around you.

Read on Ao3 here

Word count: 9k

Contents/Warnings:

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!

Porn with plot, Yandere, Monsterfucking, Drowning, Blood and Mild Gore, Non-Consensual Drugging

...also some fluff lol

MINORS DNI!

A/N: I have no excuse for this. Had this idea and got so into it that I ended up writing over 9000 words of Dottore fucking you with his weird shark dick(s). I’d like to blame/thank my Sickos friends for sending that shark fucking doujin (tbf, I asked for it, you know, research and all-), and also (as always) Juni for enabling me. This definitely got out of hand. Love you guys <3

Now pardon me while I wallow in shame that’s as crushing as the judging glare of a thousand grandmothers.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

You couldn’t remember anymore whose idea it had been to bring out the bottles from the Captain’s private stash after he went to bed. You politely declined when they offered you your share of the booze – you knew better than to drink with a crew of sailors that hadn’t felt the embrace of a woman in months. And even when you lay awake in your cabin and felt the waves pick up against the ship’s hull, you didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until you felt the shockwave of the prow colliding with that rock, hidden by the waves, and the terrifying crushing and creaking sounds as the ship drove into the obstacle with full force, that you realized your impending doom.

How you managed not to get maimed by the walls crumbling in on you was beyond you, and as you floated in the open, between sinking debris and the bodies of the crewmembers, you admired the strange beauty of it all. Everything seemed to be caught in a stasis.

Not the worst view for the last moments of your irrelevant existence, you mused.

You noticed a large silhouette approaching you as your body slowly sank downwards. A shark? Not that it mattered. How long has it been since your last breath of air? Only a question of time now until you met your end. And if you ended up as that shark’s midnight snack, so be it.

A tiny sliver of moonlight cast a dim light onto the scene, and for a moment you thought you caught a glimpse of a human face and arms on the creature before you.

No, impossible, you thought, I’m clearly hallucinating; the lack of oxygen is catching up with me.

Your vision darkened, and you opened your mouth, unable to hold off the inevitable any longer.

Water flooded your lungs, and the last thing you feel is a pair of strong arms wrapping around you.

»»————-————-««

You came to your senses on a small and damp cot; it was dark around you, but a sliver of moonlight filtered in through a section where the wooden wall had caved in.

Everything hurt. Your chest burned, and your throat and neck were unbelievably sore. Why were you even still alive? You thought you’d end up between that shark’s jaws…

Your ears picked up a soft and quiet sloshing sound coming from a corner of the room, prompting you to look around. By the looks of it, you seemed to be inside a ship that had certainly seen far better days. More than half of the floorboards were shattered, making the part where you sat on the cot little more than an island surrounded by water.

You couldn’t see properly in the dark, but you think you’re able to make out eyes watching you from the edge of the floor where wood meets water.

A cloud moves away, allowing the moon to bathe the room in an eerie silver glow.

So there is someone watching.

You stared at a pair of crimson eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light. The lower half of the person’s face was still hidden underwater, but as you slowly shuffled closer to the edge, their head emerged.

A man, from what you can tell, with odd pale blue hair. He’s handsome, as far as you’re concerned, but there is something strange about his features. They’re too sharp. His skin had a grayish tint to it, and is decorated by a jagged scar across his nose and cheek, as well as some smaller cuts around his lips. A strange earring dangled from his ear; golden ornamentations encasing a vial that emitted a soft bluish glow, casting eerie shadows over his face.

“W-who are y-you?” you asked, your voice unsteady and hoarse through the burn in your throat. You must’ve swallowed a lot of water.

“Did you save me from that shark?”

“Yes,” the man spoke, “I did, in a way.” His voice sounded odd too; it was rich and deep, and definitely not unpleasant, but had a sharp and foreign edge to it.

“Thank you,” you said as you shuffled closer to the edge to get a better look at your savior.

Your body hurt and you could barely move, but you pushed through the discomfort.

He ducked his head as you extended your hand towards him, wanting to help him get out of the water.

“I won't hurt you,” you promised, giving him a reassuring smile.

“You couldnt even hurt a shrimp right now, in the state you're in”

You chuckled. He was probably right.

“What's your name?” you asked.

The man averted his gaze.

You decided to change your approach and introduced yourself. He nodded curtly and repeated your name, as if to become acquainted with the feel of the syllables on his tongue.

“Come on, let me at least thank you properly” you offered, as you once again extended your hand to help him climb out.

He sighed and with an eyeroll, his upper body emerged as he crossed his arms on the edge of the floorboards.

You stared at him, your lips parting in awe at the sight before you.

A set of parallel, slightly flared slits sat at each side of his neck, looking exactly like the gills of a fish. Long hair cascaded over his shoulders down his back, and two strands framed his face elegantly.

Your gaze trailed lower; the gray skin of his muscular chest darkened in a soft gradient towards his sides and back, and the firm planes of his pecs and abs were littered in scars. Your eyes traveled over toned shoulders and biceps, marveling over the fin-like structures that protruded from his forearms; before eventually settling on his dark-skinned hands with long and slender fingers that ended in sharp claws.

“You’re–” your voice died, you could only stare at the man in wonder.

“A merman, yes. What a clever human you are,” he said, almost mocking you.

“I thought your kind only existed in legends–”

Another eyeroll.

This must be a dream. A vivid hallucination in your moment of dying; how else could he be real?

You’re completely and utterly captivated by him.

“Can I see you?” you all but blurted out.

He stared at you.

“What?”

“Can I see you? Your tail I mean? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is my first time seeing one of your kind, and–”

Your words died in your throat as he reached forward and placed his hands next to your legs, caging you in with his arms. Supporting himself on the floorboards, he slowly pushed his lower half up, revealing the long gray tail of a shark.

He leaned towards you; Crimson eyes fixed on yours with his face only inches away, he pulled up his tail and sat on the wood before you, his tail fin trailing in the water lazily.

He backed away, leaning on one hand with his head cocked to the side and watched you.

He was absolutely gorgeous.

He was tall - as far as you could tell from his sitting height and the long tail, he would probably tower over most men you'd met in your life, if he were standing on human legs. His build was all lean, toned muscles, and the scars that extended from his face and torso to cover his shark tail as well gave him an alluring wild aura. The tail itself was lighter on the underside, and darker on top, where a jagged dorsal fin sat, near the back of his hips. Another set of long fins protruded from his sides in the same area.

The longer you stared at him, the more you lost yourself in all the small details you discovered. Small droplets of water clung to his skin, and you caught yourself following one with your gaze as it traveled down his firm abs.

You lightly shook your head and trained your eyes back on his elegant face. The long strands that framed his sharp features had begun to dry; and one of them curled around his strange earring.

He smirked - it was obvious he was enjoying your attention, he was almost preening under your curious gaze.

You asked if you could touch him; he nodded as he extended his hand towards you.

He's watching you intently, a curious glint in his eyes as you turn his hand this way and that way, inspect the webs between his fingers, test the sharp point of his claws, and eventually let your fingers graze down his forearm, feeling the smooth scales there, and glide along the edge of his fin.

"Fascinating," you breathed.

He cocked his brow.

"That is not… how humans usually react to my kind."

"But you are! You're–" you gestured towards all of him, "You're beautiful!" You blurted out, a fierce blush spreading on your cheeks.

He gawked at you for a second, but quickly composed himself, and chuckled lightly.

"The lack of oxygen must've impaired your cognitive functions… you almost drowned out there. Rest now, we will talk later."

Before you could protest, he dipped back into the water with one fluid motion, and immediately dived down out of reach.

You sighed and watched the ripples slowly fade where his body had been moments ago.

He was probably right though, you felt dizzy and exhausted. You crawled back onto the cot and immediately succumbed to a deep slumber.

»»————-————-««

When you woke up again, sunlight tickled your skin. You blinked slowly as you came to your senses, and remembered what happened before you passed out.

A merman rescued you from drowning, and brought you here, to what you assumed was an old shipwreck, partially submerged.

You looked around the battered room; the part with the cot you sat in, where the floorboards hadn’t collapsed yet, covered about half of the room. Parts of the wall were shattered and worn down from time, creating little windows that allowed light and fresh air in.

A quiet splash caught your attention. You whipped your head around and saw the merman, your savior, sit on the planks near the edge of the water. He was leaning against the outer wall of the ship, his head cocked into your direction. He was once again watching you with those eyes that resembled glimmering garnets.

“Good morning,” you croaked, your throat still sore.

“It would be a good morning to you, wouldn't it. You slept for two days, not even counting the two days you were out after I pulled you from the wreck."

You stared at him, trying to process the facts.

"How do you feel? Your throat and lungs, specifically?" He asked.

You knitted your brows together. "Better, I think? It still hurts, but not as much as when I woke up the last time."

"Good," he nodded, "it would seem my treatment is taking effect. You will need to stay here for a while longer until you recover fully, though."

You cocked your head. "Treatment? Are you something like a doctor?"

He smirked, "Indeed I am. Or, was, rather."

He paused and gazed out at the waves.

"However, my kind couldn't appreciate my scientific achievements, and banished me from their society."

He turned his head again to meet your gaze, crimson jewels glittering at you.

"Their loss. Now I can freely research, and this wreck here happens to house an extensive library and medical bay."

You smiled sympathetically.

"Is that how you learned to speak our language?"

"Yes. And by observing the sailors that pass through here."

"I see… how does your own language sound, then?" You asked.

He smirked, before opening his mouth and making a series of snarling and growling sounds, interlaced with the odd hiss here and there. You could see his razor sharp teeth peek out.

You grinned, thoroughly amazed at this new world he was letting you see a glimpse of.

"What did you say?" you asked curiously.

"Oh, just…" he flashed you a grin, his pointed teeth gleaming, "that I'm glad to make your acquaintance. I rather like your curious nature~"

His tongue peeked out when he licked his lips as he watched your reaction, and you could have sworn you saw what looked like a serrated edge. It vanished behind his white teeth before you got a good look.

Probably just a trick of the light, you thought.

You blushed and cleared your throat.

"You still haven't told me your name."

"You wouldn't be able to pronounce it, I'm afraid."

You frowned, realizing he was right.

"For now, you may call me Dottore. I found it in one of the ship's books; it seems to be a name for doctors in one of the human languages, and I like the sound of it."

You nodded, and slowly repeated the word a few times to get used to how it felt on your tongue.

"Dottore… I'm delighted to meet you. Thank you for taking care of me." You gave him a warm smile, and he grinned at you in return. You rather liked the look of his sharp teeth like this, it was oddly charming.

»»————-————-««

Without much else to do while you recovered from your brush with death, Dottore and you spent most of the days chatting and learning about each other's cultures. He would often vanish without a word, leaving only a splash and rippling water in the wake of his tail fin, only to return shortly after with random objects from around the wreck to ask you about their name and purpose.

You would return his curiosity with your own, relentlessly asking questions about merfolk society.

He brought you food – strange plants from the reefs you had never seen, but they were undeniably tasty and nutritious. He did try to offer his own diet to you, but after a few bites you had to smile apologetically and admit that raw fish simply wasn't for you.

He would also bring you books from the ship's library to pass the time - made waterproof and preserved by what he explained was essentially a type of magic innate to merpeople.

Dottore took no offense in you touching him - you simply couldn't help it, sometimes. More and more often you let your fingers graze over his smooth and cool skin and his fins, the texture so different, yet still familiar. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the attention you gave him.

He was charming – almost flirty, although you couldn't discern whether it was just his excitement over learning from you, or a deeper interest. Somehow, you hoped for the latter.

"How much longer will the healing process take?" You asked on the fifth day.

"A few days still," he replied.

"But the pain in my chest is almost gone, and I can talk without my throat burning now–"

"That doesn't mean you've recovered," he interrupted.

"Or are you in such a hurry to leave me?" He added with a smirk and a chuckle.

That sent a blush creeping up your face, a reaction that became more and more frequent over the past few days.

You couldn't deny that Dottore had an effect on you.

»»————-————-««

On the sixth day, just when he was about to slip back into the water to let you rest for the night, you grabbed a hold of his arm to stop him.

"Wait. Please."

He froze momentarily, before leaning back against his usual spot against the outer wall.

His eyebrow raised, he asked, "What is it?"

You shuffled closer on your knees, until you were right next to him, your leg pressing against the side of his hip.

“I… want to test something… hold still, okay?” You said and raised both hands to cup his cheeks.

He watched you with that curious glint in his eyes as you slowly closed the distance between your faces. With half lidded eyes, you hesitated for a moment, your lip almost brushing his and feeling his cool breath on your skin, before finally closing the gap.

His lips felt unexpectedly soft when they met yours; cool and smooth with some small bumps from his scars, but overall still very human. You were about to pull away again after a short moment, this was merely supposed to be an experiment to sate your curiosity after all.

And then Dottore kissed you back. What started out as a slow and exploratory dance of his lips against yours, soon turned more and more heated, demanding, even. Hungry. He took the first opportunity to slip his long tongue into your mouth when you had to take a short gasp for breath.

So the jagged edge wasn’t a trick of the light after all, you thought as you felt hardened ridges graze your gums and inside of your cheeks before he entwined his tongue with yours.

Your hands dropped from his face to find purchase in his long hair and around his neck as he all but devoured you. Without leaving your lips for even a single moment, he pushed against you until your back hit the floor. Towering over you with his arms caging you in, he let out a low growl as he kept diving in for more over and over again, leaving you entirely breathless. Only when a long whine tore from your throat did he eventually relent, but not without letting his teeth graze your bottom lip before he broke away. The sharp points pierced through your delicate skin immediately, and he caught the small trail of blood that trickled out with the tip of his tongue.

He pulled away, leaving your panting form on the floor; his gaze dark as he watched you through hooded eyes, lips twisted into an almost predatory grin.

Your chest heaved as you tried to catch your breath.

“Well? Were the test results... satisfactory?” He asked with a dark chuckle. Bringing his free hand up to his face, he wiped the remnants of your blood from his lip with two fingers and you could only stare up at him completely mesmerized when he slowly licked them clean, holding your gaze the entire time.

After a moment, he bent down again, until his lips were right next to your ear.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he rasped, his breath against your skin sending pleasant shivers down your spine. “Good night, my treasure~”

Before you could even process what just happened, he pulled away and slipped off the edge of the planks, the black water swallowing him. He popped his head out one last time for a teasing smirk before disappearing into the depths, leaving you alone with your dazed smile.

»»————-————-««

Your daily routine with Dottore changed. Sure, you would still spend the majority of the day chatting; but you now often took longer breaks from talking that were instead spent clinging to each other’s lips.

Whenever you’d read books together; he either put his arm around you, pulling you close by your waist, or would hoist you into his lap altogether.

You had also begun to swim with him in the collapsed part of your room where the water led into the depths of the wreck. Your lung function still felt a little limited however, and you would tire out quickly. Dottore would always pull you close as soon as he noticed your exhaustion, roll over so he was floating in the water on his back, and let you sit on him, straddling his waist to allow you to rest while still keeping you close. You would even fall asleep on his chest like that sometimes, held close by his arms so you would not slip and fall into the water.

You didn’t think about your recovery time again.

Whenever your makeout sessions would turn a tad too heated, or your wandering hands too curious, he would chuckle darkly with that velvety voice of his, smirk and pull away, always leaving you yearning for more. He would in turn tease you relentlessly, touches lingering closer and closer to where you secretly wanted them, but never quite close enough.

To be honest, you weren’t sure if those activities would even be possible between you, there was quite the difference in your anatomies after all. At least you guessed there was; sexuality was one of the very few subjects you hadn’t discussed so far.

Maybe he was disgusted by the idea of being intimate with a human? But then again, his touches held too much intent, too much promise for that to be true. Should you be disgusted? Was this wrong? You didn’t know. You only knew your body reacted to him and everything he did, and you longed to be as close as possible to him.

»»————-————-««

You were sitting on the edge of the floorboards, your legs dangling in the water, as you watched your companion twirl around in the water. The legends you had heard as a child all suggested that merpeople had a playful streak to their behavior, but you were surprised to see how much it held true even for large predators such as Dottore. He was currently chasing around a small group of squids that had somehow found their way inside, but you knew he was merely playing with them, not unlike how a cat would toy with its prey. He was just drawing out the inevitable for the mollusks; you knew he would strike and end their meaningless little lives whenever he felt like it. After a few minutes, he eventually grew bored of playing chase, and tore his claws and teeth through the squids in the blink of an eye. He emerged, swallowing down the last chunk of his snack, and drifted over to where you sat perched on the wood.

Settling himself between your legs, so you could lock them around his waist if you wanted, he pushed himself up to place a small kiss onto the corner of your lips. You smiled and returned the tender gesture.

“Dottore, I want to know your real name,” you announced. “I know you said I wouldn’t be able to pronounce it, but please… try to teach me. There has to be a way. I want to understand your language too.”

He pulled away a fraction, surprise evident on his features. You gave him a reassuring smile.

“Well, there is one method…” he mused, stroking his chin for a moment. He nodded, before pushing against you for a stormy kiss. “Wait here, my treasure. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He winked at you before disappearing into the water.

He returned in the late afternoon, as the sun already hung low on the horizon, bathing your room in a warm light.

You moved from your resting spot to sit on the edge of the planks as soon as you saw him.

Dottore swam up to you, gently grabbing your thigh with one hand as he held up an odd looking plant with the other.

“This is the root of a rare plant that grows in a few remote caves. Once you eat it, you will gain the ability to understand and speak the language of my kind,” he explained.

“What? That’s amazing!” you squealed, excited at the opportunity to be even closer to him.

Without hesitation, you plucked the slimy root from his hand and stuck it into your mouth.

It tasted horrible, but you should have expected that much. Forcing yourself to chew the bitter plant, you were finally able to swallow it after a few long moments. You grimaced as you tried to rid yourself of the taste.

“How do you feel?” Dottore asked.

“A bit dizzy, but otherwise fine… how do I know when it takes effect?

He just stared at you, crimson eyes wide in amazement.

Oh.

Dottore grinned as he saw the realization on your face.

“That… was quick? I don’t feel different, shouldn’t I feel something on my vocal cords?” you became faintly aware of the hissing and snarling undertones in your voice that weren’t present minutes ago.

“Apparently not,” he grinned, “I love how your voice sounds like this.”

He pushed his body up, supported by his arms that were once again placed firmly against your sides on the wood. He nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent as he trailed small feathery kisses along your skin.

You giggled as his breath tickled your neck.

“You wanted to tell me your name, remember?”

He stopped teasing your neck and met your expectant gaze.

“Zandik. My name is Zandik.”

Your lips curled into a wide smile.

“It sounds beautiful… Zandik.” You repeated the two syllables slowly.

Zandik’s gaze darkened.

“Say it again,” he murmured.

“Zandik.”

“Again,” he demanded, his voice dropping lower.

“Zandik,” You breathed as his face inched closer to yours.

“Again,” he growled.

“Zandi–” He didn’t let you finish.

In one fluid motion, he pushed you back and pinned you down with his upper body. His lips were on yours in an instant, and he forced his long tapered tongue into your mouth without hesitation.

He kissed you so fiercely, so passionately and deep that he all but sucked the air right out of you. You gasped into his mouth, and he pulled away just enough to meet your gaze, burning embers boring right into you through heavy lids. A thin string of saliva still connected your lips as he rasped, voice deep and like liquid velvet, “You really have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

He closed the gap again, but this time to litter your jawline with open mouthed kisses, trailing lower down the column of your neck until he found a particularly sensitive spot at your pulse point.

He sucked at it harshly, and you jolted as you felt the telltale sting of his teeth grazing your tender flesh. At this point, you didn’t even care if he drew blood, the feeling of his mouth against you far more pleasurable than the pain. He growled against your skin, and the vibrations together with the onslaught of sensations sent heat shooting down your body, pooling rapidly between your thighs. Zandik’s clawed hands began to roam over your body, greedily pawing at your clothed curves and dipping down ever so slightly to trace the outline of your cunt through your shorts.

“Zandik…please…” you whined, his teasing making your head spin.

“Please what?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“Touch me,” you panted, “want more of you–”

Your voice broke into a strangled moan when he pressed down against your clit through your clothes, before all but ripping away your top, fully exposing your breasts to his hungry gaze. Despite the warm evening air, your nipples were already stiff just from his teasing alone, and you shivered as he gave your chest a small lick.

He smirked as he closed his lips around one nipple, roughly kneading your other breast with his free hand as his jagged tongue swirled around the sensitive bud. The texture of the harder ridges against your delicate skin was foreign to you, but enhanced the sensation even more. Mere moments later, you were already shivering in anticipation beneath him, and he hadn’t even touched you properly yet.

The heat between your legs was quickly becoming unbearable, and you tried to rub your thighs together to feel at least some friction against your aching core. Zandik noticed, and pulled away from your nipple with a small pop.

“Tch, impatient, are we? Very well, I don’t want to torture my treasure like this~”

His hands trailed down your stomach and abdomen as he let himself glide back down into the water. Hooking his slender fingers into the waistband of your shorts, he pulled them off swiftly, earning a gasp from you as the air hit your soaked cunt.

His gaze was fully trained on your sex as he traced your glistening folds with his digits, marveling at how easily your body reacted to his touch.

With shallow breath, you watched through hooded eyes as he explored you; the way he was so focused on your most sensitive parts sent a deep blush creeping up your cheeks.

His fingertip found your clit, and your hand flew up to cover your mouth, stifling the moan that threatened to spill out as he began to rub little circles into the sensitive bud.

He stopped immediately, glancing up at you with a frown.

“No. Let me hear you.”

He withdrew his hands from your folds, instead moving them up to grab the plush flesh of your hips.

“Actually, I wish to test something I’ve read about in a… very particular book that I found in one of the ship’s cabins.” He paused as he lowered his head between your legs, his cheek resting against your thigh as he looked up at you with a playful smirk tugging at his lips.

“Apparently, doing this is highly pleasurable for human females… Let me see if that claim holds up, would you?”

You stared at him as his face dipped lower, until his mouth was merely an inch away from your already dripping core.

“Ah, and of course,” he added, his breath against you making you shiver, “don’t hold back those lovely sounds you make…”

You drew in a sharp breath when his tongue made contact with your heat. Without breaking his gaze away from you for a single moment, he languidly traced the outline of your soft folds with the tip of his tongue, before dipping into your slit to lick a long stripe upwards, ending at your clit. You were sure you’d combust under the force of his gaze alone. And then Zandik smirked, closed his perfect lips around the bundle of nerves and sucked, and it was all over for you.

A lewd moan ripped from your throat as your eyes rolled back from the sudden onslaught of pleasure. He chuckled against you; the vibrations on your clit jolting through you like electricity.

He guided your legs up to rest on his shoulders and wrapped both arms around your thighs, holding you firmly in place. He closed his eyes, and dove back in for his meal.

His pace as his slick tongue lapped and swirled around your core was relentless, and you snaked your hands down to find purchase in his hair, desperate for something to ground you. He grunted as you tugged at his roots harshly, but it only seemed to spur him on even more. Zandik devoured you like he had been starving for you, and soon you found yourself bucking your hips up to meet his mouth, already on the brink of release after merely a few minutes. After a few more especially vicious swirls of his tongue, where the ridges along its edge pressed against your sensitive clit just right, you toppled over the edge you had been balancing on. Shameless moans and cries of pleasure spilled from your lips as you rode out your high, grinding your cunt against his mouth until the last waves of your orgasm faded. He greedily lapped up your juices as he watched your face, staring at you with crazed, lust-blown eyes.

