#‘what do you care // you’ll find another muse somewhere’ for victim

[whirld-of-color]

the hadestown au…it continues!

victim is hermes, messenger of the gods, teller of the tale, the one who’ll help you to your final destination!

#animator vs animation #animation vs minecraft #avm au #ava victim #alan becker #ava au #original posting #kingstown au #besties i have so many moments i want to draw and one of them is the #‘what do you care // you’ll find another muse somewhere’ for victim #also: hey little songbird for mango and second have you guys considered that

[reidyoulikeabook]

hi i saw that your requests are open for the night for that list and i feel like 15&35 with spencer might be all i need to survive

anyways i’m on anon bc i’m scared you’ll hate this request but just know your writing is my favorite i would read your grocery lists at this point

excuse me i love this request please do not disparage yourself ever again <3 that’s the loveliest thing anybody has ever said to me and i will now think of you and this compliment whenever i write a grocery list

Ship: GN! (wears a bra, no mention of gender other than this) Reader x Spencer Reid

Warnings: Mentions of canon-typical case things, pining, mild thievery.

Word count: 2.4k

Prompts: #15 - "You’ve just won one free pass to my bedroom.”

#35 - “Well fuck, didn’t expect to be announcing my undying love for you this early in the morning.”

A/N: This got so ungodly long I’m so sorry I don’t even know if I can call this a blurb at this point it’s a full fic but I loved this idea so much and it ran away from me.

PLEASE let me know what you think because I bashed this out in the span of an hour and I’m not sure if I love or hate it.

--

Rossi’s spitballing theories behind you. Your head lolls on the desk, feeling far too heavy to attempt lifting up at this time of night. The case was hard, you were sleeping in shifts, and somehow you, Rossi, and Reid had drawn the short straw. Your eyes are blearing a little too much to make out the exact time on the clock, it’s on the opposite side of the room and your eyes burn when you squint to look at the time; you’re fairly certain you’re somewhere on the wrong side of 3am.

23 hours awake.

Sighing, you push yourself up, looking around and only now noting that Spencer isn’t in the room. He must have made his exit while you were flicking through the files making notes, it was often easier to do that with your headphones in.

Thankfully, you'd set up shop in a conference room at the hotel, given the local PD was tiny and barely equipped to handle its own officers.

“What about the meat packing district?” Rossi muses.

It’s a rhetorical question but one you actually have an answer to, “I don’t think so. The busiest part of the city is between the meat packing district and where he’s dumping the bodies. Cops do random stop-and-searches sometimes, I don’t know if he’d risk it.”

“He could drive around.”

You frown, thinking, “He’d be crossing state lines. Hey, wait,” You stand up from your chair, walking to the board and starting drawing circles that illustrate your point, “Spencer thought there must be a pattern, right? But it died off here and we didn’t know about any more victims. If we expanded the search to outside of state lines it might connect here, here, and here,” You circle each here with a point, tapping the pen against the board triumphantly.

Rossi smiles, “Good thinking kid. I’ll call Garcia.”

Exhausted from your breakthrough, you flop back down into the chair. The clothes you’ve been wearing are icky, uncomfortable with sweat and flying and you’re strongly regretting your choice in underwear now too.

You hear the door swing open, looking up to see Spencer entering the room. Holding your go-bag. The one you’d left on the jet this morning. The jet that was a two hour drive from your current location.

“Where did you? When did you?” Your incoherency is related to both your tiredness, and his thoughtfulness.

He smiles, “It took some calling around but I found a cab driver willing to go and pick it up. It just got here.”

“Spencer I-,” You start, scrambling to your feet to accept the bag he’s offering to you, “Thank you. That’s so sweet of you. How much was the cab?”

“Don’t worry about it,” He says, handing it to you and heading over to the board, “What are these?”

Rossi - who was watching the exchange with some amusement - starts explaining the eureka moment you’d had. Spencer nods along, turning to smile at you when Rossi credits the thought to you. It’s something he does a lot, Rossi’s noticed. Not in a condescending way, Spencer knows more than anyone just how capable you are at your job. It’s as if he needs to channel his love for you somewhere, and chooses pride. It’s the easiest one to explain, after all, because who isn’t happy for their colleague making breakthroughs?

That’s how Spencer justifies it anyhow.

You leave the room, heading to the bathroom to change. You’re incredibly grateful to slip out of your dirty clothes and the bra that’s cutting into you, so much so that you decide to pop on a t-shirt under your blazer. The sports bra and t-shirt combo revitalises you more than you thought possible for this hour.

Digging through, you find an item that you didn’t pack. A pair of brown fluffy slippers. Attached to them, a note, ‘I thought the heels on your boots looked uncomfortable, and I didn’t want your feet to hurt. - Spencer.

He signed the note. Something about that, alongside the gift itself, sends a flush of warmth through you.

He gave you his slippers

So?

Is that something friends do?

Wracking your brain, you try to think up if he’d do this for anyone else. Hotch? The thought makes you laugh. Emily? Maybe, actually. If she didn’t make it so hard for others to take care of her. Penelope? Almost definitely.

Your heart sinks a little, and you distract yourself by fumbling to get your work boots off and the slippers on.

It doesn’t matter it isn’t romantic, it matters that he did it.

It matters to every other person you date

He sets an impossibly high bar

Thankfully, the late hour means that there aren’t many local PD still hanging around to see your interesting choice of shoe. You slip through to the conference room, where Spencer and Rossi are huddled over the phone talking to Garcia.

Spencer does a double-take. He knew the gift he’d given you, but he hadn’t expected to see you...wearing them? You look beautiful: hair mussed from fiddling with it, an old college t-shirt under your blazer, brown fluffy slippers on your feet. The mix of professional and homely attire does something to him that he can’t quite explain, and he has to clear his throat before making his next point to Garcia.

Did he just blush?

You try not to stare at him, try not to see if that’s a tinge of red creeping up under his turtleneck.

It is.

“Thanks Garcia,” Rossi clips, hanging up the phone, “I’m going to go and find some coffee. You two,” He points, looking knowingly between you, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

No sooner has Rossi left the room, you both try speaking at once.

“You look-” He starts.

“Thank you so-” You start.

You both tinge with warmth.

“You go first,” He says, gnawing at his plump lower lip, finger turning oer the pen in his hand.

You laugh, a little breathless, “Well fuck, I wasn’t expecting to be announcing my undying love for you this early in the morning.”

His eyebrows quirk, is that...hope?

No. Wishful thinking

It’s probably confusion, and you’re a little embarassed, so you quickly clarify, “I mean Spencer Reid this is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I’m endebted to you forever, really.”

A look washes over him: disappointment? You can’t trust your eyes to see the clock, so you feel you can’t entrust them to analyse his micro-expressions right now either. Especially when you’re biased by personal desire.

“It’s no problem,” He says, voice cracking a little, “You look...” He trails off.

“Unprofessional?” You suggest, teasing.

He shakes his head, swallowing, “You look really nice.”

It’s your turn to swallow. You drop your gaze to the pen, feeling too flustered to continue looking your colleague in the eyes at this moment in time, “Thank you. Where did you get slippers at this time of night?”

He shifts, one hand settling over the wrist of the other and fingers nervously rubbing over the back of his hand, “They were uhm. They were mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah,” It comes out pitchy, a squeak, “I’m sorry, that’s probably weird I just thought-”

“No, Spence,” You say, looking up at him and giving him a genuine smile, “No, it’s really sweet. I’m really lucky to have you.”

He gives his signature tiny tight-lipped smile, the one he gives when he’s feeling awkward or suppressing something he wants to say but can’t.

Please let it be the latter.

You relinquish him of the obligation of responding, instead standing to join him at the board, “You think you’ve got enough to make a geographical profile out of this?”

He nods, tapping the board with his pen, “Your idea about crossing interstate lines was really smart.”

“I have my moments.”

He wants to tell you that everything you have is a moment. You want to step closer, to cup his face in your hands, to press a kiss to the lips that you swear are pouting, begging to be kissed. You don’t.

Namely, because Rossi chooses this moment to re-enter the room, clutching three cups of coffee, “A little help here?”

From the way you spring apart, despite not even being that close, he wishes he’d taken a little longer. Damn kids and their inability to express their feelings for one another.

***

It’s 4:30am when the alarm on your phone goes off. With the work of the four of you - Garcia sporadically included when she had genius updates - you’ve managed to uncover a pattern that arches across states. You’d called Hotch, who’d commended the good work and advised that you should head to bed at 4:30. The others would get up then, and start to head out to the different potential crime scenes. Local PD was already on it.

You’d been told under no uncertain terms that you were to rest until at least 10am. Unless there was a call from Hotch. You prayed there wouldn’t be.

Rossi’s off the minute the alarm rings, bustling out the door with a “See you later kids.”

You wait behind while Spencer packs his things into his satchel. Or rather, unpacks his things from his satchel, frantically tearing it apart.

“What are you looking for?” You ask.

“My key card,” He murmurs, “I swear it was in my wallet.”

“You were rooming with Morgan, right? Want me to call him?”

“Yes please,” He says, continuing to unearth the contents of his bag onto the desk, with an increasing degree of agitation every second that goes by.

You dial Morgan’s number, and he answers after two rings, “Hey kid.”

You put the phone on loudspeaker.

“Hey. I’m with Spencer, we’re about to head up to our rooms for the night, are you still here? He can’t find his keycard.”

He lets out a breath of air through his teeth, “Sorry, I’m already on my way to one of the crime scenes. Local PD found a body over the state line. Nobody’s at the hotel but you guys and Rossi.”

Spencer outwardly sighs.

“No problem, we’ll figure something out.”

“Alright, good work kid, get some rest.”

The phone line clicks. Spencer’s brow is pinched with frustration, and your heart breaks for him. You’ve all been awake well over 24 hours, and he looks exhausted. He’s more eyebag than man at this point.

“Do you want me to go to the front desk?” You ask.

He shakes his head, “Reception doesn’t open until 6am. I’ll just wait here until then.”

He starts packing the belongings back into his bag, a resigned look on his face. And you have an idea.

“Actually,” You say, pulling the keycard out of your pocket and sliding it across the table to him, “You’ve just won one free pass to my bedroom.”

He picks the card up, squinting in confusion.

“Me and Rossi both got put in single rooms. I mean, it might not be the most comfortable thing in the world, both of us in a single bed, but it’s better than nothing right?”

He opens his mouth to object, and you shake your head.

“Spence you look like you’re about to drop unconscious on the floor and I don’t want to be responsible for yet another injureid.”

You’re so tired that the pun seems hilarious to you, and it does elicit a small laugh from him.

“Come on, it’s either share a bed with me, share a bed with Rossi, or try to sleep in one of these chairs. And I’ll be honest, I’d be kind of offended if you’d rather either of the other two options.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” He says, obviously warming up to the offer but not wanting to push his luck. You can hear the hesitancy in his voice.

“You can. But you won’t,” You tell him, settling your go-bag on your shoulder, “And might I remind you that all this time you’re spending objecting are minutes we could be spending sleeping.”

That seems to win him over. He tucks everything back into his bag, zipping it up, “After you.”

“You have the keycard,” You smile, “After you.”

***

The bed is a single bed. It prompts another round of ‘No really, I can sleep on the floor’ from Spencer, your enquiries about if it’s too much for his germaphobia or issues with touching, and his blushy embarassed reassurance that he doesn’t mind if it’s you.

He doesn’t mind if it’s you.

Not as if you’ll spend the next year mulling over those words or anything.

When you get out of the bathroom from changing, Spencer is tucked up in bed. Well, you say tucked up, but he’s practically lay right on the edge. How he’s actually physically still being supported by the mattress at this point must be his physics magic.

“I thought I said I didn’t want you getting injured,” You say, crossing the room to him.

He opens his eyes, “I didn’t want to-”

“It’s okay Spence,” You tell him, huddling down into bed.

There’s about enough room for you both to fit in, with an inch between you, so you pull gently at his arms, urging him closer.

“There’s enough room for us both without you going flying in the night,” You tell him.

He nods, obviously still a little nervous. It’s odd, lying face to face with him, illuminated only by lamplight. He looks soft. He always does, but there’s something intimate about this. You can feel his breath fan across your cheek, can feel how heat radiates off his arms.

“Do you want me to turn the lamp off?” He asks.

It’s not your staring that implores him to ask, because he’s been staring at you too. The both of you, trapped in a perfect bubble of a moment. Lamplight a spotlight, highlighting all the features of the person you love most.

“Sure,” You whisper, breath catching in your throat.

He flicks it off, settling back down.

His breath brushes against your face when he asks, “Do you want me to turn around?”

“Do you want to?”

He hesitates for a moment, voice even softer when he answers, “No.”

It’s dark. You can hardly make out his outline. Yet somehow, you both just know. Shifting, infitismally closer. Breaching the tiniest gap between you somehow feels like crossing the Grand Canyon. Your heart thumps in your chest, and you can feel it in your fingers, the fingers that trace cautiously along his jaw.

His mouth finally, finally, slotting against yours in the most gentle of kisses. A blink and you’d miss it.

And yet, in the same blink, your life changes forever.

When Rossi makes a speech at your wedding, he admits to being the thief of the missing keycard, and intentional orchestrator of the greatest love story he’s ever known. His words.

---

Permanent tagslist: @reidingmelodies @takeyourleap-of-faith @sassiest-politician @calm-and-doctor @ssa-m-187  @seasonfivereid @averyhotchner @muffin-cup @purplewaterbottles082 @spencerreid9 @drspencerreidd @reidsnose

(message/reply to this to be added or removed!!)

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #reid x reader #imagine spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #imagine criminal minds #criminal minds x you #spencer reid fluff #can't believe queue've done this

[eveningcatcher]

Valdemar with a cat

MC walked up to Valdemar in the dungeon, sitting next to them, “Dear, I have to travel, and I can’t bring Pepper with me…”

“I’m not taking care of that thing,” Valdemar said, not taking their eyes off the book.

“Please…” they clinged on their hand,” For me.”

Valdemar took a glance at MC’s adorable face, giving in, “Fine…”

“Thank you,“ Mc said, kissing them on the cheek,” I’ll give you all of her things. Trust me, you won’t even notice her. She sleeps most of the time. Also, you should feed her-”

“I know the basics. No need to tell me about that,” they simply stated, returning to their work.

“Oh, right. Once again, thank you so much,” MC said, hugging them, then getting more serious, ”Also, if I see on her a single stitch from the vivisection, you’re dead.”

“You’re no fun,” they pouted.

“I’m serious,” MC told them. Once  they went into MC’s home, taking everything that one cat might need, MC kissed Valdemar once again, taking their backpack,” Have fun.”

As soon as MC was out of sight, Valdemar took a long look at the cat. Would MC be able to find the stitches? After a moment of thinking, they decided to drop the idea. They grabbed the cat, as well as the food and whatnot, carrying it to the dungeons.

Surprisingly enough, MC was right. The cat would sleep at the side most of the time and, once it was time for Valdemar to return to their estate, the cat would wake up. This was an amazing scenario and everything was going well, until Pepper woke one day in the dungeon, knocking down scalpels off the table.

Valdemar stared at the scalpels on the floor, then at the cat, “Why would you do that? What is wrong with you?”

“Mrrow.”

Valdemar sighed, picking up the scalpels, putting them on a higher place, trying his best to explain to the cat why it shouldn’t do that. For God’s sake, Valdemar might get in trouble even though they didn’t do anything!

Of course, Pepper just stared at them, loving that she finally got some attention from the Quaestor. As soon as Valdemar got back to their desk, they heard another loud bang. Pepper got to the scalpels, again.

“Stop it,” Valdemar said with venom in their voice. That seemed to have discouraged Pepper from being mischievous for the day, as she went back into her corner, purring until she fell asleep. Valdemar sighed as they watched the cat sleep, “I won’t even notice her…” they muttered MC’s words as they went back to work. Who knows how much time has passed when they’ve heard strange noises. They took a glance at the place where Pepper was asleep and, much to their surprise, she wasn’t there. Shit.

They stood up, feeling their patience running out, as they went to look for the cat. After a while, they found the cat under the table, scratching it with its claws, happily meowing once they saw Valdemar.

At the sight of what that little monster has done to the table, they sighed, hiding their face in their gloves. It took every ounce of their energy not to take the cat and throw it into the beetle pit. If only the cat was dumb enough to jump in it herself.

“Meow,” the cat purred once it was done scratching the table, walking up to Valdemar, purring as she nuzzled her head on their leg.

“Do you seriously believe this is enough to make me forgive you? God, why does MC even keep you?” they muttered as they grabbed the cat, putting it back on her small bed, “Don’t. Go. Anywhere.”

Thankfully, Pepper didn’t do much for the rest of the day. However, it is the next day where she went over the line. Valdemar was cleaning the scalpels, as always, and they noticed that the little freak was soundly asleep. After they’ve put the scalpels in the box, they silently left, looking for a new specimen for experimenting. Right after they’ve brought the unconscious victim in the dungeon, they noticed that the whole place looked like a mess. The ink was spilt all over their notebooks, and ink pawprints were everywhere. Some of the doctors’ suits were torn beyond repair, small pieces of fabric being all over the place. And in the middle of the whole mess was Pepper, half of her face black from the ink, happily meowing.

Valdemar dropped the man on the floor, walking to the cat, their head twitching in irritation. Pepper seemed to understand Valdemar’s ill intents as she quickly ran away from them.

“Get back, you bastard! Vulgora looks like a well-mannered person in comparison to you!” they shouted as they picked up their bone saw. Fuck MC’s wishes, they’ll get the identical cat.

They turned around, trying to find the cat, “Come, kitty, kitty,” they mused. After a while, they realized the cat was nowhere in sight, as well as that the specimen they brought is started to gain consciousness. That can’t do. They quickly picked the man up, strapping him on the least ruined table.

“Pspspsps,” they called out, looking for a small demon. Just as they were to pass one of the vivisection tables, they heard a small hiss. “There you are,” they said with a smile, extending their hand to grab the cat. However, the brave little demon just kept on hissing, scratching Valdemar’s hand. Valdemar sighed once again, as they walked to the Pepper’s bowl, putting on some cat food. After shaking the bowl for a couple of seconds, the cat was right next to them, almost as if she forgot everything that happened.

Valdemar put the bowl down, and just before Pepper was about to eat, Valdemar lifted her in the air, giving her a little shake. “LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!! I can’t perform vivisection in these conditions,” they turned the cat to the whole dungeon, showing her the whole mess.

As much as Valdemar cared about the state of the dungeon, that much Pepper didn’t give a shit, instead, she found out that she quite enjoyed it when Valdemar gave her a little shake. She moved her paws left and right, imitating what Valdemar did to her moments ago. They stared at her the whole time, giving her another shake, to which the cat started purring.

“You’re a bigger moron than DR. 69,” They muttered, “I never thought there was someone who could best him in that…” they looked at the side, noticing their bone saw. No, they cooled enough not to kill her. They put her in one of the cages, locking the doors, “Don’t even think about-” they stopped midsentence as they saw the cat walk through the cage. They stared at the cat who was looking at them, meowing, as she cleaned her tiny paw.

Valdemar had enough of this monster’s bullshit. They took what was left of one of the doctor’s suits, tying the cat inside the cage, making it look like a wrapped newborn. They sighed, taking out the scalpels from the box. At least the cat didn’t knock- how the fuck did it get out?!? Valdemar stared at the cat, not moving an inch. Please, please, just leave. As if on cue, the cat stared at them, then at the strapped man, went into her corner, dropping onto her bed. It was indeed enough chaos for today.

As soon as Valdemar finished with their experiment and with cleaning the whole dungeon, it was time to rewrite days worth of research because some rascal decided it would be a fun idea to bathe in ink… Oh, the demon decided to wake up… great… Valdemar should wash her…

“Mrrow,” the cat purred as she walked on Valdemar’s legs, trying to get any type of reaction out of them, however, Valdemar was too focused on rewriting everything that they didn’t even notice when Pepper jumped on their lap. She got herself comfortable and, still without Valdemar noticing, fell asleep.

It was only once Valdemar was done writing that they noticed the little bastard sleeping on their lap. They sighed as they gently put the cat down on the chair, hoping she wouldn’t wake up. But she did. She turned her head to the Valdemar with a disappointed expression.

“Sleep somewhere else,” they simply stated as they put the papers away.

The cat meowed with so much sorrow in her voice that even Valdemar felt pity. They picked the cat up, carrying it around the dungeon, trying to comfort her. Pepper seemed to not be satisfied with the position, so she climbed on top of Valdemar’s shoulders, positioning herself right between Valdemar’s headpiece. Much better.

Valdemar wanted to do something about the cat, but couldn’t. They were too old to deal with this cat’s shit. And so that’s how Pepper was carried from dungeons to Valdemar’s estate.

Once they’ve washed the cat thoroughly, they went to their room. For the first time in centuries, they felt tired. They laid in their bed, unable to fall asleep as they stared at the ceiling. After a while, they felt something burying its claws deep in their skin. They shifted their gaze lazily as they stared at Pepper eye to eye.

She purred as she buried another pair of claws into Valdemar’s arm.

“Whatever,” Valdemar said with an exhausted sigh, “This is fine,” they shifted their gaze back at the ceiling.

At some point Pepper got tired of her antics as she unburied her claws, laying right on top of Valdemar. The morning came and, even though they didn’t close their eyes the whole night, it was time for Valdemar to get out of their bed. And they would have done so had Pepper slept somewhere other than on them. They knew what will happen if they dare move, so they continued to lie on the bed, hoping that the cat will decide to wake up soon. It seemed that their prayers were answered. Not even ten minutes later the kitten woke up, purring at the sight of Valdemar. They, on the other hand, put her on the bed as they finally got out, feeling somewhat refreshed. Once the two of them were in the dungeons the cat started scratching the doors of the elevator. Valdemar rolled their eyes as they grabbed the cat, going outside. But once they got there the cat stared at the scenery in front of her, deciding that she saw enough nature for today. However, Valdemar didn’t let her have her way this time.

“No,” they put the cat back outside, “You wanted to be outside so you’ll stay outside,” they walked back to the dungeons, making sure the cat wasn’t following them. Just before the got into the library, Nadia greeted them.

“Good morning, Quaestor,” she said with a smile, “Perfect time for the court meeting.”

“Of course, Countess,” they said with a fake smile on their face.

Valdemar followed Nadia, sitting in their usual place as they zoned off, thinking about all of the possible errors in their research. They would have pondered about it a bit more had Vlastomil not shrieked so loudly. They lazily turned their head to him, then at the thing they were staring at. It was Pepper who happily put down a dead bird in front of Valdemar’s legs.

“For me?” they asked softly as the cat took the bird in its mouth, putting it in Valdemar’s hands. They were deeply touched by this act. Only MC gave them gifts.

They picked the cat up and, ignoring the judging stares from the rest of the court, went back into the dungeons. From that point on, Valdemar and Pepper were vibing. Valdemar would continue with their research, examining all of the specimen Pepper would bring them. On one occasion Pepper brought them Malak, but unfortunately, Julian came into the dungeons, taking him away. He never lets Valdemar have any fun…

Once MC returned to Vesuvia Valdemar found it hard to get separated from Pepper. They’d occasionally visit MC’s shop, letting Pepper nap on their lap as they read a book.

@luciosjuicythighs

#the arcana quaestor valdemar #the arcana valdemar #quaestor valdemar #valdemar #the arcana #The Arcana Game #the arcana courtiers #the arcana courtiers headcanon #courtier #courtiers #courtiers headcanon

[corvidamned]

@the-arkham-librarian​ | 💘 What are the ways my muse says ‘I love you’ without actually saying it?

...She’s always saying it.

•  “--perhaps you can lend me your features to model for a portrait. I do paint.” • “--And if my company remains up to par, I would like to call on you--visit” • "I wish I knew where you've seen me before you chose to follow me the second you saw me again." • "I want you to know me but I'll have you know...I'm not for the faint of heart." • “Having dinner, a little drawing salon, and finding the perfect time to kiss you." • “Ordinary is out of the question, and plans are useless. But people… people can stay to grow beside each other. Stay with me…” • "I'd rather it'd be you to direct my attention back to the mission than if they ever found out I'd been consumed by..." • "Just how they look. When you gesture. Or while you're working." • "Hands to hold or ought to be held." • "I belong with you. I am not protected. Or looked after. I trust you to find your way back to your dreams. And, I belong with you…” • “I don't hide who I am around him... He knows where I come from, so he knows what I’ve lost, so he knows what I’ve done to prove myself worthy of even having a name.” •  "Don't forget to pair ties with their matching pocket square or handkerchief. And some of the waist coats do have laces if you require more cinching." • “Because you were under the impression I would swallow you up as soon as you walked through the door. And while that is my favorite pastime, there is the pressing matter at hand--” • “We’ll grab breakfast. Then we’ll get a hotel over in D.C. where we’ll have a look at the Smithsonian. And maybe, possibly, introduce you to a new friend of mine.” • "Man of many talents…" • "Everywhere you've been is someplace I'd like to see." • “I adore you. I want to give you the strength to reclaim more of your life. I want you in mine.” • "Do you think I'll be late back?" • “I like you because we’re the same. We killed those who ‘stole our solitude without offering us true company.’ We hold this world accountable for the things that make monsters of us all. We want our life back and all the things that were promised and ripped away.” • "It's still mine to give. But it’s safer with you." • "So many people don't know the meaning of the word loyalty. It's all I've ever wanted. And I'm not your type of dandy but--I am your weapon, your family, your witness. It would bring me nothing but joy to watch you flourish. Get out more. Go on a date." • "I've time off, as scheduled. Did you? Did you want to come with?" • “--And there are people in my life that I’d miss being around.” • “I don’t know what I’d do with myself. I think my whole world would just stop.” • “You’re my lighthouse. What hope is there for me in these dark waters if your light goes out? And, how could I ever forgive myself if someone with a cause more destructive than remedying, more obsessive than educational, snuffed it out?” • “You know you’re my best friend, right? I don’t know if you’ve got anyone you can go to about the real things–” • “I just want you to know I’m going to be here for every breakdown or breakthrough, for the rest of your life and if your family should have me, long after you’re gone.” • "I can't show you the future. But I can show you what I see." • "You're sexy when you're negotiating." • “Do you mind if I shadow you on this call?” • “Try.” • “Grumpy.” • “You really made it. Will there be a baby shower? Am I invited?” • "Can I have you?" • “I have something else for you, darling. So you could come by, stay whenever you like.” • “I’m never alone in your world, my love. But I am, yours.” • “You’re so...cool.” • “If you’re worried about another off encounter, I could vet people, find out what they’re into, or even talk through your specific do’s and dont’s. I could book, or I can stay to watch.” • “You’re the boss.” • “I can’t lose you... I’d kill the world just to get you back.” • "She's so beautiful…Has she eaten?" • “Or at least know that I tried while I build my future with you." • “I’m your doll. “ • “Tu es l'amour de ma vie et je te garderai à l'esprit pour toujours.” • ”I'm giving you my secrets because we're the same... terrible victim.” • "I couldn't save you. And you couldn't have been the better man for me any earlier.” • "We can go again." • “I believe you.” • “I’m going to eat your tears. And swallow the rest of you.” • “Just turn me over.” • “As it should be... My wonderful idealist.” • "Five minutes intervals, darling. Stay with me." • “Come back…Breathe for me.” • “I can’t diagnose, I can only pull this beautiful body back together. But, you know who can.” • “I do think that’s all I’ve ever wanted, to know someone completely.” • “Oh my goodness--Can I at least buy you dinner first? We’re skipping steps. We’re doing this all out of order.” • “Yes, I think-- I'll take good care of you.” • "Oui. Just you and me. Airport's massive in Paris. It can get a little confusing, but there's shuttles straight to the hotel and taxis to all the tourist spots. We'll shop and fill our heads with art and forget all our little worries for a few days. Shall we pack?” • “Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a parlor, a library, a basement and a wine cellar. A garden, overgrown and dried out with time. And a forest just beyond here. I'm thinking of buying it." • "I don't know if I'm anything like what you might've dreamed about. But in all my nights, you are…the one. The kind I could only describe when everyone else named their crushes." • She’s somewhere between drifting on the verge of napping, and doing something about her hand resting heavy on his thigh, when his hand, navigating her curls, long and peppered with strands of white, causes her to purr. • “There we are. I’ll always be able to find you. And I’ll always know how you feel.” • “You’re in my heart. Let your imagination stir a while. Might get the wrong idea if I have you as a stranger. I want to be in yours...” • "Are you hurt?" • "Well, you are adorable." • “I don’t want...you running off again. If it’s all too much to put into your own words?” • “You’re welcome to a shower, and a change of clothes. I’ll see what I can do about the coat. And you can take the bed. I’ll guard.” • “I looked for you.” • "Shall we play one of your games?" • “Everywhere. The mundane. The impossible. The deepest caves, entry only by water. The highest peaks, too cold for humans but not us. Great forests no one dared to build a cabin in. Realms of hell you have unfinished business in. My family's home on a parallel Earth, if such a thing is even possible." • “You’ll be safe with me. Are you hungry?" • “And you’ll never be alone again.” • “You’re strong.” • “I don't ever intend to misunderstand you."

#hc #relationships #being demi be like

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

I’ve Got You - Floyd

Whumptober: Day 7

Day 7 is late, but day 7 is here! The prompt isn’t outright said in the piece, but I think the implications an use of the other aspects of the day’s prompt are plenty enough.

This piece takes place about 2-3 months before the events of Persistence! It was supposed to happen quite a bit differently, but Percival is... persuasive. Enjoy! (Half of this is basically unedited, so please forgive any typos!)

Content warnings: creepy whumper, noncon (nonsexual) touching, hand gagging, frequent mentions and descriptions of blood (I might even say mild gore), bleeding out, hallucinations (not actually, but it seems to be), head injury

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Put pressure on the wound. Stop the bleeding.

Floyd knew those words better than he knew himself. After years of remembering and repeating them to others, they were ingrained deep in his mind. They sounded so simple. Find the source of bleeding and press down on it so that the blood flow stops. 

So why was it so difficult to remember now that he was the victim?

Floyd stumbled on the uneven gravel street, nearly falling to his knees. He couldn’t stop now. He didn’t even remember how he’d been separated from his crew during the fight, how he’d ended up in this empty alleyway, but if he just kept going he’d make it to the dock eventually, back to their ship. 

Warm blood poured down his midsection in a steady stream, the pain from the stab wound there shifting and intensifying with each step. Right. The bleeding. Stop the bleeding. 

He reached a shaking hand under his shirt, trailing cold fingers across the unnaturally hot surface until they brushed against the torn skin. A shiver ran through him at the foreign feeling. Floyd took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and pressed down softly on the wound. The pain flared and he had to fight instinctive reflexes to keep his hand pressed down. He was so weak that it probably wouldn’t do anything no matter how hard he tried, he knew that, but...

Floyd panted desperately. He had no other choice if he wanted to survive this. With each step he pushed harder, squeezed his eyes shut, and pressed his lips together, as if he could block out each of his senses one by one. He couldn’t hold back the pained noises crawling their way up his throat, couldn’t keep his mouth closed against the desperate, near-incomprehensible cries for help.

As he trudged on, blazing eyes stared from the shadows, enamored by his struggle. The quiet footfalls of invisible feet escaped his notice. Floyd wasn’t even conscious enough to be uneasy at the strange, instinctive feeling that he was being watched. 

His vision went dark at the edges and he loosened the grip in turn, but the dizziness and pain refused to subside. He couldn’t see where he was going, couldn’t tell if his eyes were still open… Inevitably, Floyd stumbled and crashed to his hands and knees, scraping them against rough stones as he cried out. 

The ringing in his ears was too loud, rendering him unable to hear the approaching steps and folding fabric, and he hardly registered the pressure of a chest against his back and the arm around his waist until strong hands pressed against his own, forcing it back against the steadily bleeding injury. Floyd cried out, the intoxicating fog of unconsciousness retreating and being replaced with the sluggish trickle of cold panic down his spine. 

He lurched forward, but the arm held him in place while another came up to clamp over his mouth. It held tightly, not even allowing him to move his jaw, and desperate, strangled whimpers whistling through his nose were the only call for help he could manage. 

“Shhhhh, stay still.” Heavy breaths brushed against his ear. Stubble scraped lightly across the back of his neck. “You can’t go and bleed out, now.”

Floyd tried to stand back up, free his arms, move his head, anything, but he was far too weak… helpless to resist as the man pulled him back, gravity weighing on trembling muscles to lay him down, his head cradled in the man’s lap. His eyes fluttered as he looked up, expecting to see the face of whoever was keeping him here, but… he couldn’t see a thing. 

Was he imagining things? Was anyone really here with him? Was he-

The surface under him shifted and moved away, losing all contact with him for a second.

“Wh-what’s there?! Who are you?! H-how-!” The same pressure closed on his mouth again, but it was slick, sticky as it dried against his skin, clinged to his lips, his face, his nose where he took short, panicked breaths and inhaled the unmistakable tang of iron. Floyd went stiff. That was his blood. His blood from his side, now on his face, overwhelming in sensation and scent.

Individual fingers and nails dug into his skin, perched on the sides of his nose and threatening to cut off airflow there, too, and yet he saw nothing. The air was clear, wobbling with the weight of his tears and the dark void of unconsciousness closing in, but it was clear. There was nothing there.

A weight settled on his thighs, pushed his arms against his sides, placed its hand against his wound again, leaned forward, and any attempt to scream only smeared the sickening taste of his own blood across his mouth.

“Don’t scream, that would make this far too easy for them,” he said, too close but never close enough to see. Floyd knew he’d heard his voice somewhere before, he definitely had, but his head hurt and it was hard to think and he just couldn’t place it-

“Oh come on, darling, I said don’t scream not don’t breathe. I won’t let you die as long as you can stay awake for me.” The fingers around his nose tightened when he tried to breathe in and he nearly choked on the small breath he’d managed. A huff of laughter came from above him and the grip loosened. “It’s just a matter of time to see whether you’ll be going back home with your crew or… finding a new place to stay if you’re not worth their trouble.”

He writhed under the pain and unsettling words sinking into him, and as much as he wanted to crawl away, he found that he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Heathered grey nothingness flashed across his vision, swirling with the dark, and time slipped out of his grasp. Whatever presence that held him here was helping, was keeping him alive through every second that he kept the pressure on, through every gasp of dizzying metallic air, through every stuttered heartbeat. 

Floyd prayed desperately into the empty recesses of his mind that his crewmates would find him and drive this cruel presence away, bring him back to the ship where he’d finally learned to feel safe. Whatever alternative he was being offered, threatened with… he couldn’t fathom. 

He got weaker the longer he laid there, feeling the life drain from his body. Maybe he was imagining it, but the blood flow seemed to have slowed to a sluggish drip, at least as long as the pressure remained on it. Everything was silent for a while, aside from his uneven breathing and muffled groans.

“You would have died by now if I hadn’t found you,” the invisible man mused. “A beautiful thing like yourself, left to rot in the street just like that. It’s really a wonder nobody’s interrupted us yet.”

The hand on his side eased up, finally letting go. The bleeding increased without anything to hold it back, but the pressure of a knee came down on it as the man shifted his weight, and suddenly Floyd felt another hand against his face. 

A finger trailing down his cheekbone left a line of blood that dripped slowly into his hair. The hand followed, running wet fingers through burnt orange locks, rusting them with hints of deep red drying into brown. He shivered but couldn’t pull away as it traced his hairline, his forehead...

“I would have taken you already if I’d known they don’t really care,” he sighed, and Floyd could’ve sworn it sounded strangely fond. “...well then. I can trust you not to try anything if I let you speak, can’t I?”

He nodded quickly. Anything to get that bloody hand away from him. His skin stuck slightly when he finally pulled it off, and the man lifted himself as well, presumably standing. Floyd couldn’t tell now that they weren’t touching. He didn’t see or hear anything for a few more seconds until the man muttered something incomprehensible under his breath.

“...huh?” Floyd asked, squinting up like that would do anything to spot the invisible presence.

“Someone decided to cut our little rendezvous short,” he said, and the eyeroll that came next was nearly audible. “I’ll see you again soon, and if all goes well then maybe you’ll see me too,” he laughed. “Goodnight, dear.”

A swift kick to the side of his head knocked him senseless before he could protest. 

Floyd didn’t hear the invisible man walk away or another person run up, their panicked voice muffled behind a thick wall. Something shook him and he peeled his eyes open, focusing slowly on a familiar face.

“Mmnh… Mabel?” he slurred. She looked shaken and glanced over him, speaking in a low voice he couldn’t decipher. Someone else spoke back. He knew him too. Floyd tried to push himself off the ground so he could see better, but a hand pushed on his shoulder, keeping him against the ground. He flinched.

“Yes, it’s us, me and Ray, I’m sorry,” Mabel said too quickly and he could hardly grasp the words, “but you’re- I- holy shit, don’t move, alright?”

He nodded breathlessly, trying to keep his eyes open as hands pushed his shirt up, inspecting the wound. Phantom touches roamed all across his body and if his eyes were closed he couldn’t know which were real anymore and which were… he couldn’t remember. Everything before that moment was a blur. He remembered a voice, a hand, blood, pain, pain.

“...someone had to have… who did this?” It was Ray, he was speaking to Floyd, asking him a question and it took too long to register around the fog in his mind.

He shook his head. The wound was never there, but now it was and he only knew it by what it was doing to him, and nothing of what caused it. There were more words after that, words he couldn’t pick out from one another to decipher any meaning from.

He felt the ground fall out from under him, and it took a moment to realize he wasn’t falling, but rising in someone’s arms. Floyd blinked blearily at Ray’s face above him, then tucked his face against the folds of his jacket, breathing deep at the light, sandy scent of safety, and closed his eyes. He was too weak to open them again after that.

————————————

Tag list, ask to be added or removed!

@whump-tr0pes, @burtlederp​, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog​, @doitforthewhump​, @shameless-whumper​, @endless-whump​, @theycomeinthrees​, @faewhump​, @lonesome--hunter​, @insanitywishes​, @ohmywhump​, @deluxewhump​, @galaxywhump​, @liliability​

#whumptober2020 #no.7 #carrying #i've got you #oh damn this technically fits #enemy to caretaker #as well #percival literally did just save floyd's life #OC #oc whump #writing #fic #whump #magic whump #invisible whumper #creepy whumper #stabbed #bleeding out #hand gagging #brain please what else to i have to tag #noncon touching #noncon touching tw #blood #blood tw #mild gore #hallucination #not actually! just has those vibes! #head injury #so! here's something floyd never remembers but percival sure does! #darn mabel and ray actually finding them so percival can't just kidnap floyd

[glorifiedgpjfic]

Glorified G - Chapter 44

New Years Eve 1991

“Okay, so those boxes can go wherever there’s a space,” Jo instructed Eddie, she pointed to a space on the kitchen table for the boxes to go on, “do you think we have enough? I don’t want us to run out of booze before the new year starts!” Eddie chuckled at his stressed out girlfriend, before gesturing at her to look at the table- there were two boxes full of champagne, three crates of beer, and about a dozen bottles of wine; basically the whole table was covered in bottles and crates of alcohol, “Don’t look at me like that!” Jo exclaimed, “You’ve seen how much we can drink when the guys come over and that's only six of us, I feel like we’ve got the whole of Seattle coming tonight!” Eddie laughed before pulling her into an embrace,

“You do realise people will be bringing their own drinks, you aren’t a bar. There’ll be enough don’t worry.” He mumbled into her hair and she let out a frustrated sigh,

“I just want it to be perfect! There isn’t enough room in the apartment for everyone- I don’t have enough chairs!” Jo and Eddie had volunteered to host a New Year’s Eve party, a decision Jo quickly regretted,

“Babe, it’ll be fine- I promise.” Eddie cooed, “You know, we could maybe look at getting somewhere bigger- if you want?” As he spoke his voice grew quieter, “but you know, we don’t, we don’t have to-” He began to backtrack only to be cut off by Jo.

“I’d love to, can we? I feel like this apartment is too cramped.”

“We can start looking tomorrow, providing we aren’t too hungover.” Eddie smirked.

The day flew by, Jo had fully decked the house up with banners and balloons for the new year, she’d ordered takeout from a pizza place, and a Chinese restaurant she didn’t fancy cooking for god knows how many people so she thought takeout would be much easier. For the party she opted for wearing a sparkly black dress with a low plunging neckline, just for Eddie, she had mused to herself as she was getting ready, she left her hair down naturally and applied dark smokey eyeshadow and a red lipstick- as she was giving herself the once over in the mirror Eddie appeared in the doorway, he whistled at her before walking over to her,

“Jo you look, amazing- how am I supposed to keep my hands off you all night when you look like that.” He grinned, giving her a wink- he leant in to give her a kiss,

“No! You’ll ruin my lipstick!” Jo giggled,

“I don’t care.” Eddie said crashing his lips on hers, his hand roaming up and down her curves, as always Jo’s hands quickly made their way to Eddie’s unruly hair, he slowly guided her to the bed before gently pushing her onto it, climbing on top of her continuing his attack on her lips.

By the time the guests began to arrive Jo’s hair was much messier than it had been and she’d touched her lipstick up, she’d also had to help Eddie get it off his face, she had warned him- in her defence. The guys from Pearl Jam had been the first to arrive insisting on starting the pre drinks as early as they could, Jo had barely touched the booze because she didn’t want to be too drunk to see in the new year- plus she hadn’t eaten yet and she knew better to drink on an empty stomach. Various other bands and friends of Eddie’s showed up, Jo didn’t recognise a lot of them but she didn’t mind - the more the merrier right? Despite the apartment being small everyone managed to squeeze in with just about enough space to move about, it was cozy, at least that’s what Jo kept telling herself.

At around 11:30 Jo’s phone rang, she managed to slip outside unnoticed,

“Agent Taylor,” She answered,

“Taylor, you need to come into the office now- we’ve got a spree killer in Wedgwood.” Joanne hung up, she quickly made her way inside to grab her bag with her gun and badge in, Eddie noticed her rushing to the door he followed her outside,

“Where are you going?” He stood on the doorstep watching as she unlocked her car,

“I’ve gotta go, there's a spree killer - I’m sorry Babe, I love you.” Eddie stood with a sad smile giving her a small wave as she drove away. The drive to the office was made in silence. There were too many thoughts whizzing around Jo’s head, she was mentally revising everything she knew about spree killers, these killers had to be stopped as soon as possible.

When she arrived at work she sprinted to the bullpen, where the rest of her team were hurriedly answering calls and adding pins to the map of Wedgwood, Joanne knew exactly what the pins meant, each pin represented a victim- they were going up at an alarming rate. “Sir, can you fill me in?” Jo asked the director as he made his way over to her,

“We’ve had reports of an armed man stabbing people in Wedgwood, he’s moving fast- no one can pin him down, so far there’s four injured and two dead-” He lead Jo to the map that was pinned up on a board before pointing,” This is where the first 911 call came in, and this,” he pointed to the most recent pin, “is where the last 911 call came from.” Jo nodded, her colleagues all looked frazzled, most were dressed up like she was- their nights clearly ruined too.

“Okay guys, lets just breathe for a minute.” Jo started, “Do we have a positive ID?” She asked, the director shook his head, “ok, that makes things a little bit harder, but it’s okay. What do we know about spree killers, they seek to cause as much damage as they can by either killing or maiming their victims- and they normally end their spree by killing themselves or death by cop. There's two types of spree killers, those who plan their spree, and those who’s spree is triggered by an event-” Jo rambled, the phone at the desk beside her rang and she quickly picked it up,

“We have a positive ID, Charlie Thomson.” The director was quick to jump in,

“Agent Taylor and I are going to head to Wedgwood, I want the rest of you to find everything you can about Thomson, no rock unturned- we’ll call you from the car.” With that he and Joanne strode out of the office.