“Beautiful,” he rasped, “do that again for me.”

You could only stare at him completely dazed, your chest heaving as you slowly came down from your climax. He didn’t give you much time to recover, too eager to taste you again as his tongue already slid back between your folds.

“Hmmm, I wonder what happens if I do this,” he purred against your cunt, and teasingly prodded your entrance with the tip of his tongue.

You drew in a sharp breath as he pushed inside, his gaze never leaving yours. You could feel every single ridge graze your walls, and it felt utterly delicious. His movements were calculated at first, exploratory, as if he was trying to map out every dip and test your reactions. Each thrust of his tongue went a little deeper; and you could feel he was getting greedier with every push forward. Then Zandik wrapped both arms around your hips and thighs and lifted them up, changing the angle so that his tongue reached even further.

You let out an unrestrained moan at the sudden change; you were still sensitive from your previous orgasm, and feeling his mouth on you, his tongue so deep inside, made your walls flutter as you felt yourself being pulled closer to the edge once more.

You faintly noticed his long tail swishing around nervously under the water’s surface, and somehow his fins seemed to stand up more; even their color appeared to be darker than usual. You hoped this meant he was enjoying himself as well.

Your brain was too fuzzy to really dwell on the thought however, not when he suddenly curled the tip of his tongue upwards, pushing right into your sweet spot.

Your back arched from the sudden spike of pleasure, and you subconsciously pushed your hips even closer towards his mouth.

“Zandik– aahh, I–” you gasped, the heat inside you becoming unbearable as he abused that sensitive spot relentlessly, pushing his tongue into it over and over again until you felt like you were melting.

He wound his arms around you even tighter, unabashedly moaning against you when you began to convulse around him.

The tension in your core finally snapped, and you shook violently in his grasp as you shattered on his tongue.

Your chants and gasps of his name mingled with his own grunts and delighted hums as he drank up your essence like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

For a few moments, you could only lie there on the wood, staring up at the damp ceiling, your chest heaving as you tried to come back to your senses.

Zandik granted you that moment of reprieve, softly nuzzling your thigh and pressing kisses into your flushed skin while you regained your breath.

Once he noticed you had calmed down from your high, he crawled back up on top of you to kiss you, deep and passionately. His hands began to wander again, clawed fingers grazing your sides and ghosting over your breasts, and despite having just been served two mind-shattering orgasms, you felt heat pool in your center yet again. You knew he was far from satiated either; it was obvious from the way his kisses once again grew hungrier as his lips traveled down the side of your neck, purple marks blossoming in their wake. You were nothing but putty in his hands, and you let out a small gasp when you felt something hard poke your thigh as he ground his hips against you lightly.

“Zandik? Is that–”, you breathed, lashes fluttering open to meet his eyes, just as lust-blown as your own.

“Yes.”

“Would that even work? I mean–”

“Of course it would,” he replied, his deep voice urgent and full of need, “The difference in anatomy isn’t as great as you might think. I have no doubt you’ll be able to take me, treasure.”

He ground his hips against you again to emphasize his words. His hardness brushed against an especially sensitive spot on the inside of your thigh, drawing a low whine from you.

“Let me see you,” you panted as you pushed yourself up to your elbows, and glanced down between your bodies.

You didn’t know what you expected, but to your surprise you saw two slender cocks protrude from a fold in his scales between his pelvic fins, snuggled together and curving towards one another. They were slightly thinner than that of a human, so that their combined girth seemed to be only a little more than a well-endowed man’s. They were significantly longer though, and instead of the usual bulbous head they tapered into tips about as thick as a finger. Most striking though were the rows of ridges that wrapped around the length of both shafts, bumps that curved down slightly to almost form blunt little hooks. Near the base the color matched the pale skin on his abdomen, but it changed to dark gray in a soft gradient closer to the tips.

Your mouth watered at the sight. He was beautiful, and you couldn’t even bring yourself to care about how unnatural all of this was.

He followed your gaze, grinding his cocks over your clit and folds teasingly, and the feel of their weight alone was enough to make you throw your head back with a drawn out whine, your hole already fluttering at the mere thought of feeling him inside you.

“Fuck,” you whimpered, “I need you– Please–”

Supporting himself with one hand next to your head, he gazed down at you, his hair cascading around both of you. His eyes locked with yours, Zandik lined himself up with your entrance, grabbed your thigh and he slowly pushed into you.

The way he stretched you out was heavenly, and you forgot how to breathe for a moment as your face contorted into a silent scream of pleasure.

You could feel every single one of his ridges grazing your fluttering walls, and you’re almost about to come again just from him pushing into you.

Panting, you gazed up at him with hooded eyes. He was beautiful. A small crease appeared between his brows and his lips parted slightly as he looked down between you and watched how greedily your cunt sucked him in.

He didn't fit in completely, and you didn't expect him to; There was still about a third of his shafts left before his pelvis would meet your skin.

He slowly began to move after giving you a moment to adjust. You moaned lewdly at the feeling of his ridges catching on your slick walls on the way out.

“Mmmm you’re so tight… so perfect for me,” he moaned before pushing in again, with slightly more force now.

He settled into a slow rhythm that seemed almost gentle, as if he was afraid he'd break you if he went faster.

Zandik caressed your cheek and smiled at you sweetly.

“But I'm afraid this won’t do, my treasure…”

He pulled out of you completely and dragged you down towards the water, his arm wrapped around your waist tightly.

You’re confused as to what he was planning, but your mind was already too hazy and fucked out to really question him.

“Turn around for me,” he whispered in your ear as soon as you were both in the water.

Your cunt clenched around nothing as his breath ghosted over your neck, the deep rumble of his voice making you shiver in anticipation.

Holding onto the floorboards with one hand, you turned, smirking at him over your shoulder as you presented your ass to him.

He let out a low growl.

"Yes, that's good…”

His hands trailed down your back, agonizingly slow as he let his claws graze over every single dip and bump of your spine, before roughly grabbing a hold of your ass. After a short moment, one hand moved back up to pin your hand against the wood, while the other traveled around to splay across your abdomen.

Zandik pressed his body against your back, his larger frame towering over you, and guided your hips against his with a hard push of his hand on your stomach.

You bit down on your lip as you felt his rock hard cocks press against your ass, before he slipped between your thighs to grind against your aching core.

Without another warning, he plunged into you, prompting a drawn-out moan to fall from your lips at the sudden stretch.

His tips reached far deeper inside you like this, but he still did not bottom out.

Without waiting for you to adjust to his size, he gave you a few harsh thrusts, each of them knocking the air out of you as he went deeper every time.

You felt so full already, but he still kept on pushing deeper.

A faint sense of panic rushed over you as you started to struggle in his hold.

“Zandik–” you panted heavily in between his thrusts, “it’s not gonna—”

His hold around you tightened.

“Oh yes, it will,” he growled, “now stop squirming.”

Suddenly, your shoulder exploded in white-hot pain as he sunk his teeth into your flesh. A bloodcurdling scream rips out of you. The force of his jaws is so strong that you feared he might bite a chunk out of you.

With one final vicious thrust, his hips snapped hard against you as he bottomed out in you, and your scream transformed into an unhinged moan as you cum from the sheer feeling of being filled to the brim, mind numbing pleasure only heightened by the pain from his bite.

Grunting, he rocked against you as your walls squeezed him impossibly tight, locking him in as your body spasmed until the last wave of your orgasm had washed over you.

Finally, his mouth unlatched from your shoulder, and he turned your face towards him with a bruising grip on your jaw.

His gaze was absolutely feral and unhinged, and your blood dripped from his teeth and lips and smeared all over his chin as he gave you a crazed grin.

“See? I told you I have no doubt you’ll take me~” he laughed wildly.

His hand slid down the plane of your stomach, settling on the small bump that had formed on your abdomen.

“And look… you took every last inch… good girl,” he purred in your ear before pressing down on the bulge his cocks created, drawing another scream of pleasure from you. You were so sensitive and overstimulated at this point, and everything was so much; but something seemed to have snapped in your mind the second he dug his teeth into you. You were completely at his mercy, and you couldn’t even try to care anymore.

Zandik gave you a shallow thrust to tease you, almost gentle in comparison to what he did moments ago.

“But I have another surprise for you, my treasure…” he cooed.

Before you could register what was happening, his arms locked around you once more, and he began to lower both of you down into the water.

Once you realized what he’s about to do, panic surged through you.

“No, wait–” you tried to stop him.

The water was already touching your chin, but Zandik just chuckled darkly.

“Relax, you’re gonna be fine…” he rasped and dipped backwards, letting the water envelop you completely.

You tried to thrash against his hold but his grip was too strong as he quickly pulled you deeper into the dark water.

Faintly, you registered the ship’s wooden doors and hallways rushing past as Zandik dragged you along. Where was he taking you?

Despite your panic, a guttural moan vibrated through your throat as his length pushed deeper into you once more. A horrid mix of dread and pleasure coursed through you as you felt the ridges on his cocks expand inside you, effectively locking you in place, keeping you impaled no matter how much you struggled.

He bit down on your shoulder again, and there was no way you could hold back the scream that ripped through you. Water flooded your mouth and lungs immediately, and everything hurt.

Your vision started to fade around the edges from the sheer pain and lack of oxygen, but you could make out shapes of what looked to be a larger, more luxurious room. The former captain’s quarters?

What does it matter, you thought. Your lungs were filled with water, and your consciousness should fade away any moment now. The pain in your chest was unbearable. You closed your eyes and waited for the inevitable.

But it didn’t happen.

You frowned

… why were you still alive? Zandik had drowned you, why—

A sharp slicing pain seared the sides of your neck, and you screamed again, your eyes opening wide in shock.

Somehow you were able to yank your hand free and bring it up to your neck.

Cold dread washed over you as you realized what your fingertips were touching.

Gills??

“I see you’re finally catching on,” Zandik snarled into your ear, emphasizing his words with a harsh thrust.

“Wha— why– Zandik, what have you done??” you shrieked, deeply unsettled by the feeling of water in your throat.

”I saved you.”

“Wha—” you started, nothing but confusion in your hazy mind, but your words get knocked out of you.

He slammed you down on a table, your breasts pressing against the slippery wood uncomfortably.

“You heard me; I saved you,” he said as he pushed against your ass, settling into a slow pace.

“You see, little treasure, you really were about to die out there when I found you. Your lungs were already full of water, what else could I have done? I couldn’t just leave you to drown, could I?” He said it so casually, as if he wasn’t rearranging your insides right at this moment. He kept moving his hips as he spoke, as if nothing happened; and every single one of his slow thrusts was so forceful that he pushed you up the table each time his hips snapped against yours.

“So, let me walk you through how we ended up here,” he drawled, driving his lengths right into your g-spot to emphasize his words.

“After making sure you’d survive by sharing the air I had stored in my own lungs with you, I brought you to my humble abode and started treating you. You know about that part, of course, but what you didn't realize at the time were the side effects…” he paused to caress the newly developed gills on your neck, before closing his fingers around your throat for a moment.

“You see, I never intended to let you go after I had brought you here. That part about your recovery time was obviously a lie, and I’m sorry for not telling you earlier. The truth is, you were never going to recover. Your lungs were destroyed, there really was no saving you, I’m afraid…” His voice was sickeningly sweet as he bent down to whisper in your ear.

“From the moment I saw you floating in the water, I knew I wanted to keep you. Mind you – my intention was never to make you my mate; I wanted to learn from you first and foremost. Everything that developed between us–” He thrust into you hard, earning a pitiful moan from you. “Everything else that happened was your own fault. I instantly realized your curiosity was more than just learning about my world. Do you think I didn’t notice how your eyes glazed over every time you trailed your hands over my skin? How you stared at me, licking and biting your lips when you thought I wasn’t watching? Tell me, did you fantasize about me filling up your tight little cunt even back then?” He grabbed a fistful of your hair and pulled your head back.

“Well?” he demanded, mocking you.

Your mind was already far too hazy to fully process what he said, and whatever answer fell from your lips was nothing more than incoherent babbling.

He drilled into you as deep as he could reach, and the moan that reverberated from your throat was utterly unhinged.

“Just as I thought,” he chuckled.

“Back then, I decided to let you play around, just to see how far you were willing to go; and to be honest, at first it was just that for me as well – merely playing around. I won’t deny I enjoyed the attention you gave me. What I didn’t expect however, was that you would kiss me. I think that must have flipped a switch inside me. From that moment on, I became completely obsessed with you, in a way that went far beyond my initial scientific curiosity. I wanted to make you mine, to ravage you, to tear you apart and put you back together piece by piece…” His voice trailed off into a low whine as he nuzzled his face into your neck from behind.

“Do you even understand how hard it was for me to wait until you were ready for your transformation?”

He straightened his back, looking down at your panting, fucked out face beneath him as he roughly grabbed your waist with both hands, claws digging deep into your tender flesh.

“I’m sure now you understand why I simply have to fuck you completely senseless… Drive my cocks into your greedy cunt over and over again, make you cum until the only thing you remember is my name… Breed you, fill you up to the brim with my seed… Oh, you got tighter just now, does that thought turn you on?” he cooed.

“You really are sick in your mind… are you not ashamed?” He was openly mocking you now, but somehow his words only made you feel even more aroused.

“Did you even realize that you came again when I almost drowned you, right as the water flooded your lungs? You squeezed me so hard when you thought you were dying, I almost finished on the spot… But that would have been a shame, wouldn’t it?”

Your entire body burned from arousal and shame at his words, and you could only whimper and beg for him to fuck you.

Zandik finally picked up his pace and soon he was railing you so hard that you couldn’t form a single coherent thought anymore. There was only burning hot pleasure inside your mind, only him and the feeling of his cocks so deep inside you.

He was absolutely relentless. He drilled his lengths into you without pause, and soon his fingers found your throbbing clit again, rubbing in sync with his harsh thrusts.

He slowed down from time to time to edge himself, it was as if he wanted to draw this out as long as possible. The only things that left your mouth now were screams of pleasure and wanton moans, along with desperate cries of his name.

You lost count of how many times he made you cum, and slowly you feel your consciousness fading from exhaustion.

Your lashes fluttered, threatening to close, as he pulled at your hair harshly, yanking your head back as he growled into your ear:

“You’re mine now, my treasure, mine, mine, mine!! Say it! Who do you belong to?”

“Yours! I’m yours, Zandik!” you cried out, your tears lost in the salty water.

“Good girl,” he whispered before he dropped your head back on the table.

His thrusts were so hard and deep now that you can almost feel every single one of them in your heart like a punch. Animalistic grunts and snarls leave his mouth as he frantically chased his high, moving you up and down his lengths as if you were nothing but a doll.

With one last harsh push he buried himself in you to the hilt, and a loud and absolutely unhinged moan rips from his throat as he spilled his seed into you.

Your vision faded to black as Zandik roughly grabbed your ass with both hands to lock you in place as the pleasure of his climax shook through him, claws digging into your plush flesh so hard he’s sure to leave deep marks.

“My treasure~” he cooed sweetly, grabbing your chin and turning your head as you didn't react, limp in his grasp.

“Tsk. Already passed out. What a pity.”

»»————-————-««

When you woke up, you were curled up somewhere soft and comfortable. Your lashes fluttered as you slowly opened your eyes, blinking until your vision cleared.

It was dark, but the darkness seemed to be illuminated by hundreds of blue lights all around you, bathing the room in an eerie glow. You could make out rough shapes of an unfamiliar room, but not enough to pinpoint where you were.

You tried to turn your head, until your cheek met firm planes of muscles.

A chuckle met your ears and you looked up to see Zandik’s wide grin, sharp rows of teeth on full display.

“Wha– what happened?” you asked, your voice unsteady and your mind still a bit hazy.

“It seems I was a little rough with you, my treasure…” he laughed quietly.

You frowned as you tried to remember the details of what had happened.

“You… drowned me? But also didn’t, what…” Your mind struggled to piece together the fragments.

“As I said before, I saved you… you would have died when I pulled you out of that wreckage, your lungs were too damaged to recover on their own… but with the help of my treatment, you’re now stronger than ever, isn’t that great? I gave you everything you need to comfortably survive underwater!”

Zandik sounded ecstatic, but you still struggled to catch on.

“You… transformed me? Into a mermaid?” you asked, glancing down at your limbs to check. Your legs looked normal, no tail in sight. Your eyes caught on a few gray scales here and there however, and when you turned your hands around, you noticed the webbed skin between your fingers.

“No, I wouldn’t want that,” he replied quickly, “I have no need for my kind. You are so perfectly human, who am I to change that, save for the bare minimum of what's necessary to assure your survival?”

“But… why… why go to such lengths…”

You were so confused.

Zandik grabbed your cheeks with both hands, cradling your face as he stared at you; wild crimson eyes burning with desire.

“Don’t you realize it? Now you can stay with me forever! You won’t need anything else ever again, I will provide you with everything you could possibly want. You’ll never have to leave me! I love you, my treasure, I love you!”

He caught your lips in a fierce kiss. An odd feeling lingered at the back of your mind, as if something should be bothering you, but your mind was too fuzzy to realize what it was. He said he loved you, and you were in his arms, he would keep you safe, and that was all that mattered.

“I love you too, Zandik,” you whispered against his lips before parting them to welcome his tongue, letting yourself be devoured by him.

[jiejies-corner-store]

HELIOTROPES

pairing: dottore x fem!reader & segments

summary: the gods were sick and cruel and twisted. for five hundred years, he believed he was fated to be alone. he had long accepted it—embraced it, even. that is, until a midwinter night when that elusive red thread finally appeared on his finger. but as much as he wants to ignore it, the pull of a soulmate simply cannot be ignored.

genre: soulmate au, canon compliant for the most part

warnings: fem!reader, worldbuilding for snezhnaya & fatui & fontaine

notes: finally reader's pov! and YES, theta segment IS webttore! i started making the segment sheet, ill post it at some point sunday or monday so if u want to see it, keep an eye out for it!

THE COLOR PURPLE

“If anyone is to ask, your soulmark has gone black, your thread is severed, and your soulmate is lost to the world. Should anyone find out that your thread leads to the north, all of us will be under suspicion and Her Excellency is not merciful.”

You stood tall, hands clasped behind your back as you stood between your mother and your half-brother, listening to the Hydro Archon’s announcement. It was an abrupt assembly, as they typically had been lately. You had been preparing for bed when the bell rang throughout the massive palace that housed all of the nation’s aristocrats in the center of Fontaine’s capital city.

If you looked up, you would see the moon high in the sky, the stars glittering against the darkness, but you didn’t dare look away from the Hydro Archon or her court officials.

“... for months, we have allowed ourselves to be lenient with the heretics plaguing our capital. We allowed ourselves to be patient, but the time for leniency and patience is over, we must…”

It was an honor to be welcomed into the Hydro Archon’s abode, the chief justice had claimed, but you knew better. It was no honor for the nobles to be forced out of their countryside estates and into the city--it was a means for surveillance, to make sure that the most influential members of Fontaine’s society were not sympathizers to the growing dissent throughout the capital. 

The people were unhappy. The Hydro Archon was becoming more and more severe with her sentencing, more and more strict with her laws. Fontaine prided itself on being the center of culture and arts, but the nation was declining, their energy apparatuses were failing, and their judicial system was becoming corrupt, though no one dared to say it.

The Hydro Archon’s descent had to do with rebellion stirring in the north. You weren’t sure what it was, exactly, you didn’t think anyone really did, but you had heard your grandfather whispering about it vaguely with some of the other court officials--an uprising against the gods, one that she believed would draw the wrath of Celestia down upon all of Teyvat. You thought this might have begun as a noble cause, the Hydro Archon desperate to protect her people and keep Fontaine absolved of conspiring with Snezhnaya, but it was going to become a witch hunt where anyone with any affiliation to Snezhnaya would be found guilty of collusion. 

You felt acutely aware of the thread tied neatly around your thumb, of the soulmark branded in between your shoulder blades--the ones that connected you to a citizen of Snezhnaya and would make your whole family a target should anyone ever learn. 

You thought it was unfair. It was unfair that you had to hide the fact that you had a soulmate. It was unfair that you and your family would be under suspicion if it got out that your soulmate lived in the north. It was unfair that you had to deal with people gossiping about you because of it--because nothing good ever came along with someone that never received their mark. There were a lot of things unfair, you thought to yourself, and while you didn’t have it as bad as some of the civilians living in Fontaine City who had to deal with the Hydro Archon’s gendarmerie constantly prowling the streets looking for dissidents, you thought it was rather ironic that everything unfair about your life stemmed from Celestia’s decision to give people soulmates. 

You frowned as your gaze tracked to the side instinctively, looking at where your mother was standing next to you. Behind your mother, your stepfather lingered. You could feel him hovering directly behind her, you could see him out of the corner of your eye, and you couldn’t help the resentment that pooled in your stomach.

Your stepfather. Your mother’s soulmate. The man who had all but turned your life upside down when you were three years old after his arrival in Fontaine.

“... this organization is a blight upon our esteemed nation and court of law, staining the purity of our ideals, defiling our magnificence in the eyes of the divine…”

You tuned the Hydro Archon out as your gaze drifted back down to your own thread. Your soulmate was annoyed with something--you could feel the emotion deep in your gut, muted enough to know that it was not your own. Your soulmate never really felt anything strongly--not sadness, not fear, not anxiety, and certainly not happiness. You weren’t sure you had ever felt them actually happy before. 

They were angry sometimes, though, and annoyed occasionally. It was never overwhelming like you had overheard some of your peers talk about. They said sometimes it felt as if they could feel their soulmate’s emotions more intensely than their own--when they were angry, a burst of joy or excitement from their soulmate could ease their anger, or worse, when they were in a good mood, a surge of anger could have them lashing out at their friends and family for no reason. 

You never experienced any of that, for better or for worse. In fact, for nearly a year after your tenth birthday, the only proof you had that your soulmate was alive was that your mark was still brightly tattooed between your shoulder blades. They did not tug the string back in response to your own goodnight tugs--though you tried not to let it bother you--and you never really felt anything from them, pain nor emotions.

It wasn’t until you learned how to separate their tiny inflections from your own emotions that you had a way of knowing whether or not your soulmate was alive besides the shared mark and thread, but even then it was just… underwhelming. You didn’t know what to expect from your soulmate, which was unfortunate because by your age, most people at least had an idea of their soulmate’s personality through their shared emotions.

“Perhaps, it just means they’re calm,” your nanny, Miss Elyna, had tried to soothe you while you were making yourself upset over it one night. 

“Not feeling anything strongly is not a bad thing,” your father had agreed quietly, “it makes it easier to hide that you have one.”

But you didn’t want to hide, you were sick of hiding--you wanted to go looking for them, you wanted to travel to the frozen wastelands of Snezhnaya, you wanted to wear open-back dresses to show off your mark in hopes that someone had seen the match, you wanted to find them, and you wanted to be with them.

But if you wanted to be with them, it would mean leaving your country behind, leaving your family behind. So much as you might resent your stepfather, you couldn’t bear the thought of leaving your father, your mother, Miss Elyna, or even your half-siblings. Unless the Hydro Archon changed her stance on Snezhnaya, you would be forced into an impossible decision: your blood or your soulmate.

You let out a quiet breath, shaking your head. From the corner of your eye, you caught sight of your stepfather, again. Donned in a lavender dress shirt with a fancy watch that once belonged to your mother’s late father, he looked like the image of Fontaine aristocracy despite hailing from the City of Freedom. 

Purple was your favorite color, it was your family’s color, but you hated how it looked draped against your stepfather’s skin. You felt irked again, unable to draw your gaze from the older man. You hated him--you hated how he treated your father, you hated how he treated you, and you hated how he was trying to pit your half-siblings against you. You knew you couldn’t fault your mother for wanting to be with her soulmate, but if this was her soulmate, you couldn’t help but wonder what that might mean about her.

Your throat felt tight as you forced yourself to look away, eyes instead falling on your grandfather standing at the Hydro Archon’s side as she spoke. He was Warden of the Black Cells, the highest security level of Fontaine’s prison--he was one of the Hydro Archon’s most trusted confidants, the one she counted on to make sure her enemies stayed locked deep beneath the lakes of the city. His eyes were sharp as he stared down at the aristocrats standing before him, reminiscent of a predator hunting its prey, waiting for someone to slip up and place themselves under suspicion. He paid particular attention to your stepfather, you couldn’t help but notice, and it made you almost want to giggle. 

The assembly was finally near its end, you could tell from the Hydro Archon’s tone: “... a curfew will be instated to preserve our-”

And then your arm burned--so intense that it took all your self-control to not cry out, somehow both hot and cold at the same time. It was dragging against your skin in even strokes as if branding letters onto you. You bit down hard on your lower lip, hand flying to clutch your forearm and trying not to make a scene. You could feel several pairs of eyes on you, including your mother, half-brother and stepfather… and your grandfather. 

Branding words. 

You felt light-headed as realization began to hit you. 

It was past midnight. 

It was your birthday, and you were fifteen. 

It was the start of the third phase, and the first time that words were shared between soulmates, the pain was excruciating. 

What terrible timing, you thought to yourself as your eyes teared up and your half-brother shifted in front of you once he noticed something was wrong, looking at you with a questioning look that you couldn’t even respond to.

Just as your vision began to go spotty, you caught sight of the words being seared into your skin--the same shade as the soulmark stamped between your shoulder blades, but only visible to you:

Deactivate. 

“Do you think I won’t have you deactivated, Theta?” Dottore asked, voice calm but internally, his anger was rising as he looked down at the report in front of him detailing the near destruction of one of his labs down in southern Mondstadt and along with it, most of the progress that they had made the past six years in stabilizing delusions.

The Theta Segment looked unbothered, staring at Dottore emptily. “You won’t have me deactivated because you don’t have the resources to create a new segment right now. Otherwise you would have replaced Beta already, and you haven’t. Either way, deactivating me wouldn’t have prevented the situation unless you’ve figured out a way to endow segments with prophetic abilities,” Theta said, voice dry and mocking. 

Beta, Dottore inhaled, trying to reign in his temper as it spiked at the reminder of the Beta segment. His head was pounding--he had been dealing with setbacks in his own research, and the Balladeer was being less than forthcoming regarding information about the Abyss and Irminsul. He was losing his patience with it because the only reason Scaramouche was even capable of withstanding the hostile energy in the Abyss was because Dottore had unlocked his latent powers as an Archon’s creation.

He could by all means deactivate Theta, but Theta was right in that he didn’t have the resources to create another segment to replace him. He had all of the physical materials, despite how hard they were to come by, but he lost the connection to Irminsul he had in Snezhaya, drained the sprout of all of its energy, and he needed the connection to Irminsul to create the segments in the mindsets of his past self. There were rumors of other withered sprouts in the ruins of Vindagnyr--he had the Rho and Gamma segments searching through the bitter cold to try to find ways to revitalize the sprouts, but their efforts had been fruitless thus far. 

“Careful,” he warned quietly, looking up from the report to finally look at the Theta Segment, who stiffened a bit at Dottore’s tone. “You’re testing my patience.”

“There was nothing I could’ve done,” Theta’s voice was still sharp, defensive, which Dottore expected of the segment. Theta was the segment created right after his expulsion from the Akademiya--volatile, uncontrollable, always angry and always on edge. He never took well to being told that he did something wrong, Dottore was surprised it had taken him this long to snap.

“If it were Rho or Delta, they would have made the necessary preparation to deal with such a situation,” Dottore countered, reading through all of the reported damages and lost research. He pressed his lips together tightly as he realized that all of their research had been lost. It would set them back over a year, maybe two or three. “Instead, we-”

“Don’t compare me to them,” Theta bristled, hands fisting at his side, teeth clenched so tight that Dottore could practically hear them grinding. “Not to Delta.”

Dottore smiled thinly, “Then do not do things that make me compare you to them,” he said coldly. He leaned back in his seat, placing the papers down. “This was easily preventable, Theta.”

“How was I supposed to know about a stray wyvern nesting in the Mondstadt countryside?” Theta said, aggressive and loud. 

Dottore stared at him, “You research, Theta,” he responded, tone a bit more sharp. “You research the area where you plan to waste hundreds of thousands of mora building one of our labs to make sure that it’s a location conducive to our research. All of the older segments would have known to look into the property and the surrounding land before throwing away our limited mora. If you can’t even bother to make an effort to show a little bit of responsibility, you will be stripped of your independence and sent to the Fontaine border to assist Delta permanently, do you understand?”

“You can’t do that,” Theta hissed. “I’m not a child-”

“No, you’re not. You are a tool,” Dottore interrupted, “and tools do what they were created for and when they are no longer useful, they are disposed of.”

Theta turned to leave, fists balled tight at his side, Dottore spoke up again before he could walk away, “Did I dismiss you?” he asked. Theta stopped but did not turn to face Dottore. “You will go to Sumeru with Lambda. The two of you will work on replacing all of the lost research. You will explain to him the situation and why he is being forced to halt his part of the residue project. You have half a year to replace all of the lost research.”

“Or what?” Theta spit out. 

Dottore did not respond, he figured that was enough of an answer. 

You will be deactivated. 

Theta scoffed, shaking his head—and just like that, Dottore’s temper snapped. His hand shot forward quickly, iron-grip latching around Theta’s wrist as he yanked the segment closer to him, tone low and laced with poison as he leaned forward over the desk, “You have wasted far more resources than you are worth. Time and time again you have proven yourself to be the most useless segment that I’ve created. Tread carefully because your next mistake will be your last, I don’t care enough to replace you.”

Theta ripped his arm out of Dottore’s grasp, taking a step away. His lips were twisted, and his eyes were ablaze with rage, but he didn’t respond this time. 

Dottore looked back down at the desk, shuffling through the papers and looking for the one that he had been trying to get through before Theta had arrived to disrupt his peace.

“Leave,” he ordered, void of emotion as he relaxed back into his chair. “Now, and don’t ever bring up the Beta segment again.”

Theta didn’t say another word as he left the room, closing the door harshly behind him. Dottore let out a sharp exhale, squeezing the bridge of his nose as he tried to calm himself down so he could refocus. Instinctually, his gaze drew to his other hand, where the thread was tied snugly around his thumb. 

His soulmate hadn’t tugged the thread tonight. He looked back to the window on the far end of the room, where the sky was dark and the stars shone brightly against the black canvas. He wondered if they had finally given up or if they just hadn’t fallen asleep yet--he wasn’t sure which he would prefer. Usually, he could tell when they fell asleep, but this time he had been distracted by Theta and wasn’t paying attention. 

Tonight would be the start of the third phase. 

He looked over to the side, in the direction of the chart that he had set up. He wouldn’t know the exact time, but it was soon, and he was glad he got Theta out of the room before it began. His thread had shown up in the dead of night ten years ago--he remembered the day very well--and he had dreaded this day ever since it had shown up. The third phase was a violation, a breach of his privacy. He did not want his thoughts being transcribed onto a random person at all, much less when he couldn’t even control what words were being sent to them.

This was when the concept of a soulmate really became an issue. They had already been a personal issue, but now it extended beyond just him. It was an issue for the whole organization because if one wrong word got transferred to them and they mentioned it around the wrong people, it could spell a lot of trouble for the Fatui and their goals. 

He should have gone to the Jester by now. He should have gone to him and told him the situation so they could work to track down his soulmate before it got to this point before it put the Fatui at risk. He didn’t know why he hadn’t yet. Something odd and unfamiliar tugged at his gut, an emotion he couldn’t recognize. It wasn’t from his soulmate, he could feel that much, but he convinced himself it was. 

You haven’t gone to the Jester because you’re going to sever the bond, he reminded himself, and then this would become a nonissue. But it was not as easy as he thought it would be. There was no previous research done into severing a bond between soulmates, there were old folktales but no legit information to back the validity of them. Dottore had a feeling that Irminsul would have answers for him and he found it ironic that the tree seemed to be the root of all of his most recent issues--he had half a mind to burn the thing to the ground when he finally got to it. 

Just as he was going to finally force himself to focus back on the report, he felt it--a searing pain in his left forearm, nothing compared to what he had dealt with before but he hadn’t expected it to be as intense as it was. 

He paused only for a second before rolling up his sleeve.

Purple, the word said, and Dottore couldn’t help but shake his head. He wasn’t sure what he had been anticipating from them, but he supposed that a color was about as predictable as it could get. 

He wondered what they might have gotten from him--it could’ve been anything from his argument with Theta to his thoughts on Irminsul. He hoped that it wasn’t the latter. He felt stressed suddenly, rubbing his temples and letting his eyes slide shut as he tried to figure out what he could do, if there was a way that he could control his thoughts and filter out what they could be receiving from him. 

He didn’t think there was, realistically. He had done a lot of research trying to prepare for this day, and he had come up empty-handed. The only way to prevent his soulmate from receiving words he didn’t want them to receive was to stop thinking about them, and that wasn’t an option. He had work to do, research to complete, and he refused to let them interfere more than they already had. 

Hesitating for a second, he reached for a notebook laid out on the desk next to him, jotting down the word he had received before pushing the notebook out of sight and pushing his soulmate out of mind, returning to the heaps of papers he had to get through before the night was up.

You lounged in the garden, relaxing to the soft scent of lilies beneath the gentle glow of the sunset over the horizon. You could hear a songbird chirping in the distance, people chattering in the streets as they made their way back to their homes before curfew, the quiet hum of the apparatuses set up throughout the garden to keep the flora rich and healthy. It wasn’t raining, for once. You swore that the past two weeks had been nothing but torrential downpour, you’d been trapped inside the library of the palace, spending your time reading old tales of forbidden love and the old gods.  

You didn’t like being in Fontaine City. It was always muggy and ugly outside, it was usually raining, and even when the skies were clear, there was a strange, intense mechanical scent that made your head hurt--the only place free of it was the garden on the roof of the palace, but even then, sometimes the sweetness of the flowers was sickly. You wanted to return to the countryside, to your mother’s family estate near the Snezhnayan border where the air was brisk and fresh, and the grass was lush and green, the thick scent of the wild and the subtle scent of smoke from the estate’s fireplace being the ones most familiar and dear to your heart.

You sighed as you rested your head against the cool stone of the statue you were sitting against, pen tapping steadily against your notebook as your eyes grazed over the past few words that you had received from your soulmate: sever, residue, research, failure. 

You couldn’t make much sense of it, you had thought two years ago that maybe you would finally get to know more about your soulmate now that you were sharing thoughts, but you found yourself at even more of a loss than you were at before. They were a complete mystery to you. They thought words in the old tongue rather often--Theta, Iota, Lambda, and Delta, most frequently but there were others that appeared less often: Kappa, Rho, Gamma, Epsilon, Zeta—and no one really knew the old tongue unless they were an academic or some sort of priest of the dead gods. 

And even the thoughts you received in the common tongue were just strange, and you didn’t even understand half of them. Ever since the start of the third phase, you seemed to spend the majority of your days in the palace’s libraries trying to understand them by looking up the random words that were showing up on your forearm, but somehow, it only left you more confused.

You thought that maybe they were a scholar at Sumeru’s Akademiya who had traveled north for research. Fontaine had its own institute, but it focused on engineering and mechanics, not languages, and students who graduated from the institute typically remained in Fontaine unless they were granted leave to introduce and promote their invention to other nations… and even then, they would never be granted leave to Snezhnaya, but as far as you were aware, the Akademiya did not have such restrictions. 

It would be better for you if that were the case--that way, your soulmate wasn’t a citizen of Snezhnaya, and you didn’t have to worry about being prosecuted by the Hydro Archon for treason.

You hummed to yourself, doodling on the corner of your notebook as you eyed the word that was currently branded against your forearm: dead. It followed the string of words you had received earlier in the day--normally, you only received one word from them a day, two if you were lucky, but since you woke up this morning, you’d gone through five words.

You bit down on your bottom lip, hesitating before you finally noted the word down beneath failure, adding it to the grouping you had made for today. Sever, residue, research, failure, dead. Not foreboding at all, you thought to yourself, trying to put together what it all might mean. You weren’t sure how the first word fit in with the rest, but you figured the other four were all related.

Research into some sort of residue? What residue? Failed in whatever they were doing, something or someone ended up dead.

They didn’t seem distressed about it, so you supposed that no one important to them got hurt or died… or if they did, your soulmate simply did not care… and it kind of worried you that you genuinely did not know them well enough to know which was the case. You sighed, a pout tugging at your lips as you looked away from your notebook and up to the sky. 

There was another storm already rolling in, you could see the dark clouds in the distance. You didn’t know what to think about your soulmate. You got strange words from them, you never felt anything from them sans the occasional annoyance or anger, and they never responded to your tugs when you tried to tell them goodnight. 

You supposed it hurt a bit. Your whole life, you had watched kids your age babbling on, excited about their soulmate. You watched them have invisible flicking competitions that only the two of them could follow--seeing who could flick the thread the most before the other person gave up. You watched the way they reacted to feeling waves of emotions from them. You watched the way they would all giggle and talk about the words they received--figuring out their favorite colors, their favorite foods, what they liked to do and maybe even narrow down to where they might be living. You watched as they blushed and got flustered when it became apparent that their soulmate was thinking of them.

You couldn’t do any of that--not only because your soulmate was from, or lived in, Snezhnaya, so you couldn’t even talk to anyone your age about them but also because you weren’t experiencing any of that with your soulmate anyway. Every time you tried to get them to flick the thread back, you were ignored, and your soulmate never thought about you, the most frequent words you received from them were deactivate, failure, and sever. You didn’t know what deactivate meant, you assumed failure was in regards to whatever research they kept thinking about, and you had no idea what they were trying to sever. 

It was frustrating and upsetting. You just wanted a soulmate that you could be with like your peers, someone to be excited about and look forward to. And you were excited, and you did look forward to eventually meeting them, but you couldn’t help but be a bit bummed and anxious over it all.

Three years. 

You were seventeen now. There were three years left until you and your soulmate entered the fourth and final stage--being able to communicate through the shared thoughts and then you would finally get some answers from them.

“There you are.”

You slammed your notebook shut, eyes wide as your head snapped to the side, gaze falling upon your half-siblings, Elliot and Sylvie, approaching you from behind. You smiled as best as you could, trying to glance around to make sure that their father wasn’t following them.

“He’s busy with mother at a meeting,” Sylvie said quietly, eyes lit up with a sort of mischief that you hadn’t seen in her for quite a bit. “We snuck out.”

She spoke hushed, as if the flowers around them might tell her father what she was saying. You supposed it was possible--you wouldn’t put it past the Hydro Archon and the court officials to install listening devices throughout the city to make sure that no one was conspiring against them. 

“How did you sneak past Miss Elyna?” you asked her as the two of them came to sit cross-legged with you on the ground next to a bed of pretty pink flowers. 

They were almost fourteen years old now. Both of them had been born with their marks, so they and their soulmates would be entering the third phase soon too. They were excited, constantly whispering about what they thought their soulmate would be like. You remembered when you had been like that, bouncing around in bed as you rattled off possibilities to Miss Elyna because you had no one else to talk to about it. 

Now, you only felt a dull sense of disappointment.

“She wasn’t looking, so we snuck out the door and ran,” Elliot told you, a bright smile on his face. You doubted that was the case—Miss Elyna had the senses of a hawk, it was more likely she let them leave because it’s their only chance to spend time with you without their father hovering and dragging them away.

You hated their father. At one point, you had been hopeful. You thought that your mother meeting her soulmate would change little in the way your family worked. Your father was more than happy to step aside and let your mother find solace with her fated, but it wasn’t enough for your stepfather. He wanted your father gone and he wanted your brother to replace you as your mother’s heir, but you had no way of proving it. He hid the rotting carcass he called a personality behind a kind smile and empty eyes that your mother refused to look past.

“Can you tell us what it’s like?” Sylvie whispered, drawing you from your thoughts. Your brow furrowed in confusion, shooting her a questioning look, but Sylvie only looked pointedly down at your notebook.

Your eyes widened, instinctively tucking the notebook closer to your chest. Your lips and mouth felt dry as you stared at your half-siblings, trying to figure out if Sylvie was implying that she knew that you had a soulmate. No one should know—no one besides your father and mother and Miss Elyna. You had worried the day you received your first word from your soulmate would draw suspicion, but your father had brushed any unwanted eyes off by telling them you had been ill.

No one should know, you felt sick and anxious, unsure of how to respond to Sylvie--both of them were looking at you expectantly, excited for an answer. 

“It’s okay,” Elliot said, once he realized how upset you suddenly looked. “We’ve known for a while, we won’t-”

“Elliot! Sylvie, have you seen-” 

It was Miss Elyna, out of breath and on the verge of tears--she cut herself off as soon as she saw you hidden behind the statue. You rose to your feet, concerned, “Miss Ely-”

“It’s your father,” Miss Elyna said, voice choked and wobbly. At once, the world around you shattered. “Come, we must hurry.”

“I suppose I owe you thanks,” a familiar voice murmured, approaching Dottore from behind. He tilted his head to the side, glancing over his shoulder to where his old recruit, now promoted to the Ninth seat as the Fatui’s Regrator, came to a stop next to the column that Dottore was leaning against, waiting for his chance to slip away from the celebrations. 

“Thank me with funding,” Dottore said. “I’ve exhausted all of my resources. I’ll need a significant amount of mora and test subjects to begin research into Archon residue if we want to find a safer alternative to delusions any time soon… which I’m sure you’d be personally vested in and I am not cutting the funding from my own personal projects.”

Pantalone let out a huff of laughter, Dottore was not sure what exactly the new Harbinger found amusing about what he said so he turned to face him, lips flat and eyes void of emotion behind the mask he wore.

“Relax, doctor,” Pantalone said quietly. “I have not forgotten about our original deal. Have you not already seen an increase since my induction into the Fatui?” 

“Not a large enough increase in comparison to the risks I took advocating for you,” Dottore said coldly, looking away from him up to where the Jester was preparing with the Captain for the official inauguration of Pantalone as one of the Eleven Harbingers. “Go, this event has lasted long enough. As soon as all of the official business is over with, I can leave.”

Pantalone did not look pleased, lips pressed together tight as his gaze swept across the large room. All of the higher-ranked members of the Fatui based in Snezhnaya were attending the event--agents trained by Arlecchino, vanguard captains trained by Capitano, even some mages and Mirror Maidens that had gone through La Signora’s strict training regiments lingered around where the Eighth Harbinger was lounging back at one of the tables. She looked just as ready for the night to be over as Dottore was. 

Pantalone looked anxious, only thinly concealed behind an otherwise blank expression, and Dottore supposed he couldn’t blame him. All of the people in this room were the people that had been considered and rejected for the Ninth Seat in favor of him. The Fatui were united, yes, but their loyalty only went so far when the prospect of a promotion was dangled in front of their face. Not a single person in this room would forego the chance of taking out the new Harbinger if it gave them a shot at being one of the Eleven. 

They had tried it with him centuries ago, when Dottore had initially been promoted to Harbinger. The Fatui was a younger organization then, less structured and far more anarchic, and there had been more attempts on his life than he could count. Only one had succeeded, and he had made it so that it could never happen again. 

Now that he had centuries of authority, his moniker inducing fear and respect throughout their ranks for all of his accomplishments, he didn’t have to worry much about greedy, ambitious underlings trying to take off his head and claim his position.

But the Regrator would have more trouble, he noted to himself. 

Something felt odd in his chest--a twinge of anxiety, or fear. It was not his own, and he had been blocking off his segments for the duration of the night so he was not interrupted while at an important event. He could only assume that it was coming from his soulmate. He frowned to himself, eyes darting down to his forearm but it was covered by his sleeve, and he would draw too much attention to himself should he go to check if the word had changed. 

Instead, he forced himself to focus on the situation at hand.

Pantalone was no fighter, his delusion harmed him as much as it helped him--more so than it did to the average person--it tore apart his body from the inside whenever he summoned the volatile energy, and he couldn’t even control the energy yet. He was incompetent with a sword, couldn’t pick up a claymore, and was awkward with a polearm. He was decent with aiming a bow, but that would be useless in a close combat assassination like the ones that would be attempted on him. If he were attacked, the only real defense he had would be that decorative blade strapped to his waist. 

Dottore wondered if it would be worth it to enlist Sandrone in creating a sort of projectile weapon that could be used both in close and ranged combat… but that was not something he was going to waste his own time doing, he would present the option to Pantalone only once Dottore’s funding has been increased significantly.

“Is funding the only thing you want?” Pantalone suddenly asked, voice cryptic in a way that Dottore did not like. He peered at the younger man from the corner of his eye, waiting for him to explain himself. But he didn’t, instead, violet eyes only looked down pointedly at Dottore’s right hand--the hand that his red thread was tied around his thumb. Dottore inhaled, not responding, and finally, Pantalone continued, “I’m just saying, I have other resources, connections… should you need to find something,”

Someone. 

Dottore was livid, he could feel his anger rising, and he could feel that strange anxiety begin to get worse from his soulmate’s end, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that now--was it a taunt? A threat? Or a genuine offer of help? 

Either way, Dottore didn’t like it. No one should know about the thread tied around his thumb. No one should know that he had a soulmate. Did one of the segments let it slip? Did they mention it in public? It was possible, but Dottore doubted it--the younger segments were never around people and the older segments knew better, even Theta. They knew very well that even if they had no interest in meeting their soulmate after all of these years, that if their soulmate died, it would cause irreparable damage to all of them. 

They would not risk it. 

So then how-

“If you’re wondering how… I’m very observant, that’s all,” Pantalone interrupted his thoughts, watching him carefully. “I had to be, considering my lifestyle before you recruited me into the Fatui. Abrupt movements for no apparent reason, flinches, stiffening, sudden jerks… a gaze flickering down just a bit too often… tucking a thumb into your fist--I learned to watch for certain tells to find weak points in my enemies...”

Dottore unfisted his right hand immediately, not moving nor responding even as Pantalone stared at him expectantly, waiting for a response. He felt like a fool, and he hated feeling like a fool. He wanted to say something, make a dry comment about how yes, of course the way he held his hand meant that he had a soulmate, but his lips wouldn’t move and he wasn’t sure if responding would be more damning because Pantalone hadn’t even said the word soulmate yet anyway, only implied it.

“... but we are not enemies, so you need not worry. It’s not something I plan to use against you… just offering some extra resources. If you need them, just let me know,” Pantalone finally said, the heels of his boots clicking against the marble ground as he began to make his way past Dottore toward where Pierro and Capitano were waiting for him. “You know where to find me.”

Damn all of the subordinates looking for a quick promotion, Dottore had half a mind to kill Pantalone himself, right there in front of everybody. His rage was clouding his mind, a wicked storm about to break through the calm facade. He felt like he was young again, the years just after he was kicked out of the Akademiya when he was brewing with uncontrollable fury and a switch that could flip on or off at any given moment with no warning. 