The snow flashed red and blue from all of the police cars, Jo could feel her heart racing as she looked out of the window trying to prepare herself for what was to come- Eleanor had been on the phone with them the whole time reeling off everything they had been able to find about their unsub, there weren’t any indicators that this was going to happen - there was nothing to suggest he had planned this, another agent had spoken with Thomson’s mother and she hadn’t found him to be acting strange at all in the past few weeks, in fact she had refused to believe that her son could do something like this. William and Jo made their way over to the police cordon, the victim had been taken away in an ambulance - the snow on the ground was now tainted crimson, there was a trail of the bloody snow heading off in another direction; the police chief had informed the two FBI agents that his men were following the trail, he was just about to continue speaking when a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the street, acting purely on instinct Jo bolted in its direction; the director and the police chief close behind. Jo almost slipped on the snow as she came to a stop beside a young man who’s throat had been slit he was coughing up blood without a thought Jo dropped to her knees and began applying pressure to the wound,

“You’re going to be okay, I’m here- I’m not going anywhere.” She murmured to the man,

“I need a medic!” Joanne yelled to no one in particular, William arrived beside her and gave her his jacket to use to apply pressure, “William go- I think he went that way!” Jo panted, “In fact, you stay here I’ll go.” Jo said realising that William Webster was not fit enough to chase down the killer, the police chief and Jo followed the trail of blood that must’ve been dripping from the knife.

They rounded a corner and spied a machete abandoned in the snow, there were several sets of footprints and it was nearly impossible to guess which ones belonged to the killer, it was only the sound of a bin hitting the ground that told Joanne which path to follow- heading in the direction of the noise Jo pulled out her gun, there were houses on both sides of the streets there wasn’t anywhere for him to hide, or so she thought. The footprints lead Jo down the side of a house, this was it - he’s cornered. Jo crept around the corner of the house to see a very scared looking young man, covered in blood.

“Charlie Thomson?” Jo asked her voice calm, the man nodded before taking something out of his pocket which Joanne instantly recognised as a knife, “Charlie, don’t do this- listen to me, you don’t have to do this, put the knife down.” He didn’t speak instead he brought the knife up to his throat and in one swift swipe he slit his own throat, “NO!” Joanne screeched, she sprinted over to him, kicked the knife away from him before applying pressure to his throat- except his cut was deeper than that on the man earlier, the blood spurted from the wound and there was no way for Jo to stop it there was too much, but that didn’t stop her from trying- she tried to apply a heavy pressure to stop the blood from escaping but it just seemed to slip through her fingers. The residents of the house clearly heard the commotion and came out to Jo’s aid,

“I’m a federal agent, call 911 I need an ambulance tell them it’s Charlie Thomson, he slit his throat they need to come quick!” She knew he was dead, she knew he was dead as soon as he hit the floor but a little part of her thought that maybe, just maybe he’d survive to be put on trial for what he had done. Death seemed like the easy way out, there was no justice there.

William and Joanne drove back to the office in silence, Jo was covered in blood her pale skin contrasted harshly with the dark crimson that stained it, she was cold too, kneeling in the snow had chilled her to the bone, or maybe it was the fact she had tried to save a killer that chilled her.

“I- I need to change-” Jo shivered as she spoke and William nodded, Jo knew she had some spare clothes at the office so she’d be able to get out of the dress, she’d have to throw it away there was no way she’d ever be able to wear it again. When they got back to the office Eleanor let out a gasp at the sight of Jo, Jo fully ignored it and just made her way to the bathroom with her change of clothes. She looked at herself in the mirror, her eye makeup was smudged down her face, she looked like Alice Cooper, her hair was hard because of dried blood and she couldn’t be bothered to fix it in the sink, she’d shower once she got home. Home, the place where there are loads of people partying, the place where you can’t really turn up covered in blood. Truthfully she didn’t have the energy to care, she just needed to sleep it off- or maybe drink it off.

Eddie spotted Jo’s car pulling into the driveway and was quick to rush out and see her, after she had left he stopped drinking he didn’t want to be drunk when she got back in case she needed him, which it turns out she definitely did. She got out of the car and there were tears streaming down her face, Eddie was quick to notice that she was covered in blood, her neck and hands were stained- She had changed from her dress into a shirt and black pants, he rushed to her pulling her into a hug, she let out a sob before forming a sentence,

“I need to shower, and then I need to drink- please. Don’t end the party, I need to take my mind off it.” Eddie nodded, taking her hand and leading her inside. Everyone was too drunk to notice the two making a beeline for the bathroom, which Jo was grateful for. She quickly turned the shower on and stripped down, she was completely in her own world, instead of standing in the shower she sat under the hot jets - Eddie sat on the floor beside the bath watching her for a moment before grabbing a sponge and gently washing the blood from her,

“It’s in my hair, how- how is it in my h-hair?” Jo cried, without another word Eddie took his pants and shirt off and stepped in the shower, he gently brought Jo to her feet where he began massaging her head and trying to get the dried blood out Jo leant back on Eddie and just stood motionless as he washed away the evidence of the trauma she endured, once he had got her clean he placed a few gently kisses on Jo’s shoulders, “let me grab you a towel,” he whispered to her before stepping out of the shower, “I’ll go and grab you some clothes do you want your pyjamas?” Jo nodded to him, accepting the towel and stepping out of the shower, she sat on the edge of the bath on the verge of tears again when Eddie reappeared, in silence he dressed her, “If you want I can get them to leave,” Jo shook her head,

“No its okay, it’ll take my mind off it.” She offered him a small smile before pulling him into a tight embrace, “happy new year eh?” She said sarcastically, Eddie gave her a sad smile,

“Lets go get drunk.”

A/N Sorry I’ve been gone for so long! What a hectic year it’s been, I was totally out of inspiration for this fic, but I’m hoping to carry on writing now :)

#eddie vedder #Eddie Vedder Fanfic #grunge fanfic #grunge fanfiction #stone gossard #mike mccready #dave abbruzzese #pearl jam fanfic #pearl jam fanfiction #Pearl Jam

[whitewolfbumble]

The Fallout - Part Nineteen (Bucky x Reader)

Summary: You had been a ghost for years, taking down the bad guys from the shadows that had once enslaved you. That is until the Avengers finally caught up with you and yet again your life changed. But your past won’t stay dead and everything starts to shift when a familiar face joins the ranks: Bucky Barnes. He may not remember you, but you certainly remember him.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Slow burn, language, violence, death, gore

Word Count: About 6k

A/N: Hey friends, I’m splitting up the final chapters differently than planned, so you’ll be getting a few more. Instead of twenty parts we’re looking at more like twenty-two maybe? I’ve been working that out so apologies for it being just over a week since my last update for this. And we’re getting some IW Steve vibes in here. Hope you enjoy! Please reblog, like or send me a message with what you think!!

MY MASTERLIST // THE FALLOUT MASTERLIST // PART EIGHTEEN

Your smile grew as the struggle grew more.

The police officer had you in a headlock, your face at his hip. You had been trying to draw this out as long as you could, but figured the timing would be about right.

Your fist swung hard, connecting with a crack to his ribcage, pitching him forward slightly. As the air exited his lungs in a huff, you twisted and swung your elbow up and clocked him square in the face. The force of that alone knocked him clean out.

So the man fell, joining his dead counterparts. His body hit the stone steps you were standing on, rolling down a couple limply. You walked down slowly to him, pressing your foot against his neck and pushing down. You didn’t stop until you heard another crack and felt the life leave his body.

You stopped, hands going up to your chest, tears almost forming in your eyes. It was so contenting, so beautifully peaceful to end someone life, like a kind of velvety high. With him being the last, you took a moment to enjoy the rush of death, almost humming to yourself.

The day was beautiful and clear, and it was only going to get even better from here.

The Avengers were certainly on their way now.

You had found yourself in front of a very old little museum. Made of beige stone it was timeless, standing like a forgotten monument in this old city of Paris. Twenty or so steps wrapped all around it, with five tiny little side street spreading out from it. Beautifully architectured apartments lay right up against the road, their black shutters shut tightly. At one time this little building had been a church probably, but there was no healing or mercy found there today.

You took stock of your work in the sunshine, counting thirty-four bodies surrounding you. Some were face down or crumpled in awkward positions. All unmoving.

In the distant sirens rang out, but once those who had the bad luck to be the first on the scene had signaled back to their superiors that it was you, everyone had been undoubtedly ordered to stay away.

Leisurely you walked down a couple steps and sat down, crossing your legs and leaning against one of your victims.

The little square was completely silent, with nothing but a light breeze whistling softly through, the screaming and sounds of the fight since over.

You looked up with your eyes closed to the sun, feeling it’s warmth while the splatter of blood on your face began to dry.

Late, but fashionably so you thought, your old team members finally showed.

In the square a sudden booming clang rang out as Iron Man flew down from the sky, hitting the cobblestone streets, shining and red. Usually you liked that in the form of blood, covering people. It made your eyes shine subtly and throat constrict, bloodlust ever present and rippling just under your skin.

“Y/N, stand down,” Tony said, mask still on and hands up defensively.

You couldn’t tell what he was feeling, couldn’t guess at what he was thinking, seeing you there amid a pile of bodies and blood scattered around. It was like you were sitting back, watching a movie on the couch back at the Tower. You wondered abstractly how the vision of you in the middle of this scene made him feel. It had been a long time since you had seen the majority of the Team, though they had since seen your work.

You raised your arm, gesturing around.

“I don’t think there is anyone else to stand up too, Tony,” you remarked. “I’d be willing to try though.”

Thor then touched down right beside the Iron Man, Mjolnir swinging in his hand before looping it back to his belt. Usually in a fight the god held it securely in his hand, itching ot throw it out and take down his enemies. Looks like you were different. Even his face indicated as much, the thrill of a fight not shining in his eyes, just a strained look there.

Right on cue, the others began to creep out of the five streets that surrounded this little building, slowly coming at you in full numbers. Guns and weapons and eyes were trained on you, footsteps cautious and measured. You could feel their eyes on your skin, trying by sheer will to hold you there.

Narrowing your eyes slightly, you felt the stare of one person in particular. The wind carried his scent, your ears picking up on the rhythm of his near silent steps. Slowly you turned your head to the right, knowing who you would find.

Your gaze was icy and hard as you locked eyes with Bucky, your once kidnapper, handler, torturer, and lover.

He was poised like this was any other mission, suited up like he was going to war, planting one foot in front of the other on a steady path to you, the enemy. His assault rifle was pointed at you, blocking some of him from view, but you saw enough there. 

His skin was pale and taut, dead and distant eyes were sunken behind big dark bags. His jaw was held so tight you thought it would snap. Guilt edged absolutely everything on him, stiff posture giving off waves of regret like he held his whole body in a desperate weariness. A pained frown looked permanently etched into his face. The man was probably not sleeping, not able to let you go, not able to forgive himself of doing this to you. 

But still, he was here and had come for you.

You sneered at the man, shifting your bright eyes in a second from bloodlust to one of painful disgust the moment your eyes locked to his blue ones. The last time you had seen him, he was walking out on you. Leaving you behind to the tortures of Hydra. To be let loose on a little corners of the world like you had done to this one. 

Did he feel the crushing weight of his turning you into this Siren again? The blood on his hands for the people you now killed? The pain and torture he directly inflicted on you, putting you through trials and crushing the fucking hand off your very arm?

You thought yes. Though realistically you couldn't care less what he felt or that he didn't save you. To be fair, you purposely didn't give him a choice knowing it would hurt all the more. Your only interest was rubbing it and trying to make him crumble underneath it all.

It had been four months since Bucky left you there with Hydra, and a year since The Soldier had beaten and turned you. The last months had clearly been rough on him. On them all by the afflicted looks on their faces.

And still the Avengers had been steps behind you at every turn these last months. It was just like they had been those years ago before they found you, after you escaped Hydra and were doing the vigilante thing on your own.

This time instead of saving people from the bad guys, you were the bad guy, going from city to city and igniting chaos, murdering in droves, committing appalling acts. All before ghosting away before the Avengers could catch up.

“Didn't think you would catch me so soon,” you said, eyes shifting back to Tony.

“Y/N,” said Thor, eyes imploring and voice sounding hurt. “Please come home.”

Again, you gestured to the gruesome scene at your feet. “This is as home as any to me. Why would I want to go anywhere else?”

“We can’t let you go, Y/N,” now came Steve, coming up on your left, clad in dark blue and body held stiffly at the sight of you again. A gruff beard was on his face and an ache in his eyes. “We can’t let you go back to them.”

“If I had been able to live a normal life,” you mused, ignoring them as they circled closer. “I think I would have enjoyed graveyards. The peace, the quiet, the faded memories permeating the air... Now I just make my own wherever I go. My own little slice of home.”

“This has to stop,” Tony said obviously done, stepping towards you. “This ends now, Y/N.”

Casually you looked around you, keeping your expression disinterested but body stone still. Behind your eyes you were cold and cunning. This all had to go to plan or else. It was a fucking longshot but you always came out on top. This would be no different.

“Try to take me, and you will not like the outcome.” The thinly veiled threat did not go unnoticed. “Remember, I know you. All of you.”

“Try to resist, and you’ll wish you were back at Hydra.” Tony spat. “And remember, we know you too.”

You stood slowly, hands not reaching for your weapons strapped to you. But your hands were clenched up into tight fists. You looked down to the ground, using your peripheral vision to track those moving in. You breathing increased as they swarmed you, with nothing you could do about it.

Which was exactly how you wanted this to look.

“You’re vastly outnumbered,” Natasha said, from somewhere behind you on your left, stepping out of the shadows of the building into the warm daylight. “See reason here, Y/N.”

Your eyes shot up, blazing and intense, appearing ready to start your second massacre of the day. The warm sun beat down and light breeze whispered passed you, but it looked as though nothing would shake your resolve.

You jerked back to the right, Vision practically floating up behind you. Another presence was now close on your left and snapping your head to it you saw Wanda.

“Please come peacefully, Y/N,” Vision said, voice low and calm. “No harm will come to you.”

“We don’t want to make this harder than it already is,” Wanda added.

Breath billowing out of you like a bull seeing red, you shut your eyes tightly for a moment, hand hovering over the guns strapped to your hip.

“Don’t”, Tony said with the electrical powering-up sound of his blasters started buzzing.

You were about to speak, but a whizzing then screeching sound pierced your ears as two metal blocks flew up from behind Tony, clamping down on your metal hand and flesh one. At the force of the metal coming at you and attaching to your skin, your body flew back. The telltale red metal forced your hands together tightly, before moving and expanding to overtake your whole forearm before you even hit the ground.

Vision glided forward and caught you in a moment before you smacked against the stone steps.

“My own mini Victoria?” you mused, not sure whether you should be angry or impressed. “Guess I’m just as dangerous as the Hulk now, huh?”

“The Hulk has Banner underneath,” Tony said stepping up to you, mask sliding off his face. It was hardened with anger. “Don’t flatter yourself in thinking you are anything like him. You have no conscious at all. You have nothing. ”

“Oh don’t I?” you said cryptically, as Clint and Steve stepped forward and grabbed your arms.

In a few minutes the place was buzzing again with Avengers, police, and special forces. You were chained up, watching it all in silence, cuffs on your hands and chains on your ankles as the quinjet touched down just a few metres away from you. It was like they were trying to bring in Thor, not little old you.

You let out a tight smile to Clint before your face dropped back into an angry, perturbed expression. Like through all this you were trying to keep that rage which bubbled in you under wraps.

Or at least that was how you outwardly portrayed yourself. Inwardly you were dancing, with this whole thing running as smooth as silk. This wasn’t the hard part, but it was still so exhilarating to be manipulating them like this.

As the quinjet ramp opened, a few on the Team went ahead while some were behind, talking with the officials on the scene.

All kept an eye on you, but Bucky kept two, hanging back several feet just behind you, able to see you but not directly interact with you. That just wouldn’t do.

Natasha walked out from the jet to the edge of the ramp, beckoning Bucky inside. You assumed there was some cage or way to lock you up in there, and Bucky being the resident expert on you would be the best one to check. 

You could cause a lot of damage on a jet high up in the sky with a group of your old friends...

Moments later Bucky emerged, avoiding you completely and nodding to Steve.

As Steve and Clint lead you up with Thor a step behind, you stopped still just beside Bucky, jerking the two men to a stop too.

“Hello again, love.” you breathed low to Bucky.

Your face was molded into one that was open and honest, tinged with a sadness at seeing him again.

The two men holding you seemed to try and hide a bit of surprise, maybe almost seeming a little encouraged at your words to him?

But Bucky wasn’t fooled. His shoulders dropped a bit as his face worked to move from one of thrashing pain to something more neutral.

He knew you better. His eyes danced with understanding. Bucky understood that this was all a game, and everyone was playing right into your hand.

So you stepped on the quinjet and left him to follow. 

Thus you moved towards phase two of your plan.

This compound was a lot different than the Tower had been, at least the brief bits you could see from your cell. All in all, you admired how quickly Tony got this up and running. Clearly a fire had sparked in his veins to get this done, along with his biting anger that didn't seem to be letting up.

It was a smart move, as with your intimate knowledge of the Tower, this expansive compound in the middle of forests and fields didn't give you as much of an advantage.

It made no difference to your plan really. And your end goal and current situation were still the same.

You were free. 

Well, more so than you had been before.

Your handler was gone, thanks to you. That looming presence, following and judging and reigning you in, keeping you in line with a metal fist and unwavering allegiance to Hydra. Gone. His alter-ego, Bucky, was still here but it obviously was not the same.

With him out of the way, you were that much closer to ending Gerault, your ultimate torturer and a key feature in your nightmares. Then with Gerault gone, you would be truly free to finally let loose, to kill and destroy and be a free agent, causing and living in chaos. Any next heads of Hydra that tried to reign you in would be met with a fiercer fight than they had ever witnessed if they so much as hinted at wanting you back in the fold.

No more being reigned in by Hydra. No more being judged or held back by the Avengers. You would answer to no one and chase the high of blood and tears and screams.

And, deliciously enough, the Soldier- or actually Bucky- went crawling back to the Avengers once you freed him naturally. And your mission was now to take the Avengers down. You were still programmed to complete it, so complete it you would. 

And never had you been so close to someone before. You were itching to see what torture and pain you could extract from him. From all of them.

A task that was taken on by several evil-doers and go-getters before, much to their failure. But you weren’t nervous in the least. You knew these people. Intimately. And nothing gave you a deeper thrill than the sweet pain you could draw out of them and could almost taste now.

It would take planning, antagonization, and vision. You could do that. You were doing it.

Looking out from your cell, you had carefully been studying your surroundings in silence, ignoring the subtle comments and whispers they made just down at the end of the long hallway.

You had walked down the windowless and doorless corridor, this section clearly separate and quartered off from the rest of the compound. At the end of it had been your cell. Without any resistance you walked in and stood at the far back of it quietly as they locked you up, clear glass bars now separating you from them.

It was bright all down the hall, with the cell being just a little dimmer. Smooth unbreakable white plastic, white metal, and clear glass made up this or that and was certainly more than a match for you. 

Your cell itself was basic, modern, and not wholly uncomfortable (let’s be honest, you were used to Hydra who wouldn’t trust you around anything built in this past century, so grimy rooms and outdated tech had been your standard).

A big oval was punched into the far wall to shape a bed, with a toilet and sink just on the other side of it for a modicum of privacy. Besides a bench built into the wall, there was nothing else in the room, save a book or two on the bed.

Tony and Steve with Bucky in tow had led you down in silence. As the cell doors locked you carefully picked up one of the books, running your fingertips down the worn fabric cover. Before they walked away, you whirled around, book in hand.

“Thank you,” you said, the first thing you had said since leaving those cobbled streets half a world away.

But you were looking past the two men, to Bucky who had stopped several feet behind. It was the book you had been reading, often times while with him, back at the Tower all that time ago.

It was thoughtful and sweet, and you knew it was from him.

Both Tony and Steve turned to Bucky, waiting for his reply, but none came.

“Let’s go,” he murmured to the pair after a few moments.

The Team was hanging out down at the far end of the hallway to your cell, milling around and generally feeling uneasy. After months of being a step behind you, they were suddenly able to catch up and took you in without so much as a fight. 

That didn’t sit well.

You were notorious for not giving up on a fight, usually that option being your first choice, as both a weapon of Hydra and a member of the Avengers.

But here you were, seemingly calm as anything, not a drop of blood spilled since Tony touched down in front of you. Now you were straining all your sense trying to pick up on what they were saying.

“Is this giving anyone else Loki vibes?” Natasha said, voice low and eyes darting back to you, sitting on your bed, nonchalantly reading.

Somehow an uneasy feeling settled in the air around those gathered, putting them on edge.

“What do you mean?” Bucky questioned lowly, keeping his eyes decidedly off of you.

Natasha looked back to you, voice hushed and arms crossed.

“Back on our first mission as a team,” she started with a sigh. “We locked Thor’s brother Loki up, which was exactly what he wanted. Now Y/N had eluded us for months, but today she was just waiting on the steps for us?”

“What did Loki want?”

“Well with Loki it... he almost made us tear each other apart.”

The group almost held their breath, that almost eerie feeling coating their skin.

“Buck?” Steve asked, trying to get him to weigh in on it.

“Maybe she does want to be here,” Bucky said, risking a look down to your cell. But the light glinted on your metal hand as you turned a page, and immediately he was looking back to the Team. 

“Alright,” he continued, forcing his lungs to take in the air the sight of you had forced out. “It’s reasonable to think she does want to be here, or at least has a plan in place just in case she was caught. But she wouldn’t try to get us to tear each other apart. She would want to tear us apart herself.”

“C’mon, Y/N is still in there, we all have to believe that,” Clint remarked, looking around the circle to your once friends. “There was still something there- some hope- back in Paris. Some semblance of her, you know?”

“She did mention her old life almost longingly,” Steve said, wanting desperately to believe, to make up for how terribly he had failed you. All this was on him. “So yes, I think there is hope. We just don’t know enough yet.”

“That wasn’t her,” Bucky said suddenly, voice unable to mask how sad and strained he was. As he spoke the words came out desperate, with more emotions than he had expressed to them in months. “That was what she wants us to think. The Hydra in her has a grip too strong. Don’t fall for it.”

It was like someone had been pulling his teeth his face crumpling in pain with every syllable out of his mouth. He had stayed alive, had kept going for months but clearly today was too much.

“We’re not going to take any chances,” Nat said softly. “But we’re not giving up on her either.”

With that Tony buzzed down, signaling everything checked out in the remote surveillance room. They were free to leave you to your own devices, locked securely in your cell. All felt uneasy if not safe in the knowledge that you couldn’t escape.

All except Bucky.

With the first full day came the big guns. Clearly they were preparing for you before your arrival. 

But they couldn’t predict you, and this was their first failure.

Wanda walked down the hall, Clint and Tony on either side, walking confidently. The three had a subtle mix of smells coming from them, creating an odd mix of machine grease, sweat, and clean soap wrapped into one as they blew down the hall. 

You could picture their discussion together, conspiring so as to not give anything away to you. It would be nice if they did, but you knew no one better than the Team, so little good it would do them.

The trio strode up, keeping a distance from the bars, though you gave no hints of moving closer.

“Looking to take a trip, dear?” you asked Wanda, keeping your voice quiet. You had to appear demure, unthreatening to a certain degree. They had to believe the ploy.

“I didn’t ever want to do this, but we have to, Y/N.” she responded, sounding honest but determined. “I hope you can understand that.”

You stood, strolling to the middle of your cell, arms crossed.

“This isn’t a good idea,” you pointed out. “I think you need to understand that.”

Clint’s feathers were instantly ruffled and you looked to the man rather dully as he stepped a bit closer than the others for a brief moment.

“You’re going to threaten us?” Clint asked, misunderstanding you. “When you’re locked in here? Listen honey, you aren’t calling any shots anymore.”

“Firstly, I never have called my own shots.” you stated, correctly him calmly with just the tiniest hint of exasperation. “Secondly, no not a threat. I’m trying to do her a favour here, actually. All of you, actually. You do not want to get inside my head, Wanda. That doesn’t end well for either of us.”

The two men beside her scoffed a little, impatient. But she was smarter. She hesitated a moment, weighing the risks.

It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out where they would start. How they would try to break you down and get the “real” you back. Wanda would invade your mind, suss out whatever wheedling plan you were in the process of, and see about the best way to bring you back to your right mind, even doing it herself if able.

But never had anyone a mind quite like yours. Hydra took great pride in breaking it and molding it over the centuries, and now you were both more focused and unhinged in ways. It was not going to end well for either of you if she tried.

“Step closer.” she said, making up her mind.

She held your stare, chin lifted slightly with some confidence. It looked and smelled false to you, seeming more like fear to let down the Team and you, her once friend.

You sighed, folding your arms in tighter before looking like you were giving up.

“Alright, but don’t blame this one on me,” you said grimly, looking to the leader of the pack, Tony. “I have enough blood on my hands, I don’t need hers.”

Tony’s face pulled into confusion then softened ever slightly. He thought falsely that maybe he caught a glimpse of the real you.  The one that cared for Wanda. For anything.

Sad. Nothing was further from the truth there.

Stepping up the bars, Wanda did likewise, standing face to face. Both an equal look of concentration, Wanda’s hands went up to the level of your temples, fingers contorting and swirling, a vibrant red flashing accompanied by a kind of smoking, rich smell. A second later at the same moment, both of you closed your eyes.

In a flash of heat and fire your mind opened up to her, unable to fight the intrusion, programmed to stop resisting though you rallied against it nonetheless.

In disjointed brutal flashes, images came to both your mind and hers, taking over every thought, every muscle, every perception of reality.

There was blood and agony. And body parts. Severed heads. Wailing screams. Mutilated bodies. There was drowning, and acid, and chemicals. Injected drugs, and mania, bracingly chaotics highs, and devastatingly heart-crushing lows. 

There was your body getting whipped and beaten and broken. Then you doing it to others, laughing and euphoric as the only other option was to die screaming at inflicting such horror on the innocent.

Your brain was scrambled, unrivaled in its torment and chaos, unable to cohesively form one thought above the word pain. Causing it and feeling it and being it. There was only pain there to you. Unending. Crippling. Beautiful pain.

But it was too much for Wanda, every bloody, dripping drop of it hitting her in a second and all at once.

She screamed bloody murder, falling back into Clint, who caught her stunned and concerned. You fell back too, and with no one there to catch you, you fell in a screaming heap, gasping and writhing.

Clint dragged Wanda back away from your cell, crouching by her protectively on the floor.

Shaking still you tried to breathe through it all, the sudden flashes of your subconscious mind too much for your conscious one to bear.

“Jacosta, vitals.” said Tony, a distant voice to your ears as you looked to him through watery eyes.

At that, you saw a little hologram pop up from his watch, numbers and squiggly lines on it. Clearly it was satisfactory because his attention turned mostly to Wanda.

It was then you noticed Vision suddenly there, Wanda covered with him and Clint on either side and Tony in front of her, blocking her from your view.

You pressed your sweating forehead to the cool ground, fighting to keep your breath in your lungs as you gasped out over and over.

Collecting yourself off the floor, you wrapped your arms weakly around you, trying to hold yourself together as the throbbing pain pulsed through your body and seeped from your head down into the chilly tile floor.

Through your tears- which were quite real in fact and one of the first real emotions you had actually portrayed in days- you noticed one lone standing figure, watching you.

One Bucky Barnes. He and Vision must have run out of hiding at your screaming encounter. Vision running instinctively to Wanda, and Bucky running instinctively to you to see if you were okay.

He was far more under control than you were, body leaning towards you though he held himself back, with breath now slowing and fist slowly unclenching as you regained a sense of normalcy.

You turned away from him, clutching at your temple, trying to knock out the pain threatening to explode out of your skull, throbbing evermore. Shit, you were going to have a raging migraine from this.

“I tried,” you said between deep breaths. “To warn you. To stay the fuck out. Enough people have been in there. I don’t need more.”

You tried to pick yourself up, stumbling and fumbling to the bench, curling up in the corner as tight as you could against the wall, your back to the group. In the background you could hear Wanda muttering.

“It's her... she’s there...She’s just in pain... she’s just in pain...”

Vision picked her up bridal style and bee-lined out of there fast, wanting to get as much distance between you and her. Clint was following immediately after. Tony gave a look to Bucky before he followed suit. 

Bucky himself lingered.

He watched you, and you felt his eyes burning your skin. But you kept your head against the wall, turned completely away.

“You knew that was going to end badly,” you whispered to him. “Why did you let it happen?”

He made no answer, and you didn’t expect him too. It would take longer to bring him around. Now wasn’t the time.

Eventually, you heard his light assassin’s footsteps follow his team members down the hall, without a word of apology or comfort or anything at all.

As he left, you began to smile, wider and wider until you had to bite your tongue to keep from laughing.

Because bring him around you would.

The next day was Natasha. That went about as well as your session with Wanda.

“Why come here?” she asked, sitting down on a little fold out chair she brought with her. Her voice didn’t carry down the white cool corridor, almost like she was in full control sound itself. You wouldn’t put it passed a person like her, the epitome of calculated control.

Natasha was leaning back, arms crossed loosely. Her face was that usual blank expression, emotionless but somehow also inviting, where on most it would just look like resting bitch face.

“Wow,” you said, closing your book and looking up to her from your bench. “Not even a hello, or round-about question huh? Just right to it.”

“You stated it yourself. You know us,” she shrugged, hair brushing her shoulders at the movement. “You’re not likely to open up to me, someone who extracts information from people for a living.”

“So you try and flip the script, pretending to be straightforward and appear trustworthy because of that, then work in some wheedling question to cut to the quick of this all? Is that it?”

She put a hand up briefly with a slight smile. “Just want to talk to the person holding my friend hostage, that’s all.”

You sat back, eyes shining dimly in the low light.

“If that’s your goal, you’ll be disappointed, Natasha.”

“I’ve learned to let go of disappointments, makes my life easier. But let's not start off with you disappointing me just yet, huh. Why come here?”

Time to play along with her game, you guessed. This would have its fun certainly. And you could use a break the monotony.

“Because you brought me here, the whole ragtag crew.” you sighed. “I was having a great time in Paris. I always love visiting museums.”

“No,” she said point-blank with a small shake of her head and slight curve of her lips, as though she found your lie subtly amusing. “You let us catch up to you. You were waiting for us. Why?”

“I don’t like a chase,” you said. “I stand and fight or nothing. You would’ve caught up to me eventually I suppose, this way it was on my terms.”

“I don’t believe it.” she said, eyeing you just slightly harder.

“Well,” you said, tone changing suddenly, getting darker and dripping with more anger at every word. “Believe me when I tell you this than. I may be trapped here but at some point, someone will slip up. Someone will think that the real me has come back. They’ll show me mercy and I will exploit it and break free. The first thing I will do is find you and twist that red mop straight off of your spine. Don’t think I haven’t gotten a lot of fucking practice doing it.”

She didn’t move, just stared at you a moment before speaking levelly.

“Is that what you want me to believe, or is that the truth?”

“You figure it out,” you mumbled, voice back to its usual sound, turning back to your book. “Maybe I’m just trying to give a friendly warning? Who’s to say really.”

Silence hung between you both for a moment, before a creak and scrape sounded as Natasha folded up the chair.

“Oh, give my best to Wanda,” you said pleasantly after her as she left. “Poor thing.”

And so Steve came the next day, the next in the dwindling line of people to try and get through to you.

He had his uniform on, dark and cut, just not the cowl. Vaguely you had wondered how wrecked he was at the last words you spoke to him a year ago, bloody stump of a hand and tears on your face causing the professional soldier to stutter and fall.

Just as with Bucky, hard lines of sustained grief were set into his face, only partially hidden by a dirty blonde beard.

“Y/N,” he started with a nod. 

You turned in your bed, facing him head-on with legs crossed. You leaned back, head resting against the wall.

“Steve,” you responded in kind.

“Nat said she didn’t get anywhere from talking with you, I thought I would try.”

He stated this honestly and directly, though not with not a great amount of kindness. It wasn’t how he used to talk with you. He didn’t see you as his friend anymore, but rather the person holding your friend hostage.

“Sure thing, friend.” you jabbed plesantly.

“I’m not really looking to talk to you,” he said. “I want to talk with the real Y/N.”

You puckered your lips a little, nodding your head slowly. 

“I don’t know, what makes you think I’ll let that happen? I like being in control, think it’s best for everyone.”

“You're out of options here, we can make this easy on you or not.”

Oh, this Steve clearly was quite done already. You liked this darker change in personality. Suited him.

You sighed. “Steve, take the hint here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You looked at him with knowing eyes, adding just a tingle of pity to them.

“It isn’t going to happen, and we all know why, so let’s just drop it before you get hurt.”

“What do you mean, Y/N?” he said more forcefully this time, clearly not here to play games.

Well if he wanted to meet force with force, he wasn’t going to like the outcome.

“She doesn’t want to talk with you,” you clarified. “Why in hell would she? Last time she did- the last time you were with her- you fucking let her get slaughtered by your best friend? The one you had made her hound down for years with you to get back! The person you had practically forced her to be with, with your constant fucking meddling too. You were her dearest friend, the only one she’s ever had even! And you were supposed to protect her, weren’t you?”

Now was when you brought down the hammer on him, getting angry and more venomous with every word.

“It was your job to look out for her! That was the only fucking goal of the entire fucking mission! The whole reason she was there in the first place. And you promised her she would be safe. Now look at what you fucking did! Do you want me to tell you what they did to her at Hydra? What they made her do? That is all fucking on you! You failed. Failed the one person and friend who fucking loved you the most.”

You looked down, breath heaving out of you at the effort of spitting those hateful words, Steve face imprinted in your mind.

With every word you twisted the knife into his soul a little deeper. Deeper than he had been twisting it himself over the past years.

Captain America didn’t lose. He didn’t fail his friends. And he had never failed you.

Steve didn’t look at you now, his own chest heaving, unable to compose the anguish in his eyes that ripped at his soul.

It was all he had been thinking for the last year no doubt. The burden of his failure crushed him, aging his face and disposition. He wasn’t a man struggling to catch up anymore, he was a man beaten down and ready to do what was needed to win the day.

You pictured everyone trying to comfort him. Trying to explain in different, better ways over and over that it wasn’t his fault. That he didn’t fail you. But the truth of what he felt hung out in the open between you now, plain as day.

He believed your words. He felt them, daily. They had been said over in his own mind in an unending stream. It had changed him.

“So, to sum up,” you said darkly, “Fuck off.”

It was some time before Steve left but not exactly on his own. 

Thor walked in after some minutes of silence between you, ignoring you in favour of his friend, prompting him in whispers to leave this place and fight this battle another day.

At the prompting, the two blonde men made their way out, leaving you without a glance.

He would have wanted to help, wanted to fight harder and be the one to get you back. To start to make up for his supposed failure.

But he couldn’t fight himself and you at once. It was a battle your words had brought up full force in him again. You didn’t leave him with much choice.

Lying back down, you smiled ever so slightly to yourself, folding your hands over your stomach and taking in the sweet air around you.

Because Bucky would be the next one to see you. 

You could feel it in your bones.

PART TWENTY

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#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #avengers #avengers fanfic #avengers fanfiction #the fallout #the fallout part nineteen

[chronicbatfictioner]

A Real Boy - Chapter 9

By breakfast, Bruce was not there. Dick had gone back to the city with Barbara, and Alfred said that Bruce has "some business to attend to in the city, Sir,"

Tim figured that he was just getting the hell out of dodge to prevent the awkward discomfort between he and Tim. But then again, he'd woken up at 9, and was about to let Alfred know that he wouldn't be needing breakfast when Jason walked in with a croissant in his mouth and an announcement that his "holy massive breakfast, Tim!" was ready.

"I wasn't about to be such a hassle, Alfred," he told Alfred. The old butler/daimon scoffed.

"No such thing, Master Tim. You are as much part of the household as Master Dick is." he said. Tim could swear that Alfred's eyes had twinkled when he told Jason, who was about to protest, "and you as much as a part of the household as Zitka, Master Jason. Albeit with less apples and more bacon."

"Glad to know you don't intend to provide only apples for me, Alfred, thank you." Jason declared, grinning charmingly as Alfred placed another plate of bacon and toast in front of Jason. Tim rolled his eyes. Absolutely unimpressed and partially wondering if Jason had been a common human, he would be as obnoxious. Unfortunately, Jason took that exact time to look at Tim and caught his eye-roll. "Hey, if you rich boy didn't get the lesson on how to be courteous, I can teach you some." he quipped.

"Oh, I did get that lesson, alright. I just skipped on the part where you blatantly kissed someone's feet to get more bacon." Tim retorted.

"Bacon is food of the gods, Timothy. If feet-kissing is all that is needed to get them, that I shall do." Jason replied haughtily. "Some had sold their souls for it."

"You've just made that one up," Tim cautiously remarked. Jason's deadpan face was not helping in deciding whether his remark had been a flat-out lie or truth. The only relief was Alfred, slightly smirking behind him.

Or maybe not. Alfred was, after all, an ancient being, too.

Tim wondered if it was a bad idea to bring two ancient, humanoid beings, under one roof.

The week passed with not much of a... drama, per sé. Sure, there were some strange creatures that appeared somewhere Downtown, suddenly deciding that they wanted to reside in Gotham and just have to create some ruckus to attract attention for themselves. Bruce and whatever squad he ran promptly vanquished such intentions and send those creatures back to where they had emanated from.

Some they had actually sent to Arkham Asylum, a containment place for the possessed. Supposedly, Arkham knew ways to un-possess them, exorcise the demons or whatever.

Operative word being 'whatever', because Tim knew that there were many who had left Arkham and still bearing the evilness they had possessed when they were thrown in.

Like Victor Szazs.

Szazs, once upon a time an heir of a major business - kind of like Tim - had lost his family business and fortune due to his own arrogance and gambling. Afterward, something snapped in him and he had started murdering people, claiming that each of the cut he'd made on his body to represent each kill would make him live longer.

"Uh, no." Jason actually cringed as he came up behind Tim and read Szazs' statement. Bruce had sent the case file to Tim, to see if he could figure out Szazs' possible next victim. "Demons would never make such a promise. If he said one had, he's lying or being lied-to."

Tim sighed. "Imagine how convenient our lives would be if ancients like you or Alfred or Zitka or other familiars are legally allowed to testify in court..." he groused.

Jason chuckled. "Yeeeah, some of us aren't quite so benevolent, either. We could lie and have no consequences of our lies. We don't subscribe to your deities, you know." he remarked. "shit, some of us were even your deities at some point in time."

Tim turned and glared at Jason contemplatively. "Would a familiar actually lead the magi to... like, do evil things?"

"No, at least not if they'd come to where I came from, right? More likely it's the magi who'd make his familiar do evil. The worst we could do is evil by silence." Jason replied. He thought for a moment, and then added, "or omission."

"Mmhmmm..." Tim hummed. "I understand omission. Your job is to protect me, after all." Jason placed his hand flat on Tim's head. "Right?" Tim pressed.

"Absolutely."

"I'd rather you don't omit any information for me, though, even if it could hurt me. I need all information before I can figure out what steps to take to handle something." Tim prompted.

"Sure," Jason replied. "it's not like you'll not jump from a ledge if I say it could kill you if you wanted to save somebody below, is it?"

"Absolutely," Tim echoed, grinning. "But I'll know how to make myself not dead if you could tell me things like, how far the distance is below, between ledges, how long of a rope I'd need... you know, things like that."

Jason sighed. "I'm a familiar, Tim, not an engineer." he said. "What I can and will do if you ever leap off a ledge is catch you and fly you out of there to safety. I cannot, however, go in advance and let you know of the dangers up ahead or stuff like that."

"Okay, that sounds good to me." Tim mused.

"I'd rather you don't put yourself in such a predicament, though, but I reckon I'll sound like a hypocrite." Jason added.

Tim looked at him curiously. "So allying myself with Bruce and Dick and Barbara and whatever crew they might have is and will be bringing danger to me. Why did you do it, anyway?" he asked.

"Okay, three reasons: First and foremost, you're untrained. It'll be more dangerous if you roam around on your own. They can train you, at least physically." Jason pointed out. "Magickally, that'll be my part. But stealth isn't exactly my forté, as you can probably tell..." Tim rolled his eyes, flashing back to the time when Jason first appeared. Other familiars would have slipped in quietly - a cat, a bird, anything. Even Zitka could slip in quietly and stealthily, probably, in spite of being an elephant. Jason just slammed into Tim's bedroom in all of his smokey glory.

"The next one: they are a formidable set of allies. Your goals align with theirs, which is to prevent the misuse of magick by... well, people like him--" Jason tapped on the laptop screen on Szazs' face. "and maybe one day have the natural creatures-- the ones called 'supernatural' by them layfolks, return and restore balance in the universe once again."

Jason was quiet for a good long while, that Tim had to turn again and looked at him. "What's the third?"

His eyes were a little blank, as if he was thinking of something else and was miles away from the question. So Tim snapped his fingers in front of Jason's face, only to have the latter caught his hand. "Don't. I heard you. The third is that they-- Bruce Wayne, that is; has a book that I haven't found yet. In it, there are many knowledge that even the All Caste didn't have in writing. They only have snippets of the knowledge that's generally useless, and if I can complete the snippets, it'll bring a massive change to the balance of power in the universe."

"And that should benefit me, how?" Tim wanted to know.

Jason glared back at him, seemed ambivalent at first, but then answered, "it'll give you all you ever wanted, Tim. Anything and everything. Even the dead."

It took nearly a whole minute before Tim spoke again, after battling and sorting the thousands of questions in his head. "Explain."

Jason shifted uneasily, turning to face Tim. "Remember the Pinocchio story, the tale about him being carved from enchanted wood? Not the sugared-up children's tale about him being 'blessed' by a fairy and come to life?"

"Yes, I have original fairy tales at home." Tim replied a little snarkily, because he did. His parents never thought of the children's version of fairy tales and instead would always give him the spooky, banal ones. "You would know of the nightmares I've had..." he added.

"Yeah, well, it's my duty to let you know that some of them are more like the kids' tales than the spooky ones. But anyway! Pinocchio. He was actually literally enchanted; fictional adventure notwithstanding. Now, said spell had been used to bring to life a lot of things--"

"Oh my god... Pinocchio was an effigy!" Tim suddenly caught on.

"Yeah, that. But effigies were not the only ones brought to life. Still, the spell was lost and my... 'school', so to speak, has been investigating the whereabout of the book since time immemorial; and concluded that it was lost in the hand of an unnamed warlock." Jason continued.

"Given that there are barely a handful of warlocks nowadays, and Bruce came from a long line of warlocks, you assumed it would've been in his ancestor's possession." Tim concluded.

"Exactly. Now, in the hands of a warlock - even someone like Bruce Wayne, the book is useless. But that would not prevent it from being acquired by a magickal person. Now..." Jason exhaled slowly. "...I can't postulate. But from what have been happening in the past... since I got to you, I have fears that the book could be in the wrong hands."

"Hence your insistence to find it. Did you ask Alfred?"

"Daimons didn't have the same views as familiars, Tim, Alfred could probably tell me where something is if I know what it looks like. Like, I could probably ask him for first editions Arthur Conan Doyle books, and he'll be able to point it to me. But this... book - I only call it book based on the ancient All Caste description of 'tome'. It could be in pieces, it could be a carved rock or pots or vases or papyrus..." Jason elaborated. "Alfred wouldn't care nor have curiosity of the contents of it, even if he could read it and/or are interested in modern age's literature..."

Tim sighed dejectedly. "Okay, I'll pinpoint this guy Szazs' next victim - I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Barbara can cross-check it later. And then I'll help you in finding this book or what? --just so we can go home afterward."

"I can't tell you what it looks like, alright? A second pair of eyes is handy, but I still can't tell your or show you what it looks like. It's just... if you see it, you'll know it."

"Thanks for the vagueness. Good thing my brain is pattern-based. See? Now I think I've got like, three possible next victim and hopefully Bruce can mobilize some protection before... whatever insanity Szasz is trying to do can actually--" Tim grumbled as he clicked the 'send' button. His report and analysis will be sent to Barbara, who would be assigning whoever she deemed necessary to protect the three-to-five probable victims. "Okay, let's--" Tim abruptly stood up, groaning as his muscles protested at the sudden movement. He stretched his entire body gently, getting a good yawn for good measure, and looked at Jason. "Let's?"

Jason hesitated for a long time before he nodded. "Alright. Let's go roam this obnoxiously massive mansion. Maybe we'll be able to go home before dark."

As daylight started to fade, Tim - and Jason - had to admit that looking for a 'tome' that defies description; may not look like an actual book; and likelyhidden by magick; in a mansion that is as big as several city blocks; was "an exercise in insanity," - according to Dick - who had returned at three p.m. from his errands - even after Alfred, Dick, and Zitka lent their literal and metaphorical hands.

"Exercise in insanity, indeed. But there is a benefit: I now know which parts of the house that are in dire needs of deep cleansing." Alfred commented mournfully, after observing the cobwebs on Tim's head. "Do not shake your head, Master Tim. Allow me." he added, and then a small dustpan and brush appeared out of nowhere as he brushed the cobweb off Tim's head.

Tim barely managed just not to shudder. "I think we'll need a shower..." he lamented.

"Bathrooms at the ready in your respective bedrooms, young sirs. And Master Dick, kindly utilize the showers and not the bathtubs. Otherwise you shall clean it yourself." Alfred remarked, glaring at Dick who was a little worse for wear than Tim - thanks to his insistence on looking at literal nooks and crannies above their heads, on the ceilings and thereabout.

DIck grinned unrepentantly at Alfred, and then glared daggers at Jason - who remained pristine. "There are times in life I wish I was a familiar... or has the ability to be dust-proof."

Jason snickered back at him. "There are times I wish I were something else, but in this right here time, I'm just happy at being dust-free."

"You two still thinking of going home?" Dick asked.

"Yeah, I gotta. I have early classes tomorrow." Tim replied.

Dick nodded. "Okay... I'll go with you. We'll get to town before Bruce gets back so I can hitch a ride with him."

"Dude, no need. It's not that dark, yet..." Tim protested. But Dick just gave him a blank glare.

"...and the city isn't exactly like, a few dozen miles away. Anyway! I have to get myself some stuff, anyway. Just... pretend you're giving me a lift if your pride is not happy." Dick replied.

"Okay, fine..." Tim sighed. "But you're not driving my car."

Dick gave him a mock gasp. "Oh nooo... what would I do now that I'm not allowed to drive you millennial's hybrid car!" he mourned. Tim grinned. Dick's car was a sportscar that cost about four times Tim's. Probably as much in fuel, as well.

"I'm sure you'll find some ways to keep yourself entertained..." Tim retorted. "So, fifteen minutes?"

"Good for me." Dick nodded, getting up to get to his own showers. "Might want to make a note on what you'll need from downtown, Alfred!"

It took nearly all the way back to town, where the city lights started to illuminate the horizon, that Tim realized that the atmosphere has indeed changed. The roads were not dark, yet there seemed to be spots where the darkness were... less diluted.

"Yeah, most of those spirits are just hangin' out, but some are... not." Dick explained. "The main reason why we prefer to go in pairs of humans. No offense to familiars. Just..."

"I get it. They... I can't protect you if you concede to their ways. And those aren't the kind who'd use physical violence, per sé." Jason huffed. "Like, if you see a baby deer in the middle of the road, not moving. What are you going to do?-- kind of thing."

"Good people would stop." Tim stated.

"Good people traveling alone will then be theirs. Especially if they're magis." Dick intoned.

"Oh," Tim exhaled. "How come I've never seen them before?"

"You didn't have a familiar before. They're aiming for those who already have a familiar." Dick paused. "I have no clue what they'd do to the familiar, if the magi is... like, converted or something. But you know, just to be on the safe side, let's not try to find out, yeah?"

"Right," Tim mumbled a reply while trying to ignore the questions in his mind. He decided right there and then that he wanted to know, just so he could figure out how to not fall prey to whatever lurked on the road from Wayne Manor to Gotham. From the passenger's side, Jason sighed heavily.

"I'll look for why, who, what, or how. Right now, I think we better concentrate on Gothamites' legendary road rage, so we can get home in one piece."

#Tim Drake #Jason Todd #Alfred Pennyworth #Dick Grayson #no-capeAU #Magi!AU #batbros #Manor Shenanigans #JayTim #batfam

[acekyloren-blog]

Reylo Song Compilation from the Official SW Spotify Playlists + Their Recurring Themes

(A.K.A. More Reylo Receipts, A.K. A. They Couldn’t Make It Any More Obvious)

The two official spotify playlists being discussed: Rey / Kylo Ren

For ease of access, I decided to compile all of the possible Reylo-centric songs that the Star Wars official Spotify has put in Rey and Kylo Ren’s playlists. Many are blatantly referencing their dark/light dynamic, while others are only vaguely referencing what could possibly be Reylo, but could also possibly be referring to other relationships - those songs have been pointed out. I wanted to outline the songs that are clearly Reylo-centric, so I also included the best lyrics to give as evidence as to why that song is Reylo-centric. Beneath the lists are the analyses of these love songs and the recurring themes throughout them from both Rey and Kylo Ren. 

Truth be told, after paying attention to all the love songs in Rey and Kylo Ren’s playlists, I am 98% sure Reylo is now, or will be, A Real Thing. The other 2% is the possibility that it will an unrequited love from Kylo Ren towards Rey, because Kylo Ren’s love songs are so assuredly about Rey (female pronouns, too romantic to be Leia) while there are still a few of Rey’s songs that cannot be 100% proven to be about Kylo Ren. That being said, a large majority of her love songs, as will be discussed, revolve around fighting and conflict - so unless she will have another love interest that is going to be fighting with her in the trilogy, I’d say those ones are at least definitely pointed towards Kylo Ren.

*possibly referring to rey and f.inn, possibly referring to kylo and leia or merely kylo himself > my personal favourites because they just scream reylo

While looking through these lyrics, remember to keep in mind that these songs were specifically chosen to be put in OFFICIAL Star Wars playlists for these characters for a reason. In the order that they were listed in playlists:

Rey’s Playlist

NO ONE - ALICIA KEYS* ( people keep talking they can say what they like // but all i know is everything's going to be alright // no one can get in the way of what i feel for you )

COMPASS - ZELLA DAY* (  if we make it out alive, from the depths of the seas // compass points you anywhere closer to me // where you are, i will be )

COME AND GET IT - SELENA GOMEZ ( can't stop because i love it, hate the way i love you )

LEVELS - NICK JONAS (  so much to discover, please don't stop me now // all this heat keep rising, make you stop, drop, and roll // i’m bottling up the lightning, supernatural )

CAN’T FEEL MY FACE - THE WEEKND* ( and i know she'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb // and she'll always get the best of me, the worst is yet to come // all the misery was necessary when we're deep in love )

OMEN - DISCLOSURE ( i'm feeling something, something different //  needed you to show me, without you I am lonely // my mind would rule my heart // i didn't pay attention to the light in the dark, it left me torn apart )

WE FOUND LOVE - RIHANNA ( it's the way I'm feeling i just can't deny //  shine a light through an open door // turn away 'cause i need you more //  we found love in a hopeless place )

BLUE JEANS - LANA DEL REY ( you fit me better than my favorite sweater, and i know that love is mean, and love hurts )

> BATTLEFIELD - JORDIN SPARKS ( i never meant to start a war, you know, i never wanna hurt you // don't even know we're fighting for, why does love always feel like a battlefield // baby, we don't have to fight )

A SKY FULL OF STARS - COLDPLAY ( i don't care, go on and tear me apart //   'cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars i think i saw you //  'cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars, i wanna die in your arms )

RUNAWAY (U & I) - GALANTIS* ( even if we’re strangers til we die //  anywhere out this place, i wanna run away, just U and I )

SMOKE AND FIRE - SABRINA CARPENTER ( oh, oh, our love is running into a burning building // feel the heat, so we started running // you know you saw it coming, but the memories are still in my mind )

DIAMONDS - RIHANNA* ( you and i, you and i, we’re like diamonds in the sky // i knew that we’d become one right away // at first sight i felt the energy of sun rays, i saw the life inside your eyes )

> WILD - TROYE SIVAN ( trying hard not to fall // leave this blue neighbourhood, never knew loving could hurt this good, oh and it drives me wild // 'cause when you look like that I've never ever wanted to be so bad )

SHUT UP AND DANCE - WALK THE MOON* ( this woman is my destiny // we were victims of the night // oh we were bound to get together // deep in her eyes, i think I see the future, i realize this is my last chance )

OUR OWN HOUSE - MISTERWIVES* ( into my soul you stared and bored down every fear // we built our own house with our hands over our hearts )

> BLOODSTREAM - TRANSVIOLET ( cruel desire, danger in our consequence // hey, you wanna rule the world? outlaw love, make you lose control // cosmic violence, chills dripping like acid rain, keep coming back cause it's you i crave )

> FORCE OF NATURE - BEA MILLER ( i tried to tie my heart down, board up all the windows, oh but it's too late now, i let you get too close // i know i should take cover, hide inside these four walls, but baby i surrender, it all // 'cause you're a force of nature, look at what you've done // i can taste the danger, but i don't wanna run, so pull me to the ground and i won't put up a fight )

Kylo Ren’s Playlist

ANGELS FALL - BREAKING BENJAMIN* ( grey skies will chase the light away no longer // when angels fall with broken wings, i can't give up, i can't give in // when all is lost and daylight ends, i'll carry you and we will live forever, for ever )

DARK SIDE OF ME - COHEED AND CAMBRIA* ( in this cold reality i made, this selfish war machine, oh, this has become hell, how can i share this life with someone else? // i am not equipped to comprehend human rationale, sirius, is this what love is? )

ASHES OF EDEN - BREAKING BENJAMIN* ( i am not worthy of this // stay with me, don't let me go, because there's nothing left at all // will the light begin to pull me to its everlasting will // heaven above me, take my hand, shine until there's nothing left but you )

NEVER GIVING UP - OF MICE AND MEN ( even though i know you want me to, i'm never giving up on you // you'll never know just how hard it is for me to see you this way, it tears me up, drags me down )

> OUT OF TIME - A DAY TO REMEMBER ( i finally found her, and when i did i just couldn't make things right, is this really happening? oh, god, i think i just ruined my life // don't think you've got to go in alone here // you won't see it, but believe me, i need to be right where you are // 'cause now i think that everything's about you )

EVIL - INTERPOL ( when your friends they do come crying, tell them now your pleasure's set up on slow-release // i can take you places, do you need a new man? // you need someone to take you there, sandy, why can't we look the other way? )

THE ANSWER - SAVAGES ( i saw the answer, it was a girl, will you go ask her // love is the answer // to cry about love, to wait for her, to wait for dying, i can't wait )

AT LEAST I’M KNOWN FOR SOMETHING - NEW FOUND GLORY ( i tried so hard to keep you coming back my way, but you don't know the half and i’m the one to blame // i let my front down and i know i will regret it )

> DEAD INSIDE - MUSE* ( your lips feel warm to the touch, you can bring me back to life // feel me now, hold me please, i need you to see who i am // open up to me, stop hiding from me // it's hurting babe, only you can stop the pain // now i've become just like you, my lips feel warm to the touch, my words seem so alive )

ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS - COLD WAR KIDS ( i have been waiting for you to find that all of this could be yours tonight )

BREED - NIRVANA* ( i don't mean to stare, we don't have to breed // we could plant a house, we could build a tree // i don't even care, we could have all three // she said, she said, she said )

> INNERVISION - SYSTEM OF A DOWN ( i have to find you, i have to meet you // i need to find you, i need to seek my innervision // it's never too late to reinvent the bicycle // a smile brings forth energy or life, giving your force, vision )

> SATELLITE - RISE AGAINST ( we are the orphans of the American dream, so shine your light on me // she told me that she never could face the world again, so i offered up a plan, we'll sneak out while they sleep, and sail off in the night )

> BORED TO DEATH - BLINK-182 ( there's a stranger staring at the ceiling, rescuing a tiger from a tree, the pictures in her head are always dreaming, each of them means everything to me // i think i met her at the minute that the rhythm was set down, i said i'm sorry i'm a bit of a letdown )  

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE - POWERMAN 5000 ( are you ready to go? cause i'm ready to go, what you gonna do, baby? are you goin' with me? cause i'm goin' with you // now who's the light and who is the devil? you can't decide, so i'll be your guide )

> A CROSS AND A GIRL NAMED BLESSED - EVANS BLUE ( there’s a pretty girl somewhere, with a pretty name, but i could never let you know how much this means // i swear we'll end this war, cause we both know It wasn't worth fighting for // she said to me i will be driving in the wrong direction, did you ever think that maybe your life is heading in the wrong direction, baby )

Lyric Analyses & Themes

I will now begin to group together recurring themes in Rey and Kylo Ren’s playlists in order to correlate similarities and parallels. This includes well-known themes that may hint towards certain theories, such as Kylo Ren’s redemption, Reylo sharing a force bond, the balancing of the force, and the Gray Jedi becoming canon. To make parallels clearer, Rey and Kylo Ren’s supporting evidence for each theme will be paired side by side.

“THE TABOO RELATIONSHIP”

Some of the songs hint at disgruntled friends or rumours because of a relationship, and the subjects of the song continuing onwards with their relationship regardless of what anybody says or thinks. Alternatively, it also relates to the initial feeling of guilt or shame for feeling as though they are ‘taboo’ or should not be together. This theme is especially relevant to Reylo in that if they were to come together, it would surely cause friction amongst the other protagonists, and initially Rey and Kylo Ren would have likely been confused and unsure about these feelings themselves. 

Rey’s Evidence:

“People keep talking, they can say what they like, but all I know is everything's going to be alright, no one can get in the way of what I feel for you [...] I know people will try, try to divide, something so real.” - No One, Alicia Keys

“It's the way I'm feeling I just can't deny.” - We Found Love, Rihanna

"Trying hard not to fall [...] 'Cause when you look like that I've never ever wanted to be so bad.” - Wild, Troye Sivan

“I tried to tie my heart down, board up all the windows, oh but it's too late now, I let you get too close.” - Force of Nature, Bea Miller

“Hey, you wanna rule the world? Outlaw love, make you lose control.” - Bloodstream, Transviolet

“Anywhere out this place, I wanna run away, just U and I.” - Runaway, Galantis

Kylo Ren’s Evidence:

“When your friends they do come crying, tell them now your pleasure's set up on slow-release.” - Evil, Interpol

"I am not equipped to comprehend human rationale, sirius, is this what love is?” Dark Side of Me, Coheed and Cambria

“I let my front down and I know I will regret it.” - At Least I’m Known for Something, New Found Glory

“We'll sneak out while they sleep, and sail off in the night.” - Satellite, Rise Against

“LOVERS ON OPPOSING SIDES OF THE WAR”

That ever-present Reylo theme that constantly gets mistaken as ‘abuse’. As Rey and Kylo Ren are not in a romantic relationship currently but are instead on opposing sides of the war, this theme touches on the struggle of fighting or hurting someone (or being hurt yourself) for reasons you don’t understand or believe, but have instead been manipulated by outside forces to do so. At this current point in time they are pawns in a war they didn’t start, and I personally believe these songs hint at their growing frustration at this fact. These songs also show the struggle of fighting a war when love gets thrown in the mix to complicate things. Interestingly enough, there are a lot more love songs about fighting or conflict in Rey’s playlist, whereas there are a lot more love songs about redemption or unworthiness in Kylo Ren’s playlist (which will be discussed later). These could possibly be the two prevalent emotions from Rey and Kylo Ren towards their relationship throughout Episode 8.

Rey’s Evidence:

"I never meant to start a war, you know, I never wanna hurt you, don't even know we're fighting for. Why does love always feel like a battlefield? Baby, we don't have to fight.” - Battlefield, Jordin Sparks

“I know I should take cover, hide inside these four walls, but baby I surrender, it all [...] I can taste the danger, but I don't wanna run, so pull me to the ground and I won't put up a fight.” - Force of Nature, Bea Miller

“And I know she'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb. And she'll always get the best of me, the worst is yet to come. All the misery was necessary when we're deep in love.” - Can’t Feel My Face, The Weeknd (unsure, this could very well be from Rey’s point of view towards another female character, or from Kylo Ren’s point of view towards Rey)

“I don't care, go on and tear me apart, [...] 'cause you're a sky a sky full of stars, I wanna die in your arms.” - A Sky Full of Stars, Coldplay

“Oh, oh, our love is running into a burning building.” - Smoke and Fire, Sabrina Carpenter

“Cruel desire, danger in our consequence. Cosmic violence, chills dripping like acid rain [...] Hold me, break me.” - Bloodstream, Transviolet

“Can't stop because I love it, hate the way I love you [...] This love will be the death of me, but I know I'll die happily.” - Come and Get It, Selena Gomez

“We found love in a hopeless place.” - We Found Love, Rihanna

“And I know that love is mean, and love hurts.” - Blue Jeans, Lana Del Rey

“Never knew loving could hurt this good, oh and it drives me wild.” - Wild, Troye Sivan

Kylo Ren’s Evidence:

“You'll never know just how hard it is for me to see you this way, it tears me up, drags me down.” - Never Giving Up, Of Mice and Men

“I swear we'll end this war, cause we both know It wasn't worth fighting for.” - A Cross and a Girl Named Blessed, Evans Blue

“Sandy, why can't we look the other way?” - Evil, Interpol

“TWO HALVES OF ONE” & “FORCE BOND”

The good ol’ red string of fate theory, based on the repeated tweets of red strings of fate, and the curious lines in the SW: TFA canon books, script, and official website, that clearly describe how Rey and Kylo Ren’s destinies are intertwined and that they both know they are connected somehow. If you haven’t already been informed of this information, you can watch it here. Basically, the Star Wars website says that a “mysterious connection links the two,” and constantly mentions this “strange connection” throughout the informational images. In addition to this, Rey and Kylo Ren are now being referred to as “two halves of our protagonist” or “dual protagonists” by the writers. This is also connected to the fact that both Rey and Kylo Ren appear to have prior knowledge - at least subconsciously - of one another before meeting in person, such as Rey’s dreams featuring Kylo Ren (though she only realizes this when she meets him) and Kylo Ren’s famous “It is you,” line. They also realize this in the script where it says: “Kylo Ren nearly touches her face... They’re both surprised: they react to a feeling that passes between them - an energy they recognize in each other.” I personally believe that this connection is their ‘force bond’: a unique link between two force users that also allows special telepathic communication of thoughts, dreams, messages, etc. While it was usually known to exist between master and apprentice, two lovers on the opposing light and dark sides of the force, Bastila and Revan (that many have pointed out have parallels with Rey and Kylo Ren), were known to have such a bond. These lyrics heavily hint at intertwining destinies, Rey and Kylo Ren being two halves of one, and the strange, irrepressible connection of what could be a force bond.

Rey’s Evidence:

“I knew that we’d become one right away. At first sight I felt the energy of sun rays, I saw the life inside your eyes.” - Diamonds, Rihanna

“I'm feeling something, something different, needed you to show me, without you I am lonely.” Omen, Disclosure.

“'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars I think I saw you.” - A Sky Full of Stars, Coldplay

“This woman is my destiny. We were victims of the night, oh we were bound to get together [...] deep in her eyes, I think I see the future, I realize this is my last chance.” - Shut Up and Dance, Walk the Moon (sung from a male’s voice about a forthright female, again, possibly still about Rey and another female character, or it could be from Kylo Ren’s point of view)

“You know you saw it coming, but the memories are still in my mind.” - Smoke and Fire, Sabrina Carpenter

“You fit me better than my favorite sweater.” - Blue Jeans, Lana Del Rey

“If we make it out alive, from the depths of the seas [...] compass points you anywhere closer to me. Where you are, I will be.” - Compass, Zella Day 

“Into my soul you stared and bored down every fear. We built our own house with our hands over our hearts.” - Our Own House, MisterWives

“Keep coming back cause it's you I crave [...] Take me, I need you in my bloodstream.” - Bloodstream, Transviolet

Kylo Ren’s Evidence:

“I finally found her [...] You won't see it, but believe me, I need to be right where you are, 'cause now I think that everything's about you.” - Out of Time, A Day to Remember 

“I saw the answer, it was a girl, will you go ask her? Love is the answer.” - The Answer, Savages 

“There’s a pretty girl somewhere, with a pretty name, but I could never let you know how much this means.” - A Cross and a Girl Named Blessed, Evans Blue

“I have to find you, I have to meet you. I need to find you, I need to seek my innervision.” - Innervision, System of a Down

“The pictures in her head are always dreaming, each of them means everything to me.” - Bored to Death, Blink-182

“Don’t you worry about your bad dreams, ‘cause I’m not in them.” - Bad Dreams, Joywave

“UNWORTHINESS LEADS TO REDEMPTION”

I don’t think I need to explain this theme too much, but basically I believe these songs hint at Kylo Ren’s redemption, and how Rey plays a key part in that redemption due to Kylo Ren’s feelings of unworthiness towards her in his current ‘monstrous’ state (however, please do not assume that I think that is her only role in the dynamic). I will not go too much into the specific theme of Rey’s light and Kylo Ren’s darkness in terms of the Force, as I will discuss that and the lyrics relating to that in more detail next. This theme focuses heavily on the workings within Kylo Ren’s own mind, meaning all of the songs will be from his playlist as the best hints at his inner struggle and what causes it would be seen from his own perspective. I think these lyrics are sure evidence of Rey affecting Kylo Ren’s redemption. Kylo Ren’s redemption is also implied throughout his playlist to be ignited by his refusal to continue obeying Snoke’s wishes; but as I discuss this topic separately from Reylo, you can find it in my ‘redemption when’ tag. As mentioned previously, while a majority of Rey’s love songs center around fighting and conflict, this is the theme that a majority of Kylo Ren’s love songs center around instead.

Kylo Ren’s Evidence:

“In this cold reality I made, this selfish war machine, oh, this has become hell, how can I share this life with someone else?” - Dark Side of Me, Coheed and Cambria

“I finally found her, and when I did I just couldn't make things right. Is this really happening? Oh, god, I think I just ruined my life.” - Out of Time, A Day to Remember

“She said to me [...] did you ever think that maybe your life is heading in the wrong direction, baby?” - A Cross and a Girl Named Blessed, Evans Blue

“There's a stranger staring at the ceiling, rescuing a tiger from a tree. The pictures in her head are always dreaming, each of them means everything to me [...] I think I met her at the minute that the rhythm was set down, I said I'm sorry I'm a bit of a letdown.” - Bored to Death, Blink-182

“I am not worthy of this [...] Stay with me, don't let me go, because there's nothing left at all [...] Heaven above me, take my hand, shine until there's nothing left but you.” - Ashes of Eden, Breaking Benjamin

“Your lips feel warm to the touch, you can bring me back to life. Feel me now, hold me please, I need you to see who I am. It's hurting babe, only you can stop the pain [...] Now I've become just like you, my lips feel warm to the touch, my words seem so alive.” - Dead Inside, Muse

“LIGHT AND DARK”

The concept of both light and darkness, and some kind of ‘force’, being mentioned throughout these songs seem to link Rey and Kylo Ren together. The struggle between both the Light and the Dark and finding balance can be seen both in Rey’s playlist and Kylo Ren’s playlist, leaning towards the theory that they will both be the key to balancing out the force in each other. 

Rey’s Evidence:

“My mind would rule my heart. I didn't pay attention to the light in the dark, it left me torn apart.” - Omen, Disclosure 

“I’m bottling up the lightning, supernatural.” - Levels, Nick Jonas

“Shine a light through an open door.” - We Found Love, Rihanna

“ At first sight I felt the energy of sun rays.” - Diamonds, Rihanna

“ Baby I surrender, it all, 'cause you're a force of nature. Look at what you've done.” - Force of Nature, Bea Miller

Kylo Ren’s Evidence:

“Grey skies will chase the light away no longer.” - Angels Fall, Breaking Benjamin

“We are the orphans of the American dream, so shine your light on me.” - Satellite, Rise Against

“Will the light begin to pull me to its everlasting will? Heaven above me, take my hand, shine until there's nothing left but you.” - Ashes of Eden, Breaking Benjamin

“Now who's the light and who is the devil? You can't decide, so I'll be your guide.” - When Worlds Collide, Powerman 5000

“A smile brings forth energy or life, giving your force, vision.” - Innervision, System of a Down

“KYLO REN’S LOYALTY TO REY”

The last little theme I’d like to point out. Though it is another theme that is only prevalent in Kylo Ren’s love songs, it is a theme that is especially important given how it showcases something Rey needs: somebody to stick by her against the loneliness. Somebody who understands her, and who won’t abandon her. These love songs in Kylo Ren’s playlist display his undeniably persistent nature of never giving up on the subject of his love songs. Whether or not Reylo will be canonically reciprocated, I think it is quite obvious that Kylo Ren, at the very least, is very attached to, and loyal to Rey (or will be). The Star Wars informational pictures also suggest this switch of loyalty from Snoke to Rey, as do many of the other songs in Kylo Ren’s playlist that talk of Kylo Ren being sick of somebody’s lies and torture, and rebelling against them (as mentioned before, this is discussed more in my ‘redemption when’ tag linked previously). Anyway, here are the lyrics in Kylo Ren’s playlist that give evidence to this:

“When angels fall with broken wings, I can't give up, I can't give in. When all is lost and daylight ends, I'll carry you and we will live forever, for ever.” - Angels Fall, Breaking Benjamin (nudge: bridal carry)

“Even though I know you want me to, I'm never giving up on you.” - Never Giving Up, Of Mice and Men

“Don't think you've got to go in alone here.” - Out of Time, A Day to Remember

“To cry about love, to wait for her, to wait for dying.” - The Answer, Savages

“I can take you places, do you need a new man?” - Evil, Interpol

“I have been waiting for you to find that all of this could be yours tonight.” - All This Could Be Yours, Cold War Kids

“Are you ready to go? 'Cause I'm ready to go. What you gonna do, baby? Are you goin' with me? ‘Cause I'm goin' with you.” - When Worlds Collide, Powerman 5000

“GRAY JEDI”

As a last hurrah to the end of all these analyses of playlists I’ve listened to for hours on end, here is one of my favourite tidbits of lyrics that I find veeeeery interesting:

“It's never too late to reinvent the bicycle.” - Innervision, System of a Down

In a song that already mentions things like “force” and “innervisions” and seeking someone in particular for these things, this one line strikes me as being very much like Daenery Targaryen’s famous “I’m going to break the wheel” line. My interpretation of this line, in this song, is that it could perhaps refer to Kylo Ren seeking out Rey due to his ‘innervision’ and then both of them ‘reinventing the bicycle’ so to say: reinventing the past orders of Jedi and Sith into a balance of what we know as the Gray Jedi. Of course, this is only one small line in altogether over a hundred songs between the playlists, so it could very well just be something coincidental. I just found it to be a very interesting point I could end my analyses on. If anybody even actually read this far, I tip my hat to you because honestly I just wanted to write my thoughts down in a coherent manner so that I could solidify them for myself - but perhaps someone else might find this information as interesting as I have!

#kylo ren #reylo #ben solo #reylo meta

[imagine-darksiders]

Hi everyone, so, I feel like I’ve been neglecting Death of late and well, I ended up writing this like, nearly 5000 word, Death centric one shot. It’s not a reader insert, more of a look at how Death’s numerous visits to Earth could have gone. 

So, the year is 1349 in the heart of England’s plague infested countryside. Death has been given leave to collect the thousands upon thousands of souls that clutter the earth but on one of his harvests, he meets someone who asks for his help and it proves just how difficult it must be to be the Reaper. 

Warning for Black Death symptoms, buboes, blood, child death and inaccurate facts. 

<3 Love you all, hope you enjoy. I think this is longer than anything else I’ve written. :/

---

A cold wind from the west coast blows cruel and sharp across the english countryside in the dead of night. It whistles through the trees and fervently shakes the last surviving leaves from their places atop the branches. Autumn has reluctantly relinquished its hold on the Britain, allowing winter to cut a fresh swathe of death through the already dead land.

In a large, muddy field that lays only a few miles from the outskirts of the human city of Bristol, a lone figure draped in a billowing, black cloak, slowly paces up and down a smouldering, shallow hole that's been dug into the Earth by many hands.

The figure resembles an unnaturally tall man with a sickly, ashen complexion and eyes that burn brighter than the embers glowing deep in the pit. A mask of off-white bone sits securely over the man's face, hiding whatever lurks beneath from sight.

 He has both hands raised and sweeps them out over the hole in a slow arcing motion, then suddenly, he comes to a halt and swivels his head around like a periscope until it finally looks down upon a young woman with fresh burns peeling away at her black-spotted skin. The stranger's hand hovers over her body. After a moment or two of silence, save for the howling of the wind, there's movement. Something wispy and ghastly green slithers from between her teeth and twists its way towards the shrouded figure. 

The woman's soul seems to moan with relief when it disappears beneath the black cloak to wherever the man – Death – had sent her.

From somewhere behind the final horseman of the apocalypse, there comes yet another, stifled cough, the fifth one in as many minutes. But still, Death continues to work and doesn't turn around.

She'd been watching him for a while now, a young peasant girl who he'd wager was no older than seven or perhaps eight years old. However, so far all she'd done was plonk herself down on the stone wall surrounding the field, bundle herself further into her sheepskins and rabbit furs and watch him, curiously.

So, he just let her be.

Had she been a little older, Death might have seen fit to send her screaming and crying back to her village, away from the dangerous, burning plague pit. As it is, the horseman has so far managed to convince himself that he simply can't be bothered to frighten a small child.

That, and the wet coughs coupled with the garish swelling on her neck tells him that it would likely be a pointless effort anyway.

He doubts she'll survive the week and that's if the cold doesn't take her first.

Another spluttering, hacking bout of coughs abruptly pulls Death from his dreary musings. But these ones sound much closer than before. He glances back over his shoulder and nearly groans aloud when he spots the girl stumbling towards him. She'd managed to hop down from her seat on the wall and began to trot over to where he's standing, tripping every now and then in the thick mud. But as soon as she notices he’s staring at her, she freezes in place. The girl stands stock-still as Death narrows his eyes warningly.

If only she'd known that at that moment, he was the least of her worries. Perhaps she did know but didn’t care, regardless.

After a few more moments engaged in their silent staring competition, the horseman finally turns back to his task and continues to ignore her. This endeavour proves fruitless though when her tiny, squelching footsteps resume. Death's keen ears pick up the sound of her laboured breathing over the dark night's wind.  The horseman sighs audibly when, a few seconds later, he feels a tug at the hem of his cloak.

“S'cuse me mister!” the girl calls up to him boldly as she gives the fabric one final yank, “Are you a doctor?”

Not all the willpower in the universe could have kept Death's sudden bark of laughter at bay. Incredulous, he turns to look down at her properly, cloak blowing elegantly around himself and the girl as he does.

“What on Earth,” he begins, “could have possibly given you the impression that I am?”

Surprisingly, she doesn't even hesitate before jabbing a pale finger up at his masked face.

“That mask, doctors wear those, don't they?” she explains as though it were painfully obvious and he were a fool for not making the connection. “'Cept, you've not got the beak the other ones do...” 

Realisation hits and Death makes a quiet 'oh' noise in response.

The Plague Doctors. His white mask and black cloak. 

He's actually rather impressed with her logic. But the night is still dark, cold and wrought with danger, especially for someone as young and frail as her. Now that Death can get a better look at the young human, he notices how thin she is. Her mousy blonde hair hangs to her shoulders, ratty and unkempt, a lot like his. Her eyes are large and oak-brown, but thick with fatigue and the prominent dark circles underneath indicate many a sleepless night.

'I really ought to send her on her way home,' he ponders to himself. 

“I don't have a beak because I am not a doctor,” he reveals, “and little girls are not supposed to be running around alone in the middle of the night. Now, run along home.”

The child glares up at him without a trace of fear and completely ignores his command, instead asking, “If you're not a doctor, then who are you?” She squints suspiciously and folds two scrawny arms over her chest.

“Audacious little thing, aren't you?” Death observes, to which she smiles proudly, but confusedly, unsure of the large word. With a rumbling moan, Death rolls his eyes heavenward and decides that if he humours her, there's a chance she'll leave him alone.... A slim chance.

Drawing himself up to his full height and allowing the cloak to fly haphazardly around in the strong breeze, Death looms over the girl with a menacing glare. “I,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “am Death.”

“That's not a real name.”

The horseman deflates considerably, then scowls down at her sharply. “I can assure you that it is.”

She shakes her head stubbornly. “Is not. Death's a thing, s'not a person.”

“Oh? And yet, here I am, how do you explain me?” he quips with a smirk.

The child opens her mouth and closes it several times until she gives up and huffs in defeat. Then she shrugs and scratches at her hair. “You're funny looking.”

“A deeply cutting retort,” he deadpans.

'Children. Afraid of everything they needn't be, and brave in the face of everything they shouldn't.'

If she were older, she’d likely join her fellow humans and blame him for everything that’s been happening on Earth right now. But maybe she thinks he really is just a strange man in a mask. 

Just as quickly as she was to dispute his name, she rears her head again and thrusts a thumb into her chest.

“Well, I'm Isabella!' she suddenly proclaims, “but all my friends used to call me Tibby.”

“Used to- oh...” Death casts his eyes over the plague pit they stand beside. He hadn't initially realised how many of the bodies were so vastly smaller than the rest.

The girl at his side also falls silent. When the horseman glances down at her again, he notices she's rubbing at the bubo on her neck. With her other hand, she points towards the woman's body who's soul he'd just harvested and asks, innocently, “Why're you stealin' their ghosts?”

“I am not stealing their ghosts,” Death explains patiently, “I'm....collecting their souls.”

Isabella tilts her head up at him. “Why?”

“Because that's my job.”

“Ooooh,” she breathes. Then, “My pa was a farmer.”

“Fascinating.”

She shrugs, oblivious to his disinterest, “Not really. Now he's gone and Nicholas is sick-”

Death starts when Isabella suddenly falls victim to a vicious series of coughs. Almost instinctively, he drops to a knee and places one large hand on her back, wincing at the way he can feel her spine entirely too easily beneath his fingers.

The child clutches at her throat with a look of pain etched onto her exhausted features until she at last stops and pulls the sheepskin coat further around her shoulders.

“You really should be getting home,” the horseman coaxes softly, “You'll only get worse out here...Surely your mother is worried about you?” As he speaks, Death becomes aware that the girl has edged closer underneath him until she's placed herself between his bent leg and the cloak.

However, when he suggests that she return home, the child becomes frantic. She latches onto his hand and winds all ten of her fingers tightly around two of his long, slender ones.

“No! M-ma's not been right in the head since pa died! And I promised Nick I'd come home with a doctor!”

‘Ah, that explains why she’s been watching me so intently.’ 

Death furrows his brows tenderly. “Isabella-”

“But all the doctors have stopped coming to the village!” the girls pleads despairingly, “and I can't find anyone else who'll help me!” 

The wind drops a little so the sound doesn't seem quite so oppressive as it once did.

“Please?” she begs in a sudden whisper. Her head falls against the back of Death's hand and she squeezes his appendage to her chest imploringly. “Please, Mister Death, I need your help...”

“Tibby.”

At the sound of her favoured name, the girl becomes curious enough to raise her head. The horseman has placed his free hand over her shoulder and stares at her face intently. 

“I am not a doctor,” he reiterates, but when her bottom lip begins to wobble, Death sighs dramatically and hangs his head a moment. Then he lifts it again and regards the child tiredly.

“But, I will come and see your brother. If he can be-” The horseman hesitates and glances down at the girl, who looks back up at him hopefully. “-helped,” Death concludes carefully, “then I shall do what I can.”

With that, he stands and Isabella is forced to let go of his fingers. A sharp whistle rings out over the moaning wind and the girl shivers when something eerie and spectral whinnies its reply. The ground below her feet starts to rumble violently and the sound of thundering hooves grows louder and louder until, all of a terrifying sudden, from the soil below her feet bursts a monster from the depths of Hell itself. 

It's a horse, at least as far as she can tell. But its not like any horse she'd ever seen. Isabella screams and stumbles backwards as the frightful, green and grey beast rears up on its hind legs before her. From her position on the ground, the little human can see the creature's exposed ribcage and the muscles that stretch taught over its otherwise boney frame.

“Despair, stop showing off,” the horseman scolds.

The horse, Despair, crashes back to Earth with a snort and a shake of his airy mane. He whickers down at the small girl who pushes her own hair out of her face and stares up at the ethereal beast warily.

From her back, Death steps up and places his hands beneath her armpits and starts to lift her up towards the mount. The horseman isn't sure if he should be relieved or insulted that the child is more afraid of his horse than she is of him.

The moment he picks her up, the girl starts to cry out. Death, assuming she's just kicking up a fuss about being placed on the dreadful nag, scolds her for squirming. “Stop wriggling,” he growls, “you've asked me for my help and I've deigned to give it to you. Despair will not-”

“My – my arms Mister!” she suddenly begs, cutting him off, “The swellings! Please, you're hurting me!”

At that, Death practically throws the poor child the rest of the way onto the saddle in an effort to stop harming her without dropping her to the hard ground below.

As soon as she's secure in her seat, he retracts his arms and lets his hands hover over her, just touching the surface of her coat. 

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, genuinely remorseful.

Despite the fact that she's bent double, teeth clenched through the pain and eyes streaming with hot tears, Isabella manages to offer the horseman a shaky smile.

“S'not your fault,” she whimpers, “You didn't know.”

The Reaper pauses with one hand on the saddle horn. He looks at her watery eyes and strained smile and finds himself at a loss.

Here is a human, one who is suffering beyond what’s just. A suffering that he'd inadvertently worsened, but she isn't blaming him.

'Perhaps this plague has rendered her delirious?' he wonders. But that doesn't quite stem the flow of pleasant surprise that washes over his old, dead heart. 

'It's not your fault.' He couldn't recall having ever heard those words. At least, not for a long, long time.

Truly, humans continue to astound him.

The horseman hums non-committally before pulling himself up into the saddle behind Isabella. Looking down, he sees that she's now taken up attempting to grab Despair's wispy, smoke-like mane between her fingers.

Perhaps 'astound' isn't the right word....

Turning them around with a quick squeeze of his heel, Death takes one last look down into the burning plague pit and grunts. He sweeps his cloak back over the horse's tail and gives a sharp flick of the wrist, pulling four lingering souls from their mortal vessels. They slither across the ground towards his mount's hooves and flit up the hind legs, finally vanishing underneath the void-black trails of the horseman's Earthly disguise.

Nodding, satisfied, Death returns his attention to the road ahead, the girl pressed into his stomach and the grim task he'd gone and gotten himself roped up in. 

The harvest will be bountiful, it seems.

---

Before too long, the unusual trio finds themselves approaching Isabella's village. The moon has reached its peak and it casts eerie shadows of dead trees, skeletal, sleeping animals and dank little cottages over the dusty road.

Somewhere close by, a cat yowls angrily, which prompts his young travelling companion to weakly grasp the ragged edge of Death's cloak and clutch it to her chest. The horseman raises an eyebrow, but allows it.

She'd been getting rapidly worse since they left the field. Twice already, she'd suddenly lurched sideways to throw up over the side of the saddle. Blood and bile splattered over Despair's hooves and the poor girl barely got out the word 'sorry' before she was heaving again. Death could only rub soothing circles over her back and reach down with his other hand to pull her hair out of the way whilst trying to reassure her that Despair has had far worse substances attached to his hooves than a small child's stomach contents.

After a few minutes of silently riding between the peasant homes, Isabella raises a fragile arm and points to the darkened doorway of an old, stone-walled cottage. “There,” she coughs.

The horseman gives a light tug at his steed's reins, but Despair has already turned towards the house and draws to a halt before the door.

Sickness and infection festers all around them here, Death can practically taste it lingering in the air as he lowers himself to the ground and tries to decide how best to transport the child.

He grimaces when he sees how fast she's deteriorated in the last few hours. Her thin hair hangs limp  and sticks to her face that's drenched with sweat. Those big, soft brown eyes are now half-lidded and dull as they drag themselves over to watch him expectantly. She sounds as though she can barely breathe.

But still, Isabella lifts her leg, as her pa had taught her, and swings it behind herself, over the saddle until she's standing with both feet in one of the stirrups. She then tries to follow Death's suit and lowers herself down towards the mud below. Her foot stretches as far as she can make it, yet it barely comes close to finding purchase on anything. Abruptly, the girl lets out a quiet gasp when a strong, solid arm appears beneath her thighs and lifts her clear off the side of the horse. A hand catches her stomach, keeping her from toppling forwards off her new seat, before she's tucked gently against a cold, but sturdy chest.

The girl glances up at her new friend in surprise and notes that he's not looking at her, but rather, at her home. Death tries not to think too hard about how she weighs little more than his crow, Dust. In lieu of any other distractions, he steps up to the door and pushes it open slowly.

Darkness greets them, along with the stench of vomit and something else so foul that Death would rather put it out of his mind.

Movement captures his attention and Death's hand instantly flies to the handle of his scythe as he angles the rest of his body away from the potential threat, shielding Isabella from harm. But before he can unsheathe his weapon, the child in his arms thumps at the horseman's chest with her fist.

“Stop!” she whines, “That's ma! Don't hurt her!”

Indeed, upon closer inspection, the horseman notices that the shadowy figure in the corner is a woman. She's lit by the flames of two candles and sits in a rickety, wooden chair that faces a small window. Her face is more sunken and haggared than the Crowfather's and her eyes, blacker than his feathered cowl. When they entered the house, she turned her head gradually to look their way. Now, she just stares with dead-eyes at Death's white mask.

If she felt any fear in his presence or if she even recognised his grim visage, she didn't show it. She didn't show much of anything though, to be honest. She just kept staring.

“A real conversationalist, your mother,” the horseman mutters to his passenger whilst his eyes scope the room and eventually land on the cause of his visit.

“S'like I told you,” the girl replies timidly, “not right since pa died..”

But Death's attention is too focused on the bed at the end of the room.

For the life of him, he isn't sure why he'd expected someone older.

This boy that lays before him in the little bed beside his mother couldn't have been much older than Isabella. He was barely into adolescence.

But, speaking of the sister.....

The child fidgets in Death's hold until he bends to one knee and releases her onto the cold floor. Pattering up to the bed, she leans over in on her toes to whisper in her brother's ear as the Reaper watches on, silent.

“Nicholas, are you awake?”

For a tense while, nothing happens. But then, the boy's eyelids begin to flutter delicately open. He strains to look over at his sister and then he notices Death standing behind her.

Nicholas's face twists painfully into a look of confusion as he tries to focus his eyes in the dark. Then dark blue meets bright orange and they lock. The boy takes in Death's cloak, mask and his scythe.  After a few seconds, his eyes close slowly in comprehension.

“This is Mister Death,” comes Isabella's hushed whisper again, “He's here to help.”

'Help...' Death's gaze lowers from Nicholas to the girl at his feet. She may not come to like his rather...loose definition of the term. She would learn.

Her brother, however, seems to understand it perfectly.

But rather than appearing frightened, as Death had half expected, the boy actually seems relieved.

“....thank....God.....” is his raspy, agony-ridden response.

Isabella turns to address the horseman behind her.

“Can you help him?” she begs in desperation.

Death, for all his self control, cannot suppress the gentle sigh that passes his lips. He steps forward and crouches beside the bed, once more catching the boy's pleading gaze. Nicholas swallows and gasps loudly at the pain it brings, but he opens his mouth to speak and gestures at his sister with one, frail finger.