He forced himself to leave. He would deal with the Jester and his complaints about his premature departure later, he was certain that if he remained there any longer, blood would be spilled and all of Dottore’s efforts to get himself more funding would go straight down the drain. 

He couldn’t tell anymore if the anxiety he was feeling was from himself or his soulmate. The corridor around him swayed like he was on a ship sailing through the rough, northern sea. He had been so careful to keep it hidden and the way he positioned his hand gave it away? There was no way. Pantalone had to have been throwing out a wild guess and hoping for confirmation--his only hope was that he had been able to keep his face devoid of the anger that was twisting his insides, that he hadn’t given Pantalone any reason to believe his suspicions had been correct. 

His chest felt tight--like he couldn’t breathe properly, which was ridiculous because he was breathing but it felt like he wasn’t getting enough air to his lungs. He didn’t know what this was. It was not something he had ever felt before, and that meant it had to be coming from them, his soulmate--he cursed himself for giving in to his own bout of emotion, a show of weakness that allowed their emotions to engulf his and he didn’t know how to fix it now that the spiral had begun. 

Unless it wasn’t emotions, and that was why it was so intense.

Were they getting strangled?

It didn’t make any sense, he would be able to feel the hands around their throat, the bruises forming against their skin. 

He leaned against the wall of the corridor he had escaped down, only dimly lit by a candle halfway down the hall--far enough from the event that he shouldn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling upon him while he was like this. He pulled off his mask, pressing a hand hard against his chest, right over where his heart would’ve been. 

Calm down, he wanted to spit out at them, his rage blending with his soulmate’s anxiety and fear. Calm down.

This was not the place. He could hear the Jester speaking in the distance, he could hear the crowds of people applauding dutifully at the official announcement of the Regrator’s position, he could see the shadows of people walking just a bit too close to the side hall for his own comfort. 

He was being overwhelmed, and he had never been overwhelmed by someone before, not like this. His fury was subsiding, being replaced by his soulmate’s intense surge of emotions. He had never felt anything like this before, and he wasn’t sure what it was or how to describe it. It felt as if the walls were closing in around him, as if someone was dragging jagged nails down the inside of his throat, as if his blood had turned into lead—thick and heavy, weighing his whole body down.

He couldn’t even tell what was wrong, he couldn’t tell if the pain was physical or emotional. Was his soulmate dying? Was that it? The thought made his stomach churn, wondering what that would mean for him, if he would become the husk that all widowers became after their mark went black. 

No, he told himself, you are stronger. 

The Captain was able to move on from the death of his soulmate. Dottore had seen the blackened mark himself when the man asked him to fix up his arm after a challenge had gone wrong years ago against one of the ancient gods of the far north. 

Had he moved on? Dottore questioned himself, or was he just a shell of himself, moving on autopilot to bring the divine to their knees before he could join his soulmate in the next life?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter whether or not Capitano had been able to move on because Dottore would--he was above man, above mortal. He refused to let something as inconsequential as the death of a stranger inhibit his research, and obstruct him from his goals. He refused to let nearly five hundred years go to waste. 

But he wasn’t sure, no matter how much he insisted to himself that it didn’t matter. He wasn’t confident he would be able to brush it off, and the uncertainty was damning because the thought of his soulmate—who would be no older than sixteen or seventeen now, a year or two older than the Gamma segment—dying such a brutal and untimely death made him sick to his stomach for reasons beyond just selfish ones, reasons that he didn’t dare try to delineate.

Celestia is cruel, he thought to himself as this situation forced him to come to terms with what he had been pushing away for over a decade. Because they were not just a stranger, so much as he tried to convince himself of it. Dottore was a pragmatic man at heart, and he knew himself very well, no matter how much the past twelve years have tested his sense of identity. From the moment he had noticed that thread and felt those childish little tugs, Dottore had formed an attachment to the person on the other side. He was selfish and possessive, and he had never in his life had something that was so fundamentally meant to be his before and he didn’t want the gods to take yet another thing from him--he convinced himself it was more out of pride, out of anger toward Celestia than out of fear. 

He had known it was too good to be true from the start. He knew that the gods would dangle his soulmate in front of his face like meat to a starved dog--it was why he was so intent on finding a way to sever the thread before this could happen. He knew that they would let him get accustomed to their distant presence, they would let him get accustomed to the goodnight tugs and the frequent swells of emotion that he was not capable of feeling on his own. They would even let it get to the point where he was beginning to accept it, noting down all of the words that were transferred to him in hopes to find clues regarding where they were… in hopes of getting to learn more about them—who they were, why they were meant to be his fated. 

He knew that they would let this all happen, and he knew that they would rip it away, and he let himself fall for the trap they had laid out anyway.

Dottore was a fool. He had always been one, but the past decade or so had truly made a comedy of it in the eyes of the divine. 

His fingers fumbled for the buttons on the cuff of his dress shirt, trying to see which words would be branded on his skin for eternity--to see if it would give any sort of hint as to who they were, or where they were, or what happened to them so if the opportunity ever arose, he could deal back tenfold to the person that did this.

Father

He paused, taken aback for a second. Was their father the perpetrator? If that was the case, it might not be all too hard to find the culprit--filicide was considered taboo across all seven nations… but Dottore had a feeling that it wasn’t so simple because him being startled at the word gave him the bit of clarity he needed to compartmentalize and digest all of the stray emotions tearing through him.

It was not physical pain, he realized, trying to pinpoint what exactly it was. He had gotten better at deciphering emotions over the past seven years, but whatever this was, it was still foreign to him. The only consolation he had was that he couldn’t feel his body weakening, he couldn’t feel any physical pain. The thread was still bright and very much connected to him.

And the intensity was fading--albeit at a snail’s pace, but it was fading. It was becoming something heavier, more oppressive, as if the weight of the world was being tossed onto his shoulders.

Grief, he slowly recognized, this must be grief.

Grief. He had never experienced grief before. Not like this. He had mourned failed experiments, he had mourned the loss of his resources, he had mourned wasted time but he had never experienced an emotion like this before.  

He felt relieved knowing that his soulmate was not, in fact, dying, knowing that he didn’t have to stress about figuring out how he was going to move on when Celestia damned all those who had lost their soulmates to desolation, knowing that he would not have to deal with his segments losing their minds over this but at the same time-

“Dottore.”

He was not even able to dwell on his train of thought, forced to try to compose himself as a familiar voice met his ears. Now back in control of himself, getting ahold of the unwelcome emotions still crawling around inside of him, Dottore could focus. He tucked away the feelings deep within him as he straightened, slipping his mask back on and rolling his sleeve down as discreetly as he could. 

He looked over his shoulder to where Brighella was standing several feet away, a glass of wine in his hand, green eyes beady and curious as he spoke, “Is something wrong?”

He spoke with a sort of faux care that made Dottore irrationally annoyed because he knew very well that it was just that--faux. He wanted something. Brighella always wanted something and Dottore wasn’t particularly in the mood to humor him this time, lips twisting down as the man brought it upon himself to draw closer to Dottore. 

“No,” Dottore answered shortly. “Why are you not attending the event?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Brighella’s response was challenging and quick. Dottore raised his eyebrows beneath his mask, not that Brighella could tell, but the other Harbinger quickly grew uncomfortable in the silence, letting out a sheepish laugh, nervous gaze flicking back and forth. “Ha, sorry. I’ve had a few drinks, you know how it gets-”

“I do not,” Dottore said, voice icy as he observed the man.

Dottore had never been particularly good at reading people. He spent more time in his lab than socializing, even during his years at the Akademiya, and the only use he found for humans once he joined the Fatui was utilizing them to make advances in his research. But he could tell something was off, Brighella’s eyes were too sharp--they didn’t have the drunken glaze that they usually did when the man had been drinking.

Was he faking it?

Dottore didn’t think so. Brighella reeked of alcohol, and he seemed off-balanced, and Dottore didn’t think that he could really fake much of anything to anyone, much less to Dottore. He was always skittish and anxious around higher-ranked members of the Harbingers, but something wasn’t sitting right with him. Dottore thought-

“Oh god, I didn’t mean-”

Dottore stared down at his stained clothes, at the red wine seeping through his white dress shirt, sticky against his skin. Dottore’s lips twisted, barely restraining the resurfacing fury and Brighella was panicked, stuttering over his words as he apologized, stumbling over his own feet as he searched for something to use as a cloth or napkin to clean up the mess he had made. 

Dottore only inhaled sharply, turning on his heel and ignoring the calls after him as he made his way down the hall in the direction of his quarters for the night. 

Tonight had been a trainwreck, he thought to himself bitterly. Between Pantalone, his soulmate, and now the drunkard that called himself a Harbinger, Dottore swore he was on the verge of losing his mind. 

Ever since the red thread had appeared on his thumb twelve years ago, he had been losing control. He was losing control of his segments, he was losing control of all of the carefully calculated plans he had created, he was losing control of himself, and tonight was proof enough of that. 

He was done. 

He would figure out a way to sever the damned thread before this got any further. It was too close of a call for comfort--he didn’t know how the death of his soulmate would affect him, and it was a gamble that he wasn’t willing to take. He couldn’t afford to let something like this happen again, especially in public. It made him seem weak in front of those that would use it against him—and Dottore was not weak. He was sick of being strung around like a marionette by the emotions of a child.

And if there was not a way to sever the thread, then he would make a way. 

reblogs appreciated!

[jiejies-corner-store]

HELIOTROPES

pairing: dottore x fem!reader & segments

summary: the gods were sick and cruel and twisted. for five hundred years, he believed he was fated to be alone. he had long accepted it—embraced it, even. that is, until a midwinter night when that elusive red thread finally appeared on his finger. but as much as he wants to ignore it, the pull of a soulmate simply cannot be ignored.

genre: soulmate au, canon compliant for the most part

warnings: fem!reader, worldbuilding for snezhnaya & fatui, mentions of past prostituion (not dottore or reader), implication of reader being slapped and getting hurt (not badly)

notes: i dont think u guys understand how much fun im having introducing the segments sobs. adhufsdiuf i might make a little reference sheet for them and attach it to masterlist if u guys want

JOY

Mutiny. 

He had been dealing with mutiny for five years. He should have expected that the Iota segment wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut. He should have sewn it shut. In a matter of a week, every single one of the segments knew that their red thread had finally appeared. In a matter of a month, every single one of the segments had abandoned their projects to return to Dottore’s estate in Snezhnaya and Dottore was fed up. 

This was exactly what he didn’t want to happen. He knew his segments because they were him, and he knew that as soon as they found out, they would be on their way back to Snezhnaya to find out if it was true for themselves. He had half a mind to deactivate every single one of them but he figured that even if he did that and recreated them, it would just be the same issue all over again and a massive waste of resources because the segments would not change--it was why they were created, to preserve his mentality at different years.

It did not take long for the older segments to put together what Dottore was planning on doing with the red thread and their soulmate and they were not happy about it. 

Dottore didn’t think he had a single day for himself in the past five years. The segments were relentless, offering to help with his research. Two sets of eyes are better than one, they would say, but Dottore knew they were full of shit. Dottore had always valued his independence highly, even as a child. There was no way that they all suddenly wanted to work with him at any given moment after years of convincing him that they were perfectly capable of running research without his supervision. They were using it as an excuse to keep an eye on him, to make sure that he didn’t make any progress on figuring out how to sever the thread, and Dottore was livid over it. 

Every day, a different segment was waiting for him at his lab or in the library, pressing him to work on a variety of different projects--none being research on the red thread, of course. And to Dottore’s absolute frustration, his segments were as manipulative and intelligent as him, so whenever he tried to brush them off to do as he pleased, he was met with snide comments about so much for not letting their soulmate get in the way of their research. 

He had backed himself into a corner, and it was no one’s fault but his own. 

Dottore sighed as he flipped through one of Epsilon’s reports. 

Ley line outcrops sprouting up more often in Avidya forest.

Possible roots in Dragonspine breaking the surface? Does Irminsul grow upside down? 

Upside down, Dottore pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to think. Could it be growing in the Abyss, and the roots are traveling up through the earth past the surface? 

How would that even work? Could the Abyss sustain life? Does the Irminsul tree even count as life? 

One of his hands slid down his face, rubbing at his mouth as he tried to piece together the puzzle laid out before him. He would have to talk to the Balladeer. The Sixth was the one that Pierro frequently sent on missions down in the Abyss, if anyone knew more about it, it would be him… or Pierro himself, but Dottore did not necessarily want to go out of his way to talk to Pierro because it usually ended in him being sent on another mission.

“Let us go looking for them.” 

It was Rho again, this time, standing at the door to Dottore’s lab. He exhaled, dragging his gaze up from the papers to the segment. Once he was acknowledged, Rho stepped into the room and Dottore raised his eyebrows waiting for him to continue. Rho looked pointedly at Dottore’s thumb, Dottore just shook his head once he realized what Rho was referring to, turning around to prepare a burner. 

“You would deny the younger segments time with our soulmate? Deny them the experience of actually knowing their soulmate while they are the same age?” Rho pressed, drawing closer to Dottore. Dottore looked at Rho over his shoulder, warning him: don’t you dare come closer. Rho pressed his lips together, stopping midstep. “It’s been five years since the thread appeared, they are already five years older than Kappa. They’re the same age as Iota. Soon they’ll be older than him, and Gamma, you know how Gamma-”

“There is no way to find them,” Dottore dismissed. “Get back to work.”

“Iota has been hysterical for days, Gamma is so anxious that he can barely focus on his research. Neither of them had ever given up hope that our soulmate would appear and you’re going to refuse-”

“How do you intend for me to find them?” Dottore was getting irritated. Never had he dealt with so much insubordination from his segments until this cursed red thread had shown up. “Follow the string? We both know that’s not possible. There will be no clues for another five years, at least, and ten years is more likely.”

Rho was frustrated, Dottore could tell from the way the segment was clenching and unclenching his jaw rapidly. Dottore couldn’t bring himself to care because quite frankly, he was frustrated. He could feel the emotions of each segment, of course he knew Gamma was anxious, of course he knew Iota was hysterical. He could feel his anxiety, he could feel his hysteria. He could feel Zeta’s hope and Theta’s rage. He could feel Delta’s stress and Epsilon’s curiosity. He could feel Lambda’s indifference and he could feel every single one of his own emotions so intensely that he wanted to rip out his own hair. 

He was not used to it. Even after five years, he was not used to it. He had gone centuries feeling little to nothing and he felt overwhelmed--he couldn’t figure out how to deal with this in an efficient manner and over the past week, it just seemed to be getting worse.

“We can go in the general direction,” Rho finally responded and Dottore only shook his head, closing his eyes. 

He felt tired, he felt so tired all of a sudden and he wasn’t sure why--he had never felt so tired so abruptly before. He wondered if the whole situation was finally starting to set in, five years later. None of them had the nerve to confront him about this before now. 

“Good luck with that,” Dottore said dryly, “All of Teyvat is south of us, you’ll have six whole nations to search.”

“You could help,” Rho snapped, Dottore could see his segment’s temper waning, and he could feel his own thinning. “Instead of trying to…”

He thought maybe it was more than just being tired over the situation. 

He exhaled carefully, fingers pressing hard into the cool metal table beneath his hand. His body felt exhausted, as if he had been forced into spars with the Captain again. His chest felt heavy and his mind felt sluggish, and it was so sudden. If Dottore didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought one of his segments had the audacity to try to drug him.

Rho was still talking, but Dottore was now distracted, trying to figure out what was wrong with himself before Rho could take advantage of the apparent weakness to push him even more. His gaze drifted up to the vents of his lab, filtering the air from some of the more dangerous chemicals that he worked with in his experiments. 

Had they failed? 

No, Rho would be feeling it as well. 

Unless it was only affecting him because he’s been in the room longer. 

Even then, Dottore’s body was created to withstand what would take down the average human’s body. Chemicals should not be enough to make him feel like this. It had to be something else.

It had to be something else. 

But what?

Dottore didn’t know and the longer he dwelled on the issue, the more his body betrayed him. Rho was beginning to realize something was wrong, he could tell from the way his voice was becoming slower, from the way his brows were furrowing as he observed Dottore. 

What was-

The thread. Dottore’s gaze drifted down to his thumb as the thread vibrated--once, twice, three times, the daily goodnight that he had become familiar with. Every night, without fail, once the sun began to fall, his soulmate would flick the thread, he had become accustomed to it in a way that he shouldn’t have. His gaze drew to the side, to the window of his lab where the sun began to set over the snowy hills in the distance. 

He hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. 

“It’s been five years since the thread appeared,” Rho had reminded him. 

Five years. His soulmate would have turned ten years old recently. 

The third stage: emotions, pains, they would be shared between the two soulmates—begins once both soulmates have reached the age of ten.

At once, all of the puzzle pieces joined together before his eyes--the tiredness, the influx of emotions that did not belong to him or one of his segments, the odd, momentary pains that would prick his hands and knees. They were not his emotions or his pain. It was not his fatigue. 

It was his soulmate’s.

Dottore was many things--a scholar and a Harbinger, but above all, he was a fool and suddenly, a very, very mortal one at that. 

Some people thought it romantic that Celestia prevented soulmates from finding one another before their fated meeting. Dottore thought it was absurd—especially because he had to deal with… this.

The Iota segment was sobbing, curled in on himself on the ground, babbling about how their string was gone and their soulmate was dead. Dottore wondered if he should be embarrassed, staring at the younger version of himself, unimpressed and unmoved by the outburst, arms crossed at his chest as people in the city began to look their way--never for too long, because they knew exactly what the symbols that adorned their cloaks meant, but long enough that it was beginning to tickle his nerves.

The Delta and Gamma segments were trying to calm him down, telling him that no, their soulmate was still alive and yes, the thread was still there--Iota just couldn’t see it because it disappeared from his view. Celestia’s oh so convenient way of stopping soulmates from tracking each other down before they were meant to meet each other. 

Dottore shook his head, exasperated when all attempts at soothing Iota failed. This was exactly why he didn’t like bringing his segments out with him, it always became some sort of project. Dottore’s lips twisted into a frown as he contemplated just leaving them to continue further into the city, in the direction of the old building that was rumored to be the base of the new black market network spreading throughout the Snezhnayan capital, encroaching on the territory of the organization that had been working with the aristocrats and the Fatui for decades to keep the economy stable.

Dottore was the one sent to shut it down before it got out of hand, sent to defend their ‘partners’... and perhaps get a few important figures in their debt. He hadn’t necessarily wanted to go but he figured while he was out, he could get Gamma the supplies he had been looking for before he had started having a meltdown over their soulmate, but once Iota found out that Gamma was joining him, Iota insisted on coming along… and since Iota was tagging along, Delta demanded on coming too, not one to let the ten-year-old segment out of his sight for long. 

Dottore supposed it was for the best, he could leave the other two to handle the outburst while he went to shut down the new competition. 

The wind was brisk against his skin as he made his way down the dirt roads, small vendors lined the streets, their stands dusted with snow, the shop owners bundled beneath heavy cloaks and furs. None of them dared to try to sell their products to him--instead, he only received wary glances and hushed whispers as he passed by. 

The people of Snezhnaya did not trust the Fatui. They had no love left for the Tsaritsa and her followers, placing all of their faith in the old aristocratic families of their motherland instead. The noble families kept the coffers full and homes warm in the dead of winter where their Archon had abandoned them and the Fatui cared for naught but their own goals and ambitions. 

There was some truth behind their reasoning, Dottore acknowledged as he turned down the last side street. The Tsaritsa did abandon her people to prepare for the war against Celestia, even if it was for their own good in the long run, and the Fatui did only really care for their own goals… or at least Dottore did. Capitano, Arlecchino, Pulcinella and Signora, they all had varying degrees of sympathy for the common folk but it didn’t matter because when it came down to it, they would always put the downfall of the gods first. 

And that disconnect would always keep the aristocrats a level above the Fatui when it comes to good relations with the civilians. It was none of Dottore’s business, he didn’t handle politics--that was up to Pulcinella to try to fix--but it was beginning to affect his research. His funding was decreasing rapidly, and between that and dealing with his segments and the influx of emotions from his soulmate, Dottore was at his wits end.

His soulmate was an anxious little thing. He had learned how to differentiate between which emotions were coming from his segments and which were coming from them. There wasn’t much he felt on their end besides nervousness and tiredness at night and as frustrating as it was, he could not close off their emotions like he could with his segments. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the waves of drowsiness and apprehension, they always managed to trounce him at the most inopportune times. 

But it was midday now, so he shouldn’t be at risk of any unwelcome sensations. He figured it was the best time to confront their new enemies.

Dottore exhaled as he finally reached the old building—it was worn down, the wood of the door split down the middle. He was not sure what he was expecting but it was not this.

He frowned as he pushed the door open, bracing himself for a group of enemies inside only to find an empty, unfurnished room. His frown deepened, gaze darting around as he tried to figure out if this was some sort of trap or if the place had been abandoned… and if it had been abandoned, that means the Fatui had a rat to sniff out. 

… But the place didn’t seem to be abandoned. In fact, it looked as if someone was living there. Water was boiling on a stove in the corner of the room, there was a half-eaten meal on a dingy kitchen table, and on the opposite side of the room, there was a bed with half-made sheets.

He wondered if the location he was given was wrong because this place appeared to be a refuge for a homeless person. 

There was a door at the end of the room with a dim light glowing from beneath and Dottore decided he better at least try to get some answers as to the actual location of the base before heading out, lest he deal with the Jester’s displeasure again. 

A thin layer of snow coated parts of the hardwood floor, having trespassed through the split roof above, crunching beneath his boot as he approached the door. He didn’t waste a second when he got to the door, pushing it open hard—perhaps too hard, considering it nearly came off the hinges as it slammed into the wall.

Dottore’s eyes narrowed on the only figure in the room. A young man, no older than nineteen or twenty, leaped to his feet, violet eyes unfocused and wild at Dottore’s arrival. He was tall and thin, too thin, dark hair poorly kempt. He would have brushed him off as another homeless citizen of Snezhnaya, to be dead as soon as the first blizzard of the winter hit… but Dottore hesitated, noting the inked quill in his hand, and the parchment on the desk he was sitting at.

Two long strides and Dottore was at the desk, snatching the parchment before the man could react. His eyes scanned the words rapidly, reading the list of requested goods, and it didn’t take long for him to put together what was happening.

He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed, “Where are the rest of your men?”

The man did not respond.

“I advise you to answer my question lest you find yourself without your head,” Dottore said dryly, placing the parchment back down and looking up at the man, who he could only assume was running the competing market.

“There are no men.” The response was clipped and cold, Dottore’s eyes trailed down to where jagged nails were digging into his palms—he was scared, trying to hide it. Good. “Only me.”

“Only you?” Dottore asked, amused. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care if you believe it,” the man retorted.

“If you care about your life, you’ll care about what I believe,” Dottore countered, watching the way the man stiffened at his words. 

“Does it matter what you believe, or if I care about my life?” the man asked, voice quickly. “Or will I die anyway?”

Dottore smiled thinly, “I haven’t decided yet.”

The man looked frustrated. Dottore was unbothered, waiting for him to speak--the following silence was cold, tense. Dottore liked to believe he was a patient man but he was also a man who did not like his time being wasted. 