“...don't let-” he has to stop and draw in a shuddering breath, “-her...see....”

Isabella tilts her head to the side, confused. But Death gives the boy a grim nod. Still, he had to at least try and explain to the youngest amongst them that sometimes, the hardest solutions are the kindest.

The horseman takes the child by her waist in both hands, mindful of the swellings under her arms, then lifts her onto the bed next to her brother.

“Tibby,” he rumbles seriously. She stares at his masked face with wet eyes, clearly having picked up on the severity of his next words.

“You must listen to me very carefully now, little one.” Death reaches up a hand to pull his hood down and shakes the ebony tresses loose. “Your brother is very sick, and very weak....As he is, Nicholas here could last another week in total agony.”

“He might get better,” Isabella protests with loosely clenched fists.

The horseman shakes his head. “He will not.”

Death and the girl stare each other down, neither moving until a fragile voice breaks their unspoken stalemate.

“Tibby....” the boy wheezes, “....please....it hurts too....much....”

His sister takes his hand with what little strength she has left and presses a kiss to it.

“He will suffer greatly if I don't take him now,” Death murmurs, “He will only continue to get worse until he finally dies in an excruciatingly painful way. Or, he can die now, with his sister at his side, in his bed at home. Quick and clean, on his own terms.”

The entire situation is laughable, the idea that Death is asking a little girl to stand aside as though she were really an effective buffer between her brother and death itself. Unfortunately for him, the Reaper would be loathe to admit it, but she is the only thing that's stopping him from just putting the boy out of his misery.

Oh, if his siblings could see him now...

Whatever response the girl had, is lost to another violent coughing fit. She whirls away from Death and throws up over the house's wall instead. The vile fluid drips down onto the thin sheets and she nearly collapses on top of her brother. But the horseman swiftly reaches over the bed to pluck her up and set her down again on the floor in front of him. With a subtle nod to Nicholas, Death places a hand over Isabella's head and presses her face into his cloak gently, but firmly whilst his free hand carefully draws the scythe. At the metallic 'shing' of the blade being unsheathed, Nicholas begins to tremble terribly, but he doesn't protest.

Death couldn't help but to commend him on his courage so far. “You are an incredibly brave young man,” he soothes as best he can with such a gravelly voice, “braver than most warriors I've faced....Close your eyes young one. The pain will be over soon.”

Isabella stirs under his hand, her tears soaking through the thin cloak and wetting the horseman's grey skin. “W-will it h-h-hurt him?” she hiccoughs.

“It will feel like falling asleep...” Death lies.

But it's a necessary lie, he feels. For their sake. For hers, especially.

Though the horseman suspects that the boy can see right through such a loose facade. However, he merely nods, gives Death a sliver of a smile and turns his head towards the ceiling. Two blue eyes slip closed and he releases his last breath.

Swiftly, but carefully, the Reaper flips his scythe so that the outer curve of the blade is facing down towards Nicholas's neck, mutters a private apology and draws the scythe across the boy's slender throat.

The horseman presses Isabella even more securely to his chest when she starts to scream and cry out for her brother, pounding her little fists against him with no effect. She tries to weakly turn around, but Death won't let her. Not until her brother's body stops writhing.

The girl is so feeble by now though, that she falls into a silent, dry-heaving heap against Death's stomach.

Wordlessly, the horseman picks her back up and stalks over to the wall furthest from Nicholas's body. Placing his back against the cold stone, Death slides down it until Isabella is curled up in his lap, still beating uselessly at his hands.

He holds her firmly against him until she stops trying to escape his hold and instead twists her fingers into his cloak and breathes rapidly, gasping for air on occasion as though she can't quite get enough of it.

A few minutes after she stops crying, the young girl breaks the silence with a question that Death had not been expecting, but probably should have.

“D'you think...they'll get to heaven?”

The horseman peers down at her and replies, “That's not how it works. Souls go to-” but he cuts himself off harshly. He'd gotten callous.

Really, what harm could one more lie do?

Death angles the child's so that he can look properly into her too-trusting, pale little face.

“Of course they will.”

“D'you promise?”

He looks away from her and his luminous eyes harden.

“I promise.”

Isabella coughs once, this time sounding as though there's something rattling in her chest, like a liquid. “Thank you....Death,” she breathes. Those tiny fingers leave his cloak and reach out to touch the back of his hand that rests on his thigh.

“Stay with me?” the girl mumbles drowsily.

Death looks out the window and watches the moon hover brightly just above the nearby city's church spire. He has souls to reap and the Council are sure to call on him soon, demanding his leave of Earth. Not even Death has all the time in the world, apparently.

But perhaps, just this once, he can spare a day. Just one.

The horseman gazes at the human in his lap and notices that her eyes have fallen closed.

Still, she speaks. “You called me....Tibby,” she quietly observes.

Death's eyebrows raise at the bizarre recollection, wondering of its significance.

“Friends call me Tibby,” she smiles, but it soon turns into a wince.

The horseman's gaze softens significantly. “I will stay,” he whispers, “Tibby.”

'At least until morning.'

----

She didn’t even last until sunrise.

Death’s suspicions had been right. The vile liquid that sat, pungent in her buboes had somehow burst inside her and her lungs had filled with infected blood and viscous fluid. She’d drowned in her sleep without a sound.

Shamefully, Death barely even noticed the moment when her heart stopped beating.

He'd been so wrapped up in determining whether or not he should do to her the same 'kindness' he'd shown her brother if she got that bad, that her little body had long grown as cold as his before Death realised.

The Reaper bumps his head back into the wall behind him and sighs, long and tired. He sits there for a while longer, cradling his young friend and thinking of his own family. 

But, as usual, duty calls.

Death left Isabella's cold corpse on the bed beside her brother and closed her eyes before he lifted a hand towards Nicholas. From between the boy's blue lips, a soul oozes out and looks the horseman dead in the eyes before it turns to gaze at the bodies on the bed. Death's head falls to the side slightly. 'This is new,' he muses. The soul tears its gaze from the bed and steps towards the Reaper, then it's lost within the cloak.

He knew that humans are complex creatures, but he didn’t realise just how complex they’d grown over the centuries.

The horseman grunts once, then turns to do the same to Tibby. At first, he struggles to mentally grasp the slippery thing. “Come on, little one,” Death chuckles softly, “You can't stay in there forever.”

The soul bounces rather than slithers, swirls instead of slides out of the girl's mouth and flits over to Death. It beams up at him and he returns the smile with one of his own. The soul didn't need to see it to know that it was there beneath the mask. Finally, like so many before, it joins Death with a whisper of relief and a flourish of his cloak.

Standing to leave, the horseman strolls to the door and spares the woman in the chair a cursory glance. His fingers twitch against the hilt of his scythe, but he leaves it where it is. 

She suffers from a different kind of sickness. For now, her body remains uncorrupted, but her mind....

Death turns from the room and steps out into the dawn's light. The mother watches, but doesn't see him go.  

Swift and silent as a shadow, the Reaper glides east, out of the village and on towards the city. 

There is a harvest to collect.

And he'd only just begun.

#darksiders #imagine darksiders #plague #pestilence #corruption #oooh #death #hurt

[rainbowserenity]

Do you still take prompts? If so, how about Hoperai with the Hanahaki Disease/Byou?

NaNo total: 10685/50000

Hanahaki Disease is a fictional disease where the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love.

Thefirst time it happened, he was just shy of his twenty-second birthdayand his team had just discovered their first Oracle Drive.

Hehonestly had no idea what was going to be on it. Sure, their years ofresearch had showed them that the tribes that lived around herealways had a Seeress named Yeul and that her visions were oftenrecorded in such devices, but he’d never expected that they’dactually find one.

Therewere a couple of days where he refused to let the team open it ortouch it, mostly for fear of breaking it, though there was somethingelse in him screaming not to active the Drive. Even though hehonestly had absolutely no idea what could’ve possibly been recorded– hell, it was likely something that had already happenedmany years ago – a part of himwas hugely hesitant.

Activatingthe Drive turned out to be a total accident. Alyssa started pokingaround it one evening and apparently pressed the right thing thatcaused a huge cloud of light to open up above them. The images itshowed were blurry and the picture kept fizzling in and out – odd,since the Oracle Drive itself was in near-perfect condition – butwhat it showed was unmistakable.

Arose-hairedwoman rode a horse covered in armor, not even holding on as shebrandished her sword and shield. Herhair and eyes stood out against the oddly bleak world that seemed tobe around her…at least until an unfamiliar purple-haired man showedup.

Thevision didn’t show much more than that, but he was too much in shockto care.

Lightning...?

Hehadn’t let himself think about her for more than a minute or two at atime during all these years. Whenever he did, he forced himself tothink of Fang and Vanille as well, since they’d all assumed that shewas trapped in the pillar just like they were.

Hadthey been wrong all this time? Where was she? Why was shefighting alone?

Hischest physically hurt in a way it hadn’t in years. Honestly, this wasexactly why he hadn’t allowed himself more than a passing thought ofher for so long – it hurt too much otherwise, like his heart wasliterally twisting in pain and his lungs were about to burst -

Hecoughed.

Pinkand white flower petals burst from him and littered the table.

Hestared in horror before abruptly sweeping them away from the eyes ofeveryone else and doing his best to kick them out of sight. It wasjust in time, too, since Alyssa suddenly spun around, clasping herhands together in excitement. “Director, this is incredible!I can’t believe we were able to recover a working Oracle Drive!”

“Y-Yes,”Hope agreed, trying not to cough, lest petals explode from his mouthagain. His heart was already pounding at the implications of thisdisease suddenly spiking when he’d seen an image of Lightning.

Alyssatilted her head, tapping her finger to her chin. “Are you allright, Director? You look kind of...shocked.”

“Isuppose I am.” He cleared his throat, willing himself not to cough.“I’m pretty sure the woman in that image is…Lightning Farron.”

Afew other people that’d been milling around after watching the OracleDrive heard this and gasped. Alyssa’s eyes went wide. None of thissurprised Hope very much – everyone knew the names of the l'cie whohad stopped Cocoon from falling, but much like himself, they’d allassumed that Lightning was in the pillar with Fang and Vanille.

Sowhat was this...?

“Youthink she’s alive?” Alyssa mused. “I mean, wherever she is inthere,” she added, waving a hand where they’d seen the images fromthe Oracle Drive.

“Idon’t know,” Hope was forced to admit. “I’ve never seen her weararmor like that, nor have I ever seen that place. We need to do moreresearch.”

Alyssalet out an overly dramatic sigh. “Easier said than done! We canbarely even see what’s on that Drive!”

Shewas right, but if Lightning was alive somewhere, he wasn’t going tolet something like static-y images stop him. Luckily, as this thoughtcrossed his mind, Alyssa had already turned around when he coughed upmore flower petals.

Hewasn’t going to let a case of HanahakiDisease stophim, either.

–

WhenSerah and her new friend Noel appeared out of nowhere a few yearslater, Hope was somehow not surprised that apparently, in somealternate timeline, the Oracle Drive was messed up from a paradox.He’d never experienced as much for himself, but Serah was just likeher sister – steadfast and convincing when it mattered.

Butbest not to think about that too hard.

Thefact that there were alternate timelines and paradoxes definitelypiqued his interest. It explained why he hadn’t seen Serah in thepast ten years, yet she looked exactly the same. Hell, maybe it wouldexplain where Snow and Sazh had disappeared off to.

Andmaybe...

“Lightningis alive in that place,” Hope said with determination once Serahand Noel had watched the Oracle Drive. “Inmy memory, Lightning disappeared after the battle with Orphan. Butshe’s living somewhere in the future.”

“Soit’s not just a dream, is it?” Serah asked, looking for all theworld like those dreams had finally come true.

Shewasn’t the only one. “She’s out there,” Hope insisted.

“Then…I’mgoing to find her,” Serah answered, sounding more determined thanever.

OnlySerah had more of a clauseto find Lightning than he did. Hell, wherever Lightning was, sheprobably wanted to see her sister more than him or anyone else. Butthe thought of truly findingLightning…thethought that something as simple as more research could bring herback to them…

“Hope?!”

Hebarely heard Serah and Noel’s cries of concern as he doubledover. This time, there was absolutely no hiding it – pink and whiteflower petals scattered into the air with every cough andlittered at his feet. He coughed for so long that he wondered ifroots had already grown in his lungs and this was the end, but itfinally tapered off and he managed to stand upright again, his legs abit wobbly.

Alyssawas staring at him in horror. “Director?”

Noelwas all wide-eyed as well, though he didn’t look nearly asscandalized as Alyssa did. It was Serah that went up to his side andpatted his back, her voice sympathetic.

“It’sLightning, isn’t it?”

Hisanswer was to cough up more petals, chest twisting in the pain ofunrequited love.

–

Somehow,through planning and building the Augusta Tower and hearing Serahyell at him through a paradox, he managed to keep the disease at bay.Everyone knew that Hanahaki Disease was fatal if your love wasn’treturned, and Hope knew he had a lower chance of survival than most,with what Lightning being in Valhalla.

Itdidn’t really matter, though. As long as he could build his new worldand stop Cocoon from falling – or at least minimize the damage –his life would be put to use.

Justa little bit more time. That was all he needed.

Oncehis team had invented the time capsules, Hope knew he would need tomake use of them. He didn’t have the resources now to put his ideasinto motion, but surely they would in the future. Since there wasclearly a limit on his life at this point, he needed to go.

Thoughhe tried to keep the disease a secret, a few people had found outover the years, and practically all of them gave him the same advice:to find someone else. If he could distract himself with anotherperson, maybe he’d fall in love with themand forget about Lightning. He could live his life for himselfinsteadof constantly that his own lungs were going to drown him in a burstof flower petals.

Henever took the advice. Sure, he tried to go on a date or two, but itnever amounted to much. Hell, even though he’d tried to avoidthinking about her after she’d disappeared, Hope had always knownthat there was only one person for him.

Lightning.

Itwas why these time capsules were necessary to his plans – not onlyto set them in motion, but also because they gave him the only senseof hope he had that he could help save the world.

“Goodluck, Director,” one of his teammates said as he settled into thetime capsule. “I know you’ll make us all proud.”

“Ishould be the one saying that,” Hope replied with a chuckle. “IfI find out in the future that any of you messed up, I’ll find someway to come back.”

Everyonelaughed gently,even Alyssa, who was already snug inside her own time capsule. She’djumped at the chance to head to the future and he’d had to agree –having his assistant around would hopefully make carrying out hisplans a little easier.

“Thatwon’t be a problem. We’ll take care of things until you wake up inthe future, okay?” His teammates all looked concerned. “…Andyou’d better wake up, you here?”

Right.The disease could fill his lungs at any moment. Best not to think toohard about that.

“Iwill,” he reassured. That seemed to pacify them and they finallyclosed the time capsule with a few more “goodbyes” and “goodlucks!”

Andthen…silence.

Itwasn’t as though he was going to be awake for centuries; the processwas a complicated formula that manipulated space-time from his pointof view. While he’d only be in here for a day at the most, centurieswould go by on the outside. It’d go faster if he could fall asleep,so he shifted around, trying to do just that.

Hopefullywhen he was released, things would be progressing as planned.

Hell,maybe there would even be a cure for the petals crowding his lungs.

–

Thiswasn’t quite a lucid dream, but he was in that weird state where hejust knew this was a dream. Everything felt just slightly toooff-kilter and unreal.

Plus,there was the fact that he was basically surrounded by a vastnothingness. While he’d momentarily felt that once during the secondshe’d been crystallized, this wasn’t quite the same.

“Hope.”

Hespun around, eyes growing wide as the one person he’d been trying tofind all these years effortlessly appeared in front of him.

“Light?”he gasped, instantly crossing the space towards her. As much as hedesperately wanted to, he didn’t reach out for her, somehow justknowing that whatever he touched wouldn’t feel solid under hisfingertips.

Shemanaged a tiny smile. “It’s me.”

“Thisis a dream, isn’t it?”

“Yes,”she confirmed, taking another little step towards him. For the firsttime, he noticed that she was wearing the same armor and feathersthat adorned her in the Oracle Drive. Did that mean she was still inValhalla?

“Light…”

Sheheld a hand up. “We don’t have a lot of time. I know you havequestions, but unfortunately, you’ll have to find the answers foryourself.”

“Sothat means there are answers?”

“Ithink so.” Lightning dropped her hand and lifted her head to meethis eyes. “And you’ll find them, Hope. If anyone can, it’s you.Trust in yourself, because you’re on the right path.”

Thetense feeling in his shoulders relaxed somewhat. “That’s good tohear. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if this was all fornothing.” Or if he was doing the wrong thing – a waste of hislife when unrequited love could take root in his lungs at any moment.

“It’snot,” she reassured him. There was a little pause before she took acouple of steps closer. Hope didn’t move, not yet wanting to wakefrom whatever dream this was.

Hestill had no idea if she was real or simply projecting an image ofherself from Valhalla, but her touch felt real enough as shereached out and traced his jaw with her fingertips. It felt likefeathers dancing on his skin, a sensation he was helpless against. Asigh escaped him and he leaned into her hand.

“Light…”

“You’vegrown so much.” Her voice wasn’t like anything he’d ever heard fromher before – a reverent whisper full of emotion. “I’m proud ofwho you’ve become. I’m sorry I wasn’t around in person to see it.”

“Iam who I am because of you,” Hope admitted, tentatively reaching upto cover her hand with his own. Their fingers intertwined. “Rememberwhat you told me all those years ago? That ‘it’s not a question ofcan or can’t’?”

“Somethings in life you just do,” she finished with a little smile. “I’mglad you took those words to heart.”

“Inmore ways than one.”

Itwas as though those words lit a switch in Lightning’s mind, becauseshe stepped back a bit – though still holding onto his hand – andlooked up at him curiously, her eyes searching his. Whether it was aneffect of her being in Valhalla for so long or something else, for aninstant, he saw so many possibilities of the past and future,of what could happen spun a thousand different ways. They all spun inhis mind, but there was one constant.

Heand Lightning were together.

Shevisibly swallowed a lump in her throat and squeezed his hand with awistful expression. “I need to go. I can’t leave Valhalla forlong.”

“Iunderstand.” No, he didn’t. He didn’t understand why he couldn’tjust take Lightning in his arms and the two of them could escapewhatever horrors awaited the rest of humanity.

“Youhave a job to do.” She slowly slid her hand from his. “You’ll bethe hope we all need.”

“Light…”

“Justremember…” she said as her image began to fade away, though shekept staring at him with longing. “You’re on the right path. I knowit.”

–

Thoughhe’d only been here in Academia 400AF for a few days, Hope felt likethis was exactly where he was meant to be. Everyone treated him likesome kind of legend and asked his opinions on everything, which wasoverwhelming, but it was great to actually put his research to workto really better the future.

Somehow,he wasn’t all that surprised when Serah and Noel showed up a coupledays later. He greeted them happily and of course, pretty muchimmediately sent them on a mission. If only he’d known they would’veneeded those Graviton Cores, but at least Serah and Noel were indeedgreat at finding lost objects.

Beforethey went off to look, they stayed to chat, which Hope appreciated.Besides those two, he hadn’t seen any of his friends in the fleshfor…well, centuries now. Noel was off to the side talking toAlyssa, so he gladly chatted with Serah.

“WhileI was in the time capsule, I had a…vision. Or maybe it was adream,” he mused. “I saw Lightning.”

“Youdid?!”

“Yes.”Though he wasn’t about to reveal everything about that dream,Serah was the one person in the world who would get as excited as himabout seeing her. “She told me I was on the right path. So Isuppose that this plan of ours…creating this new world and makingthe net for when Cocoon does fall…”

“Soundslike it’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

“Ithink so.” At least, he hoped so. Cocoon was set to fall inabout a century – if this plan didn’t work, there were no do-overs.

Serahwent quiet for a moment, just observing him. “…You care abouther, right? My sister, I mean.”

“Ofcourse,” he replied, maybe a little too quickly. His heart poundedat the memory of their fingers twined together, of her touch on hisface, the look in her eyes…

“Andyou’ve been thinking about her since you got out of that timecapsule?”

“Rescuingher is always on the back of my mind.”

“Hope.”Serah sounded weirdly giddy. “Have you - ”

Heaccidentally cut her off when there was a sudden tickle in his throatand coughed a couple of times to clear it. Serah was grinning widelythe whole time, her eyes sparkling. Why on earth…?

Andthen it hit him:

Hehadn’t coughed up any flower petals.

Allat once, the scant hundred years they had until Cocoon fell and theypotentially rescued Lightning couldn’t come quickly enough.

#hopelight #hoperai #hopurai #raihopu #hopelight fic #you know what's glorious #i've been reading/writing fic since was 13 #which is more than half my life #and in all that time #i've NEVER heard of this trope #this request confused the fuck out of me #but now i'm just like #WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF IT #WHY ISN'T IT EVERYWHERE #i'm glad the thought of getting more words to my nano count #basically forced me to write this lmao #this fic's about 2800 words btw #I'M GETTING THERE #SOMEHOW

[lsds-blog]

Erin

The man looks at her with undisguised hatred. She symbolises everything the state makes him endure, she's the face of institutional Islamophobia. She tries to put his rancour out of her mind and do her job, but it unsettles her. She's not tough enough. That's what everyone is always telling her. Don't be so emotional, it will destroy you, that's what her sergeant said. But she is who she is, and she's not prepared to compromise herself to fit in. She opens the man's rucksack and peers in. Clothes, a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush. “That's fine,” she says and let's him go on his way. Her smile fades as she sees his stare. She wants to apologise, but she knows this wouldn't be appropriate. Police don't apologise for doing their work. Even when the work is as useless as this. Some politician has forced this, posturing as tough for an upcoming election, spinning the idea that a terrorist attack can be avoided by checking bags at tube stations, taking resources away from where they might actually do some good.

She can't possibly check every bag; the volume of people here makes that impossible. Everyone in London is always rushing and being selected for a bag check almost universally causes ill-feeling. She sees a young woman carrying a large black leather bag and asks her to come over to the checking area. The woman turns and she sees her clearly for the first time. She has very long black hair, but her fringe is cropped to a blunt line high on her forehead. She's dressed in black: tight ripped jeans, boots, a leather bike jacket. Despite her short stature and her slightness, she's rather intimidating. She has dark make-up around her eyes, her eyebrows are thin, pointed arches, utterly unnatural, drawn in, since not a hair remains on her brows. Her full, sensuous lips are painted deep red and rings penetrate the flesh at either side of her lower lip. Her nose bears a large black ring through the septum and her smooth cheeks are pierced by round, shiny studs.

Erin is relieved to see that this young woman wears a faint smile as she accompanies her to the table. There's no malice or impatience that she's been selected, only a slight ironic amusement. Erin makes her statement, the standardised justification for these checks. The woman nods, still wearing her arch smile. She hefts the bag up onto the table. The bag looks like an oversized doctor's bag, an archaic design, but beautifully made. Clearly expensive.

“Can you open your bag please, Miss?” Erin requests.

“Oh, I'd be delighted. I love it when people call me Miss.” She opens the catch and pushes it toward Erin.

There's a set of handcuffs in the bag, the chain and rings covered with a thick coating of black rubber. Erin removes and places them on the table, better to see the rest of the contents. Then she feels her face reddening as she sees a large dildo, a butt plug, other sex toys she can't name and whose function remains obscure to her. She feels a sense of embarrassment as she has to take out these objects. She glances up to see the woman, whose smile has now broadened. She seems to take a delight in Erin's reaction. “You're blushing,” she says, incredulously. “I didn't think anyone in the Met would blush at the sight of a dildo.”

Erin tries to assert herself and puts on her most serious face. But the woman stares at her, smirking and Erin's nerve fails her. She grows flustered, blushes more. She returns to the contents of the bag. There's a coil of rope, leather straps, a flogger. There's also a smaller leather case which Erin makes to open.

“Careful,” the woman says. “There are sharp things in there. Want me to open it?” Erin nods. The case contains two pairs of scissors and a straight razor.

“Why are you carrying these?” Erin asks.

“I'm a hairdresser,” she replies with a sly look. She also lifts a set of chrome plated clippers from the bag to provide more evidence.

“And the... other things?” Erin asks. “Why does a hairdresser need handcuffs?”

“Well,” the woman smiles, “I'm seeing a special client. I'm going to tie her up so she can't move an inch, fill her holes very roughly,” (she lifts the dildo and violently prods it forward) “and cut off all her hair.”

Erin can't mask her astonishment. “Really?” she gasps. “Why would anyone want that?”

The woman shrugs. “I could give you a convoluted explanation about her need to expiate her guilt by being punished, but the short version is that it makes her cum over and over.”

“Getting her hair cut?”

“Shhh!” she says gleefully. “She doesn't know about the haircut yet. I'll surprise her with that once she's tied up.”

Erin's look of shock seems to delight her companion. “How are you going to cut it?” Erin is no longer focussing on her job, she's now overtaken with curiosity.

“I might give her something very short, a bowlcut or a flattop. Maybe shave her completely.”

“That's awful!” Erin gasps. “You can't, it's assault.”

“I'll pass her your number and you can come and arrest me.”

“I'm serious,” Erin says. “You can't just cut someone's hair off without their consent.”

“I won't. She'll sign a release to consent to everything I want to do to her. I do it with all my clients. Do you want to come and watch to make sure I stay within the law?” Erin seems to blush more every time this woman talks to her. She tries to get out a reply but remains tongue-tied. “You do want to come and watch, I bet. You're intrigued aren't you?”

Erin dismisses her. “Go and get your train. I'm sorry to have delayed you.” She frowns as she acknowledges her weakness in apologising.

“Not at all. It's been a pleasure to meet you, officer. In fact I'd love you to keep in touch. Maybe you'd like to call me and ask about what I do to my victim today.” She goes into her pocket and pulls out a card. It reads: Miss Avarice, domina.

“I do work as a real hairdresser too.” She takes another card and passes it to Erin. “I work a couple of days in a salon and I do house calls. I bet there's a lot of hair in that bun. I could give you a nice professional makeover. Make you look tougher, at least. Now put those cards in a safe place and make sure you give me a call. I'll be very disappointed if you don't, and you don't want to let me down, do you?”

Erin doesn't know how to respond. She waits for the woman to vanish but she holds her gaze. “You'll call me, won't you?” she asks, more seriously now. “You do want to know what happens with my client this afternoon, and I'll tell you everything. Call me, OK?”

“I'll call,” Erin says hastily. She wants to be rid of this strange woman.

As the long shift proceeds Erin tries to put the encounter out of her mind. That's easy during the rush hour; the station is overwhelmed with commuters and the levels of resentment increase as she makes office workers miss their train home. But then the rush dwindles and there's hardly anyone in the station, which relies on those office workers for its business. Now she has lots of time to think and she can't stop thinking. Somewhere in London is there a woman who's sobbing as she looks at herself in the mirror, her hair savaged into a humiliating new style which will take years to grow out? She feels guilty imagining this. But why is she guilty? She has had no part in this act. She realises she feels guilty because these thoughts excite her.

Erin drives home, the business cards now transferred to her purse. At home she takes them out to study them. The same mobile number on both cards, but on the hairdressing card the name is different: Ava P. She finds herself wondering if Ava is her real name or if it's a contraction of her dominatrix persona. Miss Avarice, how ridiculous to use such a name! She muses on whether there are another six dominatrices who call themselves after the other deadly sins. She smiles as she imagines a Miss Sloth, a Miss Gluttony.

But then her mood changes as she remembers Ava. She was very sexy! Not the type of woman who would usually attract Erin, but there was something about her look. Her eyes, her lips, even with those piercings. That beautiful long hair, so shiny, silky, black. Erin thinks it was probably not even dyed, she had quite dark skin. She can't shake the image of some poor innocent being bound and shorn. An unexpected haircut. Her fingers fidget nervously with a strand of her own long, pale hair as she imagines those evil-looking clippers being forced over the poor woman's head. She imagines Ava wearing that same ironic smile as she taunts her victim. “Won't this be a surprise? Imagine all the whispering when you go to work tomorrow.”

She imagines herself as the victim, how her colleagues would tease her if she suddenly appeared with a brutally short haircut. She'd be called a lesbian, a dyke, for sure. Is that any worse than how she's viewed now? The ice queen, bloodless, sexless. Prim little Erin who blushes when she sees a dildo. But this isn't about her. She was only thinking of the other, Ava's victim. She could call her now and Ava would provide every detail of her encounter. Would she be truthful? Erin imagines she'd embellish reality. Still, she wants to know. She adds the number to her phone but can't bring herself to call. She thinks how crazy she is to dwell on this inconsequential encounter and goes to bed.

She wakes from troubled dreams of which she can only recall being in a village hall which she remembers from her childhood. She feels nervous, edgy but the details of the dream are fugitive, evanescent. Almost immediately her thoughts turn to Ava and her victim. She touches herself, not without some hesitancy. She doesn't want to encourage these thoughts, they're dangerous. But she's too weak to resist. She brings herself to a delicious climax as she imagines watching Ava torture a beautiful young woman.

It's two days before she acts on her impulse to call Ava. She knows she shouldn't but the thoughts of Ava keep coming to her vividly at unexpected moments. Finally she has a day off and decides she will call. Her heart is racing as she makes the call. She takes a sip of water as her mouth feels dry and she's afraid her voice will fail her. There are only two rings before a voice says “Hello?”

“Uh... Hi.” Erin says. “Is this Ava?”

“Who is this? I don't recognise your number.”

“It's Erin. Erin Hume. We met the other day in the tube station?”

“I don't remember,” Ava says. She sounds distrustful, aloof.

“I did a bag inspection.”

There's a pause before recognition. “Ah, our esteemed Met officer? Is that you?”

“Yes, that's me.”

“I'd forgotten about you. You took so long to call. I think that's rather rude.”

“I'm sorry. I have a very busy life.” Erin feels defensive already.

“And since you're addressing me as Ava, that must mean you want to book a haircut.”

“No, I just wanted to chat.”

“I have a clear division in my life. Ava is a hairdresser, Miss Avarice is a domina. Did you want to discuss my activities as a domina?”

“Well... yes, I suppose so.” Erin feels cowed by her directness.

“Then you should call me Miss Avarice.” There's a long silence. “Do it,” Ava says with some vehemence.

“Miss Avarice,” Erin begins, feeling the ridiculousness of her situation intensely, “I've been wondering about your encounter the other afternoon. You said you'd tell me about what happened.”

Ava chuckles. “Have you been thinking about me all this time?”

Erin feels naked. “To be honest, yes, I have been thinking about you a lot.”

“That's so sweet. But to be honest, I can barely remember you. You had brown curly hair, cut in a bob?”

“No,” Erin says, reddening. She's sure Ava is teasing her. “Long blonde hair, worn in a bun.”

“Ah, OK. You were wearing a hat?”

“I was wearing a police uniform.”

“And what are you wearing now?”

“I don't think that's...”

“Erin, don't be rude!” she says mockingly. “You'll address me correctly and answer my questions. In return I'll answer yours. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” A long pause. “Yes Miss Avarice.”

“Better. Now what are you wearing?”

“Just a big t-shirt. I've not long got out of bed.”

“No underwear?”

“Panties, no bra.”

“That sounds lovely. Now do you want me to tell you about my Tuesday client?”

“Yes Miss Avarice,” Erin says guiltily.

“And are you going to touch yourself?” Erin pauses, ashamed. “You need more direction, Erin Hume. You are going to touch yourself. You'll use your left hand and you'll rub yourself through your panties. With your right hand you'll violently fondle your breasts. Put your phone on speaker so your hands are free.”

Erin does as she's told, but reluctantly. She slides her hand under the t-shirt and presses at her firm left breast, which is shapely but not overly large. She seems sensitised. Her left hand slides between her thighs and feels the heat and moisture of her cotton panties. “Are you doing as I told you?” Ava questions.

“Yes Miss,” Erin says, her voice cracking with nerves, making her sound, she fears, like a slut.

“The client was a woman in her late thirties. A professional woman I'd seen a couple of times previously. She has a job in the city, divorced, wealthy. She's a little overweight, which is a source of embarrassment for her. In the pictures of her in her apartment she's slim. She's always well dressed and perfectly groomed. Or she was,” Ava laughs slyly.

“She loves to be bound and taunted, humiliated. I'd threatened to make her submissiveness public in the past, which was a huge fear and a bigger turn on for her. As soon as I got there I stripped her naked, forcefully. She daren't struggle against me any more. I made her display herself and examined her pussy, which she'd had fully waxed the previous day, as I'd instructed. It was lovely and smooth and as soon as I ran my fingers over it she started to moisten. And is your pussy getting wet, Erin?”

“Yes Miss Avarice,” she admits bashfully.

“Keep rubbing your lips, press the panties right into the cleft, I want them nice and wet. Anyway, I looked her up and down and it was clear that she'd gained weight. I asked her how this could be so. Seems she has an eating disorder. When she's stressed, which is often in her job, she binges on chocolate or cake. I told her she's getting a double chin, which makes her very ugly. She was already close to tears.

“I pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed her wrists. She makes little sighs when she gets excited and the cuffs made her do it. Then I put a thick dog collar on her fat neck and fastened it too tightly for comfort. I told her this collar isn't going to be let out any further so if she's gained more fat on her neck next time then she'll be unable to breathe. I tied the cuffs to the collar, pulling her wrists up her back until her shoulders were aching.

“She was whimpering and sighing constantly by now. I had to tell her not to cum, because she was already on the brink. By the way, that applies to you, too. Don't you dare cum or I'll have to punish you. I made her bend over as I penetrated her anus with two lubed fingers. You remember the big butt plug? She sucked that as I opened up her tight little hole. She's never liked anal and the pain helped to restore her control, although the humiliation made her more aroused still.

“I eased the plug in, which she didn't like. Then I made her stand and take the dildo. She was so wet by now that it went in easily, despite its size. I made her stand with her feet apart and press her thighs together to keep the dildo in. She looked so awkward in this posture, knock-kneed, all pretence of elegance gone.

“I took some photos of her, telling her that she was starting to look old and that if she didn't lose weight that no one would ever see her in a sexual way ever again. That really hurt her. She started to cry, which pleased me. I pretended it made me mad and took out my feigned anger with the flogger on her big spongy buttocks. I made them glow before I made her sit on a kitchen chair. I shortened the rope between her collar and cuffs to make her more uncomfortable, then spread her knees.

“I tied her legs to the chair so that she wasn't able to move. She was hardly able to breathe with her sobbing and sighing. I decided it was time to break the news to her. 'When a woman is over thirty she need to start thinking about her hair. You can't get away with long hair at your age.' Her hair was past her shoulders, quite thick, healthy, dyed auburn. She probably thought her hair was her best feature. At least she'd looked after it, which is more than I can say for the rest of her body. Once she saw me unload the scissors from my bag she started to panic. But what could she do?

“'Please Miss Avarice, I'll go and get it cut shorter. A nice neat style. Please don't cut it now.' She sounded like a whingeing little brat and I could hardly contain myself. I told her if she didn't stop it I'd shave her bald and ban her from wearing a wig. She was trying her best to get her panic under control but her hopes that I was just taunting her were becoming frayed. I kept snapping the blades together in her face to make her cry. Then I chopped a big chunk of hair away from the top of her head and she cried more than I'd ever managed to make her sob with the flogger.”

Suddenly there is an interruption in the flow of the narrative. Erin is disgusted at herself for her response to Ava's cruelty, yet she is completely absorbed in the telling of this tale. “I think that's enough, Erin,” Ava says coldly. “If you want to hear any more you can buy me lunch.”

“You want to meet?” Erin is suddenly alarmed.

“Not if you can't be better mannered. Address me correctly, for a start.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Avarice.”

“That's better. There's a nice Italian, Il Giardino, by Kensington Gardens, I'll expect you to be there by one to meet me.”

Erin glances at her watch. It's just about feasible to make the journey in time. “I will be, Miss Avarice,” she says impulsively. She's told that she'll receive a text with some instructions.

For the umpteenth time Erin fusses with her skirt. It's too short for her, she only wore it once previously, and now she has worn it without any underwear. She glances around the restaurant. She's under-dressed for such an expensive place, just the skirt and a little t-shirt which exposes a little midriff. At least it's only lunch time. The patrons are dressed less formally and her appearance doesn't attract too much attention.

She's sure that this place is too expensive for her means, equally certain that Ava will expect her to pick up the bill. That's if she turns up. She's already twenty minutes late, and since Erin arrived ten minutes early she's had a full half hour to allow her anxiety to ferment. She keeps telling herself that this is a bad idea, that she should leave now. Ava has made her believe she has dark desires, but why have they never troubled her before? The sensible course of action would be to withdraw and keep busy until this chance encounter is forgotten. She looks to the door, visualising her escape. But she sees a dark figure silhouetted against the sunshine and realises that escape is no longer an option. Ava has arrived.

“Hello, Miss Avarice,” Erin says softly as her guest seats herself.

“Do you always speak so quietly or are you just ashamed that someone will hear you? Speak up and greet me again.” Erin does as she's told. Ava is correct, she feels absurd addressing a lunch companion by this name. She feels her discomfort growing.

Ava is dressed similarly to the last encounter: the same jacket, tight black leggings, boots, although these are more elegant, with sharp heels. Her long hair is loose, the fringe as crisp as ever. Is it perhaps even a touch shorter, freshly trimmed? The make-up is different today, her eyes outlined in thick oily black, Cleopatra-like, her lips stained a purple so dark it's almost black. Her features are perhaps a touch sharper than Erin had remembered.

Erin takes all this in with fleeting glances. She's being examined by Ava's intimidating gaze, checked to ensure her compliance with the instructions. “You know I said I didn't remember you? Now we're together I see that's true. I wouldn't have recognised you again. You have quite a forgettable face, Erin Hume.”

She's unable to respond to this apparent insult. A waitress arrives to pass menus. There's a lunchtime menu with more reasonable prices and Erin suggests they order from this. “No, à la carte,” Ava insists. “I want the lobster, it's divine here. You should try it.”

Erin declines, explaining that she doesn't like seafood. She looks on the menu and suppresses a groan as she sees how much Ava's lobster will set her back. As the waitress takes their order Erin mentally totals how much this lunch will cost her. More than she would spend on food in a month. She feels angry with herself for getting into this position.

“Stop pouting,” Ava says sternly. “You should be happy to spend money on me. I love being given expensive gifts and when I'm happy I'll make you happy. You don't resent spending on me, do you?”

“No, Miss Avarice,” Erin says. “I want you to be happy.”

Erin is now asked to sketch some details of her life. She answers honestly: she's an only child, she grew up in a comfortable home with good parents who she visits as often as she can given that they live two hundred miles distant and that she works long hours. She's never had a relationship that lasted more than six months. She's had relationships with men and women although she feels a better fit with women, to the point where she no longer thinks of herself as bisexual but rather lesbian.

Now Ava starts to go deeper into her psyche. Erin admits that people always seem to regard her as a “good girl”, that at school she wanted to be friends with the cool kids but they never trusted her. As an only child she became comfortable with her own company, so having few friends bothered her less than it did most of her peers. She's not got close to anyone since arriving in London; she has good enough relations with colleagues, but hardly ever socialises with them outside work.

“So you wanted to be a bad girl but no one ever let you?” Erin laughs, but admits there's some truth there.

“And you saw me, and I was everything about bad girls you'd ever dreamed of?”

Erin nods. It's true, and maybe explains why she's so attracted to Ava. “You want me to bring out your bad girl, but it'll cost you. I have to feel special, and only lavish gifts make me feel loved. That and obedience.”

“That's not easy. I don't have a lot of money. Living in London isn't easy on my wage, Miss.” Erin feels upset to think that she'll be rejected because she's not wealthy. Is she so devoted to this woman already, even though she knows how badly she treats her lovers?

“I know you're not rich like some of my ladies. All I want to know is that you'll make sacrifices for me. It would make me happy to think of you going without for my sake. Or exhausting yourself working long hours of overtime so that you can buy me a nice pair of shoes. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes Miss Avarice,” Erin says. She can see that her new friend's name is no accident.

“You wanted to hear the rest of my story, didn't you?” Erin nods, but she'd prefer to hear it in private. Ava picks up a knife and polishes it with the linen napkin, paying attention to the broad, chased handle. “You can use this to stimulate yourself.” Erin looks at her with a mix of disbelief and incomprehension. “Put the handle in your slit until only the blade juts out. No one will see you, these table cloths hide everything. You'd be very surprised at what goes on under these tables.”

She pushes the heavy knife into Erin's hand and looks at her expectantly. Erin pauses, then lowers her hand beneath the edge of the table. Ava shifts her chair a little closer and her hand slides over Erin's thigh, guiding the knife toward her sex. Erin pauses, her cheeks reddening. “If you don't do it I'll never tell you. You have to trust me. Push it in.”

Erin touches the metal to her lips and tries to be courageous. She feels Ava's fine fingers slide onto her labia, parting them. “Ease it in, baby. Back and forth so you get nice and wet and it goes in easily.” Erin can barely sit still as she feels the cool metal entering her, Ava's fingers delicately probing at her. “I don't like hair on pussies. We'll get you waxed after we've eaten.”

“Yes Miss Avarice,” Erin gasps, her voice strained as she's been holding her breath. Now Ava takes hold of her hand and makes her push the handle in deep. She's unable to remain silent and a soft, high squeal passes from her mouth. Ava moves the blade from side to side to make sure the knife is embedded deeply in her.

“Oh my, what an image. A girl with a blade instead of a penis. Every boy's worst nightmare.” She resumes her story as if the gap in the tale was seconds rather than hours. “I decided it was time to introduce my little fatty to the clippers. She really begged when she saw me plugging them in. I told her that if she gave in I'd put a guard on but any resistance and I'd be shearing her to the scalp. She was very panicky and I knew that calmness was beyond her, but at least she stopped wriggling. I gave her the mercy of a guard on the clippers. It was a small guard, a two. I told her that this would leave a quarter inch of hair. I told her to bow her head without delay if she didn't want me to reconsider. I felt so powerful seeing her drop her chin to her chest, knowing that her beautiful hair was about to go.

“I started at her neck. I lifted up her hair and put the blades on her neck. She jumped when I flicked the switch. These clippers make a very loud noise when the motor engages, and I love how that crack makes subbies jump. I pressed them tight to her skin and moved them up nice and slow, savouring the drop in pitch as the blades met her hair. I told her that they were cutting away her locks and that what was left behind showed how grey her hair was now. She's very vain and the idea of showing that she's old and grey now was hard on her. I ploughed the clippers right up the back, right up to her crown. The shaved path only showed off how thick her hair was, or, a few minutes later, had been. The whole back and sides were quickly sheared down to a nice even buzz. All the dyed hair was cut away and what was left was salt and pepper stubble.”

There's a brief pause as the waitress brings the starters. Erin is made to refer to Ava as Mistress Avarice in the waitress' presence, since the latter can see that she's been uncomfortable about using this name. As the waitress retreats, Ava slips off her bike jacket. Her left arm is almost entirely tattooed. Erin starts to comment but is immediately silenced.

“Don't talk until I finish the story. You may eat and you will touch yourself under the table. If you need to cum, raise your hand.” Erin acknowledges the orders with a nod.

“At this point I decided it was time for my little piggy to see a mirror. I set one up in front of her. Of course, her hair was still long on top so when she saw herself the extent of the buzz was concealed under the long hair. I lifted her tresses clear and let her see what I'd done. I limited her ability to express her despair by gagging her now. I would have done it earlier but the strap would have interfered with buzzing her nape. I stuffed the ball into her teeth when she wasn't expecting it. I loved the look of shock as I pressed it right in, then fastened it so tight that it would make her cheeks ache.

“I wet her hair with a spray. Ice cold water, to add to her sensory feast. I combed the hair flat over her head and started to snip a nice blunt line right around her head, leaving the fringe till last so that when I cut it she finally got a good view of her new look. I'd set the weight line well over her ears, about half an inch of the buzz visible over the top of each ear. Even with the undercut her hair is so thick that I knew it would give a very heavy line so I did some texturing through the ends to soften it. Then I blew it dry, curling the ends under and getting the hair nice and smooth, so she had a nice, full mushroom bowl. She looked so weak and submissive now, and I made sure she knew it.”

Ava reaches into her pocket to get her phone to show Erin the evidence. She sees a woman who looks barely into her thirties, hardly the woman she'd imagined. She's not slim, but she has a good figure, not the obese woman Ava had suggested. In the first photographs she displays her nakedness awkwardly. Erin is shocked to see the next images, where her long hair has been severely shorn into just the style Ava described, the sides grey and clippered close. She's gagged, her make-up smeared and smudged by the indignities she's borne. Erin feels awful for her, but she can't control her excitement. She starts to gasp and holds her hand up. Ava's fingers work at her clitoris, the knife jerking up and down inside her.

“Just hold on a moment, you little slut,” Ava says affectionately. “Wait and see how she'll present herself to the world now.” Another picture of the same woman, now with her hair swept back on top, the natural wave apparent. Her face is now scrubbed of make-up and she's wearing a pair of black framed glasses. She looks much older than before her makeover, androgynous. Her expression can't hide her sadness at the look that's been forced on her, but Erin thinks that she looks beautiful.

“Please Miss Avarice, I need...” she moans, looking about anxiously to see if her shameful conduct has been observed. Is there a tiny sense of disappointment that it appears that no one is staring at her?

“Cum, you little whore,” Ava purrs in her ear. As the orgasm starts to fill her body, Erin feels Ava take hold of her jaw. She smudges her mouth with lipstick, applying a thick layer. Erin feels helpless, unable to resist, paralysed by the delicious climax. “Do you want to turn up for work tomorrow with your hair cut like hers?” Ava teases.

“Oh, no, please, Miss Avarice,” Erin wails.

By the end of the meal Erin has orgasmed three times and still holds the knife inside her. Ava has continued to work on her make-up which has been noticed by a few of the patrons. Erin has become tipsy with the prosecco she's drunk but hasn't been allowed to visit the bathroom. She has no idea how she looks any more, but Ava tells her she looks hot and that pleases her.

She pays the bill, horrified to see how much it is, sure she'll not have enough money to make it to the end of the month. But then Ava takes her to the bathroom (the knife blade jutting out under her skirt) and all worries are forgotten. She giggles as she sees herself. Her eye make-up is the same as Ava's, her lips painted a shiny black. “Oooh,” she gasps. “I look so goth. We're like sisters!”

“But there's something not right, isn't there? What is it?”

“My eyebrows.”

Ava nods, reaches in her bag. She holds out a safety razor. “Shave them and I'll draw you new ones just like mine.”

“I don't know,” Erin says. This wouldn't be something she could wash off when she gets home.

“Did you think that was a request? I don't make requests, I give orders. Shave them or I'll pluck them and I'll make it hurt.”

Erin is allowed to wet her brows before she shaves them. Ava distracts her from her task by slowly extracting the knife from her and licking it clean. Erin is suddenly confronted by her new image in the mirror. She's not herself any more. She loves it when Ava leans in close to her and draws on the new brows. They're even more dramatic than her domina's own, making her look angry and depraved.

“Aren't you a sexy little thing?” Ava demands.

“I am, Miss Avarice,” she says drunkenly, delighted with the attention.

“I'm going to take you to a spa now to get your pussy waxed. They'll think you're such a whore, won't they? You're all slimy and smelly from cumming.”

“I don't care what they think. I only care what you think, Miss Avarice.”

“Which is exactly how it should be. I think you're going to make me very happy, Erin Hume.”

Erin wakes the next day with a hangover. She doesn't know where she is, can barely remember the events of the previous night. She's slept on the floor, but she lies on thick rugs which mean she isn't uncomfortable. The room is unfamiliar and she winces as she thinks how stupid she's been to let herself get so drunk.

She sees a hank of long, black hair across the floor from her. She thinks that Ava must have cut her hair. It's not enough hair to indicate that all of her hair has been cut; perhaps, she fantasises, Ava now has a sidecut. She reaches down to stroke her sex, recoils as she feels how chafed and bruised she is.

She notices an open door which lets onto a bathroom, stumbles through to the room (en route sees that Ava is asleep in the large bed across the room) and sits on the toilet to relieve herself. Rising has made her head throb with pain, inducing a pulse of nausea, and focusses on the bathroom cabinet where she hopes she may find analgesics. She goes to the cabinet but is shocked into immobility as she catches her reflection. The hair she saw lying on the carpet is hers. Her hair is dyed black, a heavy fringe cut ridiculously high on her forehead, even shorter than Ava's. Her make-up has been scrubbed away and she has to regard herself without brows. She looks awful, she thinks. It makes her forehead look too big, her eyes look too far apart. She's weird, ugly even, with no brows, and her fringe won't allow her to hide it. She pulls the band out of her hair to let it fall free and examines her black mane. She curses. How will she ever explain this? She has to work today and she'll arrive looking like a goth?

Erin finds some painkillers in the cabinet, swallows them, drinking greedily from the tap to slake her dryness. She slumps back onto the rugs and feels herself becoming tearful. However, once the painkillers start to act she falls asleep again.

Her second return to consciousness is caused by Ava, who has lain alongside her on the floor and now presses her naked body close against Erin, kisses her lovingly on her neck and cheek. “Good morning, sleepy,” she whispers.

Erin smiles at her, despite feeling awful. Her head still aches dully, the nausea is now compounded by heartburn. Ava looks so different without make-up. For the first time Erin realises that she's very young; her cosmetics had made her look older. Erin is sure she is, at twenty-three, the elder. She looks into Ava's dark eyes, seeing her anew; her fine, short eyelashes give her a look of vulnerability. Her absent brows give her face something of the strangeness Erin remarked in her own feature, but knows that Ava pulls it off better. She tries, unsuccessfully, to guess her ethnicity. Her features and skin tone suggest some extra-European heritage. The piercings add to her exoticism.

“We're like sisters now. I love you with black hair. And that fringe is super.” Ava's fingers smooth down the short hair over her forehead.

Erin feels her pride grow, feels a thrill of lust too, despite her malaise. She glances over Ava's body which is heavily marked with tattoos; in addition to the sleeve on her left arm she has an incomplete chest piece which reaches from shoulder to shoulder, a large design on each thigh, and a smaller tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. She's tattooed more heavily that Erin should like, but then her tastes seem to be shifting very rapidly. The tattoos are suggestive of the abandonment that Ava embodies, and Erin delights in kissing her smooth, inked skin. She even imagines Ava tattooing her, which simultaneously induces horror and exhilaration.

Ava's gentle attentions make Erin feel ecstatic, her caresses and kisses. For a full hour they are wordless, savouring and treasuring the fusion of their bodies. Finally Ava falls onto her back and groans. “Oh, baby. We need to get up! I wish we could stay here forever, but the world won't wait for us.”

“Can I call you Ava?” Erin asks meekly.

Ava smiles mischievously. “Do you think you're my girlfriend now? That we're equals?”

Erin nods. “I'd like that. I really like you.”

“Well... I like you too. But I still demand that you call me Miss Avarice, because I know that you think it sounds ridiculous and I want to make you uncomfortable. And you have to understand things about me before we go any further. I make a lot of money from seeing other women, and I enjoy it. I won't stop that and if you're going to get jealous it will destroy our relationship. I think the best way would be that I'm totally open about what I do, that I tell you all about my encounters, That seemed to please you yesterday.”

There's a reddening of her cheeks as Erin recalls her shameful conduct in the restaurant. “I think I'd like that,” she admits. “Thank you, Miss Avarice.”

“I can't wait to meet some of your colleagues.”

“I don't really socialise,” Erin says.

“You will now. I can't wait to see your little cheeks glow as you tell them your girlfriend is called Miss Avarice. And then, of course, there's the fact that we're going to look alike. Same hair now. We should start on your piercings today. Get your septum and cheeks pierced.”

Erin looks at her in horror. “I can't do that!” she says. “I'd never be allowed those piercings in work.”

Ava looks at her fiercely. “But you said... Last night you promised.”

“I don't remember anything of last night. I really shouldn't drink so much.”

“It was more than drink,” Ava snorts.

“Oh God, really?” Erin feels a dread as she imagines that she could be selected for a random drug test. “I'm sorry if I promised things but I can't have facial piercings and do my job. Please, Miss Avarice, try to understand my position.”

“Cheeks and septum,” she says sternly. “You can wear something discreet in your septum on duty, it would be invisible.”

“The cheeks wouldn't be!”

“True. Either we go with the plan for you to look like me or else we go a different route. And that means haircut.”

Erin looks at her pleadingly. “Please Miss Avarice. It's just because of work. There are strict rules.”

“I gave you a choice. One word answer: piercings or haircut?”

Erin feels terrified. Is she going to be wearing the awful bowlcut that Ava inflicted on her last victim if she declines the piercings? She looks at the studs which decorate Ava's cheeks and knows that she would never be allowed on duty with these. “Haircut,” she says, defeated.

“OK, let's do it.”

“Now?” Erin is unprepared for the haste with which this is unfolding. Moments later she's in an adjoining room which is fitted with a large, antique barber chair upholstered in shiny black leather, the edges of each pad lined with silvery pyramidal studs. Erin climbs awkwardly over the footrest to take her place in the chair. She looks at the unfamiliar girl in the mirror. At least she still has long hair, but even that consolation is about to be withdrawn.

“Is Constable Hume allowed to wear make-up?” Ava asks as she fixes Erin's wrists with broad leather straps which she fastens with laces.

“A little make-up is allowed.”

“But not your eyebrows like they were yesterday?”

“Maybe if they were more naturalistic..?”

“No. I prefer that you'll wear no make-up in work.”

Erin grimaces as she imagines facing the public with this browless visage. Ava continues to immobilise her. Now she pulls leather bands around her knees, which are now attached to chains to spread her legs. A belt is fastened around her chest, just below breasts, pulling her tightly against the upright back of the chair.

Ava holds up two clips, rubber tipped with powerful springs. She snaps them menacingly before Erin's face. Are these to be applied to her nipples? In fact, the reality is worse that Erin's imagination had conceived. Ava fixes the clips to her outer labia. Despite her wish to endure her torment with stoicism, Erin groans. They pinch horribly, unbearably, and yet she has no way to remove them. Now Ava increases her suffering; fine chains on the clips are tugged so that Erin's sex gapes, and the chains are fixed to the frame of the chair. Ava licks her finger and begins to stimulate Erin's clitoris.

“Poor baby. Do you want something inside you to console you from all this pain? And the despair you'll feel at getting your long hair cut off?”

“Yes, Miss Avarice,” Erin sobs. “Please, it hurts too much.”

“I decide what's too much, don't I?” Erin nods. Ava crosses to a cabinet which is opened to reveal numerous dildos of mostly unfeasibly large magnitude. She lets her fingers stroke over each in turn as she muses on which would best suit Erin. She selects one of wide girth (it must be two and a half inches thick), maybe ten inches long. “Is this too much?” she says, teasingly.

Erin nods, but Ava remains mute, expectant. “That's for you to decide, Miss Avarice,” Erin says humbly.

Ava covers the latex phallus with a generous layer of lubricant, obviously becoming aroused as she playfully runs her hands over the shaft. “Feels so good,” she murmurs, then lets the dildo slide up and down between Erin's breasts.

The pleasure of this sensation is short-lived. Moments later the head is thrust against her sex, twisting and burrowing at the strained opening. Erin moans as she tries to imagine how this thing could ever enter her. Brute force is applied and Erin screams as she stretches to accept the huge head. “Please!” she gasps over and over. She sees the thing slide into her until more than half of the shaft is buried inside. The pain is intense, dwarfing the pinching of the clips.

“Good baby. You'll soon take things far bigger than this without difficulty. Soon I'll have your backside stretched to take this dildo,” Ava laughs.

“Now are you going to be a good, compliant little kitten while your Mistress cuts your hair?”

“Yes Miss Avarice,” Erin groans. She just wants to be released. If her hair needs to be cut to accomplish this then she must accept it. She'll do nothing to slow Ava's work.

“Mmmm, clippers.” Ava displays the same set that Erin previously saw during the bag check. “You'll soon love the feeling of these. I'm an artist with these, but today I'll keep my work simple. I think you should appreciate the sensation of a short buzz though. I'll take you to a number one. That's an eighth. Head down!”

Erin bows her head. She's always had long hair but now it's about to be almost shaved. Ava continues to provoke her. “You remember the pics of the fat woman? Hers was a number two. Yours will be half the length hers was, and your hair isn't as coarse. It's going to look pretty much shaved. Probably just as well I dyed it last night. If you were still blonde it would look bald.”

Erin feels her muscles jolt as there's a loud crack just by her ear. She remembers how Ava delighted in this, the noise making her victims jump. Sure enough, her reaction induces a cruel chuckle. “Here goes!” Ava proclaims triumphantly.

The long hair is lifted free of Erin's neck and the clippers come to rest at the base of her nape. They vibrate teasingly, hypnotically. The sensation is lulling, reassuring, but Erin knows that their seductiveness disguises their true purpose, to ravage her hair, still beautiful despite the new shade.

Ava lets the blades rise, slowly, so slowly. There's little to indicate that they are shearing away Erin's tresses. Then suddenly she makes a rapid upward stroke, high up Erin's nape. There's a dip in the tone of the hum but the clippers slice through the hair effortlessly. Erin's vain hope that this was all mere teasing crumbles as long black hairs fall over her naked body.

Ava returns the blades to her neck and makes another up-thrust. Her left hand is holding the bulk of Erin's hair in place at her crown, so that only a few strands fall free after each pass. Soon Erin's entire nape has felt the passage of the clippers numerous times. Ava concentrates her attention at the top of the clippered area, which is only, Erin estimates, two inches below her crown, intent on tidying, neatening the line which separates the near shaved area from the long hair on top of her head.

Finally Ava releases her grip on Erin's head, allows her to straighten her neck which is aching from its constrained posture. As the grip relaxes a mountain of hair spills free, covering Erin's body and forming a dark corona around the base of the chair. Ava lifts the long hair again, this time to kiss Erin's nape. There's no soft silk covering any more, just a prickly layer of stubble, and a scalp irritated by the actions of the blades. And yet Erin swoons to feel the pierced lips of the woman she adores on her shorn head. Her wrists push against the tight straps, desperate to touch herself, to push her arousal further until she tips into climax.

Ava breaks away and moves to Erin's right. She grabs her hair and forcefully pushes her head to the side. The clippers gnaw away at her sideburn, then higher, turning her temple to a ruin. The shiny black locks are reduced to an ashen stubble, her scalp easily visible. Erin winces as she sees the side being shorn above her ear. Ava is cutting as high as the line of her fringe. She starts to feel tearful as she imagines the line of the fringe being extended right around her head. That would give a much more extreme bowlcut than the woman she saw on Ava's phone. How humbling this haircut will be! She'll have to face her colleagues in a few hours time, transformed into a girl who is undeniably a submissive lesbian.

As Ava starts to shear the left side, Erin momentarily believes this is what she wants. She wants to be humbled, wants Ava to control her and humiliate her. She stares at herself in the mirror, her ears jutting out more than she ever realised they did. She feels something melting inside her and she shrieks as she reaches climax.

Ava reacts with delight to Erin's loss of control. She pauses from her work to caress Erin's nape. “I didn't think you'd learn to love the clippers so soon, baby. Maybe I should just run them all over your head right now. You'd look so pretty with a crew cut.”

“Please, Miss Avarice,” Erin moans, still shivering in the grip of her orgasm, “let me keep the bowlcut.”

“Oh, my little baby, is that what you want? I was going to give you a pretty bob, but you want a bowlcut?”

The enchantment subsides and Erin is suddenly facing a more realistic view of her situation. “Oh, I got carried away,” she groans, now aware once more of the agonies that torment her. “Please, Miss Avarice, a bob would be very nice.”

Ava laughs. “Maybe too nice. I don't encourage niceness. You're going to be a bad girl now, aren't you?”

Erin sees the last of her long hair snipped away. She has a sharp bob now, the tips forming sharp points at chin level, the back angled up slightly to expose a little of her tightly buzzed nape. Ava cuts beautifully, carefully shaping the style, then smoothing it with dryer, brush and straighteners to a gleaming helmet of a glossy perfection. Erin is astonished to see herself with such a dramatic new style but any doubts she had about its suitability are eclipsed by Ava's evident ardour.

She expects to be released now, but is made to wait a little longer. Ava combs back the bob and fixes it in two stubby tails, either side of her crown, fully exposing the high undercut. Only the little fringe is left free. She tells Erin to be very still as she shaves around the hairline of her nape to give a hard contour. The straight razor drags at her dry scalp, chafing and reddening the skin, but somehow the sensation is nothing but pleasurable to Erin. Ava carves the short hair of her nape into a trapezoid, all hard, straight lines. Then she shaves away Erin's sideburns, high up her cheeks. “When you tuck your hair behind your ears it'll just expose bald skin,” Ava tells her. “I like how that looks.”

When Erin is finally released from the chair she's been heavily made up, black lips, eyes decorated with sharply pointed wings, thin arches serving as brows. She can't take her eyes off her reflection. She cums again as Ava slips the huge dildo out of her abused sex.

Ava tells her that she'll wear her hair like this for the entire day. She'll keep her make-up until just before she enters her workplace. Erin nods her assent as she strokes her buzzed scalp, still in disbelief that she's been transformed so spectacularly. She loves her new look.

But, soon after, Ava is gone to work, and Erin has to face the world. Suddenly she's alone and confronted by the unwelcome stares of strangers as she makes her way through the town. She's filled with regret for what she's done. How will she ever face her work mates, how can she possibly explain this metamorphosis? She goes to an ATM to withdraw some a few pounds to buy lunch, checks her balance as she does. She's horrified to see that she'd almost emptied her account on the previous day in her wooing of her mistress.

Erin is unable to eat now, her stomach twisting in protest at the abuses of the previous night, additionally provoked by the anxiety she feels about her imminent arrival in work. She realises that the journey home would take so long that she'd have to leave again almost immediately to get to work, so resolves to stay out. It's a pleasant spring day and she goes to a park where she drinks copiously to compensate for her dehydration. Her scalp feels light and cool, but every time she touches it she feels regret intensely. She had such lovely hair and now it will take her years to grow it back.

She enters a department store near to the station and visits the toilets. She faces herself in the mirror and can barely stand to see what she's become. Her hair is almost shaved! She hates how it looks tied up like this. And her make-up, it's designed to make her look like a slut. She takes out the moistened tissues that Ava provided for her and starts to erase her mask. The pale, odd creature that is revealed is perhaps even less appealing. She flushes as she sees once more how her ears jut. She considers releasing her bob from its constraint to cover up her ugly ears, to conceal the extent of her undercut. But she can't bring herself to go against her orders from Ava. She daren't risk upsetting Ava. Despite her regrets, she knows that Ava has made her experience joys of which she couldn't have previously conceived. She won't risk Ava ending their relationship by trying to ameliorate her appearance. She takes a last, lingering look at herself, trying to fix in her memory how she will look to her colleagues, to the public.

It's late in the following week before Erin hears once more from Ava. She'd been told not to contact Ava without good reason, to expect to be contacted when Ava chooses. The call comes when she's catching up on sleep after having worked a strenuous double shift. She wakes in confusion at the ringing tone, takes a few moments to realise what woke her. Then she looks at the display of her phone and is fully aware in a moment; she's been longing for this call.

“Miss Avarice, hello!” she gushes. “I've missed you so much.”

Ava sounds aloof. “Erin, how are you?”

“I'm tired. I was sleeping after a long shift. I've been working so much, and it's been really difficult...”

“I don't care to hear the details of your mundane life,” Ava interrupts. “I'm sure my job is infinitely more interesting than yours.” Erin adds a word of agreement. “When do you get paid? I'd love you to buy me something nice from your earnings. If you did that I might see fit to provide you with some more days of excitement.”

“I'd love that, Miss Avarice,” Erin says, delighted by the thought of seeing Ava again. “But I'm awful at choosing presents. And your tastes are so different to mine, I'm sure I'd choose something unfit.”

“My tastes are better. That's what you mean, isn't it, Erin?” Erin agrees with this assessment. “You had such a boring hairstyle before we met, didn't you? I bet even since you got your nice bob you've been imagining it growing long again, haven't you?” Erin admits that Ava is right. “I need to save you from yourself. Did you ever have such a sweet orgasm from trimming your long hair as you did when I clippered you? Of course you didn't. The first thing we do when we meet is to get your undercut nice and sharp again. I'll shave away all the dyed hair. I can't wait to see how it looks. Almost bald with your blonde hair. Maybe we should try a wet shave. It might suit you better. Do your friends like your new look?”

“My sergeant isn't very pleased with me. He says I look like a punk and it's not suitable for a police officer.”

Ava laughs. “Does he think something more military is appropriate? I could give you a nice buzz or a US marines flattop.”

“Please, Miss Avarice, don't. They've been encouraging the men to get away from shaves and short buzzes. They think that it helps to have a slightly softer image.”

Ava starts to laugh uncontrollably. “You think you'd look too tough with a flattop? Erin, it would take more than a haircut to make you look tough! You're so soft and girly. That's what I like about you. I can't imagine you dealing with hardened criminals. I bet they all laugh in your face.”

Erin feels herself growing hurt by these taunts, because there's some truth in Ava's accusations. “I do have problems with imposing authority.” She feels herself getting emotional as she admits to her difficulties. “I'm better when someone empathetic is needed. I'm good at supporting victims.”

“Well that's nice. You're a very likeable girl, Erin.” Ava is sincere in her statement, Erin is certain. “I liked you immediately. But you need to be liked. You can't please everyone. If you try, the one person who'll never be pleased is you.

“I like that you'll antagonise your sergeant. He'll start to have more respect for you. Have you been wearing your bob down?”

“I have,” Erin states. “I wear a hat most of the time and when I have my hair up it looks like I have a buzzcut.”

“Oh, but that sounds heavenly. “I'd love to see you in your uniform again. I bet you look so sexy. Put your hair up for the next shift, baby. I want you to look like a punk, although I bet that undercut is getting too soft already. I can't wait to clipper you again.

“I've been neglecting you, haven't I? I can see you need guidance to stop you from reverting to the boring little girl that fear had made you. I need to issue you with orders on a daily basis to keep you on your toes.”

Erin's hand is on her pussy now, stroking it with excitement. She knows that Ava will make her life difficult, that she'll endure humiliations frequently, yet imagining this loss of control, not to mention regular attention from Ava, makes Erin grow extremely passionate. “Thank you Miss Avarice,” Erin groans, her voice betraying her mood.

“Run your fingertip over your eyebrows, Erin. Do you feel stubble?” Erin confirms that she can feel soft points of hair sprouting. “ Do you want to grow your eyebrows back?”

“I do,” Erin confirms. “I look weird without them. It would be for the best.”

“There's that will asserting itself again. You don't know what's for the best, Erin. You need me to decide. Go and get a razor right now and shave them smooth again. I might make you get them permanently removed so that you can't backslide. Actually, I'm disappointed that you've not maintained them with your razor. Do I have to tell you everything?”

“I'm sorry,” Erin says, feeling a deep hurt from this criticism. She goes to the bathroom and wets her brows with a dab of shampoo. The stubble is only noticeable to a close observation but despite this Erin is reluctant to shave it. She hates how she looks without brows, has been drawing them in, getting a little better each day as she hones her skills with making them look even and more natural. Even so, she would rather her brows were allowed to grow in and now the little progress that had been made will be erased. She drags the blade over the skin, feeling a bristling scrape as it passes. A second stroke meets no such resistance. She dabs a towel over her brow, the skin seeming to tingle. It looks so clean now it's freshly shaven, beautiful in a way, even though when Erin takes in the effect it has on her features, she still feels despair. She tells Ava that her brows are gone.

“I'm glad to hear it. Just sorry I had to tell you. I think you should be very generous with your tribute. You never did tell me when your next payday is.”

“It'll be next Tuesday. I'll try to think of something nice to get you.”

“No need. I think your imagination needs a rest. You can go to my favourite tattoo shop and buy me some gift certificates. I hope you can find your way to spend a good amount. You know how much it pleases me when you spend so much that you have to go without. I'll text you the address later. Once you've bought the vouchers you can call me and we'll arrange a rendezvous. Until then you're to shave your brows every day and wear your hair up. Try different styles every day and get pictures to show me. Goodbye, Erin.”

Erin enters the tattoo shop. She's never been to a tattooist's before and she feels out of place here. It's in a area of the East End that she barely knows, that's reputed to be an up and coming area. The dilapidation of most of the buildings is in contrast to some of the people she sees, clearly striving to be noticed for their ability to keep up with the latest fashions. There are strange art galleries and voguish coffee shops. The tattooist is on the second floor of a rehabilitated seventies office block, now incongruously home to a hair salon and various creative enterprises. A bell rings as she passes through the fluted glass door. A young woman sits at a counter glancing idly at Erin. Then her features brighten as she looks more closely at her visitor.

Erin feels a little peak of pleasure, assuming that she's been judged to be attractive. She's curled her hair today and pinned it up quite chaotically. It's not a style she would ever have worn for work, and despite feeling a little ridiculous, she thinks it looks quite good. She's made an effort with her make-up too, her brows looking better than they have, she's sure, since they were shaved.

“You're Erin,” the woman says with certainty.

“I am. How did you know?” This recognition has taken her by surprise, made her feel wary.

“Ava told me to expect you. She said I should make sure you don't stint on her gift.”

“I won't. I wanted to buy some vouchers. Maybe...” She'd calculated that she could afford two hundred pounds but now she feels pressured to spend more. “Two fifty?” she says hesitantly.

The woman looks at her sternly. “Just two-fifty. You couldn't even go to three?” Erin tries to calculate how spending such a big chunk of her earnings will affect her. She would be able to cover her bills but her food budget will have to suffer. And there'll be no savings, no new clothes. She can't resist giving in.

“Yes, three hundred,” she says, glumly. She counts the bills out from her purse and is rewarded with a bundle of vouchers in a gift card with an image of a facially tattooed Blessed Virgin Mary.

“That's better. We might get that chest piece finished now. She'll look so good.” Erin gives a forced smile, places the card in her handbag, turns to leave.

“No, you need to come through the back,” she's told. She looks at the woman with puzzlement. “Ava's orders. She said I'm not to tell you anything except to tell you that you do exactly as I say.”

As she sits in the leather chair, Erin is feeling sick. There's a tattoo machine next to her. She's going to be tattooed, she's certain. Her thoughts become confused, out of control. Her concern is that the tattoo will be visible with her uniform. In her dress code it states that no tattoos should be visible, although her colleagues take this with a pinch of salt. Many of the male officers (and her colleagues are almost all male) have tattoos which show when they wear short sleeves. Occasionally they're told they should keep them covered but there are no consequences when they disobey.

Erin imagines being scolded for her new tattoos. But what if she gets something on her hands? She imagines holding her hand out to this woman, who is even now scrubbing her own hands in preparation to work on Erin. Tattooed hands, that would be unacceptable, she's sure. Or a big tattoo on her neck! Please not that...

The more she thinks about the trouble tattoos will cause her, the more excited she becomes. She feels a trembling in her loins, she wants to be tattooed horribly. She imagines Ava looking over her body and nodding in satisfaction that Erin is now a bad girl. Tattoos that can't be hidden or removed. Her breathing is becoming fitful, excited.

The tattooist comes over. She has a tray with a needle, swabs, clamps. She's to be pierced, not tattooed. She feels relieved, yet disappointed. It's the latter which shows more on her face.

“Did you think I was going to tattoo you?” the piercer laughs. “I could if you want.”

“No,” Erin says, tries to justify herself but finds no words.

“Not today, but soon, hey?”

“Maybe,” Erin concedes. She blushes as she realises that this conduct will be passed on to Ava. How will she react if she knows that Erin was disappointed not to be tattooed?

Erin's contemplation of her future is suddenly eclipsed by the events unfolding in the present. Her nose is being cleaned and she realises with panic that she's being prepared to receive a septum piercing. A ring dangling from her nose would never be allowed in her job and she starts to protest.

The piercer silences her. “Ava said you'd try to talk your way out of this. You do have a choice. Either you walk out of that door and never see Ava again or you sit like a good little girl and accept what needs to be done.”

She closes her eyes and remains silent. She will passively accept what Ava desires of her and try to find some way to avoid being sacked. For now the competing demands of her life with Ava and those of her job seem incompatible.

She feels a clamp fixing on her, inside her nose. Her sad passivity is suddenly replaced by a feeling of panic. She recalls the big needle she saw on the tray an imagines it being forced through her flesh. This is going to hurt! She feels sick as the piercer moves her head back, makes a series of tiny adjustments.

Then she's punctured. The pain seems to increase in steps. Initially she feels it's less than she expected but then it grows as the needle pushes deeper. The cartilage is tough, resistant and the sensation of force is unbearable. She feels sick, wails quietly, more from the dislike of the feeling of the cartilage being distorted than the terrible pain.

Her ears are ringing now and she can feel sweat trickling over her icy brow. More wailing as she feels the fresh wound being manipulated. “Please stop,” she moans childishly.

“No,” her tormentor says curtly. “It's best to just get it over with. You'll thank me later.” More fiddling, every movement causing pain and threatening to make Erin lose control and vomit. Finally there's space between her and the nightmarish figure of the piercer. Erin sighs as she realises that her ordeal is finished.

A mirror is passed to her and she looks at herself. She's terribly pale, her features covered with glistening beads of sweat, her upper lip suffused with a stain of crimson. Her nose now bears a little horseshoe through the septum, silvery beads hanging from each of the limbs, which are at least two millimetres thick. She stretches down her upper lip to get a better view, but immediately regrets it: the strain on the skin makes her nose sting.

“It looks good,” the woman tells her.

“Thanks. I'm just worried about work. They don't really like piercings.”

There's another ache to be endured as the new jewellery is manipulated. Now the arch is rotated so that it's contained within her nostrils, only visible if she tips her head back. “There, is that better?”

Erin smiles with relief. She might be able to get away with this after all.

Erin's pride in herself for coping with the piercing is dented as she pays for it. She hadn't prepared for this, had thought that Ava would have taken care of it since she ordered it. Now she's pushing her budget even further into stress. Still, she's now met the criteria to allow her to call Ava. She makes her way to a nearby coffee shop, orders a soft drink, takes out her phone and, with trepidation, makes the call.

“Erin, I've just been hearing about you!” Ava gloats without preamble. Erin makes a nervous greeting, expresses her wish that her mistress is in good health. “Thomasina said you thought you were going to get a tattoo. Is that right.” Erin confirms her misunderstanding. “And you wanted it?”

“I thought it was what you wanted, Miss Avarice, so I'd have accepted it.”

There's a long pause. Erin wants to say something to fill the void but can think of nothing to utter. “Erin Hume...” Ava begins, her tone that of a teacher scolding a dishonest child, “I think that you're being less than truthful. I asked if you wanted it. I know you have too much ego to accept my wishes as your own. I'll ask you again. Did you want a tattoo?”

“Miss Avarice,” Erin sighs in a soft voice, afraid of being overheard by the young woman who's just occupied the table behind her. “It's very confusing for me. I was terrified by the idea, but something about it excites me. It was the excitement I craved, not a tattoo.”

Ava laughs long and hard. “The excitement is what should guide you now, not your desire to be a nice bourgeois lady. It's so nice that I know about this. I can't wait to see you getting inked by Thomasina.”

Erin tries to respond but her mouth dries. She knows that Ava will fulfil this threat. She presses her thighs together tightly and feels a gorgeous sensation grow inside her, fear and arousal and helplessness combining to stir a sort of abject bliss. She knows she shouldn't allow herself to be overtaken by this inclination, it's dangerous and will only lead her to ruin, she's sure, yet she's too weak to fight it. “You do want it, Erin?” Ava asks coolly. Erin can only make an inarticulate croak which makes Ava laugh. “Mmmm, so excited that you can't even speak. You'll look such a slut when Thomasina is through.” The call is wound up with an instruction for Erin to visit Ava's apartment immediately.

The journey, though only a few miles, takes more than an hour on the hot and overcrowded underground. Erin's hands are shaking. She's full of nervous energy, thrilled to see Ava again but fearful too. Can she really want to be in a relationship with a woman who scares her so much? But then, perhaps Ava is right and she should pursue the things that turn her on, and Ava excites her like no one else she's encountered.

Ava opens the door to Erin and she feels like throwing herself on her knees. She looks more strange and beautiful than Erin's memory of her. Her fringe has been reshaped, angled down from her temples, a wide point forming at the centre of her forehead. Her long mane is tied back at the top into a messy bun, allowing Erin to see her ears. The lobes are stretched in loops around discs of dark, polished wood, at least an inch and a half in diameter. Erin can only barely recall having seen these modifications, presumably when she was drunk. She wears a black vest which shows her tattoos and Erin thinks of her as an exotic matriarch from some lost tribe, a powerful priestess who must be obeyed.

“Oh, look at you!” Ava groans. “You must stop trying to look conventional. You look like an off-duty cop. I know you are, but that's no excuse. You're not going to keep me satisfied looking so boring, are you?”

“I'm sorry Miss Avarice,” Erin whispers. She holds out the gift vouchers as a peace offering. Ava examines them and Erin glances up looking expectantly for a glimmer of gratitude or happiness. Ava doesn't show anything. Is she disappointed that Erin didn't spend more?

“Go to the bathroom,” Ava instructs. “Undress and leave your clothes in there. Scrub that awful make-up off too. Then come back to me.”

Erin obeys her, takes a long look in the mirror at her face. She still can't get used to having no eyebrows, but has shaved them every day since Ava ordered. She goes to the living room but there's no one here. She calls out and is summoned to Ava's bedroom.

“On your knees, slave,” Ava giggles. She pushes Erin's head down and rubs at her nape. “This hair has grown so much. You must have a good constitution; it's a good sign when your hair grows fast. I guess it means I'll have to see you more often to maintain your hair. Does that please you?” Erin nods happily. “Do you want me to neaten up this fuzz, get it nice and sharp again?”

Erin feels drunk as she looks up into Ava's deep, dark eyes. She still feels a shock each time she touches her head, the absence of her long hair still stings her. She'd love Ava to tell her that her hair will grow again, as long as Ava's own. But her mistress has other desires. “Your friends the clippers, you want to feel them, don't you, baby doll? I haven't forgotten how you liked them last time.”

“Mmmm, clipper me,” Erin groans, unable to resist.

“Maybe we'll try you shorter now. Would your sergeant like that?”

“Nooo,” Erin wails. She feels like she's regressing as Ava talks to her, really becoming baby-like. “I'll be in trouble,” she pleads, her voice becoming high and girlish.

Ava pushes her head down firmly and starts to kiss at her nape. “Don't be silly. I can always make things right, can't I? We'll take your nape nice and short and cut your bob too short to tie up. You can wear it down to keep you out of trouble with your boss. But you'd rather make him mad than me, wouldn't you?”

“I need to make you happy, Miss Avarice,” Erin sighs. She raises her head and sees Ava gazing lovingly into her eyes, expectantly. “Please clipper me,” Erin says.

Ava doesn't have to rise. She reaches to her side and she's grasping the chrome clippers, already plugged in. “There's no guard on the blades so they'll cut you very close, Erin. That's going to be a very special feeling, the most pure experience of being clippered. I'm really going to give you a treat today, baby.”

“Will they shave it all?” Erin asks. Her fear is starting to gain superiority over her desire.

“Absolutely,” Ava smiles. “Just a little sandpaper to remind you that you had hair once.” She flicks them on and Erin, despite knowing the noise was coming, jumps at the crack of the motor engaging. Ava slices a path through the soft bristles in front of her right ear, then presses Erin's fingers to her scalp. She groans as she feels the bared skin. The sandpapery stubble that Ava described is only tangible when her fingers rub upward, against the direction of growth. A downward stroke feels only smoothness.

“Doesn't that feel divine, so erotic?” Ava's joy is palpable, and it infects Erin. Her breathing becomes laboured, so intense is her arousal. She remembers her fresh buzz, how severe it looked. Now there will be no softening from soft dark bristles, just stark baldness. The more scared she becomes, the more Erin slides toward elation.

Ava tilts Erin's head down again, her temples now resting on the inside of her lover's thighs. The clippers whirr up her nape, her short hair flying from the irresistible march of the mechanical blades, becoming a dusting of short fibres which shadow Ava's knees. The blades are pressed tightly to Erin's scalp, disquietingly, irritatingly so. Ava's intention is clearly to cut as short as possible with no concession to Erin's comfort. Erin doesn't complain; there's something thrilling about this harshness in her treatment, a unknown need is fulfilled. She imagines her bald nape looking red and blotchy, imagines how soon she will be made to display it, sees, in her vision, how those behind her will see that she's just been shaved. She'll be proud to show off her raw, bare scalp, as long as Ava is beside her, but knows that once she's alone this demeanour will evaporate and she'll be left sad and regretful.

Ava turns her head so that her left temple is exposed, her right ear now resting on Ava's thigh. She can smell Ava's excitement. “You're a very bad girl,” Ava whispers.

Erin smiles, she wants to be a bad girl, that's what Ava loves turning her into. But then she looks up and sees she's misunderstood; Ava is admonishing her. “I get your nose pierced and you have the temerity to hide the jewellery! Are you ashamed of my ideas?”

“I'm sorry, Miss Avarice,” Erin says. She'd meant to turn the loop downwards before her arrival but in her nervousness she's been forgetful.

Ava is deliberately heavy handed as she manipulates the curved bar into its more visible position. “I think I should fit you with something you can't hide.”

Erin's eyes are watering as the wound sends little sharp bursts of agony. “Please Miss, the piercer said I should let it heal for a while before changing the jewellery.”

“That's so, is it? You know, Erin, I really don't care. Take it out while I get something suitable.”

Erin rocks back on her haunches as Ava rises. She reaches up to remove the bar but is at a loss to know how to remove it. She tries to twist the beads, groaning as the metal turns against the injured septum. She manages to unscrew one of the beads then tries to ease the loop of metal through the piercing. She winces and groans at the pain.

Ava takes the bar from her and puts it aside. She roughly brushes some clippings from Erin's face before pushing her head back as far as possible and forcing a ring through her septum. Erin's determination to meet this challenge with dignity and courage instantly fades. The edges of the metal tube which forms the ring snag at the cartilage and she cries out in pain. She has real tears coming from her eyes now and can't pretend it's merely an automatic response to pain which is causing her eyes to water. The relief as Ava finally releases the ring, now fitted to her satisfaction, makes Erin give an embarrassed giggle. Ava looks unimpressed.

“Erin Hume, that was disgusting. Your nose is all snotty when you cry and I have it on my fingers. Lick!” She holds out her fingers which Erin cleans with her tongue. The little hairs which have stuck to Ava's fingers are transferred to Erin's tongue, which disgusts her. She wants to spit them out but knows she must put up with this insult until Ava allows her to rinse her mouth. For now she places her head on Ava's tattooed leg once more and sighs as the clippers rush across her temple. Ava folds her ear down and shears all around it.

“Your ears stick out a little, don't they Erin. I bet you've always tried to hide that.”

“Miss Avarice, I was hardly aware of it when my hair was long. I only noticed it when you cut it short.”

“Did it please you?”

Erin feels herself becoming a little upset. “No Miss, I don't like it. My ears look awful.”

Ava strokes at her ear beguilingly. “I think it's very cute. You've always been a pretty girl, and your vanity is wounded when you realise you have an imperfection. But I'm going to celebrate your imperfections. You'll show off your jug ears whenever we're out together. I think we should get lots of new piercings to draw attention to them. Wouldn't that be nice?”

“Please Miss Avarice, I'd willingly do it, but in my job... We're only allowed to wear studs because there's a risk that rings could be pulled and injure us.”

“Does that apply to nose too?” Ava takes the septum ring in her fingers and tugs gently, but even this makes Erin squeal.

“Yes Miss,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Your job is an excuse to make you look more conservative. I'm really starting to resent it. But then if you were on the dole you'd have no money for me and then I'd soon get bored with you!”

Erin makes an apology. Ava remains wordless as she shears away more hair. “Tell me about your thoughts when you imagined Thomasina was going to tattoo you.”

Erin feels uncomfortable. She knows that to admit what she really imagined would be an invitation for Ava to cover her in nasty, gothic tattoos. She also knows that she's a bad liar and any attempts to make up some story will be immediately obvious to Ava as deception.

“It's hard to put into words,” Erin says, shivering as she feels the clippers rise up her scalp, the sound changing as they shear away some of the longer hair on the top of her head. “Oh, Miss, you're cutting higher?” she says anxiously.

“Obviously,” Ava says impatiently. “Keep on subject. The tattooing!”

Erin feels herself getting too excited as she feels the clippers edging up into her longer hair. It's too alluring to ignore and she has difficulty speaking at all, let alone negotiating precisely how much she can tell Ava without giving her license to unleash Thomasina's needles on her flesh. The words start to come unbidden, automatic, as if it was a stranger speaking with Erin's voice. “She told me I had to come with her and accept what you'd instructed without question. I sat in the chair and I could see the tattooing machine. I immediately thought that's what she intended to use.”

“Did that make you excited?”

“At first it was just fear. But yes, I started to get excited soon,” Erin admits.

“What tattoos did you imagine?” Ava's voice is breathy, seductive. Erin loves to hear this voice, so sexy, promising endless pleasure.

“I kept thinking about how tattoos would get me in trouble at work, tattoos I couldn't hide, anyway. I imagined being reprimanded for tattoos that were visible.”

“How awful!” Ava whispers as she caresses Erin's temple. The sensation of bald scalp right up the side of her head makes Erin gasp. She has to struggle for a few seconds to take control of her excitement. “Oh, baby doll, you nearly cum then, didn't you? Was it the thought of tattoos you couldn't hide?”

“No,” Erin says defensively. “Well, partly,” she admits. She knows her secrets can't be hidden.

“Where did you imagine Thomasina tattooing you?”

Erin wants to cry as she feels that she's betraying herself. “On my fingers and hands.” Her voice is dead and leaden, it's barely recognisable as her own. Ava lifts her hands as she puts the clippers aside momentarily.

“You have such pretty little hands, Erin!” She kisses them lovingly. “Did you imagine big black roses covering the back entirely? And writing on your knuckles?” Ava's pointed nails trace patterns around the soft skin, pressing enough for Erin to imagine a needle following the same course. “And where else were the tattoos you imagined?”

Erin is shivering at Ava's attentions. She doesn't want to say any more but she wants Ava to keep treating her like this. “On my neck,” she sighs.

“Oh my!” Ava says with some sarcasm, yet still seductive. “Here?” She pushes Erin's head to the side and kisses her long neck, moving her lips slowly upward behind her ear. “More tattoos spreading up onto your bald scalp too?” she whispers in Erin's ear. Now the kisses balm her newly mown skin, taking away the rawness that the chafing blades have created. “You can cum right now,” Ava whispers. As Erin lets her control subside she adds the proviso “If you want these tattoos to become real one day.”

Erin wants to stop but it's too late. Like a glorious fire, the release takes over her body, urged on by the kisses that Ava lavishes on her baldness, the pinching on her breasts and nipples. She feels an ecstasy of an magnitude she's never known before, as if she's risen through a sea for her entire life and is finally breathing pure, clear air.