One man causing such a ruckus amongst their partners… he considered the possibility of it actually being true. He didn’t think there was any chance of it, logically. The original organization has controlled Snezhnaya’s economy for centuries now--it was well embedded in society, the aristocrats depended on it, the civilians depended on it, the Fatui depended on it. 

One man-

“The people aren’t as fond of the aristocrats as everybody thinks. They’re just the only option when the Fatui is the alternative,” the man finally said, “and it doesn’t matter what organization is running the market, when it comes down to it, the people keep the economy alive. The Triglav have been decreasing the quality of their products--watering down alcohol, reducing portions of produce in the markets--they thought the people would remain ignorant to it.”

Dottore mulled over his words, as far as he was aware, the Harbingers were also ignorant to the Triglav fiddling with the economy and goods. He wondered if the aristocrats were aware, working with them to shave some extra profits off the civilians. More irritated, he wondered if this was part of the reason why his funding was being affected.

“Except they realized,” Dottore mused, eyeing the man, trying to figure out how he became involved with it.

“Except I realized,” the man corrected sharply, giving Dottore another wary glance before he sat back at his desk. “I was the one that noticed what they were doing. I was raised on the streets of Novotroizov, just outside the capital, but I spent most of my time here-”

“I don’t care for your life story,” Dottore said. “Get to the point.”

The man smiled but it did not reach his eyes. “I had connections here in the city, it was not hard to siphon off unhappy contractors from the Triglav once they knew that they were being swindled by them and their families were suffering as a consequence.”

Dottore hummed to himself, “And where did you learn to read? Write? Understand economics?” he asked doubtfully, gaze drawing over the man as he dabbed the tip of his quill back into the dark ink.

The man hesitated, quill hovering over the parchment for a moment before he cleared his throat. “I worked at one of the higher-end red houses in the city, one that the aristocrats and the elites of the Triglav enjoyed to frequent. They run their mouths without care as to who might be listening. I learned much from them.”

Dottore almost smiled. Almost. The irony of the Triglav being the one to create their own competition was just a bit amusing to him. He rarely dealt with their elites personally but they were very quickly becoming a hindrance to his research and all hindrances must be dealt with.

Must be dealt with. Dottore looked at the man with a new light, an idea forming in the back of his head. The Ninth and Eleventh spots were now free, and so long as the Triglav controlled the economy, the Fatui’s money would at least partially be at the whims of the aristocrats that work with them and the organization's elites as the Fatui did not have their own bank…

“Well, as I see it, there are two options, I-” Dottore paused suddenly, a stinging feeling sharp across his cheek, as if he had been slapped, and a jolt of shock. Or, not him, his soulmate, he realized, gaze darting down to the thread on his thumb, because the man hadn’t moved from his desk, his knuckles white around the wood as he waited for the ultimatum. He forced himself to continue, voice tight, trying to mask the rising anger, “I can kill you, resolving this issue all at once, or we could try to find some use for you in our ranks.”

They were slapped, Dottore could feel echoes of the stinging sensation across his cheek, the shock that had run through his soulmate’s body, he could still feel the shock, now riddled with distress. Ten years old, he could barely constrain the rage pooling in his gut, he could barely control the way his mind brought him back to his own childhood with his parents and the unpleasant adults living in the village, who is slapping a ten year old? And with that much force? 

He could barely focus on the situation at hand--luckily, the man was still sitting in front of him, he hadn’t moved or spoken, suspicious of the options he was given, but Dottore needed to calm himself before he did start speaking so he could respond properly. 

But he couldn’t, and he felt so, so human because of it, vulnerable to emotions that were supposed to have been killed off a long time ago. He hated it. He hated it so much, his entire life--everything that he had built for himself felt as if it were crumbling. All of those years of teaching himself how to control each and every little emotion, all of those years learning how to seal away the unwelcome ones and channel them into something that was easier for him to process, they were wasted because the gods finally decided to curse him with this damned thread.

And then he felt it--an odd, foreign emotion curling in the depths of his stomach, something that was not of his own nor of his segments, something he hadn’t felt since the day he was chased out of his village. 

Fear. Fear coming from his soulmate. Was it because of whatever was going on where they were? Or could they feel his anger and it was scaring them?

Dottore didn’t know, and he hated not knowing, but he hated even more the fact that he somehow cared enough that it made him calm down when he hadn’t been able to make himself calm down on his own. 

“You don’t even know my name,” the man accused, but his tone was more hesitant, considering Dottore’s offer. Dottore forced his attention back to him, despite the way his thoughts lingered on the phantom pains against his cheek. “I don’t have a vision, I don’t-”

“Yes,” Dottore agreed. “I did not ask because I do not care to learn it--if your existence demonstrates itself to be useful to us, you will be given a new identity and a role to play in the coming war, you will have to leave your name, family and companions behind to take up the mantle… though I doubt that will be difficult for someone like you. Whether or not you have a vision is inconsequential--again, should you prove yourself, you’ll be given an even more potent version of one, one that does not have shackles of Celestia attached to it.”

There it was, Dottore thought to himself, letting out a huff of amusement once he caught the greed flash through the man’s expression. Hooked, the prospect of power would seduce even the most virtuous man, and he knew as soon as he stepped into this room that the man before him was no man of honor. 

“How will I know if I’ve proven myself?” the man asked.

“You will know,” Dottore said dismissively, turning on his heel to leave before another unexpected bout of emotion or pain swept over him. “Do remember who got you to your position, if this works out. I will need considerable funding for my research… and don’t bother trying to run, we will find you.”

“If everything has been discussed, I’ve had quite enough of tonight’s theatrics,” Pierro’s voice was cold and sharp as he rose to his feet, preparing to dismiss the Harbingers from their meeting.

Dottore waited, eyes drawing across the eight other Harbingers, waiting to see if any of them would speak up. The Balladeer was livid, having spent the majority of the meeting arguing with the Marionette and the Knave, with the Knave’s pet following along making disparaging comments. None of the rest of the Harbingers appeared to intend on saying anything, so just as Pierro was about to dismiss them, Dottore cleared his throat.

At once, all sets of eyes turned in his direction, stares with varying degrees of annoyance trained directly on him. Dottore only smiled thinly, “I would like to discuss an option for the empty seats… or one of them, at least.”

“Perhaps you’ve become slow of mind in your old age,” Scaramouche said sharply. Dottore raised his eyebrows beneath his mask, not even bothering to call out the hypocrisy. “We discussed this for nearly an hour already and you didn’t bother to give input once.”

“I had no interest in interrupting squabbling children,” Dottore replied dryly, turning his gaze back to Pierro, who looked exhausted as he sat back down at the head of the table.

“Speak, Dottore. How faired the mission against the organization usurping the Triglav?” 

“There was no organization,” Dottore said. “Only one man. I believe it to be prudent that we find a spot for him amongst our ranks. Perhaps not as a Harbinger… yet, but a chance to at least prove his worth.”

“One man?” Sandrone questioned, tone laced with disbelief.

“I find it hard to believe as well,” Pulcinella agreed, dark eyes piercing into Dottore. Dottore met his gaze, undeterred, annoyance tugged at his stomach--he hated being doubted. 

“I can assure you, mayor, that I would not waste our time with dubious information,” Dottore drawled, fingers tapping against the wood of the table. 

“I oversee the nation for our esteemed organization. I believe I would know-”

“Did you know that the Triglav were decreasing the quality of Snezhnayan and foreign products to make more of a profit off of the common folk?” Dottore interrupted, lips flat as his amusement dwindled. Pulcinella did not respond, and he took that as answer enough. “I see, so you do not know everything about the nation, do you, mayor?” 

“Make your point, Dottore, this meeting has lasted too long already. I have other matters to attend to,” Pierro said. Dottore was glad his eyes were hidden beneath the mask. 

“The man undermining the Triglav is an orphan, homeless, making by on nothing but connections he formed on the streets. Could you imagine what he would be capable of with resources to back him?” Dottore pressed. “We do not have the support of the people, we do not have an economy backing us, the aristocrats and the Triglav are in bed with one another, working together to sabotage us. It’s only a matter of time before this situation spirals into civil war, and Her Majesty is very much against that.”

“And you think one man will solve all of our issues?” Arlecchino asked, but she didn’t sound as doubtful as much as she did curious, watching Dottore carefully as she waited for him to respond.

He considered her words. It would be bold of him to claim that it would, as he had no reason to believe that this man would solve all of the internal issues that the Fatui were facing. He was promising, yes, but promise was just that--promise. Dottore had watched even the most promising minds in the Akademiya fall to ruin before they could make something great of themselves. 

But if they didn’t think he was confident in this, it would be shut down. And any chance at increased funding for his research would be shut down along with it, which is what it boiled down to for him at its core. He needed more funding. 

“I think he can solve a significant amount. The mayor clearly cannot handle internal affairs on his own. He doesn’t even know half of what’s going on right beneath his nose. The Triglav have been slighting the people of their goods and us of our money. Funding has been decreased-”

“Ah, of course,” Dottore’s eye twitched at the interruption, not even bothering to look at Scaramouche as he readied himself to respond to yet another snide comment from the Sixth. “That’s what it comes down to, your funding. How…”

Pain. Blinding pain shooting up through his hands and forearms, as if a million jagged rocks were digging into his palm and tearing through the flesh, as if he had taken a particularly bad fall and braced himself with his arms, drowning out the rest of the Balladeer’s comment. Were he a lesser man, he would have hissed at the sudden pain, maybe even flinched. Dottore was no lesser man, and he could not afford to give any sort of hint about the red thread tied around his thumb to the vultures perched around him who would take advantage of the weakness at any given moment. 

Instead, he inhaled, forcing himself to continue, annoyance becoming more severe with each passing day as this was now the second time he was interrupted during an important meeting because of his soulmate. 

“Yes,” Dottore said sharply. “Perhaps with better funding, we could make you into something greater than just a mere puppet. Your durability will only be of use for so long, and what will happen to you then? I can see the cracks already. You are not indestructible, Scaramouche.”

Scaramouche did not respond, and Dottore took the opportunity to continue.

“He is a commoner, an orphan, with enough connections throughout the people of Snezhnaya to displace the Triglav without any resources beyond his own mind and those connections,” Dottore continued. “You cannot convince me you do not see the potential this could bring us--nigh-complete autonomy from the Triglav and a wedge between the aristocrats and the people.”

“The consequences for if it fails…” Pulcinella trailed off. “We could be facing civil war far sooner than we’re ready for. The Triglav will not take kindly to us trying to unseat their monopoly… the aristocrats even less so.”

“We will win if it comes to war,” Arlecchino said. “What are they going to do, throw their gold coins at us?”

“No, they will throw our people at us,” Pulcinella responded coldly. “It’s not a matter of winning the war that’s the issue. Our military is dominant, in comparison to their forces. The issue is minimizing civilian casualties, which will not be possible without proper preparation. That could take years, decades. Her Majesty will not want us to antagonize while the people are at risk.”

“I will not go another year, much less decades, without proper funding,” Dottore said, poison dripping from his voice as he spoke. “We have been handed the opportunity to finally become the dominant power in Snezhnaya on a silver platter. We would be fools not to make the most of it. I am no fool, Pulcinella.”

“And if it fails?” The Captain spoke up for the first time, voice low. “Pulcinella is right, we cannot afford the backlash that this failure might bring us.”

“If it fails,” Dottore said tensely, “then I will kill him before it can be traced back to us.”

“Very well,” Pierro said after a moment of silence. “Bring him in, if he proves himself, we will consider replacing one of the two empty seats.”

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore’s eye twitched, gaze drawing from the parchment in front of him to the countertops across the room, where the leaky faucet dripped to the metal of the basin incessantly. He inhaled sharply as he forced himself to look back at the report, trying to figure out what exactly Theta was trying to get at with the conclusions of his residue research.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore exhaled through his nose, lips pressed together thinly as his gaze drew back to the faucet. Even in his rare moments of peace, where his segments were busy or asleep, the universe somehow found a way to disrupt him. 

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Dottore rose to his feet suddenly, the metal legs of the chair he was sitting on scraping against the ground loudly as he grabbed the report and left his lab, intent on finishing the reading back in his own room. It was getting late anyway, the moon was rising, and it was only a matter of time before his little soulmate made their way to bed and forced their own fatigue onto him.

He made his way down the dark halls quietly--as if on cue, he felt those familiar tugs, three, each with half a second between them. Goodnight, his soulmate was telling him, and he only shook his head, glancing down once before turning his gaze back ahead. 

He would have to figure out how exactly he would integrate the boy from the city into the organization, and get him the resources he needed to actually be able to do something more than siphon off contractors of the Triglav. He didn’t know how though--it would have to be subtle so as to not draw the attention of their enemies until they were in the position to actually challenge them. If they found out that the Fatui were working under their noses to mess with the economy that the Triglav had built, they’d have a lot more issues to deal with than they’d like. 

Unfortunately, Dottore was never good at subtlety. 

If it were up to him, he’d simply remove the issue, just as he nullified extraneous variables whenever they rose to issue during his experiments. With the aristocrats and the Triglav out of the way, the Fatui could do as they pleased, Dottore could do as he pleased without all of the restrictions placed on him by the Jester… but alas, the Tsaritsa did not wish to draw the ire of her people any more than she already had, much to his displeasure.

Would one man be the change they needed to get the upper hand over the Triglav and the aristocrats? Dottore didn’t know and he despised not knowing, he hated uncertainty. He was a methodological man, a calculated one--he set plans in motion and saw them through to the end. He was able to map out all possible conclusions and plan accordingly, but he couldn’t for this, and he didn’t like it. Every time he thought of one possibility, another issue arose, and then another, and then another until the whole thing was spoiled and Dottore had to start from scratch. 

It felt more like a gamble than a thought out plan. Dottore hated gambling.

Was this the best course of action? Was this going to help him in the long run? What were the chances it even succeeded? 

Low, he determined. There was a good chance that even if the young man from the village was able to make something out of the resources he was given, he would still be forced to fall on his own blade if the situation took a turn for the worse with the other two parties. He didn’t particularly care for the fate of the man, but he had a feeling that if it got out that Dottore was the one behind the whole operation, his already depleted funding would turn to dust between his fingers.

Then you can’t let it get out, Dottore decided, stepping into his room--dark and cold with the candles and fireplace snuffed--which meant he would have to take out the man on his own before the Triglav and aristocrats could go about interrogating him… He would have to be ahead of the flow of information, and he had never been one to insert himself into webs of spiders and nests of snakes.

But, that’s assuming the worst case scenario, Dottore mused. Should all go well, the elites of the Triglav will be hung, and the aristocrats will finally be displaced from their position at the top. Dottore will have significantly increased funding, and they might very well finally have their Ninth or Eleventh seat filled again. 

As he reached the desk at the far corner of his room, Dottore’s chest felt heavy in a way that he had never felt before. Dottore exhaled carefully, placing down the report and taking a seat as he tried to figure out what was causing the strange feeling. Not his segments, he was confident that he had been able to seal off their emotions from his, and it certainly wasn’t his own emotions making him feel this way. 

And if that’s the case… 

He sighed, gaze drawing down to his thumb, then it must be you. 

As soon as he redirected his attention to where the thread was tied neatly around his finger, he felt the soft little tugs. Slow, uneven, he could practically see the pout spread across his soulmate’s unveiled face. It had been quite some time since the daily goodnight tugs, and from what he’d been able to tell over the past five years, his soulmate would always fall asleep soon after the goodnight.

What is the matter? he mused to himself, biting back another heavy sigh as he stared at the thread as if it would give him a verbal response. He realized, distantly, that he was wasting far too much time on this—he needed to finish figuring out first, what Theta had been trying to write and then, what it even meant—but he found his attention anchored on the thin thread, on the soft, slow tugs.

The sinking feeling in his chest was becoming even more intense, and it was sadness, yes, but there was something else. Not for the first time, Dottore damned himself for his inability to properly understand and process emotion.

It was cold, empty, but somehow oppressive and shadowy all at the same time. A part of him wondered if a child should even be feeling this way, but then he thought back to his own childhood—to the Kappa and Iota and Gamma segments—and something inside him twisted, dark and ugly as he considered what that might mean for his soulmate.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the rush of anger. He didn’t like the surge of protectiveness, the urge to shield someone he didn’t even know from the cruelty of the world as he did for his younger segments. He didn’t like that he couldn’t control it. He didn’t like that he couldn’t ignore it. He didn’t like it.

A stranger, the rational part of him hissed. They are a stranger, control yourself.

A stranger that is meant for you, a dangerous, dangerous part of him argued, voice smooth and alluring, a siren that could reel in even a sailor of the strongest willpower. Your fated.

Fated by the same gods who have cursed you a thousand times before, the harsher voice snapped back, grating in his mind, tearing through his head like grinding gears. This is another one of their cruel tricks, and you are playing right into their hands.

Dottore could feel his head aching and that void-like feeling was only getting worse. His chest felt like a gaping hole, like the heart of the abyss, and he felt like a puppet, whose strings were subject to the whims and emotions of a ten year old. 

Why do you feel like this? Dottore wanted to demand, let me fix it so I can return to my work in peace.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he couldn’t help but notice the way the tugs on the thread were becoming slower, less insistent… as if the person on the other side was giving up hope.

Is that what you want? he thought to himself, incredulity fogging his mind as he put together why his soulmate was feeling these emotions. His finger lifted on instinct, ready to test his hypothesis as he gave a small tug on the shared thread.

The change was instantaneous—sharp and sudden enough that Dottore felt whiplash as his heart leapt from his chest, mind doused in a sort of euphoria that he only ever felt when he made a breakthrough in his research.

Dottore shook his head, forcing himself not to roll his eyes when he realized that the wave of depression stemmed not from a situation happening in their life, but instead from a lack of attention.

He was annoyed at the disruption to his research, but with that ugly feeling gone—the coldness replaced by a very unfamiliar sense of warmth and a light, bubbly feeling in his chest, a childish sort of joy that he wasn’t sure he had ever experienced before—he could finally breathe again, the air felt fresh in his lungs and his mind felt clear. He was able to refocus on the report in front of him with an ease that he hadn’t had before.

Unfamiliar, he repeated to himself, red eyes drifting down to the thread one last time before he took advantage of the new concentration, but he wasn’t sure if it were entirely unwelcome.

reblogs appreciated!

[jiejies-corner-store]

His to Keep

Suitor: Hawks/ Keigo Takami

Tags/warning(s): yandere, unhealthy relationship, toxic relationship, YANDERE, reader has a bird quirk, very co-dependent, princess locked away in a tower, Keigo is not a good guy, rut, heat, ABO tinge, animal quirks in a derogatory content, smut, nest building, pregnancy

A/N: tagging @mushi42 for some yandere of her man!

Hawks wasn’t sure when you started at his agency. But he still remembered when you had caught his attention. Your wings were pretty, but far too small to be able to carry you, though the spread of colour was eye catching. They were a beautiful shade of blue on the outer side, but when he was able to see the inside, he could see they were half orange and then a blend of grey-blue and white towards the bottom. They were fully functional, you would stretch them out and flutter them, but he’d overheard you telling one of your colleagues that you couldn’t hold your own weight under them. You understood the problem of needing to get special clothing, and in that same conversation you were also moaning that you needed to go to a professional and get your preening down. He shuddered along with you. It was viewed as an intimate job, so to go to a professional clinic was akin to getting a prostitute to make love.

“You should totally ask Tokoyami, I’ve seen him watching you,” your colleague was getting excited, but even Hawks could feel your embarrassment from where he was loitering.

“Gods no, I think that would be even more embarrassing than the professionals,” you baulked, which was giving the pro even more confidence.

“Then what about Hawks?”

“I mean, fuck, he’s so good looking and he’s so charming, but I can’t see him having the damn time to sit down and preen me for several hours,” he was instantly perking up. You’d turn down Tokoyami but would let him do it? “I mean who wouldn’t want the gorgeous number two hero to preen their wings and help with heats? But he’s busy. He’d never have the time,” you brushed him off. “I’d be a needy girlfriend for any busy body to deal with. You’ve seen how sporadic they can be.”

“Maybe they’d settle down with a regular partner?”

“You’re trying to set me up with our boss, who is always busy on missions and never in the office,” he could hear the smirk in your voice, while you were stirring the sugar into your coffee. The spoon clinked against the inside of your cup, before your colleague laughed and admitted defeat.

Hawks sent his feathers to investigate you and listen in on your conversations for the next few days. You spent your time working through paperwork until there would be footage coming in and you needed to use your sharp eyesight to find ways to blur the truth. You worked for the PR team, who were also on the lookout for someone to help for his ruts and you hadn’t ever come up as an option before Hawks called a meeting with your boss.

He was smirking as your boss entered the room, a sharp woman called Aki Sato. She wasn’t quirkless, but he had no idea what her quirk was. It wasn’t visible or animal in nature before Sato took a seat opposite the pro with a tired expression. The typical one for a four pm meeting on a Friday afternoon with office workers.

“What’s the deal Hawks? Who am I paying off?” She sighed, not expecting an illuminating conversation with him.

“I took note of one of your employees a few days ago,” he opened, and he saw the pen stop in the middle of her note taking, before Sato was looking up at him.

“Hands off L/N.”

“She has a bird quirk.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sato snorted, already gathering her things together. “This meeting goes no further. Keep your hands off her. She’s not for you.”

“I’m sure the Commission would disagree,” Hawks sang out. Sato glared at him over her shoulder and slammed the door on her way out, but the hero chuckled to himself. He knew how to get your attention.

You’d been caught up late at work one Friday evening. A last minute assignment with a grainy video release that you had to stay and study to ensure that no one could appropriate it to Hawks or the agency, but you were free now! But it was dark, and late, as you held tightly onto your bag and kept checking over your shoulder as you walked through the streets of Kyushi. It was a city with its problems just like any other one throughout the world. Your job allowed for you to be comfortable, but you had to pass some of the not so fortunate individuals and streets on your way. You didn’t wear your headphones because of the late hour. Hawks was already praising you as he flew between buildings to keep an eye on you.

Even though he was expecting it to happen, it still made Hawks’ stomach twist as you were confronted by some small-time thugs. A blade pointed and swished towards you as they demanded your bag for the valuables, but you were struggling. Poor little birdie. You needed his protection as Hawks didn’t hesitate to swoop down.

The way that your face lit up made his heart soar. He wanted you to always look at him that way, as the villains were already regretting taking the job to accost you. Not that they would live to tell the tale as you were shielded by him, and walking away from the scene while his feathers were doing the dirty deed. It was all in the name of keeping you safe, and it would clean the streets up in the meantime anyway.

“I should be okay from here Hawks, I really appreciate you coming to my aid and saving me, but I’m sure you have a patrol to be getting back to,” you awkwardly shrugged and smiled after a few blocks of walking. You looked a little uncomfortable, as you stepped ahead of him and stretched your wings out before tucking them back against you again.

“I can’t have my staff unable to walk to and from the office, I’d be up all night worrying about you if I didn’t see you to your front door, little bird,” he gave you that famous grin, the one that made your knees weaken and he pushed his pheromones out some for good measure as he had to swoop in to keep you upright. “See?”

He didn’t let you walk home that night, you were secure in his arms to make sure that you weren’t going to collapse on the way home. You were too tired to argue, and it was adorable that you were barely able to keep your head off his shoulder by the end. You handed over your keys without a question as he headed up the stairs. He tutted to see that you didn’t have any security outside of a standard lock on the communal entrance, but held in his private delight. You didn’t live too high up either, and there were no pets as he watched you unlock your front door. You had a balcony from a glance at the exterior of the building, and your block wasn’t in a bad state of building. It wasn’t brand new, nor was it state of the art, but it wasn’t falling to pieces and your landlord didn’t appear to be that scummy given that he couldn’t see any obvious problems as you shuffled about and got yourself into your home.