The orgasm seems to fill her forever, prolonged by Ava's fingers stroking roughly over her bald head, her devouring, ringed lips pressed to Erin's. She feels Ava pull the clips out of her hair, letting it fall over her bare scalp as her body still smoulders with the fire of ecstasy. Ava lifts her fringe, pulls it back tightly to expose Erin's forehead. And then the clippers are chattering again, the blades, hot from prolonged use, pressed to her hairline. Erin can't believe this is happening, reflexively tries to buck away from the clippers, but Ava holds her firm and cautions her about moving again. A second wave of pleasure erupts from within Erin as she imagines that soon she'll be bald. Bald! How can she get so excited by this torture? Even as she imagines having to be in public, stared at for her pale, bare scalp she feels her orgasm deepening. She loves this submission, this helplessness.

Is it relief she feels as it becomes apparent that Ava isn't going to take all of her hair? The blades move in small, controlled strokes, not the long  manoeuvre from forehead to crown which Erin anticipated, perhaps craved. But then she imagines that Ava is shaving away her fringe. She imagines her bob parted in the middle to expose a ludicrously large forehead, a look no less humiliating than a bald head.

The clippers are turned off and Ava roughly pushes Erin down to the floor with a playful laugh, then drops on top of her, pinning her down and kissing her. “You're gorgeous, Erin,” she whispers. “I love that you turn every test into a pleasure. I've got such plans for you. If you keep turning me on like this I might even consider letting you live here with me, and I thought I'd never allow that.”

Erin beams with pride that Ava's feelings are beginning to reciprocate her own. She used the word love! “I love you, Miss Avarice,” Erin says with the utmost sincerity. Ava smiles warmly, no malice, no sarcasm in her eyes. She tenderly kisses Erin.

“Does my lover consent to having her scalp shaved properly? Nice smooth razor job?” Erin sighs, closes her eyes and nods.

She's sent to take a shower. “As hot as you can bear,” Ava demands. “It will make the shave nicer.”

Erin has hoped that in the bathroom she'll be able to see how her clippering looks but Ava accompanies her and doesn't allow her to take a close look in the mirror. She does take a glance though, sees that her fringe is still there, sees her still unfamiliar bob covering the undershave, sees her features dominated by a thick black ring dangling over her top lip.

Ava pushes her into the shower cubicle, turns on the water which is initially shockingly cold but soon becomes uncomfortably hot. “Turn it higher,” Ava says insistently. She's undressing now and Erin doesn't dare disobey her. The jets burn at her, her instinct is to pull aside but she endures it. Suddenly Ava is pressed behind her, naked. She pushes Erin's head under the scalding jets, making her groan. Ava seems unaffected by the temperature, her hand moving Erin's head under the stream.

Erin winces as her head is made to take the blast. A blob of shampoo is smoothed over her hair and worked to thick suds. She's moved back so that now the burning water is directed onto her breasts. Ava works the shampoo into her scalp which would feel delicious except that Erin isn't allowed to tilt her head back and her eyes sting as the soap trickles constantly over her face.

Now Ava smooths the hair back and exposes Erin's cropped scalp. She smears the bristly skin with the thick lather and massages it, almost violently, with her nails. Erin feels weak at the beauty of this feeling, so enchanted that even her burning eyes seem to add a frisson to her pleasure. “Your roots are showing,” Ava says tetchily. “We need to get those fixed before you're allowed out.” Erin agrees that this would be for the best.

Now, instead of Ava's pointed nails, a razor goes over Erin's lathered head. Ava pulls the multiple-bladed head up Erin's nape, causing a soft scraping as the last vestige of hair is stripped. Erin bows her head, despite meaning that the scalding water courses over her face, to allow her mistress to more easily make her scalp hairless.

The razor slips through the suds over and over, scraping away the stubble. Soon Erin can feel no resistance as the keen blades make another transit. “Feel it now,” Ava orders. Erin sighs as she feels a truly bald nape. The removal of the tiny coating of hairs seems to have made a miraculous difference, so smooth, soft, sensitive is her head.

Erin's head it pulled back onto Ava's shoulder. Now the razor makes upward motions at the top of Erin's forehead. She's closed her eyes, the better to savour the feeling of the blades making her smooth. She dreams of a time when she's braver, when she will ask Ava to make her completely bald, but then she also supposes that Ava may well inflict this hairlessness on her before she's able to accept it willingly. She wishes that Ava and she were alone together eternally, when she could show her adoration by allowing Ava to make of her what she desires, with no other commitments to limit her obedience. She tries to shut out the dark shadows that communicate to her that she is becoming someone that will soon no longer be able to continue the previous trajectories of her life. At some point, hard decisions will be made.

Ava lathers the sides of Erin's scalp and uses the razor to render the scalp of her temples as hairless as her nape. She teases Erin as her ears are folded forward to allow the blades unimpeded access. “I think someone must have done this to you before!” she mocks. “Your ears stuck forward permanently.”

“Please, Miss Avarice, they're not that bad, are they?”

“Don't look to me for consolation,” Ava says defiantly. “You love to be humiliated, don't you? You're a pretty girl but these ears look silly. That's the truth.”

The shaving is completed by the razor pressing hard over Erin's eyebrows. Although she had shaved them only hours previously she can feel a scraping as Ava shaves closer. Finally the scalding water is turned off.

Erin groans as her head is vigorously dried with a thick, soft towel. The ring in her nose is pulled to the side by Ava's actions and the pain is shocking, making Erin feel a pang of nausea. “My nose!” she moans, bringing a laugh from Ava.

She's seated now as Ava combs through her hair. “Sit still, baby doll. I'm going to mix the dye now.” Soon Erin is staring up at Ava's tattooed chest, imagining how soon it will flourish into dramatic colours under Thomasina's needle. She tries to imagine Ava as she was before she transformed herself, free of tattoos and piercings, hair untouched by dye. She would have been such a pretty girl, Erin thinks, and so brave to let herself become this. She knows that her metamorphosis will not be so untroubled, that she will have periods of regret and shame. But for now, she's delighted by everything that Ava has made her become.

The application of dye happens more quickly than Erin had anticipated, but then she has far less hair than she's used to. Ava has twisted her hair into little twirl atop her head and fixes it with a clip. As she divulges herself of her gloves she studies Erin intently. She seems to have formulated a plan and as soon as she's washed her hands she takes a pair of surgical scissors, the blades not much longer than an inch and lifts them to Erin's eye. “Look up and don't blink,” she says softly.

Erin can't suppress a gasp as she feels the blades nip away the lashes from her lower lid. This is unexpected, unwelcome, something that can't be hidden. She has long lashes, thick, dark, has always been proud of them. She prays to some unknown force that it will only be her lower lashes that are taken.

But her prayer is unanswered. Ava is soon cropping away her upper lashes too, ordering Erin to hold her eyelid open as she does. It soon becomes apparent that this is impractical. The touch of blade to flesh induces a blink reflex which Erin is unable to master despite Ava's exhortations. “Close the damn thing,” Ava finally concedes, frustrated by the eyelid's refusal to conform to Erin's will.

Ava's frustration is quenched as she realises that she can now slice away the lashes so much more easily. She rests her hand on Erin's cheek to steady it and cuts with the blade touching the delicate flesh of the eyelid. She repositions herself to work on Erin's left eye, then has an inspiration. Erin feels her eye being pulled open by tweezers which grip a group of lashes.

“That's better,” Ava says triumphantly. “Now you can't blink.” She snips at the long lashes, some of which fall, irritatingly, onto Erin's exposed eyeball. Erin groans despairingly at the unbearable sensation as Ava shears away the hairs to left and right of those gripped so forcefully.

Now Ava strips her of her lower lashes, finally releases her grip. Erin rubs at her eye which is gritted with fallen hairs. Her eyes feel alien without the familiar stiff fringe; all that remains is a clump of long hairs in the centre of her left lid, the hairs that Ava had gripped with the tweezers.

“Want me to get rid of those hairs?” Ava asks, and Erin, blinking, nods her consent. She immediately regrets her decision as her eye is once more jacked open by the tweezers. Ava leans in and protrudes her tongue, letting the tip touch Erin's eyeball. Erin can't bear this, pleads her mistress to stop, has to fight an urge to push her away. Her tears start to flow as she feels the tongue licking away the vexatious hairs. She sighs with relief when Ava is done, blinks her eye, which is now comfortable once more. Ava spits in the sink to clear her mouth.

“Let me see you,” Ava says. She stares at Erin's eyes admiringly. “Such lovely blue eyes you have. Pale and lovely, and now there's no hairs to get in the way. Except... I seem to have missed a few.” She reaches in once more with the tweezers. Erin sobs a tearful plea. Of all the things which have happened today this is the one she can't endure.

She expects to see the gleam of the scissors enter her field of vision but that isn't Ava's plan. Instead she takes a single hair and plucks it with a sharp tug. There's a little sting but less than Erin would have expected. Ava plucks the handful of remaining hairs with speedy efficiency.

“All done!” she says cheerfully. “You look just gorgeous. You're becoming more like my vision of you.” To preserve the memory of this moment she photographs Erin on her phone, framing the portrait with considerable care. She turns the phone to allow Erin to see herself.

The top of her head is out of frame, only the shaved sides of her head visible. She appears completely bald; more than that: hairless. She's still unwilling to accept her image without brows but now she sees her eyes looking small and odd without their dark framing fringes. Only the ring in her nose ornaments her brutally exposed features. She makes a long low moan of despair. She looks pleadingly at Ava. How can she have been so cruel? Erin feels her tears well, lamenting her lost beauty.

“What are you snivelling about? You look beautiful, far more lovely than that boring cop I met a few weeks ago,” Ava says, evidently with sincerity.

Erin wants to protest, that Ava is more conventional in her hair, still has her brows (albeit in painted form) and lashes intact, and doesn't rely for her income on a profession which expects a certain conservatism in appearance.

“Miss Avarice,” Erin says, hesitantly but barely knows what to say. “I don't know how I'll ever be able to feel confident looking like this. And if I'm self conscious people won't take me seriously. I'll have no authority.”

“Then I suppose I'll have to show you that I believe in you. If that doesn't give you confidence then I don't know if I can trust you. Now, stop chattering and wash your hair!”

Erin is made to kneel beside the enamel bath, which she can now see is an antique rather than a retro new model. She cranes her head over the side and waits expectantly as Ava adjusts the shower head. Cold water powers over her head, making her utter a shivery gasp. “It's cold, Miss Avarice,” she murmurs, but her friend pays no heed. She's put on another pair of latex gloves and now agitates Erin's hair to facilitate the purging of the dye. Erin can see the water in the bath run black. Only when it runs clear is she allowed to rise.

Her wet hair is wrapped in a towel and now Erin is taken to the room with the barber chair. Ava takes hold of her head and forces her to look at her image. “Sexy, gorgeous girl,” she says. She pulls the towel free and the wet black locks spill over Erin's bald sides, but not for long. Ava twists them into a top knot and ties it so that a spiky lock juts up above Erin's head. Erin smiles uncomfortably at the ridiculous style but Ava seems intent on demonstrating that Erin appeals to her. She starts to kiss at the silky nape, becoming ever more enraptured. “Keep looking at yourself and finger yourself hard. You'll cum when I demand it.”

Erin blushes at Ava's instruction but her embarrassment does nothing to make her resist the orders. Ava continues to explore her scalp with her lips, then moves her attention to Erin's ears. She withdraws as Erin seems to be slipping toward climax.

The clip is removed and Erin's hair is combed down, the strands cold and sticky on the newly bared scalp. Ava separates the top section, fringe included, and pins it up, making Erin face her reflection with her shaved forehead revealed. She has her scissors now, plays with her comb to smooth the right section, and teases Erin by moving the open blades up and down across her cheek, as if unsure how short to cut. Finally the blades snap shut, cutting Erin's bob at nose level. This seemed to be the shortest that Ava had considered and Erin gasps to see how short her hair will be. The scissors transit across her cheek, across her ear, cutting a precise horizontal line. Almost half of her ear is visible beneath the black hair.

“Is it too short, baby doll?” Ava taunts, gazing at Erin in the mirror. “If I took it just another inch and a half shorter you'd have a bowlcut. Or is that what you still want?”

Erin grimaces as she imagines a harsh bowlcut on herself with bald scalp visible on nape and sideburn beneath the cap of black hair. She imagines her embarrassment going to her job looking so, but she feels something in her that wants Ava to demand it of her. “No, not that,” she whispers, but her fingers work more quickly despite her attempts to show Ava that she wants her hair longer.

“It can wait. For a bit,” Ava smiles. “You can cum when you're ready. If I said that soon you'll have a very harsh bowlcut, would that help you? I'll keep all this shaved and take it so there's a nice band of clear skin on display over your ears. Shorter than the cut I did on my fat sub, and much bolder with the shave below.”

Erin is gasping, filled with a perverse desire for her fears to become reality. “Give in to it, baby doll,” Ava whispers. “You want it so there's nothing to be ashamed of. You were afraid that I'd guess how it made you feel but I already know, so when I count down from five you'll say you want a bowlcut from me and then cum.”

Ava makes the count agonisingly slow. Erin has pushed herself to the brink and can now barely hold herself as Ava pauses for ten, twenty seconds between numbers. Finally she says “Zero! Now say it or no orgasm.”

“I want a bowlcut,” Erin says. Her self-discipline crumbles, rewarding her with a delicious consummation of her desire. Her joy is prolonged by Ava, whose fingers are now reaching forcefully, roughly inside her. A large ring presses inside her, causing some discomfort but a lot more ecstasy.

Ten minutes later Erin has finally calmed. She feels exhausted, wants nothing more than to fall asleep in Ava's arms. But her hair needs to be finished. She sits passively as the scissors snip her bob to its new brevity. “I love how easily I can control you, Erin. Your sex drive makes you putty when I'm with you, doesn't it?”

“Yes, Miss Avarice,” she admits. It's true, she thinks. Ava is able to get inside her head, make her desire the things she most fears. “It's hard for me when you're not around though. Then I start to worry.”

“You'll learn. You just need to be a good girl, baby doll, then you can spend more time here and start to become my beautiful willing sub all the time.”

“I'll be good, Miss Avarice,” Erin smiles. Right now her love for Ava seems far more important than her career.

The top layer of hair is released and carefully combed to lie over the shorter layer. Ava's scissors are once more on Erin's cheek chipping away three inch strands to sculpt the new style. Now they continue their work high on Erin's nape. She shivers as she realises that shaved skin will be visible at the back. She tries to tell herself it won't be so bad. Perhaps, since no hair remains there'll be no way to judge where her hairline was and people will just assume that the bob is cut to her hairline.

Ava makes a few minor corrections to the line of the bob, then nods to herself in satisfaction. “Your fringe now, baby doll. I was going to cut it daringly short. Would you like that?” She moves her scissors, poised to cut, to somewhere around where Erin's hairline used to be.

“I don't know, Miss,” Erin mumbles. She thinks it would look awful but knows that Ava would soon convince her that it was beautiful and necessary.

“But then I thought... Erin wants a bowlcut, and a bowlcut looks best when the fringe is the same length as the sides.” She snips away the ends of the fringe, just a few millimetres of hair falling, just enough to make the ends conform to a hard line once more. “So for now we might let your fringe alone.”

Erin stares at her new bob. Ava has styled it to perfection, using straighteners to make the hair gleam as if burnished. It sits close to her head, the volume reduced by the higher undercut which was inflicted earlier. Ava passes Erin a hand mirror and spins the chair to allow her to examine the back. She feels a fearful chill as she sees what's been done. How could she ever have believed this could look normal? Her pale neck and nape, uncharacteristically bald, are so exposed by the line of the bob that she knows that she'll draw attention everywhere. She can't avoid groaning as she thinks about how this will impact on her life away from Ava.

Soon her doubts are temporarily forgotten. Ava has transformed her features, working a spell with her cosmetics. Erin has pale, powdery skin, her cheeks subtly brushed with a grey blue shadow. Her lashless lids gleam with an iridescent white with a cool blue shading the socket. Her pallor is accented not just by the glossy helmet of hair, but by her lips, just as dark, covered with a liquid oily black. Erin no longer doubts that Ava's desire is to make her beautiful. But the girl she has become is alien, unrecognisable, even from the girl she was a few hours before. She's been dressed in a red dress of Ava's, which would have been too small at the waist except that her waist is now tightly compressed by a corset. She wears a tiny black leather bike jacket and now Ava makes her wear a pair of lace up black shoes with absurdly high heels. The discomfort they cause (in addition to the absurdly oversized heels they're at least a size small) her seems irrelevant given how much they excite Ava.

“Baby doll, just look at you,” she purrs. “So sexy, so beautiful. I want to ravish you, but first I need to show you off to the world. You can be patient, can't you? It'll makes me so horny to see all the admiring glances you'll get, and all because you trusted me to make you so lovely.”

Erin feels elated to be seen with her love and pledges her eternal obedience.

As she walks along an urban street, Erin reaches up to ensure the curved bar in her nose remains hidden, checks her hand before doing so. She has to stop this, it's becoming a habit. She knows that the bar almost always stays in place and that the more likely reason her new piercing will be noticed is that she can't stop touching her nose. She feels sad, vulnerable this morning, Ava having angrily ended their telephone conversation late on the previous night. She had told Erin that at their next meeting she would make Erin receive more piercings. As soon as Erin expressed her concerns that it wouldn't be allowed in her job Ava cut her off. “Call me tomorrow at this time with a better attitude or we're done!” she said, then ended the call.

The life she lives with Ava seems dreamlike; anything is possible. She remembers their night out during the previous week, showing off her dramatic new look, how happy she was to receive such admiration from Ava's friends. But now she's returned to this mundane, grey world where her colleagues titter and whisper when they see her, all the more so as she can't hide how it distresses her. She feels their distrust and is more lonely than ever when she's working.

She's patrolling an area which is home to small factories, many of which are now disused. As she passes a narrow cul de sac she notices a van which looks in poor condition. The front number plate is broken and missing the end of the registration number. She makes her way to the back of the van to see the complete number so that she can radio it in.

Now that she's passed further into the alley she's able to see to the end, having passed the dog leg in the street. She sees two young men, who start to show nervousness as soon as they register her presence. She sees one of them furtively thrust something into his pocket. He's constantly in motion, his legs moving in a spasmodic dance, seemingly out of his control. She's uncomfortable; confronting someone who's high is always risky, and they outnumber her. Regardless, she has to tackle them. She calls out and identifies herself as a police officer. The men are both young, both wear caps and dark glasses (despite the gloomy weather), black anoraks. She asks them what they're up to. “Nothing, we were just hanging,” says the larger of the two, the one who seems more controlled. As she turns to talk to him, his companion starts to sidle sideways, trying to slip out of her field of vision. She's anxious about this, all of his body language suggests that he's going to become aggressive. She tells him to keep still, trying to sound calm, knowing that a confrontational approach would almost certainly make him snap. He can't stay still though and he continues to edge, seemingly without willing it, toward a skip.

“Stay still,” she says insistently. A movement from the corner of her eye makes her look toward the larger man. His hand has reached into his pocket and before she can act he squirts her face with the canister he's drawn from the pocket.

Erin instantly knows it's pepper spray. She closes her burning eyes and they refuse to open again. The shock of the pain incapacitates her. She reaches for her radio, desperate to call for back up, but then something hard and heavy crashes into the back of her head. She stumbles forward, thinks she's regained her balance but then feels her arm heavily impacting the ground. She pulls up her knees, puts a hand over her face and again reaches for the radio. It's torn away from her and she hears it being stamped into pieces. She pulls herself tighter into a ball, still blinded by the pepper spray, her head spinning from the blow. Now she feels kicks and punches raining down. She thinks she's going to die. She thinks of Ava, how she made her want to be helpless, and now she is helpless and it will kill her. There's a stamp on her ribs and she knows immediately that some serious damage has happened. Another kick slides between her hands and impacts her face, making her eyes flash with white. She tries to pull her arms more tightly to her face, but the injury to her side means she can't exert any force with her right arm. As she endures another kick to her torso she can feel bone against bone in her shattered rib cage.

She's turned onto her back and one of the men straddles her body. She's in too much pain to resist. “Not this,” she thinks. “Please not this!” She won't beg though. She tries to open her eyes so that she can see her assailant but the lids refuse to open. A hard slap across her cheek. Another. Her arms are pinned to her sides and she can't defend herself. Her mouth is filled with blood. More slaps, so hard that she's sobbing. She hears the voice of the smaller man urging his companion to go. “That's enough,” he says. “Let's get out of here.” The one who straddles her reaches into her pockets and finds her phone which is treated to the same destruction as the radio.

She feels a huge gob of spit land in her face. “Fucking freak!” the man says venomously. “Ugly dyke! Just be grateful I didn't kill you.”

Erin can't stop crying with relief as she realises they've gone. But as she tries to rise she feels faint. She's in shock, she knows, shivering all over. She knows that she has internal injuries and that she has to get help. But every attempt at movement brings agony. She knows she has to get help. If she lies here no one will see her and she'll bleed out. She manages to get onto her hands and knees and tries to crawl. She's still blind, she feels breathless, the rib damage compounded by the insult to her lungs from the spray. She can bear no weight on her right arm, but her left hand is useless, surely broken. She crawls forward, agonisingly slowly. She cries with pain and frustration and fear. She thinks of Ava, thinks of how she loves her and how she must force herself on to see her again. She calls out but no one hears her and she inches forward again.

Her determination starts to diminish. Every movement hurts her and she's getting more dizzy. She knows that she has only to give in and all the pain will go away. Then she hears a voice. “Are you OK?” she says. “Oh Jesus!” The distress in the woman's voice scares her. “I need an ambulance,” the woman says moments later. “Police too, it's one of your officers.” Erin drops to the floor and loses consciousness.

Erin wakes feeling confused. She looks about her and remembers she's in hospital, in a room by herself. She feels a little more alert than she has been. She can barely remember anything since she's been here. She coughs and feels a convulsive pain in her right side. Don't cough again, she thinks. There are cards and flowers on the cabinet beside her. With her bandaged and splinted left hand she awkwardly lifts the cards one after another. None from Ava. She feels despondent.

A nurse comes in, smiles at her sympathetically. “How are you feeling today? You look brighter.”

“I'm OK,” Erin says. “It's embarrassing, I can't really remember anything. I don't know what's happened. Do I keep asking this?”

“It's the meds”, the nurse says. “We've reduced the dose of pain meds so you're going to be a bit more alert. You were pretty beaten up when you got here. Do you remember what happened?” Erin nods. “I'll ask the doctor to come in and have a chat about it. And your boss wants a statement. Do you feel up to that today?” Erin nods.

She sees her sergeant waiting outside the room talking to the doctor. She tries to smooth her hair down, realises with a shock that her nose piercing is gone. He enters, forces a smile, asks how she is.

“I'm OK,” she says. This is the platitude she thinks people want to hear. But she was mistaken. He actually wants to know about her injuries. “I had a blow to the head that caused concussion, broken ribs, collapsed lung. That's what the drain in my side's for. Broken left hand and fingers. Lots of bumps and bruises.”

“We've all been very concerned about you,” he says, “but the investigation has got nowhere in three days. We need your statement.”

As she recounts the events she can sense his irritation. She knows he doesn't trust her, thinks that anyone else would have handled the situation better. He's annoyed at her vague descriptions now. “Would you know them again?” he asks.

“No...” She starts to cry. It's all come back to her. How she thought she was going to die, how she thought she would be raped. “They wore dark glasses and hats, black jackets. They looked like thousands of lads. I'd never know them.” Her tears make him look uncomfortable.

“There, there,” he says and reaches to touch her hand but stops as he sees the bandages. “I'm sure you've done your best.” Which isn't as good as anyone else's best, she thinks bitterly.

“I need to rest now,” she says. He nods. “Can you arrange for the stuff from my locker to be brought in? There are clothes in there that I'll need to go home in, and my phone's in there. I haven't been able to tell anyone I'm here.”

Later that day a young guy, who always needles Erin at the station, comes in with her belongings. He sits and chats to her and she's surprised to see that he's genuinely concerned. His normal attitude is gone and he's visibly upset to see how badly hurt Erin is. “When I get my hands on the little shits...” he says angrily.

“Tom, that's not likely,” Erin says. “They dressed the same as all the little gangsters, they wore caps and dark glasses, so I could barely see anything of their faces. One had a beard but he could have shaved it off. I'd never know them so unless something comes up on CCTV...”

“There's nothing,” he says, despondent. “It eats me up to think they can get away with this.”

“Shit happens,” Erin says stoically.

As soon as Tom leaves Erin trawls thought her bag awkwardly. Her right arm is still incapacitated, her left hand rendered clumsy by the injuries and dressing. She manages to extract her phone, turns it on and sees with relief that there's still some power in the battery. She immediately calls Ava, her heart racing as she hears it ringing.

“I don't want to hear from you again,” Ava says angrily. “You were told that you would apologise or we were through. You're missing me now, but it's too late...”

“Please, Miss, I'm in hospital,” she interrupts. “I was badly hurt days ago... I don't even know what day it is now. I only really woke up today and as soon as I got my phone back I called you.”

“What happened?” Ava gasps, sounding contrite about her diatribe.

“I got attacked. I'm going to be OK but I got some broken ribs, broken hand, concussion.”

“And..? You'd be home by now if that was all.”

“The ribs are pretty bad. Collapsed lung.”

“Oh Erin. Oh... You poor thing. All this time I was angry with you and you're really hurt. I'm going to come right in to see you. Which hospital, which ward?”

For the first time since she's known her, Ava sounds flustered. She tells her the information. “But I'm not sure of visiting hours.”

“I'm sure they'll let me see you and if they don't I'll wait at the door until the minute they let me in.”

An hour later and Ava bursts in. She looks at Erin and smiles weakly, but then begins to sob. “My poor baby doll! What have they done to you?” Erin can't hold back her tears and soon they're both crying helplessly.

“I haven't even seen myself yet. Do I look awful.”

Ava tries to smile and reassure her, but then her tears come with renewed force. “Oh, Erin, your pretty face is all bruised. Your nose, it's not broken?”

“No, just badly bruised.”

“You don't have any real cuts, I'm sure it'll all heal fine,” Ava says, examining her closely. “Oh, your lips! I want to hug you but...”

“I want that too but I'm too delicate.”

Ava composes herself and asks Erin to tell her what happened. She tries to recount the events again but feels panic as she makes herself recall the incident again. Her tears return and she apologises. “I'm sorry, I can't go through this again. I had to make a statement to my sergeant earlier and every time I think about it I feel like I'm living it again. I thought they were... rape,” she whispers, sobbing.

“But they didn't?” She shakes her head, which Ava now cradles, hushing her. She falls asleep with Ava humming to her and caressing her brow.

Ava spends every moment that she can with Erin. The next evening she asks about the absent piercing. “No idea what happened. I meant to ask. I suppose they must have taken it out when I got here. My nose must have been very swollen.”

“We need to get it back in. The hole will close, if it hasn't already.” Ava immediately leaves to locate the jewellery and returns ten minutes later, happily holding the little bar aloft.

“It's probably going to sting a bit. Why don't you have a couple of clicks of your morphine? That'll make it all easier.”

“But it makes me all confused and sleepy. I hate how it feels.”

“The nurses have been telling you to use it more.” She moves Erin's finger to the button that administers a measured dose of analgesic into her IV. “Two clicks,” she insists and Erin reluctantly obeys.

Ava washes her hands and scrubs at the beaded bar with alcohol rub, allowing the morphine time to act. She puts Erin's head back against the pillow and smiles reassuringly. “Just take slow, deep breaths.” The end of the bar is pressed to the wound and Ava pushes, dislodging some scabbing which has formed, partially closing the opening.

“Oh, Miss Avarice,” Erin wails. Despite the pain relief she still feels a sharp pain, and her nose is still so tender that the least pressure makes the entire septum ache. “You're being too rough.” Ava isn't to be gainsaid. She continues to increase Erin's discomfort but after a few seconds there's no force, just the careful actions of closing the jewellery by screwing the bead into place.

“There, all done. If it closed you'd get a scar there and your nose is so small that there probably isn't room to pierce your septum anywhere else. I wouldn't like to see you without a septum piercing!”

Erin winces as she waits for the pain to fade. She looks at Ava who's looking uncharacteristically serious, sad even.

“I don't want this to happen again. I don't want you to put yourself at risk.”

“Well I don't want it either,” Erin says, trying to be flippant to relieve the mood. “I don't go looking for trouble.”

“I don't want you to continue in this job. I'd never really thought about how dangerous it could be. I'll never stop worrying about you now if you're out on the streets. You're too precious to be putting yourself in danger.”

Erin nods. “I need to think about it,” she says with emotion. “I'm scared, Ava. I keep thinking about going out again and every time I do I start to panic. But I need time to decide. I've put so much into it that I can't just give up.”

“Don't call me Ava,” she's told, a warning that even in moments of intimacy the correct form of address must be maintained. “I'm really upset that no one contacted me. I wish I was your next of kin. Then I'd have to be informed. Your mum hasn't exactly been here to support you.”

Erin gloomily shakes her head. “Once they told her I wasn't dying she decided she wouldn't come. She has phoned the ward each day though.” She's unable to hide her hurt, her disappointment in her mother's lack of concern.

“So make me your next of kin.”

Erin shakes her head. “I can't just do that. It's a legal thing. It can only be a parent, a sibling, a spouse.” Ava nods. Suddenly Erin's head is swimming. She feels like she's fainting as she realises what Ava is suggesting. She can't breathe, let alone get words out. “You mean..?” she splutters.

“Will you marry me, baby doll?”

Erin closes her eyes. Is this a dream, a delusion from the morphine? She's seen things that she knows can't be there when the dose has been increased but this is surely real. Ava has openly talked of her reluctance to settle down, has always been ambivalent when discussing the prospect of a closer relationship. And now a marriage proposal. Now she talks, some unconscious part of her mind taking charge, since her conscious thoughts come in a confused, overwhelming flood. “Nothing would make me happier,” she says proudly. “I love you so much.” She laughs and sobs.

Ava holds out a velvet covered box, too large to contain a single ring. Inside, arranged in a lozenge are four rings. There's a beautiful ring, an oval emerald set inside a halo of tiny diamonds on a wide band of silver, much heavier than any traditional engagement ring. Then there are three titanium rings, one small and delicate, and a pair of larger, more robust hoops, all three closed with a metal bead. The emerald band is slid onto Erin's left ring finger and she looks at her hand with astonishment. She will be Ava's wife! The idea fills her with delight, fear too. She imagines how her life will be if she abandons herself completely to Ava's will, if she cuts herself free from her existing life and leaves her career behind. She imagines herself as a young bird, a fledgling who has imagined that the cosy nest where she has spent her existence is the entire world. Now she has emerged from a cleft and finds herself staring at a beautiful bright day, an open sky into which she may fly. But she has to take a leap into the void, and there's no certainty that she won't plunge to disaster.

“And I love you. I never thought I'd ever want someone to share my life, but I want to be with you forever, Erin. You've made me so happy to wear my ring. The other rings will have to wait until you're a bit better. But soon you'll wear them forever, won't you?” Erin nods, trying to imagine where she will be pierced to accept the rings that will prove her commitment to her fiancée.

Three days later and Erin is discharged from hospital, into Ava's care. She's still very delicate, unable to walk without pain. She's barely been eating and she looks pale and thin. She has avoided looking at herself during her stay in hospital but as she visits the bathroom she stares at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are still ringed by dark bruising which is spreading and yellowing at the margins, her nose is swollen, her lips are distorted by the injuries (inside her lower lip she can still feel stitches binding together a small gash). She feels upset to see herself like this; not merely the bruises, she looks emaciated, prematurely old. Her hair is dirty and dishevelled and even her eyebrows are faintly visible. The undercut has sprouted a covering of tawny stubble. When she runs her hand up her nape she can still feel a bump where she was struck.

As she returns to Ava she can't conceal her distress and begins to cry. “I look so awful. How can you bear to look at me?” Ava sits alongside her on the sofa and strokes her arm.

“You'll soon be better, you already look much better than when I first saw you. You just have to rest and eat better!”

“I just feel sick every time I eat. I just wish I was well again. Will you give me a haircut, Miss Avarice?”

Ava shakes her head, looking at her mischievously. “No haircut till your wedding day. No dye, no shaving. Just a little incentive to make you speed things up.”

Erin giggles. “But I like my hair long. Maybe it'll make me want to stall the wedding for ages.”

Ava runs her nails over Erin's fuzzy temple. “Don't lie, baby doll. You adore feeling the clippers. And I've seen how excited you are when you get a makeover. Don't pretend having a grown out bob with roots showing will make you happy. You'll be begging me to get you in the chair soon.”

“Well... maybe,” Erin concedes, as she recalls how every time Ava attends to her hair she becomes delirious with pleasure.

“But I'm serious, Erin, I'm not going to marry Constable Erin. You have to leave the force. I can't live with worrying about you every time you go to work. If anything like this happened again I just couldn't bear it.”

“Please, Miss Avarice, I need to think about it. I've put so much into this that I can't just abandon it. It's very unlikely that I'd get so badly hurt again.”

“I know that. But it is dangerous. And I don't want that for you.”

“I'm really struggling, to be honest. I'm scared, panicky if I even think about going out on my own. But I want to overcome this. I want to show that I can overcome my fear. Please support me, Miss Avarice.”

Ava nods indulgently. “I will. But I won't marry a police officer. You'll have to choose sooner or later.”

Ava's relationship with Erin seems to change over the following weeks. She's a patient, supportive nurse. There's little of the sensuality that previously defined their trysts, necessarily so since Erin remains very sore as she recovers from the assault. She visits a counsellor, at the expense of her employer, to try to help her emotional recovery. She soon agrees to return to work, although initially she will be working only within the office and for limited hours each week. Erin can sense that Ava is unhappy about this, but she doesn't try to force the issue. She's told Erin that she must decide what's right for her. She returns from her first afternoon back and is welcomed home by Ava.

“I feel exhausted,” she admits. “I don't think I'm strong enough yet.” Ava nods, but resists the urge to say I told you so.

“You look so thin. You're still not eating and you can barely manage a ten minute walk in the park. You're rushing too much.”

“Please, I have my reasons,” she says. “I need to go back out on the streets. If I quit now I'd always think I was a coward, that they'd beaten me. But I spoke to someone from the Union today about leaving on medical grounds. He says if I show I've tried my best to recover from the assault it will help me to get a better severance. Although he did say that I can't expect a big pay off and I'll get hardly anything from my pension.”

“Well then, there's not much to lose if you just quit, is there? But I do see why this is important to you. I promise I'll be supportive and not do anything to undermine you. If this will make you healthy and strong again then you need to do it. But I won't stop worrying.” She kisses Erin gently.

Months pass and Erin's wounds have healed, yet still she fails to thrive. She's forced herself to return to real policing. She initially seems to cope with her anxieties but as the weeks pass she feels panic whenever she's alone. She starts to cry when she returns home after each shift and Ava can't bear to see her distress any longer. She makes an ultimatum one night as Erin lies sobbing after a difficult shift.

“Erin, I can't take this any more. You're not getting better. You've been really brave to return to your job but it's killing you. You're not eating, you're having panic attacks daily, you're depressed, anxious, and you don't take any pleasure in life. I haven't seen you smile in weeks. You have to quit. If you go into work tomorrow we're through. I can't bear to see what this job is doing to you.”

Erin is astonished, deeply hurt that Ava would make such a threat. There's little sleep that night as Erin tries to argue that she can get better, but by dawn Erin has accepted just how badly the assault has affected her. She makes a call to her superintendent telling him that she is emotionally unable to cope. She agrees to visit her doctor, to schedule another meeting with her counsellor. A week later and Erin has been told that she will be medically discharged from the police.

“I don't know what I'll do now!” she complains sadly.

“You'll marry me,” Ava smiles. “Let's say... about a month? For a week before we marry we'll live apart. You'll get a big makeover so you'll surprise me on the day.” Ava ruffles Erin's hair, which looks unlovely and in need of attention. Inches of blonde roots have grown in and her undercut is now grown to straggly short locks.

“So soon?” Erin gasps.

“Soon?” Ava snorts. “I've been far too patient with you, Erin Hume.”

“I know you have, Miss Avarice,” she smiles, kissing her. “Will you be Mrs Avarice once we're married?” she giggles.

“Hmmm. Maybe I'll make you legally change your name to Slave Erin. How do you like that?”

“I... don't,” Erin whispers. “It's scary.”

“But it's making you wet, isn't it?” There's no use denying it, Ava is feeling for herself the effects of her threats. “Today you're going to be fitted with the engagement rings and then we'll book a date for our ceremony. You have to agree to anything for your wedding makeover. A week will allow for big changes.”

“Tattoos?” Erin says.

“Yes, tattoos. I won't recognise you when you walk down the aisle.” She kisses Erin's neck and then her hands. Erin trembles as she recognises that Ava is letting her know that she'll be tattooed here.

“Miss Avarice, will you get a makeover too?”

“I will, baby doll. Would you like that?”

“Maybe. Nothing too shocking though?”

“If I told you then it wouldn't be a surprise,” she says with a mischievous smile.

Later that day Erin is taken to see Thomasina. It's been so long since they met that Erin could hardly recall her features, but as soon as they meet she recalls the pretty young woman who pierced her septum. In contrast to her ironic amusement that day at Erin's discomfort, now she seems friendly and compassionate.

“Ava told me all about what happened to you. It's so awful. Look at you, you poor thing. You look so pale and delicate.”

“She's not been looking after herself,” Ava says. “We're getting married in a few weeks and she's going to put her health first until then. Eating properly instead of leaving half of every meal.” Erin knows that Ava is right, that she has to live more healthily, despite her lack of appetite.

“Wow, you're really getting married?” Thomasina laughs. “I never thought I'd hear you of all people decide to tie the knot, Ava. You've always been the most free spirited, independent girl I ever met.”

“Did you hear that, Erin?” Ava asks her. “No one else has ever made me want to settle down. I hope you appreciate how much I'm changing for you.” Erin feels herself blushing, smiling incredulously that she could have inspired such a change in her beautiful fiancée. “Speaking of changes, Thoma, little Erin is going to get a makeover before our big day. I want you to do some changes on her the week before. How much can you free yourself up to work on her?”

Thomasina stares at Erin, smiling. “What sort of things did you have in mind?”

“You've pretty much got carte blanche. We'll have some discussions before. There are some things I want done, that I have a detailed idea of the exact look I want, and some things you can pretty much decide.”

“Erin's getting tattoos?” Thomasina asks, seeming to be surprised and delighted by this opportunity. “I could do a hell of a lot in a week.”

“That is the idea,” Ava nods. “I want a tattooed bride.”

“Why don't you let her come and stay with me for the week? That way I can still keep up with my work here and fit in my work on Erin during the quiet times and at night.”

“Well that would be just perfect!” Ava smiles. “You will have to lock her away at times though. I need your services too and I don't want us to see each other for the entire week.”

“Of course, hon. You know I'm always happy to work on you.”

“Erin, baby doll, why don't you undress and let Thoma see what she's going to have to work with?” Erin looks bashful at the request and pauses. “You have to undress anyway. Your new piercings can't be done when you're dressed.”

“Oh, she's so delicate,” Thoma says as she sees Erin's naked form.

“Yes, I'm going to make sure she fills out a bit before the wedding. She's turned into a little waif over the last few months. I got her four engagement rings and I want you to fit those for her now, at least the three she's not wearing.”

Erin reclines and steels herself to be pierced. She's not been told where the rings will be fitted but has guessed. She thinks back to how awful it was when Thomasina pierced her septum, how she almost fainted. She prays for courage today, for the ability to bear this trial with strength and grace.

Ava and Thomasina say almost nothing but it's immediately apparent that Erin's first assumption is correct. The larger rings will pierce her nipples. As Thomasina swabs her flesh, Ava takes Erin's head in her hands and kisses her. “Just a few weeks and this awful hair of yours will finally be beautiful again. You've missed the clippers, haven't you?”

Erin feels her anticipation growing. She thinks back to her last haircut, when the back and sides of her head were stripped of hair. “Yes, they feel good,” she whispers, but she's fearful of her hair being cut short again too.

“And now there's nothing to stop you wearing your hair however I choose. There's no job that demands conservatism in your appearance any more. You can be as daring as I choose.”

Erin cries out in distress, not just because she realises that she will soon be changed beyond what she can imagine, but also because Thomasina has stabbed a needle into her clamped nipple. Her complaints are stifled by a kiss from Ava. She presses her scarlet lips ravenously to Erin's mouth, her tongue forcefully pressing at Erin's, more like an assault than an expression of affection. Nevertheless, Erin feels herself borne upward by ecstatic currents. Ava's urgent attentions are just what was needed to transform the pain of Thomasina's work into something pleasurable. She's relieved to feel an end to the pain, the weight of the ring discernible on her right nipple now. However, her attempts to disengage from Ava, to see her new piercing are frustrated. Ava continues to violently kiss her as Thomasina turns to the left nipple.

The second needle entering her seems to inflame a greater ague than the first, as if the addition of the first ring had only made her more sensitive to this new insult. Her moans go unheard as Ava continues her attentions, Erin's pain evidently inducing a greater level of arousal. Erin is breathless when Ava finally lifts herself, looking back admiringly at her newly pierced love. Erin gazes lovingly into Ava's black eyes, only with a great effort ending their eye contact. But she must see what Thomasina has done. She sees her blunt pink nipples are now desecrated by thick bands of titanium, crimson oozing where flesh and metal meet. She's unprepared for this vision, a small foretaste of what she is to become. In spite of her determination to meet her challenge with resilience she feels weak, nauseous, faint when she sees the rings.

She wants to rest but knows that there is a final ring to be ensnared in her flesh. She is aware that Thomasina is examining her pubis, confirming her suspicion that it will decorate her clitoral hood. She shivers as she's cleansed, her hairlessness easing the process (in contrast to the neglect of her hair, Ava has insisted that the regime of waxing should be maintained, as it was most recently only the previous day).

Thomasina and Ava consult briefly in whispers, although by now Erin is so distressed that even had they shouted their communications she'd have been hard pressed to discern meaning. She feels tearful as a cold clamp is manipulated onto her most sensitive flesh but now Ava starts to ruffle her hair and remind her of the significance of her new piercings, how they are extensions of Ava and how they will remain forever in her flesh as a reminder of her commitment. Each statement is punctuated with a delicate kiss, her cheeks, her eyes, her neck anointed.

She's relaxed, but Erin has hardly returned to a normal state, rather a sort of torpor descends on her, but this mood is jolted away from her as an agonising thrust is inflicted by Thomasina. Her entire pelvic region seems to burn, so intense is the shock. She whimpers miserably, looking to Ava for solace, her big eyes wet and pleading. But there is nothing to hope for. Thomasina has to complete what she has set in motion and soon Erin's quest is completed for this day at least.

Or perhaps not quite. She still has to endure the sight of herself punctured and ringed. She bends forward to examine her genital piercing and realises that the ring has been introduced through her clitoris, not the hood as she'd expected. She is repulsed by the image, even more than she was (in truth, still is) by the sight of the larger bands which occupy her nipples. She's allowed to dress, which she does with difficulty, her body seemingly overcome with a sudden fatigue. Raising her arms above her head to replace her top seems an almost insuperable task.

“You have to eat,” Ava insists. “You're exhausted from getting a couple of piercings. When Thomasina has you for the week before the wedding you'll be getting more than this done. We need you to be stronger or we'll end up getting married with you in a hospital bed.” Erin joylessly swallows another mouthful of her salad. Ava is a good cook and the salad is just what she needs, light, tasty and nutritious, yet she can't take any pleasure in her food. She's become so rooted in the anxieties her job had induced that she can't free herself from her negative thoughts. She can't allow herself to take any delight in the prospect of her impending wedding, constantly dwelling on her fears about what will become of her now that she's abandoned the career she'd mapped out.

Ava sidles alongside her and feeds her the remainder of her meal, silencing Erin's complaints and not allowing her the options of feeding herself or leaving part of her food. She's told that until the wedding she'll conform to Ava's strict timetable. A schedule has already been drawn up and she sees that the main events planned are four times each day when she will eat. She's also to take a walk for at least an hour each day, longer at weekends.