“Good night Hawks, thank you for rescuing me,” you yawned widely.

He was disappointed that you weren’t inviting him in. But then again you’d only just officially met.

You didn’t invite him in the second or third time it happened. But you did on the fourth occasion. You were also looking more shaken on each occasion. You were starting to feel more like a target and less like a statistic each time it happened. The police didn’t know because Hawks never submitted his paperwork on them and he would always croon at you about them being so busy that they couldn’t focus on the low level crimes, and you were lucky that he looked out for you on these things. He persuaded you to exchange numbers with him at that time, before he ushered you into bed and made sure to leave plenty of feathers around to feedback to him about any weaknesses into your apartment.

He was surprised that they acted so fast. It was only a few days later that you were calling him, as he answered while flying through Kyushu.

“Hello, little bird!” He grinned, already swooping between buildings and in your direction.

Then he heard your sniffles. “Hawks?”

“Where are you?”

“They… I don’t know who, my apartment… it’s a wreck,” you were sobbing. You poor thing. You couldn’t cope without him, that much was evident as he crossed the skies.

“It’s okay, I’m on my way. Someone really has it out for you, little bird,” he soothed before your building came into view. “I’m landing on your balcony.” He didn’t want to panic you when it was his arrival, before you peeked between blinds in the dark to check that it was him. You would make a wonderful mother, you were smart and you thought ahead, before you flipped the light on, lifted the blinds and opened the balcony door.

Trashed was hardly an adequate word. Your sofa had been broken and the stuffing was out across the room, most of your ornaments had been shattered, anything of value was simply missing and it only got worse the more the scene was surveyed. Your bedroom was full of torn clothes, with the only items surviving being your sentimental childhood toys which were tucked away in a bag right at the back of your cupboard, along with all your important documentation. You were really sharp on security, you knew where to hide things in plain sight although it had made the lowlives job to do this much harder, but you’d be able to keep the chicks safe as Hawks followed you around your destroyed flat. He’d told them to have fun, but apparently you hadn’t had much of value worth stealing given the state that they’d left it in. Hawks hadn’t even seen something like this that wasn’t relationship based, as he put a hand on your shoulder while you slumped against the door of your wardrobe. Your eyes were red and brimming with tears, as he wiped your cheeks gently before picking you up and wrapping you up in his arms. You offered no resistance, and broke down again into his leather jacket. Your wings drooped, showcasing your gorgeous array of colours before Hawks was grabbing the bag you had checked on and heading back out to your balcony.

“Hawks?” You sniffed, as the cool night air hit you two with a friendly reason for Hawks to keep his arm tightly around you.

“You can’t stay here, and what sort of a boss would I be if I let you fork out for a hotel over the weekend? My place is huge, and we can file all the reports with the police and you’ll be safe,” he promised, waiting impatiently for you to nod in agreement then he lifted the ear defenders that had been hung around his neck with a smile. “Wear this for me, little bird? It gets noisy flying.”

You were too trusting when it came to him. You nodded and let him block the world out, before checking that everything in your work bag was present and then you saw him carrying the bag of your sentimental and essential items, and you relaxed into him. Hawks took off before anyone could get a closer look, holding you tightly as he flew into the clouds for coverage. You shivered against him, but it allowed him to fly faster as your wings acted as a buffer against your back and his arms and stopped them from getting too wet or cold. He only dipped back down a few metres out from his house, and landed on the balcony slowly with an expertise that told you he almost never used the front door.

The building you caught a glimpse of was one of the tallest in the city. It was also hugely reflective, and offered privacy in the form of mirrored windows, before your feet were touching down on the stone flooring of the balcony. Though Hawks kept an arm looped around your waist before he was busy unlocking the door with his phone.

“You’ll be safe here. My phone is encrypted and it needs a finger print and an eye scan to open,” he smiled as you let him show you inside.

You looked too cute and innocent. Your eyes were wide as you took in the sheer size to start with of the open plan living room, dining room and then the semi-open kitchen tucked away in the far corner. There was plenty of space here for you, before adding in the three spare bedrooms, all of which had their own bathrooms, plus the family bathroom in the far opposite corner. There were two studies, though one was locked because Hawks had the foresight that your pretty head shouldn’t be worrying about his work, but the other one would do well for the kids to do their homework in a quiet setting. It would also function as a work room for you while he began to phase you out of needing to work. The Commission, and more specifically his handler, had already approved you as a viable mate. That you had heats, and you needed to preen, it was perfect. You were meant for him. Though Hawks was hoping that the chicks would have his quirk over yours. Larger wings would let them fly easily, but if they had your quirk then he’d just have to make sure that they were able to look after themselves in a way that you needed Hawks to look after you. Though he was pulled back into the room as you were now standing around a little awkwardly.

“I’ll get us some dinner ordered. How does fried chicken work for you?”

“It’s your favourite food,” you laughed, your wings stretching out behind you and shaking the water droplets off from your nighttime flight. “I wasn’t feeling that hungry until you mentioned food… Fried chicken works, thank you.”

You were too agreeable, too pliable. How had no one snatched you up before now?

“Settle down on the sofa, I’ll get it ordered.”

“This is probably really forward of me, but do you have some clothes I could borrow so I could get a shower? The flight chilled me a little and I could do with a shower to warm up.”

“I’ll get you set up in the main bathroom, the tub can fit your wings in,” he smiled.

Which is how you ended up next to him on his sofa, wearing his sweatshirt and joggers, with a belly full of fried chicken and barely able to keep your eyes open. Your head was propped up on your fist, but you were drooping and fighting the inevitable.

“As much as I’m enjoying the company, little bird, I think you should be heading to bed,” Hawks chuckled, turning his head from the TV show that was blazing out across the screen. He wasn’t even sure what you two were meant to be watching, he’d been busy making sure that you didn’t fall asleep out here. The beds were much better than the sofa.

“I don’t think I want to sleep on my own,” your words were slurring a little, and the pro had to swallow a moan. You didn’t understand the implication of what you were offering him. It was going to take every ounce of his self control to not just take you in his bed.

“How about this, little bird, you start in your bed, and if you can’t sleep then you can knock on my door?” He was being a gentleman, and you didn’t understand just what lengths that he was going to just to get you here, and now you were in danger of offering yourself up on a platter. But Hawks didn’t want you to fight him. You’d want to go back to sleeping on your own after a few nights, and once you were in Keigo’s bed, then you were never sleeping anywhere else. He was hoping that you’d keep having nightmares, and you’d end up in his bed, and he’d be the hero and chase them away. You’d find safety in his arms, and you’d never be able to resist him.

Feathers were dotted around the room that you’d adopted. Just innocuous little things that would keep an eye on your stress levels. Too high and you’d never be fertile pickings for his chicks for when his rut came in several months time. It should also coincide or trigger your heat was the hope. The merlin bird of prey would mate May to June in their native country, though Japan was not quite as far north as the UK. So maybe you could have your heat triggered by his rut, though the curiosity was already making Hawks hard as a feather gently ‘fell’ and rested on your chest while you slept. He could monitor your breathing and heart rate this way, and it would stop him from crowding out your room to make sure that you were okay.

A brand new phone, tablet and laptop were all dropped off the following morning by courier, to replace yours. He had paid for them, since you needed the illusion of work and Sato wouldn’t let you go that quickly. She had already been blowing up his phone after one photo of him taking off from your balcony, never mind when several more came in from one of the gossip rags. He didn’t know how they’d seen him, but it didn’t matter as Hawks reeled off the bullshit about you being targeted, and even sent her the photos of your ruined sofa saying that you weren’t safe at home. Sato was furious. She’d probably resign in time, which would make Hawks’ life easier. And then the rest wouldn’t fight because you hadn’t made the same impression. You hadn’t been there for long enough, which was the saving grace for the pro, while he checked over the items.

Then the best sight greeted him yet. You were only wearing his sweatshirt, and rubbing your eyes as you were making sure that the hem didn’t rise too tall. You haven't brushed your hair, and your feathers looked a little ruffled. He couldn’t wait for your guard to drop so that he’d get to see this every day.

“G’morning,” you yawned, “Could I borrow some more clothes, please?”

It was taking everything in him to not just take you there and then. Instead, he gave you a smile, and put the tablet down on the table with a brief nod of his head.

“Not a problem, Chickadee!”

Coming back with some shorts and a tshirt gave him a chance to get a closer look at your wings. He frowned, and ran a finger over a few feathers. He knew exactly what that did to him, but he played a little dumb as he watched your eyes widen in shock and then your wings shook out thoroughly in response.

“You’re due a preening,” he smiled softly, and offered you the clothes, taking silent note that you were squeezing your thighs together a little tighter than before.

“Oh… yeah, I’ve been struggling to get in anywhere,” you sighed, clutching the clothing to your chest protectively. “You know what it’s like, it happens to everyone at the same time of year and I wasn’t quick enough.”

“I’ve got nowhere to be today, so why don’t you get sorted and then let me help you out?”

“You’re already doing so much-” you began before squeaking as Hawks tutted at you and looked closely at your wings. “Fine, but you need to let me return the favour.”

It took a few days to preen you both. Hawks pulled himself off patrol in favour of making sure that you were okay. The Commission had signed it off, but his sidekicks and agency were about ready to fall apart it seemed. You had been putty in his hands once you were preened. Those baby feathers were always a nightmare, and preening was meant to be done regularly. It was something that lovers normally did for each other, and it had broken that barrier between you. It was a good courting ritual, though that wasn’t stopping Keigo’s need to find you some pretty stones. Which he planned to do when he was back on normal patrols, though after he’d spent the day preening your wings, you had closed the gap between you on the sofa after dinner and had snuggled up under his arm before falling asleep with your head on his chest. It had taken a lot to carry you through to your room instead of his, but then he remembered that you had come willingly. It would be better for the chicks if you came as a partner, instead of kicking and screaming. Maybe you’d accept being kept here without a fuss.

Working from the study was easy to do. Though you missed the face to face contact, but you would gossip all the same over the instant messenger chat with ease. You confided in your friend that your wings had been preened by Hawks, and that you were safe. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, but you never stated that you were being held at his flat, only that yours had been destroyed and that the number two pro hero had preened your wings. That you had preened him as well was evident given that his red feathers were looking way better than before. Tokoyami noticed with something of an eagle eye, though it was Dark Shadow who was asking for all the details instead of his top sidekick.

You didn’t fight him when the one month mark ticked out and you still weren’t allowed out of the building. There was a full gym, swimming pool and several other activities in the two floors below the flat, and Hawks paid for staff to be present in the evenings and weekends, though you had access 24/7. You were looking healthier than ever before now you didn’t have a commute, and Hawks was finding it easier to enjoy workouts now that he had someone to spot him and join him, even though you didn’t need to keep up to his fitness level. You were also eating much better since he paid for either meal prep or you adhered to his trainers meal planning. Keeping you occupied wasn’t the hard part. Keeping Sato and your colleagues away from finding out your location was the most difficult. Sato was threatening to contact the Commission over it, which Hawks was now practically begging for her to do. It would give him a reason to fire the obstinate woman. You were working a lot less because he was coming straight home to you after his patrols, so you had more time for hobbies. You were going to be an adorable mother. You liked to knit and sew, to the point that Keigo had purchased and turned the smallest guest room entirely around into a hobby room for you last weekend. You were used to buying clothing and needing to adjust it for your wings, something that a lot of animal quirk users had to be good at, though you’d taken it one step up in being able to make your own clothes for good measure. He was trying to encourage you to set up a side business though you’d need to keep things small scale to look after the chicks, he wasn’t going to let someone else raise your children after all.

The two month mark passed, and you were getting a little agitated which was understandable. Keigo would only let you out with him, and the Commission were threatening to send him away for a month on a mission. He’d installed card swiping on the gym now that you were competent at using everything, so that there wasn’t a need for staff anymore. He had full access to the cameras and could check them at any time, plus he had an alert for whenever you did use them so that he knew to watch the streams regularly. You were annoyed that the police had no update for the trashing of your flat, mostly because Hawks had filed the report two days late, which had allowed them to go back in and ensure that there were no fingerprints or DNA evidence left to give any hints. It had been blamed on a random spike and even though your renter’s insurance had paid out, it still left you shaken that someone had gone to those lengths. Keigo had reassured you that there wasn’t anything to do, and you didn’t need to leave. It was giving you a lot more money than usual, since he said that money meant nothing to him, and you were paying him to stay here with the time you spent with him. Plus you preened his wings yet again at the weekend.

Which meant you were getting clingier at nights. You loved to snuggle up with him on the couch wearing shorts and t-shirts (you’d unfortunately bought your own clothes and had them delivered), although Keigo was finding that your shorts were making him want to turn feral. They were almost indecent. Your t-shirts were also a lot more form fitting, though the autumn nights were turning cooler, and you loved to practically koala wrap yourself around him while you two were relaxing after dinner. And his phone would be blown up by your bitching of his absence if he worked nights or late shifts. He had the impression that you’d never been like this with anyone else, since you didn’t notice that you were being covered in Keigo’s scent whenever the two of you weren’t at home together. He would do it whenever you ran up to hug him and welcome him home and when you did it to say goodbye to him. Maybe it was the effect of your animal quirks combining, especially given how you had a special large, clear glass bowl just to store the pretty things that he picked up for you while he was out. It had to be foraged, that was the whole part of the courtship. He really wanted to start bringing you flowers, but you would need to learn how to dry them in order for them to be considered part of the courtship process.

Though what Keigo really loved to come home to see was your sleepy face making some chamomile and lavender tea, wearing what would only look like his sweatshirt though in reality you had those short shorts on underneath. You had rough nights, mostly stemming from those poor ruffians attacking you still, though he was dying to have you crawl into his bed willingly, which was a line that still hadn’t been crossed.

“Hey Chickadee,” he sighed softly into your hair, his arms holding you firmly against him as he got in after a night shift. You’d not long woken up, and you still faintly had his scent on you from the heavy dusting you’d been given when he left.

“Morning,” you yawned, nuzzling into his neck on automation before he picked you up with ease, and wrapped your legs around his waist. It was a bold choice, but you didn’t fight it. You weren’t fighting him, and you were returning his affections willingly. It was a dream come true so far, but the Commission had dropped a bombshell on him just before he left the agency that morning. He felt exhausted as he dropped your combined weight onto the sofa, but being with you always made him feel rejuvenated. You were more addictive any drug to him as his hand slid up your back and into your hair. “Keigo?” The way his real name fell off your tongue was making him want to pin you to the sofa or bed and to fuck you so hard that you couldn’t do anything but babble it. It had taken nearly three months of this to get you to use his first name, and it was impossible to hide his hard cock with your legs and pelvis pressed against his, but it was easy to just pass off as a lack of intimacy and the male body being responsive.

“Got a job coming up, I leave in a couple of days and I’m gone for a month at least,” he grumbled. He also felt the way that you stiffened against him, before he cooed softly in automation and then swallowed a moan to feel you relax into him. “You’re going to be a good girl and stay here, yeah?” He mumbled, and daringly kissed your temple before he looked over at your wings. “We’ll preen tonight, your wings are terrible,” he tutted, and sighed in contention to feel you nod your head against his neck. He could happily fall asleep like this, but you needed to get on with your day.

He was more thorough than he had been previously, and insisted that you spend the same attention on him. He was also collecting lots of unusual finds for you, a new geography meant that there were unusual and new things for him to pick. Only the best for his mate naturally. He’d only started calling you his mate in his head of late, but you two were definitely in the courtship process. Even if you weren’t aware entirely of it. Most people didn’t know the full extent of the bird-like qualities that did possess Hawks, just because the Commission didn’t want them to know. So his rut was disguised as his preference to disappear for a month each year and then they’d photoshop holiday photos to be shared. Instead, he was normally a wreck in his bed, and fucking all sorts of toys until they overflowed or disintergrated underneath him. Instead, he had every plan for you to be there this spring. Though the mission would probably take him to the start of it.

You were adorable. You would text him every morning and every night without him prompting you to, and you always went to bed around the same time as well. It only took a few days for you to start sending instant messages with photos and memes that made you think of him, and then a week before you were lamenting the lack of him around. He couldn’t help but flirt and tease you over text, especially as the winter was starting to wane. He could feel that his wings needed to be preened, and yours were in a similar state. You were begging him to come back, and you said about how uncomfortable your clothing was, and that the AC wasn’t going cold enough as the Commission finally released him from the mission, and sent in someone else.

He couldn’t fly fast enough. He knew that he was snapped after a prolonged absence from the media, and that his PR department were going to be busy because he was flying low in the sky just to ensure that he didn’t need to stop because he was cold and wet. All the signs had been right, your heat must have been influenced by the Commission pouring his pheromones through the AC just to make sure that you synced up with him. Your text had been full of complaints of how itchy things were and that your nest wasn’t good enough, and how hot was it for the tail end of winter in Japan? He hit the balcony floor and fumbled desperately with his phone to unlock the door. It was nearly torn off its hinges as the smell smacked him in the face. You were in heat. Even if you tried to deny it, your body would react to him being in rut.

Keigo groaned loudly as he slammed the door shut to contain your smell. The world didn’t deserve to know what you smelled like during your heat, they hadn’t cared before but you were his now, as he heard some shuffling around from the direction of your bedroom. Though he paused as he noticed that the door to his bedroom was open. He’d left it shut. His heart was already ahead of his brain. His dirty laundry was probably in use in your nest, before he saw you peer around out a doorway. Your shoulder was bare, before a very shirtless Keigo was steamrolling you over.

Your squeak was adorable, though his mouth greedily swallowed your cute noises. You were just as eager in your greeting, chasing his mouth with your own, though you weren’t letting him into your room despite that you’d been caught naked outside of it.

“No.”

Keigo’s hand froze as he grasped the knob of the door and went to turn it. And then he levelled you with his heavy stare. It was a bold tactic to use, it signified his dominance over you in the relationship. A role of Alpha, and your submission was required.

“My nest isn’t right,” you huffed, though Keigo was delighted that you’d complied with his expression as he gently kissed your forehead in reward and your coo was adorable. “Not big enough to fit you in. Didn’t know what size it needed to be without you here.” You huffed.

Oh you were going to be the death of him. You wanted him in your nest, before he groaned into your neck, just to take a sniff of you and rested his back against the wall outside your room. You probably would want him to be clean before you two preened each other and only after that would you let him into your nest.

“I’m going to get a shower, and clean myself off, and you’re going to move everything to my bed for your nest build, yeah?” He offered up, along with plenty of kisses peppering your face between his mutterings.

“... Yeah,” you breathlessly agreed.

Normally Keigo would have rushed his cleaning routine. But this was his first time sharing with someone who understood the workings of rut. He needed to make sure that he was thorough, and not just to give you time to build your nest. You could spurn him if he wasn’t clean enough to enter it, which would make this whole process pointless. You’d been here five months, three of which had been courting you, and the last two had been hooking you onto Keigo’s pheromones. He scrubbed under every bit of him, but once he was out and dry then clothes were the last thing on his mind.

You were perched cutely on the sofa, not wearing a stitch of clothing, but you were fidgeting and squeezing your thighs together almost constantly. Keigo couldn’t help but stalk up to you from behind and smirked as he covered your neck in kisses while wrapping his arms around you from behind and lifting you clean off it. Your wings stretched out in alarm, but the squirming against him wasn’t to break free before Keigo dropped you both onto the sofa. He could start to preen your feathers now that your back was to him. You must have been so uncomfortable, you poor thing. He plucked the ruined feathers out and made sure that every one was okay or if you would need preening in a couple of days, before he kissed you slowly and turned you around in his lap. It was all part of his partner courtship, as your fingers were already working their way through his wings from your limited position.

“Poor Keigo,” you cooed as you finished. It felt like heaven. Not even the professionals could do the same job as well as a competent mate as your bare breasts were teasing him against his back, your hands sliding around his waist while his cock was imprinting onto the sofa. “Nest?” You asked timidly while stroking his hair out of his face to make sure that he wasn’t asleep after preening like normal.

“Yeah, wanna see what my mate made,” your squeak was lost in the way that Keigo tossed you around a sack of rice. Your wings spread as he threw you up, and he had the wonderful sight of watching you glide back into his arms safely. What he also gleefully caught sight of, was how terrified you were when you weren’t wrapped around him. You were trembling until you had your arms and legs locked around his torso, and your head buried into his neck. It was adorable. You’d been so easy to train to accept his advances, it was silly to have been fighting your nature as Keigo carried you through to his bedroom.

His hips rutted up, his cock brushing your soaking cunt, as he saw your beautiful construction for the first time. It was wonderfully interwoven with your laundry and his, and big enough to accommodate both sets of wings.

His cock was in you before you landed in the nest. You were manhandled and turned around, before you were sunk onto his shaft with a squeal. He also recognised the way you tensed up before you were on your hands and knees in front of him. He cooed softly, keeping all of him buried deep inside while a hand slipped over your hips and over your soft belly before his roughed fingers found your clit peeking out from its hood. He’d had no idea that you hadn’t been with anyone else, but then again with a bird quirk like yours then you would have been paranoid about being fetishised by others. It was just another sign that you were perfect for him as he lightly stroked your clit to get you to relax and enjoy yourself. He wasn’t a small man by any means, but if you weren’t in heat, then it would have probably hurt much more. Instead, you were clenched around him, and your wings were purposefully laying flat to make sure that you weren’t distancing him from you by accident. You were made for him, Keigo was certain of it at that moment and it was taking everything in him to not just paint the inside of your cunt there and then. His hips rutted furiously against yours, while his fingers were working their magic against your clit, making sure that you were going to sing for him as your first orgasm smashed through you.

The way that you milked him, along with the months of celibacy during your courtship was too much for the usually experienced Keigo to resist. He dumped a huge load in you, bathing your pussy in his cum as his knot stretched you out and plugged you up. The two of you collapsed forward, panting heavily as Keigo realised that this was unusual for his rut in being able to think clearly. And you had a similarly dazed expression of confusion, as he nuzzled into your neck from behind you. Even when he’d had an unfortunate partner during these times, he had never been able to think clearly during the month long process, even after several orgasms in a row, until he was cumming in dry spurts, as his hands slid over your stomach and he chuckled as he marvelled at how soft you felt beneath him.

“Don’t fret so much,” he murmured down your ear, wrapping his arms around you to keep you close to him. No one had ever felt so perfect in his arms. He was a little upset that it had taken him so long to find you, but you weren’t going anywhere now. He’d been patient with you, you’d come willingly into his bed and home, and you’d never fought him at any point along the way. That he was able to pop his knot into you on the first go, and that he was able to think this clearly after filling you with one load of cum was just proof that you were built for him.

“I… don’t think you realise how strange it is to be able-”

“To think?” He humoured you, kissing your cheek and chuckling into the crook of your neck. “I’ve never experienced it either, just means they weren’t right for you, Chickadee.”

The pattern repeated itself over the next few weeks. One of you would get up and shower or bathe, the other would be tidying the nest and making food, and then one of you would suddenly crack and turn feral. Keigo lived for the moments where it was you hunting him down. He had been pinned down to the floor on a couple of occasions while you rode yourself instinctively on his cock, while there were some times when you had been in the bath before you were joined by Keigo and water would get sloshed over the sides and you’d end up shivering in a cold bath.

In the increasing lull between those moments, the two of you were often wound up around each other. Preening would happen most days, and making sure that both of you ate as Keigo was moodily thinking back to having to return to work again towards the end of the month.

“You drifted off again,” you commented between mouthfuls of dinner, your wings brushing against his to bring him back into the room.

“I don’t like the thought of not being here with you all the time,” he shrugged, picking through the last of dinner as he watched you swallow the last of your plate with ease.

“The public need you,” you cooed, after sliding your empty plate into the coffee table in front of you and then leaning into his side. “You’ve been off your food a little, are you feeling okay?”

Seeing you act so motherly was awakening something dark inside of Keigo as you checked in on his temperature with your hand. He wanted to make sure that you couldn’t leave him, that you’d always be here for him and that you wouldn’t want to leave him. He was due to start back at work the following day, but he knew that he needed to get you something as you squealed while Keigo had tossed you onto your back and had you splayed out underneath him on the sofa. A distraction would work perfectly right now.

You didn’t watch the news. It was part of the agreement between the two of you, just because Keigo could detect your stress levels despite any space between the two of you since you’d mated. You were slightly agitated because Keigo wasn’t home on time, but it was making his appearance in the jewellery store harder to lay low because he was fighting his instinct to abandon the shopping trip and fly back to make sure that you were okay. He was speaking through gritted teeth, and then having to avoid coming off as too intimidating to the poor sales girl who was just another fangirl.

“And could I get your number?” She was fluttering her eyelashes, hoping that it had been her flirtatious questions and responses that had gotten her with such a big sale.

“Sweetheart,” Keigo smirked, letting the Hawks persona drop for a few precious moments. “I hate to break it to you, but you just sold me an engagement ring.”

To watch the range of emotions cycle across her face after she had handed him the box in a bag was making Keigo cackle with glee. The whole store had watched the exchange, and there was a danger of a nuclear implosion as Hawks used the frozen disbelief to escape before he could be crowded out. He was late enough to get home to you as it was as he soared across the skyline of Kyushu. Something was eating at you, and he could feel your panic as the ring box was tucked into his jacket pocket and the bag long discarded before he landed on the balcony with a loud thud.

You knew better than to approach the window or doors when you heard a noise out here. Just because it was always him in the past didn’t mean that it was him the next time. You two weren’t the only ones with bird and flying quirks, nevermind the teleportation quirks and the likes as he fumbled to unlock the door and let himself in. He didn’t get the chance to announce himself before you had flung yourself into his arms. You knocked the wind from him, but the world seemed to right itself as he picked you up gently and carried you over to the sofa, whose cushions were in a state of disarray. He cooed softly, nuzzling into the top of your head while you kept your face buried into the crook of his neck and he rubbed your back while he could feel your stress levels start to lower.

“You’re late,” you grumped at him once a little while had passed. Though Keigo knew that wasn’t the real reason for you to be so stressed, and he kissed your forehead affectionately.

“I’m sorry,” he genuinely replied. “I had an errand to run last minute before I came home,” he cooed softly, wiping your damp cheeks from your frustrated tears. “You don’t normally get so upset about me being late-”

“I’m pregnant,” you snapped, and hid your face in his chest. His heart stopped and his wings snapped out in shock. Keigo didn’t dare breathe because he was going to have misheard you. For you to be pregnant after your first shared heat and rut was a dream come true, but you had obviously built up the worst reaction expectation in your imagination and were taking it as fact that he would react poorly. Keigo was in awe, you were carrying his chicks, before he realised that he was peppering your face in kisses, holding your head in his hands while you were stunned that he wasn’t spurring you away from him. “...Keigo?”

“Marry me,” he breathed out with a chuckle, lifting a hand and frisking himself until he came out with the ring box. “Marry me, please?” He had a great speech planned out before you’d dropped the news, but it all went out of the window as it was your turn to be slack-jawed. He gazed at you with earnest, stroking your cheek with the hand that still cupped your face and flicked the box open for you to look at the shiniest jewel he’d gotten for you thus far in this courtship. You were shocked, blinking at the glimmering jewel as the artificial light of the living room shone down on you both, before he nudged you with one of his feathers to look back at him from the ring. “Chickadee?” He asked, before frowning and looking at you in concern. “Y/N?”

“You… were late because you were busy picking up an engagement ring?” You were not reacting in the way that Keigo had ever imagined as you seemed to start coming back into the room.

“I didn’t know you were pregnant,” he chuckled, and kissed you on the forehead. “I had a speech all planned out, and then you gave me that news.”

“You’re not doing this just because I’m pregnant, right?”

“It’s a little flashy to be anything but an engagement ring,” Keigo pointed out, and kept stroking your damp cheeks. Pregnancy was a whole new round of hormones, and there was even speculation on behalf of the Commission and his handler that you could go as far as giving birth to eggs. Which was ridiculous. Multiples were much more likely though as you finally started to nod. Though a new wave of tears started as Keigo couldn’t get the ring out of the box quick enough and onto your left ring finger while he was peppering your face with kisses. His handler would be more than pleased and the Commission would be able to spin it easily since there had been plenty of gossip spinning around regarding the lack of dates that Hawks had been on since you had caught his attention last year.

You must have been exhausting yourself all day and worrying about his reaction to the news, given that it wasn’t long before you were fast asleep against his chest, wrapped up safely in his arms. Your wings curled around and met up with his much larger ones, before there was already a text message saying that the doctor and ultrasound team would be over the following day to check on everything. You were finally relaxed, your heartbeat and stress levels were back down to a normal level as Keigo rubbed your back while shifting you slightly to help get blood flowing back into his arm that you had been leaning on.

Keigo had often been jealous of his colleagues. Those who weren’t under the thumb of the Commission and had the freedom to enjoy family time and having someone to love as he kissed you on the forehead. He was finally getting to have that peace, as you nuzzled into him on automation. He had expected you to fight back more, to challenge him about why you weren’t allowed to leave the suite without him. But it looked like you needed him more than he had realised. He would have taken you straight away if he had known that you couldn’t function without him. You had been ripe for anyone to pick, but you had kept yourself pure and safe for him, as the thought of triplets running around, all with his wing size, though there seemed to be a blend of colours on their feathers and you being heavily pregnant again. Keigo held you firmly against him, and kissed you on the head.

“I love you so much, Chickadee.”

His voice was soft, almost melodic and nearly lost to the imaginary breeze before you were blinking up at him sleepily, and wiping a tear that he didn’t know had slipped out.

“I love you too,” you softly replied, a gentle smile on your face before you rested your chin against him. “I was so worried that it would be against your image to have kids-”

You didn’t get to say another word, his lips covering yours as you were gently lifted so that you could see all his face as you parted again. “I want nothing more than to have kids with you. I can’t wait, and don’t you dare think that this will be our only clutch. I have the means and a building,” he chuckled, before you were blushing and hiding your face back in his neck which only made him laugh harder, keeping you wrapped up in his arms where you were safest. This was his reward. He’d done everything they’d ever asked of him, so he got to keep you and the babies. You were the reward for the filth he’d done in the name of the Commission, and he knew that his hands were dirty, but you’d always clean them up. You were his to keep.

[jiejies-corner-store]

his reaction to you getting hurt (nsfw)

§ pairing: zandik (il dottore) x fem!reader

§ summary: il dottore while only tolerate to see cuts and bruises on you done by his own hand. so when you are retrieved after being kidnapped, he will expend all of himself to fix such a grevious error.

§ tags/cw: spoilers for genshin sumeru interactibles, use of dottore’s speculated name, nsfw, unintentional self-harm, ptsd, anxiety attacks, graphic depictions of torture, body horror, dottore himself, kidnapping, broken bones, medical content, unintentional gaslighting (?), slight medical fetish, cunnilingus, spit-swallowing, cum eating, breeding (probably), possessiveness, biting, dottore’s fat kok, desk sex, office sex, belly-bulge, sex written by an asexual virgin.

§ notes: this is atrocious i’m sorry

§ word count: 3.9k

IL DOTTORE (ZANDIK)

• In all honestly, if it were Dottore’s choice, he wouldn’t be standing in his lab this late at night watching as the Treasure Hoarder’s organs was being replaced with a ruin guard’s inner working when he could be in bed with you.

• The thing kept whimpering incessantly. The work was messy, even by his standards. The wires weren’t perfectly aligned nor were the cuts he had made. He didn’t care at this point. All he wanted was for you to be in his arms.

• It’d been a long week, but if it meant you would be able to look at him without having violent flashbacks of being attacked, kidnapped, and tortured, then it would all be worth it.

• Speaking of,

“Are you ready to croak?” Dottore hummed, running the scapel along some veins in the treasure hoarder’s chest. “It would be a deal more convient if you went ahead started talking. Your friends didn’t hold up so well when it came to this part and I don’t have high hopes you would either.”

The treasure hoarder’s eyes had glazed over slightly from the hours of pain. Most of his less vital veins and nervous system had been replaced with oil tubes and wires. Dried blood decorated the table from where Dottore took his sweet time cauterizing each incision.

He scowled. The Treasure Hoarder had stopped begging for mercy a while ago and now he wasn’t sure if it was still lucid enough to speak. His blood boiled thinking about you. How long was it before you stopped calling out for help? How long had you cried for him to come save you, only for there to be no response? Sure, he did find you and he did save you eventually, but by then it was too late. They had already bruised your beautiful face, and cuts littered your skin. The ones that hadn’t turned tail and fled the second they heard he was coming were not spared from his wrath when he arrived. There was no body to identify when he had left the scene.

Annoying whimpers came from the Treasure Hoarder’s chest. Dottore ripped the adhesive cloth off its mouth. This was one of the ones that had run. Of course, Dottore hunted down each and every one of the filthy rats who had a hand in your suffering. For the ones who fled like cowards, he managed to control himself and prolong their torture by letting them become test subjects. The weaker ones he sent to Arlecchino for the children’s target practice. A gesture of goodwill for her assistance in tracking them down.

The Treasure Hoarder started yammering out nonsense and Dottore scoffed, pressing the scapel down into its chest to prepare for some remodelling. It shrieked like a stuck boar and then started making sense of its words.

▪ What Dottore heard from the test subject did not make him happy in the slightest, neither did it surprise him, but he was really hanging onto the hope that it would be a simple, clear cut case—that he’d be able to shower the blood off himself and find you in bed while his segments finished up the work.

▪ Unfortunately it seemed it would be a long, long night. The treasure horder finally revealed that it was in fact someone else who had put them up to it. Planted the idea that they could profit off of the entire endeavor, and even gave them all of the intel they needed to carry it out.

▪ After cleaning the blood and viscera from his body and changing clothing, Dottore stopped by your shared bedroom and peered at your bandages. He held his breath waiting to see yours. Only when he saw the slight rise and fall of your chest did he relax. He carefully changed the bandages and examined the deep gashes in your sides and arms. Those, were not from the Treasure Hoarders.

▪ The memory still played fresh in his mind:

“No—no no! I’m sorry—“ you had sobbed, curling yourself into a corner of the bedroom. Your eyes darted from side to side like a wild animal. It was a sight he was used to seeing from his test subjects but not you—never you. He would never raise a hand to you. “I promise I won’t—I won’t cause problems please just—don’t—“

“My love,” Dottore said, his voice barely carrying through to you. He held one hand out as he slowly approached, trying to ease you back into bed where he could calm down. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was upset the papers were moved. I didn’t mean anything by it please just—“

His words weren’t getting through to you whatsoever. The more he spoke the faster your breathing got, and the tighter the knot in his chest got. He was getting anxious waiting for you to come back to him. He took one step toward you and you just lost it. Your breathing was in triple time as you rushed towards the glass window, hurdling your full body’s strength and weight at it and shattering through the panes. Everything from there happened in slow motion. He was helpless to watch you—you, his one vulnerability—fall from the second story of his manor, glass shards creating deep gashes in your arms and legs all to be met his a sickening crunch as your body hit the snow.

Guards and waitstaff immediately swarmed you like ants and Dottore stepped away from the window. He didn’t care about the price of the stained glass, or how much of a mess there was on the floor. Your body lying on the pristine white snow—your blood seeping out into the surrounding ice—was branded onto his memory.

• It was at that point Dottore knew that he had to do more than just find the men who hurt you. He had to annihilate them. Any trace of them would be wiped clean from this earth. Everything for that matter, and he meant everything, that threatened your safety would be eradicated. That was the only way he could ensure that what happened that snowy morning never happened again.

• So as he watched you sleeping figure, arms and legs wrapped in casts and bandages he couldn’t help but feel even more stirred on to complete his goal. He hazarded a gentle kiss onto your forehead and went back to his lab to do more research. He would find out who dared threaten a harbinger’s darling and he would make them pay.

Days went by, then weeks, then it was a whole two months since the treasure hoarder had spilled all of his secrets. The pathetic thing didn’t last long after that. Dottore’s Segments ripped him to shreds. If there was one thing that was universal about all Dottore clones was a fiercely protective love for you. Of course, there was no one on all of Teyvat who could possibly love you more than Dottore Prime. However, for the entire stint of your recovery, only the younger segments of himself could even get near you. Dottore himself and all of his older segments made you clam up. It put you on the brink of another attack. Worst of all and what made the least sense was that Dottore Prime, the original, THE Dottore, made all of these anxieties hit their vaporizing point. As badly as it hurt him to have to allow his other segments to take care of you, he let them because it was in your best interest.

However, surely as the night must give over to day, you began to heal. In both senses. That morning he helped you dress and suggested that the two of you spend a day out together.

He knew you were getting cabin fever, and there was only so many things he could do to entertain you in his lab. So on this rare day that he gave himself off he decided to take you to the capital for a relaxing date out of the house. You seemed calm. Not exactly happy, but at least you weren’t on the brink of another panic attack. That much Dottore was grateful for.

Ever since that day, Dottore had been extremely careful about what he said around you. He wasn’t sure what happened in that stint that you were kidnapped, but whatever it was it left you haunted. He made sure not to say anything about messes, needing to fix something in the lab, or—strangely enough—being home for dinner. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was about those three things that set you off, but he made damn sure he didn’t ever bring it up in conversation.

You reached out to pick up a small trinket while Dottore kept his eyes on the vendor. Just as you had leaned forward enough to be vulnerable, Dottore the vendor move. He immediately pushed you back into your wheelchair and pulled you away from the vendor.

“Zandik!”

The man blinked. How many times had you called his name? He’d completely blacked out. His actions had gone to autopilot. Your eyebrows were knit with concern and you slumped back down. “Maybe we should just go home. I didn’t mean for this to be stressful for you. I only asked because I thought…” you trailed off, “Nevermind… let’s just go home.”

Zandik opened his mouth to protest, but quickly shut it when he saw the tired expression in your eyes, and he didn’t have it in himself to argue with you.

• He began returning much later in the night, long after you’d gone to sleep. The bags under his eyes only grew heavier with each passing week. He grit his teeth and began unbuttoning his dress shirt to yank his tie off. Each time he had a promising lead, it was like it set him back another week. One step forward and two steps back.

• As he climbed into bed he noticed dried streaks on your cheeks. He carefully thumbed one and watched as you whined and shifted away from his touch, fresh tears springing to your eyes. You subconciously turned away from him, and even though he knew you didn’t mean to, his heart shattered all the more.

• He got up out of bed and pulled his labcoat on over his shoulders, heading to his office. He would not allow himself to sleep until he could tell you that this world was safe for you. Until he could say every thing that could possibly harm you was wiped from existence. He would not allow you to die. He would not allow you to be taken away from him like the rest of the good things in his life had been. You were his only vulnerability. The only person who didn’t shun him. And come abyss or high water, he would fucking protect you.

• Maybe then when he laid in bed with you, you wouldn’t cower away from his touch. Maybe then you’d know that he was your protector. Your guardian devil. He would burn down the whole of Teyvat and Celestia to ensure your safety.

• Various papers were scattered around his desk. Each a profile of a potential threat. Each one opening the door to a whole new world of profiles. He picked up his pen and began working.

He wasn’t sure when, but the door creaked open. It wasn’t until he heard your feet padding across the wood parquetry did he notice you. And Archons, did he notice you. Standing in his rumpled dresshirt and just a pair of your underwear, his breath stole itself away from him. For the past few months he’d been so caught up in his work that he hadn’t seen you. Not really. Not like this. Your arms were still wrapped up in bandages, but the casts had been removed and you’d regained a good deal of your strength.

You said nothing as you approached him and crawled onto his lap. He set his pen down and held you, scooting away from the desk slightly to properly accommodate you in his lap. You curled in sideways, bracing yourself with your back to one armrest and your feet anchoring you in on the other. He brought his hand up to brush some hair out of your eyes and you grabbed it. You flipped his palm over and ran a thumb over the gold band on his ring finger.

There was a bloated pause, before you took in a shaky breath and asked in a fragile voice: “Zandik. Do you still love me?”

Before he could even respond, you continued.

“I… I keep having nightmares. I had another one tonight,” you whispered, continuing to trace his wedding band, “…I keep dreaming that you leave me. That… you just decide one day that I’m too much trouble, and you leave.”

He felt like he’d been suckerpunched by a ruin guard.

Your body began trembling, “This is all my fault… if… I just—I don’t know. If I hadn’t run away that night none of this would have ever happened. You wouldn’t be in your office all of the time and we’d be okay. I never should have said anything—everything was fine and then I had to just go and open my stupid fucking mou—“

“Stop.”

You trembled harder and gripped the lapels of his lab coat.

“Don’t talk like that. Do you understand me?” Zandik asked, taking your face into his hands, “You are the only person on all of Teyvat worth my time.”

“B-but… you’ve been drowning yourself in work… I thought it was so that you—you would have time away from me,” you hiccuped, fat tears rolling down your face.

Zandik shook his head, handing you some of the profiles of the people who he’d deemed a threat. You recognized some of them, some of them were the ones who were your attackers. “This is what I’ve been working on.”

You gripped the papers harder. “You’ve been—that’s why you were so paranoid when we went into the city,” you looked at him with a pitiful expression. “I thought… I just…”

“Everything I do is for you. Don’t you see that?”

“But—whenever I try to work through things—it always ends up in a fight and that’s… that’s why I—”

Zandik’s eyes widened. He barely even recalled what happened before you were kidnapped that night. All he remembered was the sheer panic—the way his consciousness seemed to be so distant from his body—then the blazing hot rage he felt seeing you beaten within an inch of your life nearly four days later.

“I just—all I wanted was to talk to you. I know you’re a doctor, a scientist. You fix things but—it’s like instead of just being with me, all you do is drown yourself in your work, trying to fix things,” you said, setting the papers aside. “I don’t need you to fix things, I just… I just need you. To be with me. That’s all I need.”

Zandik paused. Trying to take in all of the information. He remembered now. That night before you were kidnapped.

• He was home late from the labratory again. You were sitting at the table looking dejected when he came into the dining room. The meal had long gone cold, yet you still sat there with a cup of your preferred comfort beverage. He hung his lab coat and mask over the back of his chair, sitting down as he took note of the tense atmosphere.

• “We need to talk, Zandik,” you said finally, polishing off the last sip of your drink and setting the cup down. “This is the third week that you’ve not been home for dinner. Is there something going on that I should know about?”

• “It’s nothing. I’ll be home for dinner from now on.” he responded sharply. The new trainees at the lab were driving him insane. Of course, not that he would tell you that. He didn’t want your pretty little head to worry about anything.

• “Would you please just tell me what’s going on?”

• Zandik exhaled out his nose in frustration, “I’ve already told you. Nothing. Can we please proceed into our evening?”

• “Not until you tell me what’s been bothering you,” you persisted

• “I’ve already given you an answer. I said I’d be home for dinner from now on—what else do you need to hear?!”

• “Archons, Zandik! That’s not the problem! I don’t care if you’re home for dinner on time or not! I just want to know what’s going on!” you had moved and sat up straighter.

• “If being home in time for dinner wasn’t the problem, then why in Celestia did you feel the need to bring it up? If you would just tell me what the problem is, then I can fix it,” he huffed.

• “You—ugh! You just—can’t…” your hands had balled themselves up as you struggled for words. You hated how he always managed to do this. It made you feel stupid. He always had words for what he was feeling, and it was like you couldn’t ever get a word in edge-wise. On one hand you loved his brains, on the other, it made him a pain in the ass to talk to.

That night, after your argument, you’d stormed out of the manor to clear your head. That’s when some treasure hoarders had kidnapped you and dragged you off, thinking they could ransom you off or sell you into the black market slave.

“That’s what you wanted to talk about that night,” Zandik realized and you nodded weakly.

“I just… I love you so much, but it’s times like that when I feel like we’re not really married…” you admitted, “I never know how to bring up stuff like that. I feel like I know you so well and then it’s like you’re a completely foreign being to me. You know everything about me, but I feel like I just… I…”

Zandik pressed his lips to your forehead, taking in the smell of your shampoo as he littered kisses along the crown of your head. A silent vow that he would try. For you, he’d try.

Carefully, he set you up on his desk, shoving the smattering of papers onto the floor. He stood up from his chair and positioned himself between your legs, trailing a line of kisses from your shoulder blade to your lips. When you pulled away for air, your lips were glossy with his saliva, parted slightly as you tried to regain your breath.

“Then let me give you everything I have,” he mumbled, pushing his dress shirt off his shoulders as he pulled your body close. Your fingers slipped themselves under the fabric and pushed it further down, spreading warmth across his cold torso.

He put a hand on your back as he pushed you down further onto the desk, lowering you until you were fully presented to him on the dark oak. Your panties came off and thrown somewhere in the darkness. He kneeled down, blowing cold air teasingly as your thigh went to snap shut around him, but were stoppped by his hands gripping both of your legs.

His tongue probed around the entrance of your seeping cunt, licking up all of the slick that had already begun to gather there. After that, he didn’t give you much more time to prepare yourself as he had already began to dig in. His tongue worked at teasing the spot he knew made you weak, all while he gripped to bruise, shoving your sex closer to his face. Each time you tried to squirm he only went faster, and he let his pointy teeth graze your clit, sending warning shocks up your spine. The knot in your stomach burst and you began to quiver while his tongue kept working your insides, lapping up your orgasm until you had nothing left to give.

Keeping his grip on your legs, he dragged his body against yours until he was leering over you. He tapped your cheek, signaling you to open your mouth. When you did, he let the mixture of his saliva and your cum dribble into your mouth.

“Swallow. Consider it your new medicine. Don’t you want to make a fast and speedy recovery?” he hummed, holding your face in his hand. Too blissed out on your last orgasm, you didn’t responsd, which earned you a click of his tongue, and his cock’s head smacked against your clit.

You made a stifled noise as you retreated from the sensation, and finally reacted, swallowing the viscious mixture and responding in breathy pants, “Y-yes…”

“Yes what?”

“Yes—yes, doctor.”

“Good… now be a good patient and hold still. This treatment method is still experimental,” he ordered, taking his cock into his fist and lining it up before bottoming out in one smooth movement. The impact left you reeling and panting out his name. “Shhh… you’re alright, darling.“ His hand carefully brushed some hair stuck to your forehead off. When you had stopped spasming around him, he took his index finger and carefully traced the outline that his dick had made on your belly.

“Look at you, being such a good girl,” he praised, pulling himself out and teasing your entrance once again before he split you open on his cock again. “You’re made for this, aren’t you? Custom molded to my body.”