The day for the ceremony is set for a Saturday five weeks hence, a little longer that Ava would have liked, but nevertheless soon enough that organising everything will be a challenge. Ava is ruthless in ensuring that everything will be provided to her satisfaction becoming angry and frustrated at any setbacks. However, each evening she puts all thoughts of the planning aside and makes time for Erin and herself to rekindle their sensual relationship, which has become dormant during the long preceding months. Despite the pleasures they explore, they've agreed that until their nuptials they will both remain chaste.

By the time their final week together has arrived, Erin has started to laugh again. She's hardly noticed how she's overcome her long months of anxiety, but everyone else can see it. She's even taken on responsibility for organising numerous services for the ceremony, and by the time she's made to say her farewell to Ava, everything seems to be in place. Ava delivers her to Thomasina late on the Friday afternoon and silently holds her tightly. She takes a long look at Erin, and kisses her tenderly. “See you on our wedding day,” she says with a bright smile, but her eyes are gleaming with emotion. Erin's emotions are less well contained, and it's all she can do not to sob. She can hardly speak and mutters a broken farewell before watching Ava depart in her car.

She takes a deep breath and rings the bell to let Thomasina know that her victim has arrived. She knows that in a week she'll have been changed beyond what she dare imagine.

The changes happen more quickly than she had imagined. An hour after arriving, Thomasina (who's been cleaning the shop) tells her that the most intrusive work will be completed first since it needs most time to heal. “Do you want to eat something now? You won't be much in the mood to eat later.” Erin's nervousness has made her stomach move in weird contractions and this news does nothing to calm her. She admits that she has no appetite.

Thomasina gives her two pills and a bottle of water. “These will make you a bit confused, but they'll also make the pain a bit easier to endure. You'll be glad of both, I guess.” Erin obediently swallows and waits for the drugs to do their work.

After half an hour she feels sleepy and intoxicated. Thomasina's voice seems distant and she often has to repeat herself before Erin complies with instruction. When she awakes the following morning, Erin can barely recall the events of the evening. She's in her room and reaches up to feel her ears. The lobes, she recalls as if remembering events from a fading dream, have been sliced with a blade and laboriously stitched. She nervously touches them and feels that they're now stretched around big metal rings, unable to guess the diameter, but sure that they're huge.

But more distressing is that her tongue is mangled and useless. She can barely remember Thomasina working on her tongue, a few fragmentary memories coming to her consciousness. Her tongue feels swollen and scalded and she can barely move it within her mouth. She feels dry and hungry but dreadfully tired. She rises with an effort and makes her way to the bathroom. She seeks out the mirror and grimaces as she sees her earlobes are now stretched around discs which appear to be two centimetres wide. She opens her mouth (a small gap in her lips is all that she can manage without pain) and tries to force her tongue forward. She feels sick as she sees two tips emerge, the inner surfaces bound with tiny black stitches. Dear God, Thomasina has split my tongue, she thinks, appalled that this has happened to her.

She returns to bed and wakes crying. She's sure that this is a mistake now. She doesn't want to go through her life with a tongue like a snake's. She's hurt that Ava wanted this for her. But, now she wonders, was this Ava's idea? She's given Thomasina a lot of license and this may have been her decision. What other crazy ideas does this woman have? She starts to wonder if maybe Thomasina isn't jealous of her, secretly desires Ava. Is her purpose to turn Erin into a repellent freak so that Ava will jilt her when she sees her on the day of their proposed marriage?

Her paranoia starts to lift once she dresses and goes to the living space she'll share with Thomasina for the next week. Thomasina couldn't be more sympathetic, issuing Erin with painkillers and examining her wounds. “The tongue is a tough one. It'll be sore for a week, but once the stitches come out it'll feel a lot better.”

Erin manages to ask “When?” but even saying that single word is a struggle.

“In a week.”

“Weddin' day..?” she manages to slur.

“Yes, I'm afraid so. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be healed enough to kiss Ava. You do need to look after yourself though. You'll probably struggle with solid food for a few days but I'll make you nice smoothies.”

Erin is treated to the first of these for her breakfast, which she manages to drink with difficulty. To allow her to communicate she installs an app on her tablet which allows her to write notes with a stylus. She's delighted to have a voice and asks Thomasina what she'll have done today. “More big mods?” she asks.

“These are the things that are going to take longest to heal, which was why they had to be done first. I'm not going to give too much away but I'm going to concentrate on your piercings first to allow healing. The tattoos might be a bit scabby on your big day but hopefully they'll look fine. First thing you're getting is a haircut. We're heading out right now for your appointment.”

Erin arrives at the salon, the one she saw on her arrival at the building on the first day she met Thomasina. She hasn't had her hair cut in months and is ashamed of how it looks. The dark ends and blonde roots look awful, the lack of any shape no less so. She's sure that Ava has issued clear instructions, and as they wait for the stylist scribbles a note to Thomasina to confirm this.

“No, Erin, she left the cut up to me. She's given me a lot of freedom to make you beautiful.”

“Was split tongue Ava's idea?” she writes.

“No, that was mine. She did want your lobes scalpelled though.” Erin wonders how shocked Ava will be to see what's become of the Erin she was.

The stylist is clearly a friend of Thomasina's, probably responsible for the style she wears (a choppy shoulder length cut with a blunt, mid forehead fringe) and her vivid red colour. She consults with Thomasina, the loud electronic dance music hiding their conversation from everyone else in the salon, Erin included. She now comes to Erin, looking delighted with her instructions to restyle her.

“I'm Helene,” she announces, a strong French accent noticeable. “Thoma tells me you can't speak, but she also says you don't want to be consulted. Is that right?” Erin nods sadly. “So I could do any cut I chose and you'd just be a good girl and accept it?” Another nod. “I could even shave you bald?” Helene asks, still seemingly incredulous that Erin is so willing to accept whatever is imposed upon her.

Thomasina is watching everything. “Helene, stop teasing her.” She takes Erin's tablet and puts it in her bag for safekeeping. “Now she can't speak so she can't tell you to stop. Just cut her hair exactly as I said.”

A long black cape is cast over Erin, the fine fabric coated with a plastic which makes it look shiny and wet. Helene fastens it at her neck, tucking a tissue in to protect her delicate skin.

“You've not been looking after your hair. I hope once you're a married lady you'll look after it better.” Erin nods guiltily. Her cheeks redden as she sees Helene lift a huge chromed set of clippers. Helene stands at her left side and pushes her head to the side. The crack of the clippers roaring into life, as it always does, induces a muscular jerk in Erin. As the blades slip up her cheek Erin realises that Helene didn't apply a guard to the blades. She stares in the mirror, hoping that perhaps the guard was already in place. The hair starts to fall free, but still she can't see how short the clippers are cutting. Only as the blades rise up the side of her head can Erin see that she's being cut with bare blades, shorn to the scalp. Helene draws the clippers away and now shears away the hair from above Erin's ear. She winces as she realises her awful, jutting ears will be revealed for her wedding day.

Helene shears high up the side, higher than Ava has ever cut. Thomasina has been called to assist, gripping the longer hair on top of Erin's head. The blades slice into the long hair and Erin's lap starts to fill with long strands which are part blonde and part black. Helene seems to delight in working with the clippers and her enthusiasm starts to affect Erin. The sight of bare scalp up the entire side of her head makes Erin lose her inhibitions and she's soon aware that she's very aroused. She hasn't climaxed in weeks (in fact not since before her clitoris was pierced) and she can hardly stop from touching herself. She knows that even crudely pushing at her clitoris ring through the fabric of her skirt would be enough to tip her into an orgasm, but she remembers her vow to Ava, desperately fighting her urges.

Soon Erin sees a reflected girl who is almost bald, only a narrow strip (not even three inches wide) of long hair down the centre of her head separating the shorn sides. She bows her head as Helene renews her assault, now shaving away the hair from Erin's nape. Thomasina is once more holding up Erin's longer locks as Helene shaves her to the required shape.

The clippers are silenced and Helene equips herself with scissors. She crops away the length of Erin's little remaining hair, cutting the top to an even length of perhaps one and a half inches. All of the dyed hair has been cut away and Erin is left staring at a girl who has a short blonde mohawk. Helene gives a blast of the dryer to rid her of the clippings before she covers Erin's scalp with a layer of fragrant white lather.

“You'll come back here exactly a week from now,” Thomasina explains to Erin. “Your cut will be freshened up, sides reshaved and you'll get the colour done then. Of course, you'll look so different by then,” she giggles and exchanges a knowing look with Helene.

Helene presses the razor firmly to her scalp, ensuring a close shave for Erin. “What about her brows?” Thomasina asks. “They need some work, don't they.”

Helene pauses as she washes away more lather from the razor. “Yes, they're very straggly. I know what would look good.”

She puts aside the razor and takes out tweezers. Erin patiently endures the pain of plucking (the powerful painkillers she's taken dull her perception), sure that Helene will return her to the bald brows that Ava prefers for her. But when she finishes she still has faint brows, though thin and sparse, the outer parts almost completely devoid of hair. Even these brows seem rather too full for Helene's liking. She reaches for the clippers again, now fitting them with a tiny guard. She zips the buzzing blades over the ruins of Erin's brows, cutting the pale brown hairs down to stubble.

Erin simmers in the chair as Helene tantalisingly completes shaving her. The sensation of her scalp being razored is almost unbearable to Erin. Once the shave is complete she's taken to be shampooed and her blonde mohawk is blow-dried into a stiff little ridge of hair. Helene snips at a few stray hair before announcing her done.

Erin sees the back of her head for the first time; the hawk extends halfway down the back of her head, ending in a sharp V, the lower nape being completely bald. She looks at herself in the mirror and realises how her features have been changed by recent events, and her near baldness exposes those features cruelly. Her face is thinner, her eyes huge, the skin pale and paper thin, barely hiding the skull. The angularity of her face has become more marked, her cheekbones protruding. She can't decide whether she looks gaunt and ill, or delicately beautiful. Just the possibility that it's the latter excites her, despite her displeasure at the exposure of her ears. The huge tunnels which hang in them now seem to make them even more prominent.

Back in her temporary home Erin takes a little time to relax with Thomasina. “Do you like your new hairstyle?” she's asked.

“I think so, but I look so pale and sickly,” she scribbles.

“No, you look wonderful. You're pretty as a picture,” Thomasina smiles.

“Not my ears!” Erin notes, blushing as she admits to her shame.

“You have lovely little ears!” Thomasina exclaims. “Ava said you're self conscious about them. They hardly stick out at all. Just enough to make them more cute. Anyway, now you're bald at the sides I can add some more piercings without any hair to snag in them.”

Erin nods her acceptance of being pierced, although the thought of more wounds to heal makes her think that it's more than her body can take.

“Why did you get my hair cut today?” she asks. “Why not wait till next week? It'll need cutting again anyway.”

Thomasina smiles. “Because I couldn't tattoo your scalp while you had hair.” Erin looks at her pleadingly, hoping this is a joke. “We might as well make a start now while the shave is nice and fresh. Your first ever tattoo is going on your head.”

Erin dares to believe that Thomasina is only teasing her as the pattern is drawn out on her temples and around her ears. But it is a very elaborate pattern and she starts to wonder at the determination of someone who would take such a long time to play a joke. Then she feels the inked needle start to bore into her skin and her disbelief that she's going to have large tattoos on her scalp finally fades. She's lying on her left side, trying to find a comfortable position as Thomasina jabs at her, refusing to use mechanical methods to produce her design. Instead she's using a technique that's been around for millennia, a long bamboo stick bearing a cluster of tiny points her only tool.

Erin is initially tearful as she realises how freakish she'll look, then it's the pain of the process that she finds unendurable. Then she wakes, astonished that she could have fallen asleep during such a terrible ordeal. She's now lying face down, her face supported by a padded ring as Thomasina works on the area behind her ears and onto the side of nape. She mutters a mute appeal to rest and Thomasina agrees, once she's completed the current element.

“Can I see it?” she writes across the screen as Thomasina wipes away blood and excess ink from her head.

“Not yet. When it's all done. Another thirty or forty minutes and you'll be finished. I need coffee though if I'm going to keep going. Hand poking is hard work.”

While Thoma drinks her huge mug of coffee Erin sips another smoothie through a straw, glad of the coolness on her swollen tongue. When Thomasina invites her back to complete her tattooing she asks to sit upright. This is agreed, Erin sitting on a low stool while Thoma stands over her tapping more dots into Erin's scalp. She focusses on the events a week in the future when she will be united with Ava, to pledge herself for the rest of her days.

Finally, she feels the last sting. Now she sits patiently as her head is cleaned, Thomasina taking care not to stain her hair with ink. “Looks good, if I do say so myself,” she says. “Ready to take a look?”

Dark fans circle the sides of her head, centred around Erin's ears. The minuscule black dots form spiked shapes, overlapping like the scales of a bristly pine cone, the most prominent of the spikes outlined around the perimeter with a dotted line. Closer to her ears, arcs of solid black curl across her skull, concentric with the radiating spines. The design seems to be contained within the area where her hair grows at the temples, but on her nape the outer edge spill onto her neck. Erin chides herself for thinking about how this beautiful tattoo could be concealed. She must accept that her appearance will never be acceptable in polite company.

“You look so badass,” Thomasina smiles. “Mohawk, split tongue and scalp tattoos. Not many of your colleagues would be able or willing to go for a look like that.”

“They're not so crazy!” Erin says.

“It's not crazy. It fits you perfectly. I very rarely get the opportunity to design a look for someone that I know is right for them. I've done some nice tattoos that just don't seem to sit right on the person. But this is perfect for you. Ava will fall in love with you all over again. She's very lucky to have met you.”

“I'm the lucky one,” Erin lisps. She imagines how her life would be now if she'd chosen someone else for a bag check. How would she ever have got through the aftermath of the assault? She'd have gone mad, she's sure, without Ava to restore her to health.

That evening Ava and Thomasina take an hour to stroll in the local park. Erin has acquired a large stud in the centre of her upper lip and she moves uncomfortably since Thomasina has recently added four studs to her outer labia. But now it's the visibility of her tattoos that makes Erin nervous. She tries to convince Thomasina that she shouldn't go out, since she may accidentally run into Ava, and she's very superstitious, adamant that they should not see each other until the ceremony.

“It's absolutely no risk. Ava is on the other side of London. She's given me clear instructions that you have to get out for a walk each day to keep you healthy and strong. She's on the other side of the city so no need to worry about accidental meetings.”

Thus Erin has no choice but to relent and accept her new image being promenaded amongst the denizens of the park on the long summer evening. She feels a nakedness: the little hair she has left seems to enhance rather than cover her baldness, and the tattoos still make her feel ashamed. She nervously gauges the responses of passers by, sees how so many people's eyes linger as they take in her appearance, but then, especially amongst the younger people, some seem to like what they see and smile at her. Certainly, her image arouses less hostility than the uniform she used to wear when she patrolled this area. She thinks how people would be astonished to see how she's been transformed from the shy, long haired girl she was before Ava invaded her life.

Erin sleeps well, though she has the painkillers and sleeping tablets which Thomasina provides to thank for that. The following morning is spent adding more piercings. A dermal anchor is added at the side of her left eye and now she has a jewelled stud permanently gleaming at the edge of her cheek. The rest of the session is spent adding new jewellery to her ears. Almost all of the new piercings go through cartilage and by the end of the hour Erin is weeping at the soreness. Every puncture seems more painful than the last and she weeps with relief when Thoma announces that she's done.

“I'd never normally do so many ear piercings in one sitting, but you need to be pretty for your wedding. I'm not sure you need more piercings, but I might add another one or two if I decide you need it. Otherwise it's your tattoos that we'll concentrate on for the rest of the week.”

Erin has the afternoon to herself since Thomasina has to work on some clients. She lies on her bed, and starts to become anxious about how fast everything is moving. But she's so exhausted, that she soon falls asleep. It's evening when Thomasina wakes her, pleased that she's managed to sleep.

“Your body needs to heal. All these little wounds add up and take their toll on your immune system. But sleep and eating well will make you recover more quickly.”

Eating, however, is a problem for Erin. Her tongue is still swollen and almost paralysed, so she takes her nutrients in liquid form, managing to consume all of the soup that Thoma offers. She unquestioningly swallows all of the pills that are provided. Most are nutritional supplements, she's sure, but the painkillers and anxiolytics are not unwelcome.

After dinner Erin is taken to the studio to allow her tattoos to grow over her pale, unblemished skin. She tries to be calm, but by the time Thomasina has completed the hygiene preliminaries Erin is almost in tears. The tattooist can see how emotional she is but doesn't acknowledge it. “Put your hands on the ledge,” she says calmly, but her instruction is not to be disobeyed. “Do you remember when you first came here, when you mistakenly thought I would tattoo you?” Erin nods. “Where did you fantasise about me tattooing you?” Erin blushes as she thinks of Ava and Thomasina discussing her secrets.

“My neck and my hands,” she mutters, ashamed of how her voice is hampered by her injured tongue.

“Do you want me to make your dream come true? To ornament your pretty little hands with dark tattoos that will be there forever?”

Erin is breathing deeply and feels a tear roll down her cheek. She thinks of the brash tattoos on her scalp, how she cannot see them, and how letting her hair grow would conceal them. But tattooed hands would be always apparent to her and to others. This is a huge step, she feels. Once this is completed she's going to be changed forever, an inner change. The tattoos will be a shadow, a symbol of what she's becoming. “Please, tattoo me for my Mistress,” she articulates slowly.

This time Thomasina is using a conventional tattooing machine. She begins on Erin's right hand, tattooing around the edges of her nails. The first touch of the needle to her middle finger makes Erin gasp. It's a very sensitive spot and the pain is intense. She knows she'll struggle to bear this as every finger will be marked. “It does hurt, and you may cry. But accept the pain gracefully. You don't have a high pain threshold, so if you accept what needs to be done then I'll admire your bravery all the more. Make Ava proud of you.”

Erin feels each touch of the needle keenly. She cries until her tears are exhausted, praying that at some point she'll become accustomed to the pain, but she never does. She fights the urge to ask Thomasina to pause and allow her some respite. Only once the fingers of her right hand are complete does Thomasina allow herself a pause to get a coffee.

Erin holds up her hand before her face and regards it with a mixture of fascination and despair. Her nails are surrounded with a dark rim which extends back in spiky arabesques, narrow spires extending back along each digit up to a wide dot in the middle of the second bone. She sees that Thoma is regarding her with amusement. “What are you thinking?”

“It's like a witch's hand.” Erin blushes as she says it, feeling her reaction is childish, absurd.

“Yes, I think you're right,” Thomasina says in all seriousness. “Ava has enchanted you and now her spell is transforming you. You'll be hers entirely soon.”

Erin sucks on some ice cubes to soothe her tongue as the fingers of her left hand are blackened and ornamented to mirror her right hand. She bears the pain slightly better, and starts to feel that holding ice in her mouth numbs her entire body. Thoma works with precision and focus, barely talking once she's involved in her work. Once her fingers are complete there's another pause, but Thomasina isn't happy to end her work there for the night. She only changes her tools and now the back of Erin's left hand is dotted with hand poked tattoos. A series of overlapping patterns form, initially marked to form skeletal outlines. An oval form appears at the back of Erin's wrist, as a centre for the radiating shapes which will enclose her hand. Now Thoma adds definition to the elaborately ornamented patterns, darkening them until there are extensive areas which are almost entirely black. By night time, when Thomasina admits she's too tired to work more, Erin's left hand is densely figured with luxuriantly detailed tattoos, the pale skin almost entirely submerged beneath the sooty ink. The oval on the back of her wrist remains clear, a white area in a frame, awaiting an image.

“Your entire arm will be tattooed like this by me,” Thomasina informs her. Erin nods, then starts to cry.

“I love what you're doing, but I can't help regretting leaving behind what I was. I'm so confused. I don't know what my future will hold.”

“You should trust in Ava. You want to be her slave, don't you? You won't have any more responsibilities. Obedience is so much easier than freedom for someone like you.”

Erin shakes her head, still sobbing. “I'll be her wife, not her slave. That's what we decided.”

“But she asked you about slavery. You didn't answer her but tomorrow morning you will. You'll tell me your decision. I hope you don't disappoint me.” She smiles and caresses Erin's bald temple. “I hope you don't listen to your fear and disappoint yourself. I could see what you needed the first time we met.”

Erin sleeps fitfully despite the tablets that she's swallowed. Her dreams are full of images of what her life would be like should she allow herself to be enslaved. In one dream she imagines herself bald and naked in a sort of stable with dozens of other women, reduced to the condition of livestock. All of these women bear a brand, Ava's brand, and she is no more important than any of the others. In another she attends an orgy where everyone is masked and she's been told that she must obey any order she's given no matter how demeaning. She catches sight of herself in a mirror, her mask more elaborate than anyone else's. She tries to remove it, then realises that it's no mask but a facial tattoo. She wakes with a start, for some minutes believing that her face has indeed been tattooed by Thomasina. She's so shaken by the dream that she has to look in the mirrored wardrobe across the room to ensure her face is still free of tattoos.

She's so shaken by this dream that she can't sleep and lies pondering what it would actually mean to be Ava's slave instead of, or rather as well as, her wife. She's already agreed that in the vows she will pledge her obedience but slavery implies more. She will become something less than human. Ava wouldn't have any limits. She imagines being taken, on a whim, back to Thoma, being made to endure the facial tattooing of which she dreamed. The fear she feels as she imagines her features concealed beneath a web of inked lines isn't the delicious fear she normally imagines as she contemplates being altered; this is something that terrifies her unconditionally. And yet, there is something in the feeling of this ultimate humiliation that draws her in, makes her desire an unlimited submission. Only this abandonment of self can ultimately satisfy her desires, something tells her, an inner voice which seems to betray all rational behaviour and will surely make her regret what she will become.

Nevertheless, the following morning she finds herself nodding to Thomasina as she quizzes Erin on her decision. “You decided?”

“I agree,” Erin mumbles, her tongue heavy and slow not only because of the injury.

“You agree to being Ava's slave? You agree to everything?” Thomasina seems delighted to be able to add to Erin's fears, to make this as difficult and humiliating as possible.

“I do.” Erin can barely bring herself to look at her inquisitor and immediately breaks her gaze, staring down at the breakfast table in despair. She feels like she's making the worst mistake of her life yet she can say nothing to change this. Despite everything reasoned, which informs her that her decision is folly, she has an unshakable intuition that this is her destiny.

She sits alone for fifteen minutes before the tattooist returns. “I called Ava. She will make all the necessary arrangements.”

“Is she pleased?” Erin asks. She feels childish asking such a thing. She has a desperate need for validation, but blushes with an immature pride as she hears the reply.

“She's beside herself. I've never heard her more excited.”

Erin is tattooed more throughout the day, but in irregular sessions which Thoma fits in around the schedule of her paying customers. Elaborate discs blossom across her upper left arm, intricate geometrical mandalas, kaleidoscopic designs which take hours for Thomasina to stab into her flesh. Erin has a lot of time to rest and contemplate. She can see why Ava values Thomasina's services, since she's raised her artistry to the highest level. But the design is so dense that she wonders how it will look if her entire arm is sleeved in these designs. She imagines that the effect will be of an almost black arm patterned with pale cobweb-like structures.

By the end of the day Thomasina has completed two areas of dark, abstract sunbursts, each roughly four inches in diameter, the details of the patterning utterly unalike. Thomasina informs her that her arms will be sleeved before her wedding, which induces a gasp from Erin. She cannot see how such intricate patterns can be worked over all of her flesh in the time left before the ceremony. In fact, she doubts that Thomasina's detailed work could even be made even to cover one arm in the allotted time. The following morning some of her doubts are resolved. As she takes her place in the tattooing room a stranger enters, introduced by Thoma as Stina. “Your right arm is now Stina's for as long as it takes her to ink.” Stina nods and sets to work, and soon Erin has to endure two people transfiguring her appearance. They work in near silence, the buzzing of Stina's needle the only sound to break the quiet of the room. Stina has a very different way of working to Thoma and by the early afternoon Erin's right arm has exploded in a profusion of fine floral outlines. Stina has a distinctive drawing style, her lines nervous and energetic, her imagery detailed yet stylised.

By the evening Erin is exhausted, having had only a short lunch break. For the rest of the day one or other of her tattooists has worked on her and her muscles ache from the constrained postures she's had to hold and her skin burns from the effects of the thousands of needle punctures she's endured. Thomasina will not hear of foregoing her evening promenade and after a late dinner the two young women make their by now familiar circuit of the local park. It's a fine, warm night and the little t-shirt that Erin wears exposes much of the fresh tattooing that her arms will now always carry. She feels the weight of the scrutiny of all that she passes, aware that she's now judged to be heavily tattooed, too heavily tattooed for the tastes of all but the most extreme.

On the following day the routine of her tattooing is interrupted by a fitting of her dress, the first sight she's had of the garment, although she did previously meet with the dressmaker to be measured. The dress is of soft white leather, the tight skirt composed of bands which overlap and encircle her figure, meeting in a downward V along the centre of her body. It fits so tightly to her thighs that it means she can only walk with slow mincing steps. The bodice is a corset which Erin thinks is rather too snug since she's gained a little weight since her last visit here. But then the lacing is drawn and she realises that the initial tightness was insignificant compared to this. She looks at her reflection, her waist pulled to an unbelievably small diameter, her smallish breasts pushed up to emphasise her cleavage. She feels disconnected from this image, this girl with vampish curves, too many tattoos and too little hair.

The dressmaker, Olivia, and Thoma look at her with admiration, the latter even appears slightly overcome by emotion. “The hips are a bit tight,” Olivia notes, “and I think the corset can go tighter. You can take an inch less around here, can't you, Erin?” she asks as her fingers trace over the tightly compressed hollow curves of the artificial waist.

“I can barely breathe,” she complains.

“That's just your excitement at seeing how beautiful you are,” Thoma smiles. “You'll be fine with a tighter corset.”

The days start to blur for Erin. She has to endure more tattooing each day. After a day's absence, Stina returns the day after the dress fitting. She covers Erin's arm in black lilies, drawn to look like they were composed of glossy liquid, with pale highlights of white skin making their form almost tangible. The blossoms extend from the back of Erin's hand up to her shoulder. In contrast to the density of the pigmentation of the flowers, the surrounding foliage remains drawn in open line work, fine but very detailed, the serrations of the leaf edges and their veining limned with great care.

Thomasina's work grows more slowly. Eventually Erin's arm above her elbow is covered in the mandalas; even her armpit bears one of the large geometric figures. The designs butt together without a gap, pressing together like cells which have grown to fill all available space.

At the top of Erin's forearm a black band signals the change in design. A series of heavy calligraphic marks are tattooed on her skin, one inside the open area which was left on the back of her wrist. Erin doesn't recognise them as any writing system she's ever encountered and asks Thoma about this.

“They're a form of Enochian writing,” she's told. “Ava thinks that these marks are not just decorations. They describe your new status, but they also cement it. Now that you're marked you can never be anything other than what you will pledge to become. What you've already vowed to be.”

Saturday arrives and Erin wakes early, filled with nervous excitement. She showers and meets Thomasina, who embraces her. A strong friendship has grown between them during the week. Erin's piercings are examined and Thoma nods, pleased that all are healing without adversity. Erin is fitted with a new septum ring, thicker than any she's worn before and she groans as it stretches the hole in her cartilage. Then she has to bear the pain of the stitches being removed from her ears. She sees the large holes which now open up her disfigured lobes, and winces again as Thoma forces the tender opening to hold wooden discs which are inlaid with mother of pearl crosses.

The greatest pain is yet to come: Thoma now snips and draws the sutures from the wounds in Erin's tongue. Each tug of a stitch makes Erin groan and yet once the last one comes free she feels a sense of relief. The stitches had become too tight, pulling at her flesh and now Erin can move her tongue much more freely. She realises with joy that it has healed more than she had realised and she can talk once more, although she still has a marked lisp.

Although it's still only seven thirty, Erin now makes the short trip to the salon where a tired looking Helene is waiting for her. She expresses her astonishment at Erin's now extensive and densely tattooed arms. “She's still got a lot of bare skin,” Thomasina smiles. “I do hope that Ava lets me work on her some more after she's a married woman.

Erin takes her place in the chair and prepares herself to be shorn. She's covered with the shiny cape, and despite herself, she feels a sense of relief that her tattooed arms are covered. But not all of her tattoos are hidden. Despite the week's growth of hair, the designs on the sides of her head remain very visible. Helene takes the clippers and oils the blades, which are, of course, free of any guard. She pushes Erin's head to the side and cleans a path through the stubble.

The sensation jolts Erin. It's almost too much for her, the vibration, the coolness of the shaved scalp making her feel a desperate need to be gratified with the climax she's so long denied herself. But on this day of all days she must maintain her discipline.

The clippers peel away the layer of pale hair and Erin blushes as she sees just how dark the tattoo on her scalp is. The layer of stubble had softened the pigmentation, had hidden the starkness of the contours. Now she sees the blackness of the design set against the pallor of her scalp. She feels anew her shame at being marked thus, and yet she feels a great excitement as she imagines Ava seeing these tattoos for the first time.

Ava! In a few hours she'll be reunited with her love, whose absence for the past week has at times been unendurable. How she longed to be in her arms as she endured the agonies of tattooing, as she lost her old self, never to be recovered. She will abandon herself completely, will devote herself to Ava, the love of her life.

The cessation of the noise of the clippers shocks Erin back into the present. Her scalp has quickly been deprived of the sandy stubble, and now her cheeks and neck are dusted with tiny, irritating bristles. Helene's fingers smooth a layer of creamy lather over Erin's head and let it sit in place to soften the stubble. Erin's scalp tingles intensely, not entirely pleasantly. But then, she thinks, much of her life now will be spent in experiences which will blend pleasure with discomfort, pain, humiliation. All too soon, Helene takes her razor and strips away the tingling. She moves the blades with practised strokes, firm yet precise. Erin fantasises that as the razor passes over her skin it will leave it clean and unblemished, yet as her eyes flicker upward to take in her reflection she can see that the tattoos look clearer than ever. She can't believe that she will ever look in a mirror and see these patterns as part of her, will ever see them without feeling regret and disbelief.

She breathes slowly and heavily as Helene's fingers palpate her skull to ensure that every millimetre of scalp is smooth and hairless. She closes her eyes as she imagines that those are Ava's delicately beautiful hands which are pressed to her head. Helene's inspection is completed and Erin realises that her scalp has been shaved perfectly, with the exception of the narrow crest of short hair which is now being doused in a creamy bleach. Time appears to race and it seems only minutes before she's being rinsed. The short hair is vigorously rubbed with a towel before being frothed with another coating of chemicals.

Erin sees herself with white blonde hair. All colour has been removed and her hair is gleaming, snowy. It seems to grow even more reflective as Helene dries it, using a brush to direct the hair into a stiff, vertical crest. It looks very neat and precise to Erin, but apparently Helene has other ideas. She uses the clippers to shape the mohawk, zipping off the ends over a comb to shape the top to a hard, flat contour. She takes it noticeably shorter, leaving little more than an inch over the top of Erin's head, and not even that much on the V descending over her nape. “It's very white. And short,” Erin says, not at all sure that she likes her new hairstyle. It's so short and neat that it looks very unfeminine, almost military.

Thomasina strokes at the short, stiff crop. “Helene, she sounds ungrateful! Maybe you should take her even shorter.”

“Maybe I should clear some more scalp. It's not too late to add some more tattoos on her head, is it, Thoma?”

Erin blushes at the threat. “I'm sorry, Helene, I do like it. It's just a surprise. You've done a wonderful job and I'm very grateful and pleased. I know Ava will adore it too.”

Helene and Thoma glance at each other, enjoying the power they have to scare Erin. “We'll see. If she doesn't adore it you can be right back here to get fixed up.” Erin nods anxiously, eager to placate her new friends.

As Erin is dressed she begins to panic, realising that there's less than an hour before the ceremony begins. She worries that she will be late, which would be disastrous. She mustn't do anything to ruin Ava's day, everything must be perfect. Yet her friends seem unconcerned by the passage of time. “You're almost done,” Thoma smiles. “And the trip to the hall isn't going to take more than fifteen minutes. The car is waiting outside.”

Erin nods but doesn't feel reassured. London traffic can be impossible, and she's still not wearing the dress. She's been fitted with white latex stockings which unbearably compress her legs and make any flexing of her knees uncomfortable, yet they look astonishing, glossy as polished stone. Now she's made to wear gloves of similar material, which are rolled up over her arms. The latex covers her up to shoulders where it will meet the leather of her dress. She realises that her tattoos will be invisible for the ceremony.

Now a headdress is placed on her, an antique of pale ivory silk. The cap extends down over her ears and her stretched lobes are now covered, as, of course, are her mohawk and tattooed scalp. Her head is surrounded by a halo of flowers, all of pale and cool colours to fit with the vision of her attire. Finally, the dress is pulled over her body, fastened and laced so that she feels like she will faint. Erin is allowed to take in her appearance. She looks at her reflection as if she were in a dream, a vision of a girl all in white before her. Her eyes look huge, outlined with blue and silver, her lips pale pink and her pale powdery cheeks suffused with soft rose. Her waist looks tiny, and she looks more curvaceous than she'd ever imagined she could be, despite being so slender. She wears soft kid leather boots with finely pointed toes decorated with chased silver, the spike heels adding almost five inches to her height.

And suddenly Erin is at the hall, where she sees a small crowd of people, few of whom she recognises, all of them (presumably) Ava's friends. She's been happy not to invite her friends, ready to start a new life. After all, she's hardly got close to anyone in London and has lost touch with most of her friends from her home town. Yet, even as she thinks of this she sees a group of familiar faces on the left of the hall. There are a couple of women who served with her in the police and three school friends. She blushes as they stare at her, smiling shyly. They look at her admiringly, but she wonders how they will react when her new appearance is fully revealed. She knows that Ava has invited them to embarrass her, to make her feel more keenly how drastically she's changed.

Now Erin has to stand at the front of the hall, awaiting the arrival of her bride. She's beside herself with excitement as she awaits the arrival of her love, becoming breathless as she anticipates seeing Ava. Her ribs are so compressed that she can barely breathe and she realises that her vision is suffused with bright spots from lack of oxygen. Only by concentrating on taking rapid, shallow breaths can she ward off a fainting spell.

An organ is playing softly, which is something Erin had hardly noticed until suddenly there's a swell in its volume and a strangely dissonant tune begins to play. She feels her skin prickling as she realises that Ava has entered and is slowly advancing toward her. She fights the urge to turn and look back. Somehow, she feels this is an Orphic test, that she must not look behind her, or else her love will be lost to her. It seems like hours before a dark form appears at her side and finally she allows herself to turn and look into Ava's face.

Erin's white attire, complemented with touches of blue and silver, is in contrast to Ava's dress, which is black with crimson ornaments. Erin's lips part in surprise as she sees her bride, for her hair has also been shaved from the sides of her head, and her fringe has also been razored away, giving a strangely high forehead. Her hair is stiffly fixed into a smooth, high crest, which for a moment Erin believes to be a short cut. But as she looks more closely she sees that her hair has been rolled and braided into this elaborate style, the form of which is delineated by stripes of red which have been tinted through the temples. She feels relieved, sure that she would feel mortified if Ava's long hair was cut short. It's enough to have to adjust to the bared sides, but she adores Ava's long mane.

The dress is composed of black lace which is bound tightly around Ava's tiny ribcage. Her décolletage and shoulders are bared and now marked with fresh, brightly inked tattoos. Even her throat has been tattooed, dark rays shooting up her fine neck. Erin can't help but feel that it's rather too much, yet she knows that she's utterly, helplessly turned on by these new modifications to her bold love. Ava looks at her in delight and draws back her lips in a delighted smile. Erin feels a shiver as she sees that Ava's upper canines are now capped with long gold fangs.

Ava glances quizzically at the latex opera gloves, at the headdress and smiles at Erin. “What the fuck?” she mouths silently. Erin grins back, enjoying making Ava have to wait to see how beautiful she's become.

Throughout the ceremony Erin can't take her eyes off Ava. She says her responses automatically, everything seeming dreamlike. Her gloved finger is fitted with a band of platinum to bind her to Ava and she's allowed her first kiss as a married woman.

Ava hasn't hidden her surprise at Erin's newly acquired lisp, unaware of the cause. Erin is keen to surprise her with the revelation of her modified tongue, but the healing hasn't progressed to the point where mobility has been recovered. As their lips meet, Erin tries but fails to extend her tongue any further than the margins of her own lips. Ava is initially surprisingly tender, but the heat of their mouths seems to gradually inflame her passion and soon her tongue slide into Erin's mouth, only to withdraw as it meets with unfamiliar sensations. Erin is on the verge of laughter, proud to have done something which appears to have shocked the unflappable Ava. But then she has a moment of fear as she considers that perhaps Ava dislikes her new tongue.

It is only a moment, however. Ava forces her tongue back into Erin's mouth, probing powerfully at the divide, unmistakably aroused by her new bride's most extreme new modification. Too roughly, as Erin feels pain from the tender wound being prodded and stretched. She endures the pain easily, too delighted by this wonderful kiss to let a little stinging distract; perhaps she even likes the hurt.

Now Erin has to make a circuit of her wedding guests, arm in arm with her new wife. She shyly thanks each for attending, dreading the moment when her guests will look at her. Finally she approaches them, unsure how they will react to her very gothic bride. And unsurprisingly they do look discomforted by Ava's rather extreme look, especially when she smiles and reveals her golden fangs. Erin kisses each of her friends and thanks them for coming on her special day. Despite her shyness she finds herself enjoying their reactions. Ava embraces each of them too, kissing them on each cheek. They look terrified by her, this weird, beautiful predator. Erin finds herself dreaming of her friends being seduced by Ava, fantasising her as a siren luring her victims toward a fatal bliss.

As they move away toward another group of guests Ava puts her lips to the cap covering Erin's ear. “Do you want me to take a peek under your headdress and take those gloves off? I hope there's something you're hiding that would shock those little vanilla friends of yours. Maybe it'll even shock me.”

Erin finds herself blushing at the thought of being revealed in all of her new glory in front of witnesses who knew her in what she now thinks of as being a former existence. Yet part of her wants it. Wants to show people she once treasured that she has grown to something that they can't understand or accept. “Do it, mistress,” she sighs.

She glances over at her friends who are still watching her and Ava. She closes her eyes as she feels Ava's fingers reach up her cheeks and lift the headdress free. “Oh dear god!” Ava mutters. “I didn't expect that. Did you really let Thoma tattoo your head? Those aren't just drawn on.”

“Of course they're not,” Erin says, giggling, but ashamed as she sees the disapproval of her friends. “They were my first tattoos, actually.”

“Oh, my, you're sexy,” Ava gasps. “I love the blonde. You look inhuman... ethereal. And if these are your first tattoos, does that mean you're hiding some more from me?” She can't stop caressing the smoothly shaved sides of Erin's scalp where the patterns of black dots will forever stain her skin. Then she lets her lips explore the heavy piercings which now hand in Erin's ears.

“I think you should explore for yourself, Miss Avarice. It will be more fun that way.”

“Miss? I'm a married woman now, baby doll. I think you should call me Mistress Avarice now.”

Erin nods her agreement. “And what's my married name to be?”

“Erin is just fine for my wife. But for my slave... We need to change it. After we leave here I've organised another ceremony to formally make you my slave. You do still want that, don't you?” Erin nods, but she can't hide her terror.

“I had so many things I wanted to ask about what it will mean but now I'm with you I can't remember anything.”

“All you need to know is that I'll still love you, more than I loved anyone ever. And in return you'll pledge total obedience. It's not really any different to what you pledged in our vows just now.” Ava looks over at Erin's friends and former colleagues. “Do you think we should invite them to your enslavement?”

“Remember some of them are serving police. They'd probably arrest us for some sort of indecency.”

“At least they're hardened by what they've seen. Your little school friends look like they'd end up in a psych ward if they saw what you've become.”

“They can't stop staring at me. I don't think they share your enthusiasm for my new look, Mistress.”

Ava laughs. “It's probably best they don't come to the evening do.”

It's only a select group of Ava's close friends who travel to a house on the Sussex downs where the second ceremony of the day will take place. Erin is still wearing her dress, her tattooed arms still hidden from Ava by the long gloves, but as soon as she enters the house Ava orders her to allow herself to be undressed. Ava starts by removing her shoes and then peels the tight latex stockings from her legs. “No tattoos here then!” she says with exaggerated disappointment. “I've seen how you look at my thighs and I know you love those tattoos.”

“I let Thomasina choose my tattoos,” Erin says. “You know I won't refuse anything you want in the future, Mistress. The only thing I disliked about the tattooing was that you weren't there.”

Thomasina, who has accompanied the party, shakes her head. “You were pretty bad at coping with the pain, Erin. But to give you your due, you were quite brave to put up with long sessions when you've got such a low pain threshold.”

Ava seems unconcerned by this debate and reaches under the short sleeves of Erin's wedding dress to take the tops of the gloves. As she rolls the tight rubber down over Erin's left arm she whistles. “So this is what Thoma spent all her time on.” She has to remove Erin's wedding ring temporarily to remove the glove, then immediately puts it back in place. “Thoma, you've done a great job. It's the best work I've ever seen you do.”

“I couldn't let you down,” she smiles, trying to react modestly to the compliments, but obviously pleased.

Ava lifts and turns Erin's arm to look at the extensive tattooing. She seems particularly pleased by the obscure inscriptions which figure the lower arm.

“Just one sleeve or two..?” she whispers to herself as she starts to expose Erin's right arm. The black flowers are soon revealed and Ava gasps. “You got Stina to work on her. Oh, Thoma, thank you. It looks just...”

She's filled with joy and what she can't express in words she does with kisses. Erin's head is swimming as she becomes breathless, overjoyed at Ava's attentions. She can't wait to be alone with her wife, to finally end the period of chastity that they'd agreed in the approach to this day.

Soon Erin is naked, ashamed to be displayed before strangers but relieved to be free of the painful constraints of the corset. Ava stares at her with undisguised lust. “I love your tattoos, but I think I'd imagined you'd have more.”

“This style is very labour intensive,” Thoma says, seemingly keen to defend herself.

“I know. I suppose it means it's going to cost me a lot of money to get her tattooed as much as she needs to be.”

Thomasina laughs. “That's you all over, Ava. Always thinking about money, even today.”

“You'll have to find ways to earn money,” Ava says to Erin. “You'll have to pay for good tattooists to get yourself covered, and they don't come cheap. You want to be tattooed all over, don't you?”

“Yes Mistress,” she says. “But please, not my face.”

“Oh, my poor little Erin. You're not allowed such vanity if you're to be a slave. I wanted to set you a test to make sure you're ready to be my slave. Now you've shown me what it must be.”

Erin is taken to the basement of the house and is told to get into the chair, which appears to be some sort of antique clinical equipment. Leather straps are fastened around her body, her wrists, her knees and ankles as screens are pushed back revealing an assortment of what appear to be torture devices.

She sees from the edge of her vision that a tattooing machine is present and she can see that Thomasina is preparing herself to use it. Ava holds up a sheet of paper with some writing on it. “Read it out loud if you want to proceed,” Ava says coldly. Erin stares at her wife, who look so beautiful yet so evil. She scans the writing and shivers. She closes her eyes and tries to find the courage to please Ava.

“'I, Erin Hume, wish to be enslaved to my majestic Mistress. I must obey fearlessly and without vanity or ego. To demonstrate my devotion and humility I request that a tattoo is marked on my face.'” She is tearful as she haltingly enunciates the last sentence.