After stretching you out on the complete length of his cock, he pulled you in closer to the edge of the desk, cradling your body closer to his. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

You bit back a moan as his angle changed and he once again started abusing that spot deep inside of you that had you seeing stars “—‘m yours Zandik! Only yours—need you. Need your cock…”

Something akin to a growl ripped itself out of the scientist’s throat as he bit down on your shoulder, sucking red marks into the soft flesh there. His thrusts got faster and shallower and he pulled back only slightly to look down at the place you were connected, listening as your wetness made erotic noises that filled the nighttime atmosphere of his office. A thick white ring had formed around his cock as he kept drilling into you, making his movements quicker and more frantic.

“P-please—inside,” you moaned, feeling him twitch as you desperately grasped onto his back, leaving red trails where your fingernails tried to find purchase in his milky white skin. “Need you—fill me up.”

It only egged him on more. Feeling your silken walls start to tighten on him, making it harder to bully his full length up into you. He pushed a hand against the bulge on your belly as he snapped his hips harder, making your body tense up as you whined out his name, pushing him to his own edge. His body seized slightly as he filled up your insides with his seed. He kept himself there for a moment, plugging it up as it began to seep out and leak back down around his cock and onto the desk.

He slid himself out, watching as his spend seeped out, only to be gathered up by his fingers and coaxed into your mouth..

“You’re all mine, no one will ever take you from me,” he whispered, forehead pressed against yours as your eyes began to flutter closed.

#genshin impact #il dottore #dottore x reader #dottore #genshin impact dottore #genshin headcanons #genshin fanfic #genshin smut

[jiejies-corner-store]

Sunset Dyed Hands and Blood Stained Teeth

Part 1.

Happy Friday the 13th

Available on AO3

Childe x g/n Reader

Soulmate!AU

(or, the one where injuries sustained by your soulmate are inked onto your skin)

I play real fast and loose with lore in this, but definitely spoil Childe's character story quite a bit so careful there.

Warnings: general yandere themes, mostly soft yandere honestly, past abuse, past sexual abuse, implied child abuse, none of the abuse is shown but the effects are described in detail, descriptions of blood and violence, self-mutilation, panic attacks, Childe does not do violence against Reader but does do violence, there is a tiny amount of food porn early on

Word Count: 4.5k

Ajax is four the first time he notices the colors.

His tiny, child hands are dyed a rosy hue, bleeding out into orange and teal. It reminds him of sunrise, of following his father to iced-over waters for early morning fishing.

He wipes his palms down the front of his pants, but nothing changes. The colors do not run when rinsed in clean snow. He thinks he does not mind, because it is beautiful and mesmerizing, but he asks his mother anyway.

She takes his hands in hers, thumbs gentle circles over the marks, and smiles.

“You have proof of a soulmate, малышонок. Someone who will share the burden of your pain, and you, theirs. These colors are where they hurt. As they heal, the colors will fade. So always be sure to kiss the ink better and think, for them, beautiful thoughts.”

He smiles giddily. A soulmate, he thinks in wonder, and kisses the palms of his hands. He has a soulmate.

He is six when he realizes something is wrong.

Colors tattoo his skin in unique, upsetting ways. A long, narrow stroke of chartreuse slathers down his left arm. There is a distinctive, golden hand-print gripping into his bicep. He stares at his dresser mirror and watches in horror as his face transforms into a mottled kaleidoscope of someone else’s suffering.

He rushes to his mother’s side, but there is nothing to say.

Something is wrong. He knows something is wrong.

His mother gathers him in her arms and holds him patiently through the night.

Later, he will eavesdrop on his parents talking. He hears new words with too many syllables. He does not know yet what they mean, but he knows by their tone that it is serious.

Somewhere buzzing in his head, there is a muted emotion he does not recognize. It feels like sadness, or it feels like dread, but it is too foreign and abstract and he knows it belongs to his soulmate and not to him.

He traces the new lines softly and concentrates on the image of freshly baked sharlotka. He dreams of a cast iron skillet pulled from the oven. The pan sizzles. The cake is golden-brown. A gooey slice is served and topped generously with powdered sugar. The sponge is tender with a bite like toasted marshmallows. It contrasts with the tart apples and sharp cinnamon. It melts in his mouth and warms him to the stomach.

The fantasy plays out in his head over and over again, as loudly as he can think it. He hopes it carries over. He hopes his soulmate can taste it too.

He is nine and learns that the colors do not always fade.

There is a spot just above his elbow. It is purple and dull and small enough to miss, but not for him. No, never for him. Like a prayer, he rubs at it. It has been there since his last birthday.

Colors should disappear after the hurt heals, he was told. Is the stain a scar? Has the wound been open this entire time?

It is much too much for him.

With each new mark, he grows more skittish. He is too shy to make friends. Maybe he is teased at school, but he barely pays attention. His mind is occupied with a different weight.

He has taken to hiding in quiet places. His family pull him from closets, from under blankets and beds.

His family worries for him. It is scary, they know. They understand.

They do not understand.

It is becoming an issue.

His mother is pregnant with her fifth, and they do not know what to do with Ajax.

His mother is pregnant, and he is in awe. He will no longer be the youngest.

He is ten when his sister Tonia is born.

She is so, so tiny—a squishy bean of a creature with large eyes and wiggling feet. She holds his finger in her mighty grip, and he is in love.

His family still worries, but they are grateful too, when Tonia cries and pulls Ajax from his hiding holes. He adjusts to the role of caretaker naturally—the ideal, doting brother.

He reads baby Tonia fairytales of kingdoms with their printessas. He promises to grow big and strong to protect her. He promises to be her knight.

He has a new beautiful thought to share with his soulmate.

He is fourteen and has been missing for three days.

On a moonlit night, they find him stumbling through the woods, and something is wrong.

His face is far too gaunt. His body is too muscular, too toned. He is just slightly taller than he should be and has outgrown his clothes. He limps with an injury that does not faze him. He carries a glowing orb that is heavy with purpose.

He is covered in blood that is not his own.

His mother cradles his face in her hands. She stares into eyes that no longer are familiar.

The stand-off is tense. The air is disquieting. It frightens her. He frightens her.

It breaks with Tonia’s sudden wails. The toddler reaches for them both. His mother moves fast, but the boy moves faster. He lifts Tonia in his arms and hums an old lullaby.

His mother watches the boy sing to his sister and is sick with guilt. For half a moment, for half a thought, it was not her son she had seen. His speed, his grace was more akin to that of a predator’s. A maternal instinct had told her to throw herself in his way. To claw, to bite, to stop the beast that lunged for her baby girl.

She had wanted to attack her own son.

A choked sob wrenches itself from her throat. She covers her mouth and swallows the grief into place. Her bones quiver from the effort.

A hand reaches for her arm and gently guides her towards home.

She allows it, accepting the opportunity to more closely observe this boy.

She cannot help the voice inside her that says this one is not yours. A monster wears your son’s skin.

This is my boy, she lies to herself, this is my boy.

Ajax is home and something is wrong.

Their skittish, shy boy is gone, and in his place is something simmering, something sharper, more refined. Something that moves only with intent.

He has been expelled from school.

His parents are livid. They are furious and disappointed and there is nothing they can do.

For the boy is already on the move. The children at school were no real challenge, so he must seek out more worthy opponents. He wanders the woods and returns with pelts of dauntingly large game. He travels into town and picks fights with sailors and drunks. It is not enough.

Nothing slakes his bloodlust. Nothing puts him in his place.

His mother grabs the boy in desperation, reminds him.

“What would your soulmate think of this?”

The boy is more curious than ashamed. He is, perhaps for the first time, considering this. He had become so used to the painting his body bears that he forgot that it goes both ways.

His first thought is normal enough: does my soulmate worry for me?

His second thought is not.

A calm washes over him, the tranquility found in resolution.

The boy steals his father’s carving knife and takes it to the sole of his foot. The cuts are small and neat. The location is unusual, but surely his soulmate will find it eventually.

It is not the first time he had toyed with this plan. He lacked the conviction to follow through before, but that was then. He is different now.

His parents find him this way, leaving bloody footprints on the bathroom floor.

With trembling hands, his father reclaims the knife. His mother is already tending to the injury. She tries not to look as she tightly wraps damming letters with gauze. They do not mention it again.

Где ты

He checks the wound religiously. He checks everywhere anxiously, becoming more impatient with each passing hour. A week goes by with no response and he is inconsolable.

His family has run out of options.

He is fourteen and his father sends him to join the Fatui.

Military life suits him.

He is sent to basic training and sorted into a squadron of like-aged, similarly disturbed boys. His superiors call them trouble-makers—children who have lost their futures. He is the only one who does not cry at night.

Mundane expectations trip up his squad-mates the most. Every morning starts with at least one trainee failing to properly make their bed or mis-wearing their uniform. The boy never fails inspection, but his attitude alone gets him sent to kitchen duty or clean-up crew. Boring, repetitive tasks are meant to sort out arrogance.

But he was domesticated once. He cooks with such a delicate palate, his cleaning so immaculate, that they wonder if maybe he should just be left there. Is it so wrong to be spoiled by a little serving of hospitality?

The superior officers know better, though, than to isolate him to menial chores. Not with the way he shines during combat training. The boy shuffles through a variety of weapons with unmitigated glee. He handles his vision with a finesse unheard of for someone so green. He slices through his fellow trainees with peerless skill.

He is young and shows promise. His superiors have high hopes for him.

He is sixteen when he startles awake in panic.

There is something foreign and abstract. Something like fear, something like anguish. It rattles in his mind loudly, louder than any outside thought had ever been before. It howls at him, in him, to help to help to help.

He claws at his face, he claws at his bedding and yanks it off. With the force of it all, he falls to the floor. Other boys start to stir. They try to ask him, are you okay? What happened? But he does not care. All he sees is, all he knows, is that his body is covered in ink.

There are colors everywhere. There are colors in places, in shapes, that make him want to unzip his skin. Something is crawling. Something is tearing. He wants to vomit. He wants to break.

In the end, it takes four elite agents and one Harbinger to subdue him. They are down three full squadrons, but he is finally locked away. Under normal circumstances, this is cause for execution.

It takes a certain genius to do what the boy did. Pulcinella can tell by his wild eyes, by the anxious tightness, that this incident is not one of treasonous intent. The boy is a mad dog frothing at the mouth for something just out of reach. There is a place for his calamitous talent.

One good word saves the boy from death row, and sets him on a path of destruction. He does not know this yet.

He is so deeply coated in blood that he no longer can see the colors he knows stain his skin. He can feel it though. Can feel the howling quieting into whimpers.

There is only failure here.

He had once promised Tonia he would be her knight, but he cannot even protect his own soulmate.

What is he supposed to do?

Why didn’t they reply to his message? Why haven’t they reached out?

Where are you?

There is broken glass at his feet and he tests the feel of it in his hand. Sharp edges etch a new message, a new promise into his flesh. He hides it on his left wrist, something to cover with gloves. Something his soulmate will unambiguously understand.

He kisses the open wound. He rests it over his heart, and vows that he will find his soulmate. He will find them and protect them regardless of whatever slaughter he leaves in his wake. He will burn the world and salt the earth if it shields them both from another tattoo.

Childe has been stationed in Liyue, and has quit paying attention to his age.

Time has hardened him into a seasoned warrior. One good word has shaped him into a Harbinger, one of only a few, hand-selected generals. He carries with him new titles, the kind spoken in hushed, fearful whispers. He bears new names, the sort can only be said while spitting venom.

Even amongst the ranks of Harbinger, his name carries a flavor of notoriety. His fellow colleagues prefer anonymity and privacy. They have armies specifically for the purpose of personal inaction.

Not for him. No, not for him.

His heart beats in tune with the drums of war. His feet are meant to march. His hands are made to kill.

Naturally, he is put in charge of the Northland Bank.

No one had ever told him that power meant paperwork.

His knee bounces with pent up energy. He itches for excitement.

He finds solace connecting constellations between the marks on his skin. It has been years since the last explosion of colors, and for that he is grateful.

Cynically, he might explain to a person that having a soulmate is a liability. That he covers his ink to prevent exposure. That any other episodes would make the pretense difficult. Should anyone realize the weakness he has, it would be to his disadvantage, and he would never give his enemy the satisfaction.

Realistically, that person would be dead and incapable of hearing him. With the exception of family and a select few others, no one who has seen his colors lived long enough to consider the implications.

He could never admit to the emotion of relief, but the reverence in how he traces old spots betrays him. A new mark appears on his index finger. His soulmate has sustained another papercut. Without a second thought, he kisses it better.

These years, he is responsible for the majority of scars shared between them. He wonders if his soulmate worries for the way a blade cuts down his back, for the arrow that nearly kissed his heart, or for the many, many blistering fractals from delusions gone awry.

He has not found them yet. He does not know where they are or what they are doing. But he knows that his battle trophies paint their skin in an illumination of victory, proof that he is worthy.

He knows that their colors must be beautiful. That they are beautiful.

With a sigh, he covers his ink once more, and readies himself for the drudgery of meetings.

Ekaterina is Archon sent. On paper, she is but a secretary. In practice, she is his most trusted soldier. She is equal parts assistant, coordinator, and babysitter. The bank would be lost without her.

By any definition, he is no fool. Although he missed out on a traditional education, he salvaged it in other ways. A successful general is knowledgeable in many subjects: history, delegation, the arts, the languages, and even math. He cannot say he enjoyed the tutoring, but he is not one to turn down a challenge of self-improvement.

That said, without Ekaterina’s steady influence, he might have stabbed a few more patrons than was strictly necessary. There is something uncouth about haggling interest rates and fine print. The sheer con-artistry that is banking frustrates him. He is built too straightforward for manipulation.

For this reason and many others, he does his best to still his pout, and lets Ekaterina get on with her report. She informs him on the basic comings and goings, how recruit training is progressing, of debts nearing their collection dates, and, of course, the most important update of all: the latest release from popular children’s book author, Tata Dupont.

He vibrates with anticipation. The author is Tonia’s favorite, although Anthon and Teucer are not far behind. This will be all they write to him about for at least the next month or so.

He remembers how he discovered Dupont. How he had been scouring the market for gifts when the glint of a book’s gilded title caught his eye. There was nothing special about the simple leather-binding, but the pairing of its celadon dyed cover and gold block lettering transfixed him. He bought it on a whim and read it in one sitting.

It was an easy read—of course it was, it was a book written for children—but the themes of loss and self-acceptance and hurt and healing all weighed heavy on him. It was as if pieces inside of him were being set back into place. As if he could understand something once forgotten. It felt like a warm slice of sharlotka on a cold winter’s night.

He had never bothered to send books back before. Not because his siblings were not curious, open-minded readers, but because they only knew Snezhnayan Cyrillic. It was a bit of a hassle, and perhaps a misuse of Fatui resources, but he had some of Dupont’s books translated and shipped home.

As he gushes on about the book and his siblings and whatever strikes his fancy, Ekaterina busies herself with organizing files. It is tedious work listening to her boss ramble, but she did not get this far in life by whining. Besides, she will remind herself on occasion, there were far worse Harbingers to be assigned to.

She places a file on his desk.

“A flight-risk, sir. How shall we handle him?”

Her boss is already up, beaming all teeth, and out the door.

Nothing shuts the man up quite like a good hunt.

Chihu Rock’s streets are a light with the warm glow of lanterns. The hustle and bustle of commerce has quieted. Stores are closed for the day. Even Liyue Harbor must sleep.

The humid heat of day calms to a warm embrace. Wind is but a gentle breeze. It is a pleasant summer’s night.

Si Yusheng is having the worst day of his life.

He regrets now more than ever that he never took up aerobics. His footing is awkward and unsure. His breathing is ragged. His lungs burn.

He trips over an uneven brick, toppling slightly off balance. The mistake saves his life. An arrow rushes past the space his head once held. He chokes down a scream and swerves a hard right into a nearby alley. Haunting laughter echoes down the stone walls.

He is being toyed with, he knows. The monster does not bother to hide it.

He just needs to survive long enough to find help.

He bolts out of the alley, still in one piece, and spots someone nearby. He acts without thought and lunges for the startled stranger. He means to ask them for help, to go get help, but he does neither of these. He pulls them closer to himself, and forces their body forwards. He covers their mouth and restrains their arms.

There is a statute of the treaty, an understanding, that while Fatui can deal with debtors however they see fit, they are not to touch innocent civilians. In an act of desperation, Si Yusheng has taken a hostage.

From the darkness of the alley, a Fatui agent emerges. He strolls leisurely, deliberately. As he passes by, street lamps cast long shadows of monstrous forms. His mask glows red in the light, obscuring his face, but the mask itself is clue enough that he is high ranking.

At the sight of an uninvited third-party, the agent pauses. He tilts his head in mocking consideration. Yusheng cannot see, but he knows, he knows that the man is smiling.

There is a crackle, or maybe a splash, it is not entirely clear.

The man chuckles, voice dark and slightly distorted.

“Do you think a human shield is going to save you?”

Yusheng severely regrets never learning self-defense.

Before he can reply—make threats? offer bribes?—his hostage bites him.

In shock, he drops them. The stranger lands hard. Perhaps it is an artifact of a lifetime of privilege that his first instinct is to lash out. He aims a kick at the stranger’s head.

He mostly misses, of course. The stranger has enough sense to roll with his strike, not that it was very skilled to begin with. All he has managed to do is leave a small scuff of an abrasion to their left cheek.

The stranger scrambles to their feet and out of his reach. Forgetting himself, Yusheng swipes for them.

It is because he forgets himself that the attack is a surprise. It is a fatal mistake to turn your back on a predator.

Just below his right clavicle, Yusheng is skewered by a polearm. Blood dribbles pathetically from the wound. He feels his flesh suction helplessly to anything tangible. His feet give out, but the weapon and the agent’s brute strength keep him upright.

The Fatui bastard finds that he has time to taunt.

“Did this work out how you thought it would? Even this tiny thing would have won against you. Ah… If only you weren’t so cowardly, maybe you would have thought this through, hm?”

Yusheng gurgles feebly, spitting out red foam.

Just as quickly as it was there, the polearm disintegrates into droplets of water. It reforms into a sword. There is but a blink between the vacuum left behind, and the final slit to his throat.

Finally, the debtor falls dead.

Overall, it could have been cleaner.

Childe sighs to himself. He readjusts his gloves and shirt sleeves. It would do no good to have a random civilian see anything more than they already have.

The stranger is staring. Well, of course they are. Most people do not react well to such blatant violence.

At least this one is not screaming. Although, they are shaking quite badly.

He cannot help but study them. They are no fighter, sure, but they are not entirely helpless either. He never had any intention of harming them, regardless of the situation. It is not his style. However, their quick thinking saved them both some hassle.

He takes pity on the stranger, dismissing his weapon and turning away.

“Go on and take care of that wound. I’m not here for you.”

The stranger hesitates. They do not trust him. Which is fair. The stranger grabs for their wrist, holds it against their heart. It seems to comfort them.

They take an experimental few steps backwards. When he fails to make any suspicious movements, the stranger finally turns to run. He watches them flee. Once he is sure they are gone, he runs his hands through his hair, and takes leave himself.

His walk back to the bank is an oddly sluggish one. For reasons he cannot name, debt collecting felt hollow this time. Thankfully, no one bothers him as he makes his way to his office.

Clean-up is sorely needed. He tosses his mask onto his desk as he passes by. He is eternally grateful that power comes with an en suite washroom.

The shower rinses his night away. Water, dark as rust, circles the drain in a routine sight.

He towels off wet hair. He stretches vertebrae, listens to the cracking. He looks in the mirror to inspect for dark circles.

He looks in the mirror.

He looks in the mirror.

There, nestled on his left cheek, soft as a kiss, is a shimmering gold gilded mimicry of an abrasion.

Ekaterina has had very few complaints of her time in the Fatui. As a new recruit, she had heard rumors of the Harbingers, of their cruelty, of their fierce drive. It was drilled into all recruits that agents are disposable. That you exist to serve.

So when she was first assigned to the Northland Bank, she was unprepared. Tartaglia was nothing like the other Harbingers, or at least, not the ones she had the misfortune of meeting.

He was affable, witty, and charismatic. He forgave petty mistakes with a warning. Maybe several warnings.

He was surprisingly domestic. Never above cooking for his soldiers on field missions, or preparing his own shelter. He kept a clean office. On one memorable occasion, he helped to fix another secretary’s braid. He had said something wistful then about printessas and ribbons. The secretary had been a blushing mess for weeks after.

His hands-on nature meant training his own soldiers. Which for many, was him at his scariest, but it also made him approachable. He was well-respected. He was someone who could be touched.

In theory. When his softer side was revealed, a new problem emerged. His boyish good looks matched with his charm and, well, power, had made him the most eligible bachelor in the bank.

Any hopefuls that fell for this mistake were met with a particular flavor of hostility. It was neither loud, nor forceful, but unnervingly silent. Flirtation could not hope to survive his dead-eyed gaze and icy, sharp grin. The message always clear: go away.

So it goes. Not too bad, all things considered There are worse ways to be humiliated by a Harbinger.

Ekaterina had never personally tried. Never cared to. She is a consummate professional. (And maybe she has different predilections than pining for pretty boys.)

Perhaps it is due to this professional standard of hers, or perhaps it is her unofficial position as second-in-command, but she finds herself standing outside Tartaglia’s office door. Her colleagues having gone into hiding. The bank is closed for the night, thank goodness, so there is no worrying about alarmed patrons.

She cannot begin to fathom what is happening. Everything had seemed fine just minutes earlier. The sudden ruckus reverberating from his office had sent the agents in a tizzy. If she did not know better, she would say it sounded like a tantrum.

She knocks. There is no response.

She did not get this far in life by being cowardly.

Cautiously, she opens the door.

The office is in disarray. Bookshelves are torn from the wall. Files litter the floor.

Her boss is slumped helplessly against his desk.

At her entrance, Tartaglia looks up, eyes wild and bloodshot. It takes all she has to not flinch.

She sees the ink marking on his face. With dawning horror, the realization hits hard.

A lot of his eccentricities are starting to make sense in hindsight.

There is a strange lilt to his voice. He hiccups out a giggle.

“Of course. Of course I couldn’t find them, they don’t speak Snezhnayan.”

Ekaterina has no idea what he is talking about. She is trying not to stare, but it is difficult with the way fresh blood is seeping through his shirt.

She wonders first: did he kill his soulmate, but immediately dismisses the thought. It appears to be self-inflicted.

“Sir, we need to treat your injury.”

Tartaglia has the audacity to look confused.

“What? This? No, no.”

He waves off her concerns with a practiced ease.

He bares his blood stained teeth.

“Ekaterina, I need your help finding a person of interest.”

Perhaps, Ekaterina begins to worry, Tartaglia is just as cruel and driven as any other Harbinger.

малышонок (malySHOnuk) - baby, as in small children Где ты (gDE ty) - where are you Tata Dupont - a jokey, French version of Jane Doe.

[jiejies-corner-store]

about ✧ yingxue –– she/they –– sfw + nsfw + dark content blog –– ao3

📋...你吃饭了吗？hi! welcome to my blog. all work will be afab and fem!reader unless otherwise stated. i’m fairly chill as long as you’re chill. this blog will be reblogging/writing some dark topics. please note that there are things i write about i would not support IRL. always be safe when consuming fictional media and take it with a grain of salt when using it as a lens to view real life. with that in mind, please browse my stock at your leisure. let me know if you need help!

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