Ava whispers to Thoma, who nods. She looks at Erin without any visible emotion. One of the assistants who strapped her in removes the make-up from Erin's face, scrubbing it clean. As soon as this is completed Erin, immobile and helpless, sees Thoma bend over her and feels a sting at her forehead. She looks up at Ava, smiling broadly, showing her golden teeth, which fascinate and horrify Erin. She imagines the sharp teeth gnawing at her skin, leaving indelible blackened tracks as a spoor, imagines that this is the sensation she can feel on her forehead. She recalls pictures she's seen of facial tattoos, but can't bring anything to mind that she can consider positively. She can only think of dark, disfiguring tattoos which will submerge her delicate features. She wants to beg Ava to have mercy on her but as she looks into her mysterious dark eyes she knows she must endure this, must trust that Thomasina will grant her something bearable.

She feels the needle pass from the bridge of her nose up to her hairline. The tattooing doesn't seem to take long and she feels relieved that the tattoo is evidently not large. Ava looks it over as Thoma cleans it to allow the form to be seen clearly. She nods. “Lovely work, Thoma. Are you ready to receive your Mistress's mark, Erin?”

“Yes, Mistress,” she says. She's shaking and tearful from the expectation of a more extensive tattoo on her face, but she still doesn't know where this mark will be placed. Her curiosity seems to be answered as the headrest is angled backwards and her head is violently thrown back. Her throat is exposed and moments later she feels the needle burning at her soft neck.

If her forehead tattoo was completed more quickly than Erin dared hope, then the mark she will bear for Ava takes far longer than she could have imagined. Thoma inks the centre of her throat with the tattooing machine, but then uses a hand poking technique to surround this design. The work extends from the notch between her collar bones to the lower margin of her jaw, and spreads far around her neck, almost reaching to the tattoos which cover the sides of her nape, Erin imagines.

Erin is in tears for much of the time it takes to complete the tattoo. As the needle jabs at her neck she has a dread, which she knows is irrational, that is will penetrate into some vital underlying tissue, her trachea or a blood vessel. It takes a long time for this fear to recede but even when it does it's largely because the pain is so insufferable that it comes to completely dominate her mind. For an hour she has to endure the stabbing, burning, itching that sets her neck on fire. Ava leaves her for a long time and reappears later in a tightly sculpted black leather dress, her hair now loose and curled, partly covering the shaven sides. Her make-up has also been redone, and she looks more lovely and intimidating than ever to Erin.

Erin passes into a sort of trance in the last stages of her tattooing and only becomes aware gradually of what is happening around her as she feels the tender skin being wiped clean. She sees Ava gazing down on her, smiling with tenderness and love and knows that she would endure this a thousand times if it were asked by Ava. Her head is brought to a more comfortable position and she's allowed to see what's been done to her. A narrow black trapezoid covers her throat and the sides are flanked with feathery wings, shaded with the small black dots which she has come to recognise as typical of Thomasina's style. Almost the entire frontal area of her neck is marked with tattoos. It takes a little time for Erin to realise that the trapezoid is a V, then to recognise that the winged designs are very stylised forms of the letter A. She blushes as she realises that she has Ava's name marked very boldly on her neck, shivers as she remembers fantasising about her neck and hands being tattooed. Now Ava has made this a reality, although the tattoos are more extreme than Erin had imagined in her vision. And her forehead is now decorated! A black ornament descends down the centre of her brow, fine filigree lines spinning out symmetrically. It's not as big or bold as she'd feared, but then its placement makes it unmissable.

“For as long as this mark endures you're my slave, with no will of your own and obedient to every wish I express and those of any agent to whom I give authority.”

“Yes, Mistress Avarice,” Erin groans.

A pen is placed in her hand, which is still trapped at the wrist. “You need a new name to cement your status. This is a document that was drawn up by a solicitor to legally change your name. Sign and date it please.” A clipboard is placed so that she can sign at the bottom of the paper.

“What will my name be?” she asks.

“Slave! I gave you an order. Don't make me punish you.” She signs and dates the document and Ava smiles. That's the last time you'll use your free woman name.” She holds up the paper and Erin scans it, finally sees that her name is now Slave Abject. She can't hide her embarrassment at this title. It's not even a name. She remembers how long it took her to be able to address Ava as Miss Avarice without feeling a keen sense of absurdity. Now her name is more absurd, more demeaning. “Say your name for me,” Ava says, taunting her.

“Slave Abject,” she says. She tries to put her old self aside. She must never think of herself again by any other name than Abject.

“Lovely,” Ava smiles. “Now we need to complete a few more formalities. Your collar, your number, registering you as a slave for all the world to see.”

The collaring is first. A titanium ring is held up for Abject to see. It's hinged in two parts. “Once the latch closes there's no way to open it, short of slicing it with one of those things firemen use to cut people out of car wrecks.” As she says it, Ava places the ring around Abject's neck and snaps it shut. “Now you're a collared slave,” she says, delighted, playing with the pierced block which is suspended from the front of the ring. “There's a number on the collar and we'll register you by this number. Then anyone who uses you can add their thoughts to your profile and everyone can read what you get up to.” She holds up the mirror to show her slave the nine digit number which is deeply engraved into the metal. “It might be easy to miss this number so maybe we should make it more noticeable.” She nods to Thomasina.

More tattooing to endure. Now the needle drills into the skin above her pubic mound, adding to her sense of loss of self. She finally is allowed to see that her mound is now marked with bold letters:

SLAVE

ABJECT

901-344-296

She's finally allowed to rise from the chair and would like to give in to her self-pity, to retreat into solitude and sob at what's been done to her, but instead, she sees Ava, sees her excitement, sees in her black eyes that she is madly in love with her slave. Ava dismisses all of the others and takes her slave to her bridal bed. Erin is lost forever, lost to the ecstatic pleasures of her new slavery.

Epilogue

Ava celebrates her first anniversary with an undiminished love of Slave Abject. Abject's appearance hasn't changed greatly from how it was on the day when she became Ava's wife and slave. Her hair is still white blonde, still shaved into a mohawk, although it's rather narrower and longer than it was for the ceremony. Not that it's always remained like this: for several months Abject was entirely bald, a look she came to accept and even enjoy. Her face has been marked with some tattoos around the temples and spilling onto her upper cheeks. The tattoos are dotted areas, of varied density, formless, almost like they only shade the skin without any subject. A few more piercings have been added: Abject's cheeks are pierced and her lips have large beads at the centre, upper and lower. Her earlobes are being aggressively stretched and the openings are almost twice as large as they were a year previously.

Her tattooing has proceeded more slowly than she had expected, largely because of the expense. Ava makes Abject pay for the work of the tattooists, and she earns solely from the services she performs for clients to whom Ava introduces her. She has the beginnings of a large tattoo on her right thigh (Ava has in mind that both of her legs will be completely tattooed) and she's booked in to have another session in a few weeks.

There are some regular clients who pay to be served by Ava and Abject together, although Abject receives only a fifth of the fee for such work. One of these clients is the woman who received a haircut on the day when Ava first encountered Erin, as she was then. Abject described to her how she acted as a catalyst in bringing them together in the course of one of their sessions, during which the woman was subjected to a particularly cruel makeover. By the end of the afternoon her hair (which is now entirely grey) had been permed tightly on top and cropped closely up the nape and over her ears. Ava fitted her with an ugly pair of glasses and the makeover aged her terribly, yet she was overcome with sexual excitement as she saw what she'd become. Abject particularly enjoys her encounters with this woman and looks forward to the next time Ava will torture and demean her.

Ava's appearance has changed rather more that Abject's, largely because she cut off her long mane soon after her marriage. Because Abject had been constantly telling Ava how much she loved her long hair she decided to deprive her of this pleasure, and arrived home one evening with a fanned mohawk, none of her hair longer than five inches, and most of her head razored smooth. Abject had cried to see the loss of her Mistress's long hair and remained sad for weeks after. Soon, Ava came to share her regret and is now growing her hair again, although she has for now decided to keep the back and sides shaved. The top is now almost to her shoulders, usually worn tied into a ponytail to expose the bares sides which were recently adorned with tattooed patterns, inked by Thoma.

Abject has come to accept her new status, though not without some initial difficulties. During the first few months of slavery she would on occasion suddenly sob without warning, unable to say why these episodes of intense emotion affected her. Ava would console her, and in recent months Abject has not suffered in this way. Ava has never stinted on showing affection and Abject feels closer to her than ever.

She looks back on her life as Erin as if it was a distant memory, perhaps even as the biography of another person. She has come to trust Ava entirely, has become a disciple, accepting her wishes without question, knowing that Ava will always act in her best interest, even when she can't immediately understand why her orders will lead to a positive outcome. She looks back on her first year as a slave and knows that is has been the most calm and content time in her life. She knows that her happiness will only grow as she allows Ava to shape her. They are complements, mirror images.

[tarot-tatas]

A Time Like This

Read it on AO3

Look,

I'm on a study break and it's my own shark week. This shit hurts and my gf isn't here to comfort me because that's what I turn into when this happens - a whiny piss baby who needs princess time and cries about everything.

Makoto woke up on a Monday morning at her usual time of 6am. Criminals wouldn’t stop themselves, after all. 

She sat up, stretched and rubbed her eyes, expecting to see a familiar lump next to her in the bed. Normally, the lump would be stationary, probably snoring, but today wasn't the case. The lump was there, no doubt, but it was wriggling slowly. "Ann?" Makoto leaned over and gently pulled back the bed sheet with two fingers, expecting to see the calm sleeping face of her girlfriend. But she saw discomfort and pain instead. "Makoo~" Ann whined softly with her eyes shut and hands wrapped around herself. Makoto's blood turned cold and her heart dropped, going 'splat' into her stomach. "A-Ann, love, what's wrong?" Makoto asked gently, moving a blonde strand of hair away from her lover's face while knowing the answer to her question already.

Ann opened her eyes, watery and blue, and gazed at Makoto as if she was about to have the living daylights beaten out of her. "It's my time." Makoto's face whitened as moved closer to place a soft kiss on Ann's temple. "I'm sorry about that, will you call in sick from work?" Ann nodded and reached around to take Makoto's Buchimaru-kun pillow to hug tightly. "Do you want me to tell the others that you can't make it to lunch?" Makoto softened her voice more and stroked Ann's cheek with the back of her fingers. "Mmm...yes pwease..." Ann's weak reply instantly put Makoto on edge. The calm before the storm. "Would...would you like anything else?" Makoto was very careful with her words, knowing how easy it was for anyone to swing moods during a time like this. "Ice cream..." Makoto furrowed her brow and scratched the back of her head, feeling the little knots that had formed during her sleep. "It's a bit early for that, plus we both know that green tea is better to have that ice cream during th-" Ann's head snapped back to look at Makoto with a deadly glare. Makoto gulped, "Ann, you'll feel a lot better when you have tea - you know this." The blonde puffed out her cheeks and pulled the entire bed sheets to herself, leaving Makoto exposed in her Buchimaru-Kun pyjamas. "Ann," Makoto sighed and moved closer, but a hand struck out and jabbed Makoto by the cheek away. Ann huffed and curled up like a hedgehog, and Makoto sighed, swinging her legs off the bed. "Ann, please listen to me." Another huff. Makoto sat up and got dressed. "Would you like an appointment with Dr. Takemi?" Another huff. "Well what is it you want?" Makoto herself huffed at Ann while throwing open her cupboard door and pulling out her uniform. It was already 6:25am. "I can't understand huffs," she added, and was only met by a throaty groan. "You're a dog now?" Another short groan. Makoto rested her head against the mirror inside her cupboard. Shutting her eyes, she counted back from five to one. "Ann, I need to go to work. Is there anything you want while I am out?" "Ice cream," a proper mumble of a response. Makoto threw on her blue shirt and buttoned it up to the top. "There's ice cream in the fridge that you want to eat already, so I can't bring anymore home." Ann shot up and gave Makoto another scowl. "Why are you such a bitch?!" She snapped, her hands gripping the covers so tightly her knuckles were lightening in colour. "I'm not! You want ice cream, as silly as that is, and it's already in the fridge for you!" Ann threw the Buchimaru-kun pillow at Makoto with all the force her cramping body could muster. Makoto managed to block the aerodynamic panda just in time to hear an ungodly screech from her girlfriend. "Get out! I hate you!" "No you don't, you hate the pain," Makoto rolled her eyes and chucked the pillow back onto the bed before proceeding to finish getting dressed. "There's food in the fridge, take some tablets, I'll visit Takemi and get more painkillers too," Makoto looked over at the calender in their room and noticed the big red 'X' in red on the current date, then saw the black 'X' right under it to signal that she was due next week. "I'll get the rest of myself ready at the station, I'm running late," Makoto blew a kiss to the gremlin monster in the bed and picked up her biker jacket from the rack behind the door. She left the room and heard a scream and dodged the same Buchimaru-Kun pillow that shot out after her. "I'm a fucking hormonal princess! LOVE ME!" 

"Geez, you look like you've been fighting shadows," Ryuji smirked as Makoto took off her helmet and look at him with lifeless eyes. "It's Ann," she let out an exasperated sigh and dismounted her bike. The police station was right next to the café Haru owned and ran, and her boyfriend was sitting out the front with a cold drink on the table. "Good morning Mako-chan!" Haru came outside with a takeaway cup of coffee for Makoto, having known the police commissioner for a number years and her regular order. "Morning Haru, and thanks," Makoto gave a tired smile and took the coffee from Haru. "Ann's going through a tough time," she explained with an eyebrow raise towards Haru as an indication it was THAT time. "Oooh, I see," Haru nodded in understanding and touched her own stomach. "Lucky mine just finished. You would think after all of us being friends for so long that we would all sync up." "Yeah, that's true," Makoto chuckled and took a long sip of the coffee. Ryuji looked between his girlfriend and friend, confused and furrow browed. "Ya lost me." "It's a certain thing that we have because we have certain parts, darling," Haru patted his shoulder gently.

It took the blonde a minute, then the lightbulb switched on. "Oh it's the thing where you get me to hide the knives once a month!" He blurted out, which made Makoto blink in shock at Haru. "I'm...not even going to ask," Makoto was lost for words. "Don't," Ryuji warned then winked at Haru. Makoto's phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and saw an image from Ann...in her hoodie with the hood up, a scowl on her face and flipping the bird. Underneath was a message:

Ann: Bring home chocolate or sleep somewhere else "Did Ann-chan just start?" Haru asked Makoto, who let out a groan. Ann was wearing the 'emotions hoodie.' "Today, she's probably eating ice cream right now, seeing as that's what she wants." "Tea is normally better for us," Haru mused out loud and Makoto winced. "I always suggest tea and she throws a fit. You'd think by now I'm used to what she's like during menstruation," Makoto rubbed her eyes. "So I take it Ann ain't join' us for lunch then," Ryuji rocked on the back legs of his chair. "No way, unless you want to get pillows thrown at you," Makoto hung her head and turned on her heel. "I need to start work, see you guys later."

With her emotions hoodie on, Ann was curled up on the couch of the apartment she owned with Makoto. On the tv was a re-run of an old anime from the nineties. In Ann's lap was a tub of ice cream and next to her was a pile of painkillers. "I bet Sailor Moon didn't have cramps," she muttered, scooping up a dollop of ice cream and shoving it into her mouth. She had calmed down from the morning and was now just in a slump, and felt bad for yelling at Makoto out of the sheer pain that felt like someone swinging a sledgehammer against her ovaries. With a sigh, she picked up her phone and went into her messages and found the thread for her and Makoto. She typed out a quick message: Ann: Sorry bout this morning I didnt mean any of it, i love you <3

She sent it off and curled even tighter into a ball, knowing Makoto wouldn't look at her phone until she was on a break.

"I sure am glad I don't suffer from that monstrosity," Yusuke crossed his long arms and flicked his hair back. "Then why do you act like it half the time?" Akira asked, not missing a beat and not looking up from his phone. Yusuke could only look dumbfounded as Ryuji burst out into laughter with Morgana and Haru giggled with her hand over her mouth. Makoto was not paying attention, but reading the text Ann had sent her earlier in the day. She tapped out a response slowly, not knowing if Ann's mood had swung since the time the text was sent. Makoto: Its okay, I know. I love you too. A minute later, the phone vibrated again and Makoto looked at the screen. Ann: Can you please get the stronger meds? Makoto: Sure, did you want anything else, your majesty?

Ann: Crepes with chocolate and chocolate ice cream and pocky and chocolate mochi and chocolate cake and-

Makoto pocketed her phone and returned to the conversation, which was to no surprise still questioning Yusuke's very existence.

Ann opened the freezer and pouted at the the diminishing ice cream. She opened the fridge next and peered inside, finding a white chocolate mousse inside. "This will do," she sighed and pulled her victim from the fridge. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Setting aside the mousse and retrieving her phone, Ann opened the group chat thread and smiled at the picture of Yusuke looking shocked about something. Ann: Lmaooooo hahaha

She typed back a response and dug into her mousse, shutting her eyes tightly to ignore the bear trap that was just let off in her stomach.

"...Menstrual cycle, huh?" Makoto scowled at Takemi from across the examination. "Yes." "And yours is next week," Takemi didn't even look up from the boxes she was putting stickers on. Makoto flushed bright red and cross her arms and legs. "M-Mind your own business! You don't even know for sure!" Makoto squeaked and curled into herself as Takemi smirked. "I know because you're in sync with your sister," she handed the box of painkillers out to the younger Niijima, enjoying the frown on her face. Makoto pulled out her wallet and slapped the yen down on the table. "Keep the change, tell sis I said hi and to not share that stuff," she grumbled and left the room, a smirking Takemi watching her as she did so. "She didn't share it, kid. I'm a doctor."

Makoto turned the key to the apartment and entered. The lights were off, save the television playing. On the couch was Ann, half on her back half on her side fast asleep with her mouth open. Her hoodie was still up, so Makoto gently closed the door behind her and crept over the kitchen to set down the plastic bags and the takeaway on the counter. She took a deep breath, and gently approached the sleeping Ann and sat beside her. "Ann," Makoto let a finger trail along from Ann's shoulder to her arm. The blonde stirred and slowly opened her unfocused eyes. "...Mako..." "That's me, the bitch you hate," Makoto smiled pressed a kiss to Ann's head. Instantly, Ann curled up and groaned, "I...don't hate you..." "I know you don't," Makoto rubbed Ann's back in slow circular motions. "You hate the pain, and you're allowed to." "...It sucks," Ann sat up slowly and shook the hair out of her face. "I'm fucking gay I don't deserve this." Makoto chuckled and brought Ann into a hug. She let Ann rest against her and continued to rub her back and arm. "You don't, honey. You really don't." Ann let out a soft hum and relaxed even more, still wincing at the pain. "I got the pain killers for you, and brought home some takeout and a hot chocolate," Makoto said softly, and Ann lifted her head to look directly into brown eyes. "For me?" "For you," Makoto nudges Ann's nose gently, loving the dazed smile that came from the blonde. "You hormonal monster princess." Ann giggled and took down her hoodie to reveal matted twin-tails. She leaned in and gently kissed her girlfriend on the lips. Makoto tasted chocolate, and only chocolate, but at least it wasn't the taste of enemy blood. "Wanna eat on the couch?" Makoto mumbled against Ann's sweet lips. "Mhm," was the weak response. Ann spent the night in Makoto's lap with pad thai in her lap and the fluffiest hot chocolate ever on the coffee table in front of her. Makoto pampered her silly as they watched some strange game show featuring men say tongue-twisters or get their balls hit. "That," Ann said through a mouth of noodles. "That is what it's like." "I'll be sure to tell Yusuke," Makoto grinned.

~One Week Later~

Ann yawned and stretched, feeling better than ever. She had an early photoshoot out at the fishing pond. "Morning Mako," Ann rolled over to kiss her girlfriend, but got a groan in response. "Mako?" The blonde looked down and saw Makoto, thriving in pain with gritted teeth, clutching at her stomach. "Ann...Ann help..." The brunette hissed and whined, clinging to her Buchimaru-Kun pillow. Ann placed a hand to her cheek and sighed - it was her girlfriend's time. "Alright, what do you want babe?" Ann big spooned Makoto and rested her hands on the tight stomach. "Ice cream," was the response from the woman in pain. "Babe, it's 7am, you can't have ice cream for br-" "Shut up and get me dairy," Makoto snapped and curled up into a ball. Ann scowled and sat up again. "Fine, fine. I'm getting you green tea as well, it'll make you feel better." "Come back quickly, cancel everything I need you here," Makoto instantly whimpered and gave Ann a puppy dog pout. Ann put her hand on her hip and shook her head with a smile. "Sure thing, your majesty."

#Makoann #tw period #persona 5 #persona 5 fanfiction

[sharktofu]

Trust Fall - NCIS LA fanfiction

AO3 link: Trust Fall by Sashaya.

Story dedicated to Z., who is the best and who started me on the whole ‘aftermath’ stories. Hope I didn’t fuck up!

A little backstory on this 'gem' - I started writing it immediately after I saw "Payback", because I didn't believe the show would really show the aftermath of all the shit that went on for Callen and the team.

It came out differently than I expected, because life got in the way - and by that, I mean that my personal feelings and experience with my job and my boss made their way into this story. It's one of the many reasons why I'm posting it just now.

I hope you’ll all enjoy it, despite the (massive) delay.

  G. out!

Movies lie – there’s no storm, after storm, after storm. No never-ending cycle of pain and destruction, and sadness. After storm, there’s a moment of complete silence, a moment when you sit down and think ‘I survived, somehow’. The vicious cycle of unfair life is always broken by a sunbeam of hope. Then there’s time of chaos, an aftermath. It’s always the worst - the time to pick up the pieces and decide, what's next.

And this time, Callen cannot let others decide. He's past being passive in his own life.

G. takes his own car; tells Sam something about how even married couples need space, that Sam doesn't believe one bit. The "We'll talk later" hangs between them. Callen is okay with that.

Everyone at work is tired, downright exhausted. It's evident in hesitant nods of 'Hello', distrustful side-eyes. This... mission took a toll on them, more than anything before.

Even his team doesn't hide how much it cost them. Kensi is absent-mindedly disorganizing the chaos on her desk, taking a bite from a chocolate bar from time to time. Sam is watching her carefully, his eyebrows raising higher and higher every time Kensi notices she her desk looks almost tidy. Deeks is actively napping, head leaned on the chair in a position that most would call uncomfortable. Callen sees him open his eyes for a second, when he greets everyone.

"You're late," Sam says.

Callen shrugs, "I had some cleaning up to do".

He doesn't need to say he spent the whole night throwing away everything that reminded him of Joelle. He doesn't say how little he has, again.

Sam knows.

It doesn't take long for the aftermath to really hit him.

Hetty graces them with her presence, instead of making whichever low-level employee do her bidding for her. After everything, it raises a lot of red flags.

"Mr. Callen," she says his name with a warm familiarity that he doesn't trust anymore. "In the face of recent events, all employees are required to few sessions with our psychologist. We decided for you to go first"

"Our psychologist?" Sam repeats.

"Dr Getz, of course" Hetty clears up.

Callen hasn't expected anyone else, but he still tenses up. Everyone notices the change in his posture, but he ignores it and follows Hetty silently.

She leads him to Nate's temporary office and closes the door behind him. It’s difficult to admit, but he feels like a caged animal. It's not only his training that makes him locate all the possible exits. He's not tech-savvy, but even someone as old-school as him would notice the obvious camera in the corner. He doubts it's the only way to monitor this session.

"First, I just want to say how happy I am seeing you today, after everything," Nate smiles at him. It's a poor way of not-saying 'there were concerns about your loyalty to the agency'.

"Pleased to please you," Callen barely stops himself from sneering. Thought, he does smile with too much teeth and Nate reacts to that with a visible twitch.

“I know we already talked about your trust issues, but given recent developments I think it's safe to say, we need to revisit them again,” Nate continues.

It's a bit too much. It all sounds like a very bad joke and G.'s past being the collateral in all the 'well-thought' plans. He throws his head back and laughs. It's short and cold, a purposefully bad imitation of joy.

“No offence, Nate," Callen says, but he means full offence, full insult. “But you’re one of the reasons why I have trust issues.”

Nate flinches away, a minor tick that he deliberately doesn’t cover up. It makes Callen regret his words, but only a little. It’s not enough to take them back.

“I understand…," Nate tries to speak again, but Callen never lets him finish.

G. stands up and Nate recoils automatically, maybe in fear, most likely very aware of his actions. It looks like he's afraid that Callen could attack him and G. tries not to think how easily it would be to overpower Nate.

"It's time to change my therapist," Callen decides in a firm voice that leaves no place for arguments.

Nate is smart, he knows when to give up and so he doesn't try to change Callen's mind. G.'s not sure if it's another of his strategies or he simply wants to help. He doesn't care and simply leaves.

He's getting some resemblance of control back.

He's not at all surprised to see Hetty by the door. Though, he is shocked how easily she let go of the appearance of a happy family.

“Mr. Callen, explain your behavior, please!”

"Why, Hetty! You shouldn't monitor private sessions so blatantly!" He's shameless in how much he raises his voice. It doesn't stop Hetty; she's not easy, but Callen's feeling petty today.

“I’m requesting a day-off. I’m sure I have a lot of them saved up," he adds. “I’ll call when I'm coming back!”

He feels a bit lighter, leaving Hetty behind and for the first time not caring about that. His team throws him worried looks - even Deeks, who stopped napping and is now smiling cheekily. He nods to them, hoping to reassure them.

“Call you later!” Sam shouts, and it sounds both like a threat and a promise. He's already expecting a visit from his friend.

He chuckles to himself, when he hears Kensi's voice in the background announcing that she should take it easy after all and she's going home for now. Immediately after, he hears Sam and Deeks making excuses.

He doubts anyone will stop them.

Callen doesn’t feel like going home, doesn't feel like throwing away more stuff that reminds him of a lie. He wonders if that’s how his 'victims' fell or it helped that he just disappeared without a word.

He has half a mind to sell his house and find a new hole to exist in. Too many people know where he lives now. It's an uncomfortable thought, one that almost turns him in a wild animal, while his instincts cry for him to hide.

At the same time, he doesn't want to lose this place. It was home - before, when he was a kid and later, when he found it again. He's not sure he's ready to let go.

He decides to put it off for now. He should get a new therapist, so he'll have at least one thing to talk about. He should ask for recommendations - maybe Michelle or someone from the DC branch.

Right now, he’s just gonna drive. It's not like he has somewhere to be.

Callen turns the radio on, to have something more than just his thoughts to accompany him. He knows the song that’s on, so it's easy for him to get lost in it. He parks not far away from his favorite chicken wings spot, already thinking where he's going to spend his lunch.

The walk on the beach is soothing. Callen thinks about the past… year? It feels longer. He thinks about Sam getting more solo cases, the mole, Nate’s not-betrayal, Joelle.

When he thinks it all through, his trust issues are really ‘last season’.

His trust and privacy has been violated so many times, there’s always going to be a lingering thought in the back of his head ‘what if'. He will always feel the need to look over his shoulder.

Hetty played one too many games, but she's not paying the price, is she?

'It's not her fault,' Callen thinks, when he sits down on the bench. 'But that's... a disturbing amount of head-games.'

He itches for a cigarette, which is a sudden thought. He hasn't had a smoke since he was a teen.

His work, that he sacrificed his life for times and times again, feels tainted now. He never claimed it was pure, but it was… ‘safer’, for the lack of better word. Sure, it's a job for ‘the greater good’ but after some time, this excuse isn’t enough. Safety is. Safety within the job.

He can’t say it anymore, can he?

Though, it's not like he has a lot career options. What else can he do? CIA is both his past and not a possibility, for so many reasons; FBI doesn’t fit his line of work and his experience.

There’s always long-term cover missions - which he's done so many times before, sometimes it's a wonder he remembers, who he really is - or a job in another cell. Washington, maybe?  

Callen’s musings are interrupted, when his cell starts ringing. His experience doesn't let him ignore it and he glances at the phone.

Ana.

Callen groans and ignores the call.

Until he understands what her part in all of this is – and he knows she has one, the question is if Ana is aware of it – he’s going to take a step back from their ‘relationship’.

It won’t be fair to her, if she’s innocent. Isn't fair to him.

"Man, I can see your brain going into override. Give yourself a break with the whole thinking thing" Sam sits next to him. Callen would jump, if Sam didn't give him courtesy of being uncharacteristically loud.

"You're supposed to be nice to me, remember? Or do we need marriage counseling, again?" Callen aims for humor, but the joke falls flat. "What a shitshow."

"I hear you," Sam leans back. He looks straight at the horizon, like he expects to find some answers there. "What now?"

"Ha! That's the question, isn't it?" Callen sighs and his shoulders drop, like they cannot uphold more of his problems. "I don’t know."

"Are you coming back?" It's a loaded question.

"I don't know. You?"

Sam doesn't answer for a few minutes. "There's not much beside this."

Callen doesn't call him a liar, but they both know the truth. Sam is too loyal to his country to just leave this job. He loves it as much as he loves his family. He won't quit.

"You could teach," Callen suggests. "Embarrass Aiden with his old man as his instructor."

Sam laughs. "Only you could find that embarrassing."

"What can I say - my only references are movies," he says. "I might quit, Sam."

His partner hums in response, but doesn't comment. He doesn't seem shook by Callen's confession.

"Okay."

"Just okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. If you want, I won't stop you. Your choice, man," Sam stands up and faces Callen. "For now, Michelle is making dinner. Kam is expecting her Uncle Callen."

G. thinks about the chicken wings, but dismisses the thought. Nothing beats Michelle's home-cooked meal. It's not even a contest.

"Six?"

"On the clock," Sam heads towards the sidewalk. "See you later, G.!"

Callen chuckles. He does feel a bit better now. Despite what happened, he still has his family. No matter what, they won't abandon him.

It's a reassuring thought.

It doesn't make everything better, doesn't fix his life, but it makes it bearable.

It's enough for now, when he leans back and enjoys the sun and the sound of crashing waves.

He survived the storm, he will survive the aftermath.

It won't break him.

It will free him.

#ncis la #ncis la fanfiction #aftermath of betrayal #some light swearing #chrisodonline #sorry for the delay

[cruximpetus]

4, 12

⊱asks for muns with a multimuse or more than one muse⊰ 

4. Is there a muse that not a lot of people roleplay with?

Well.  That’s complicated, since I just added a bunch of new characters and took off a couple of others, but I’d say - out of all the muses on here, whether they’ve been here or somewhere else and moved - the Noir characters won’t get a lot of threads (Mireille has...three, but she was super low activity, so I expect that’ll be true of the other characters from the show as well) - and that’s because most people don’t know them more than anything.  Amy and Camille have none and haven’t since I moved them over from their last blog.  Haruko (and, subsequently, Rin) won’t get a lot - and, honestly, I doubt most of the OCs will get a lot (because OCs on a multimuse, let’s be real here).But I think most of the others have a fairly good select group of people who write with them and want to write with them (including OC!Jess) - and I’ll include Homura and Elsa on here, despite being new and not currently having threads.Then again, you’ll find that most people don’t specify muse?  But the starter calls I’ve had that worked best were when I specified which muses were more likely to give the starter.  So idk.

12. What is something everyone should know about your muses before interacting?

That depends on muse?...everyone should watch Noir and then come interact with my children because they are wonderful and lovely and need more love because honestly it’s an anime about two girls being assassin gal pals and finding out about a secret society run by another gal who has the third assassin who is totally in lesbians with one of the gal pals and like none of the male characters are EVER like...long-lasting, some of them are relevant, but honestly.  Noir.  Go watch it.  Play with the muses.  Or play with the muses, love them, and then watch the canon.--and, going off of that, my personal default for two of the characters (actually, three, if we count Altena) has more to do with unpublished fanfic than the canon.  >.>;;If there’s a conflict between book and show canon, I tend to heavily default to the book personalities and then mix in show events (re: Will and Mischa and Hannibal, to some extent, and Miss Honey, when I wrote her, was also much the same).  It is extremely important in regards to those mentioned - particularly Will (and Hannibal, on his blog) - to read their disclaimers because most people either go strict show with minor divergence after s?e? or strict book (or strict movie), and I do not do any of those.Most of the OCs on this blog live in the same town (and Meg, in her Underworld verse, defaults there as well), so they may know each other in passing.  For instance, Libby is an acting professor at the same little college where Dee is a literature professor and has had Rin as a student (and probably Jess as well, eventually); Dee totally goes to Deb’s bookstore all the time and they’re probably on that level of friendship where they’ll talk when Dee’s there but they don’t, like, hang out outside of that; Meg is totally Rin and Jess’s drug provider; Rin and Jess probably met at the bar Deb frequents all the time (which is a couple of blocks from Dee’s old apartment); and Jess has probably gone by Clara’s store for flowers, most likely when she lived with Dee because Dee loves flowers (so, let’s be real, Dee probably knows all of the Taylor sisters in passing but totally doesn’t know they’re sisters), as has Rin - in fact, it’s likely Rin went to Clara for flowers when she was trying to make up with Jess (or vice-versa).  So they might mention each other.I do write villain characters.  I do write abusers, and I do write characters who have been abused (sometimes by other characters on this or other blogs).  I will treat them all equally.  I mean, as far as caring about them.  Haruko, particularly Toon!Haruko, is a little shit, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have interesting and compelling reasons for doing what she’s doing that we, as people, can understand.  Paul Spector may be a sexually sadistic serial killer (and I debate some of those titles but that’s just me), but he was also an abuse victim and had a heck ton of trauma that caused those, and, no, neither of these excuse his actions, but you cannot take Paul the abuser and separate him from Paul the abused because they are one and the same person.  Sometimes people are not able to break their cycle of abuse.  Sometimes it keeps going.  And we cannot, cannot, cannot distance a person from who they are as a whole and color them just one way because in doing so we separate them from ourselves or from people we know and we say we can’t be like them but the truth is that we very well can.  We have to have these characters and these stories and we have to try and understand them because that’s how we begin to identify what went wrong and where we can step in and change things and that’s how we notice those things in themselves.So, yes, some of my characters are bad people and universally hated by...either most of the fandom or people I’ve had conversations with in relation to them, and I’m not going to say that either of those are incorrect or undeserved, but if I’m writing them, I don’t hate them, I won’t hate them, and while I will not excuse their actions, I will try and explain them...and may try to show them as good in some aspects of their lives or with some other characters because I’m not going to paint them as black or white when they, as a person, are grayscale.  It’s only their actions that are more easily painted.

#sandsofchaos #[ meme response ] #[ bandit ] #[ one with the glass ] #[ I HAD A LOT TO SAY FOR THAT LAST ONE OOPS ] #[ I MAY HAVE GONE OFF ON A TANGENT ] #[ like i feel like i just want to primarily write antagonists sometimes ] #[ i won't because there are too many others i want to write ] #[ but i'm leaning more in that direction recently ] #[ and ] #[ i think there are some villains who would be much better received if they were the opposite gender ] #[ let's be honest ] #[ we'd hate amy if she were a man and nick were a woman ] #[ gone girl only works because she is a woman ] #[ paul would probably be much more loved if he were female ] #[ but because he's white cis male ] #[ his reception is entirely different ] #[ ...and haruko's just an ass because i write her as one ] #[ she's well-received in FLCL because she's a manic pixie dream girl ] #[ and just steadily grows more blatantly selfish ] #[ I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS IN THE TAGS TOO APPARENTLY. ]

[chiyume]

Shouting at the Stars

Prompt for February from/for the lovely @micromarvel​

Bucky finds Steve sitting on the roof of his apartment building, which is never a good sign.

The roof is cold, even during summer, and like this in late February, it’s downright freezing. It certainly isn’t the right place for a sickly person like Steve to sit without as much as a jacket over the thin material of his dress shirt. Bucky can see the way he shivers in the evening breeze where he sits by the narrow ledge running around the rooftop, narrow shoulders shaking, teeth clattering.

Steve doesn’t say a word when Bucky drapes his own jacket over him, doesn’t even move as Bucky sits down beside him, but Bucky doesn’t care. He just waits, looking out over the run-down neighbourhood in silence.

Steve’s lip is split, and there’s a bruise blooming on the ridge of his cheek. There’s blood on his collar, but there’s also spots of red covering the bruised surface of his knuckles. Bucky had expected no less. After all, it wouldn’t be like Steve to go down without a fight.

They sit there for maybe five full minutes without making so much as a sound, but then the words finally come, low and bitter from Steve’s mouth.

“I hate being small.”

The sentence sounds a bit off, muffled and dulled as the swell of Steve’s lip makes it hard for him to shape his mouth around the words. It’s all he says for a long while, and once Bucky’s sure that’s all he’s going to get, he drags down a deep breath into his lungs before letting it out in a slow, steady sigh.

“You know,” he says carefully, “maybe you wouldn’t hate it so much if you stopped picking fights with every other fella more than twice your size?”

Steve glares at him then, but that’s nothing new. Bucky meets the stare head-on, and after a second or two, Steve looks away again.

Bucky’s pleased to see that he’s stopped shivering now; even more so when Steve sullenly tugs Bucky’s jacket tighter around himself. He nearly drowns in it, the wide collar reaching well past his ears. He’d look adorable if it hadn’t been for the battered look on his face.

Then Steve tips his head back up to the sky, and Bucky decides that he looks adorable either way.

“It’s just so frustrating,” Steve mutters under his breath, and Bucky’s heart aches a little at the crestfallen tone of his voice.

“Don’t mind them knuckleheads,” he tries, reaching out to wrap his arm around Steve’s shoulder and give him a consoling shake. “They’re just too big’a cowards to pick on somebody their own size.”

He means it as a comfort, but to his surprise, Steve just shakes his head and ducks away, shrugging Bucky’s arm off of him. “That’s not it,” he groans, wincing when the brash movement of his mouth causes the lip to start bleeding again.

“Inner pocket,” Bucky says simply, and Steve obediently pulls out Bucky’s handkerchief from within the depths of the jacket, bringing it up to his mouth.

“I don’t care that they pick on me,” he clarifies into the hanky, and Bucky arches a curious eyebrow at him.

“That purple tint on you mug says differently,” he points out, and Steve scoffs as he hangs his head back down.

“They weren’t after me,” he reports sourly, and Bucky instantly squares his shoulders.

“They?” he asks grimly. “As in more than one?”

“Don’t,” Steve orders, but then his posture slumps, and he lowers Bucky’s handkerchief down into his lap. “They came out from Nancy’s. Three of them, drunk as all hell. I was heading the other way, and I heard them—” He cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. “They went after Oscar Callaghan.”’

“Baker’s kid?” Bucky asks with a frown, and Steve nods. He looks sad, but Bucky can see the anger seething just underneath the surface as clearly as he can see the warmth of his own breath turn into mist in front of him in the cold night air.

“I couldn’t let them,” Steve explains. His knuckles are white against the fabric in his hands, the dried blood standing out sharply against his skin even in the dark. “He’s not even sixteen years old, Buck, he—” He swallows the sentence down, and Bucky’s gut churns. Anger, relief, pride; all of it mixing together into something live and feral that spreads through his veins like a fever. He lowers his head down, tearing his eyes away from the bloodied handkerchief in Steve’s grip.

“You didn’t happen to catch their names, did ya?” he asks tightly.

“No,” Steve answers. Bucky knows it’s a lie, but he also knows that trying to push for an answer will get him nowhere.

“If I were bigger—” Steve starts, and it cuts into Bucky’s soul to hear the croak that escapes from the back of his throat as he continues, “I would have been able to help him for real. Chase them off, you know… Like you do.”

He gives Bucky a quick, almost shy glance out of the corner of his eye, and even though Bucky forces himself to smile back, he’s not sure whether or not Steve actually sees it before he’s already turned away again.

Bucky gets it. Truly, he does. Of course Steve would never leave someone to fend for themselves, not even when doing so would put him in harm’s way. Sadly, that’s the only way of helping Steve knows; to act as decoy while the original victim flees. The results, as made evident by the state Bucky had found Steve in tonight, are always the same.

“Fuck, I hate bullies…” Steve suddenly mutters, and Bucky lets out a snort of surprise at the other’s so uncharacteristically crude choice of words. He looks Steve up and down, taking in the sight of him where he sits, huddled up in Bucky’s clothes like a child, and his insides swell with the sudden rush of admiration for the man beside him.

“Did Oscar get away?” he asks softly, and Steve shrugs.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, and Bucky’s lips curl up in a fond smile.

“Then what are you whining about?” he teases. “The kid’s fine because of you. You made yourself someone’s hero today.” At that, Steve snorts out an incredulous laugh, and Bucky reaches out to tap his knuckles gently against the other’s temple. “And don’t worry about those other guys,” he orders. “You’ll get the drop on them one day, you’ll see.”

“Whatever you say, Buck,” Steve agrees halfheartedly. Then he groans and buries his face against Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s just so frustrating,” he complains, words partially muffled by the fabric, and Bucky laughs as he nudges him up into a sitting position once more.

“Then maybe you just need to let that frustration out?” he suggests, and Steve frowns at him.

“How?” he asks skeptically.

“I don’t know,” Bucky admits. “What do you feel like doing? Like, when you think about it, what does it make you wanna do?”

Steve shakes his head, sighing heavily. “Honestly?” he asks. “It just makes me wanna punch something. Or scream.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve done enough punching for today,” Bucky says with a laugh. He looks at Steve again, and then he stands up, gesturing for Steve to follow his lead. “Get up here,” he orders, tugging at Steve’s borrowed jacket.

“What are we doing?” Steve asks warily, even as he does as he’s told.

“We’re gonna scream,” Bucky announces confidently, and Steve lets out another short, disbelieving laugh.

“No, we’re not,” he announces firmly, but Bucky won’t have any of it.

“Sure we are,” he argues. “Look, it’s easy. You stand up straight, grab a mouthful of air, and then you just…” Following his own instructions, he lets out a yell, as loud as he can, and his voice reverberates between the buildings around them like the ring of an explosion.

The silence that follows after the final echo has rung out only lasts for a second. As a dog begins to bark from somewhere below them, Bucky turns towards Steve with his arms triumphantly thrown out by his sides. “See?” he says, smiling widely, but Steve just laughs at him while shaking his head.

“You’re insane,” he declares, and in return, Bucky sends him a wolfish grin.

“Maybe,” he admits, “but it felt good.” He nudges Steve in the side. “Go on, you try.”

“No way,” Steve chuckles.

“Come on,” Bucky coaxes. “Just once.”

Steve glares at him, but when Bucky only responds by expectantly raising his brow at him, he turns towards the ledge of the rood with a sigh.

He does, in fact, yell, but Bucky would lie if he were to call it an actual attempt.

“That,” he says flatly when Steve turns back to him again, “was pathetic.”

“Was not,” Steve objects, but Bucky just shakes his head and waves a reprimanding finger at him.

“You can do better,” he decides. “C’mon, all the way from your toes this time.”  

“What if I get an asthma attack?” Steve asks defiantly.

“You won’t,” Bucky says with unabashed confidence, and as Steve shuts his mouth, Bucky just winks at him. “On the count of three,” he says, turning out towards the horizon, watching Steve follow suit. “One. Two. Three.”

They scream, shouting at the stars above their heads from the very top of their lungs. Their voices bounce between the surrounding apartments, winding through the alleyways below, and throughout it all, Bucky can see from the corner of his eye that Steve’s smiling.

Someone, somewhere, opens a window, shouting out curses at them, which are only partially drowned out by the loud barks of at least three dogs nearby. The cacophony does nothing but send them both head-first into a desperate giggling fit as they quickly pull back from the ledge, ducking their heads down and clutching at each other’s arms while trying to avoid being seen.

“Oops,” Bucky snickers, upon which Steve – still giggling – gives him a shallow punch to the arm, only to wince out a laugh when the hit makes his knuckles hurt all over again.

“Feels better now though, doesn’t it?” Bucky asks, and Steve takes a moment to glance down at his feet – down at those raggedy, newspaper-filled shoes that Bucky both loves and hates all at the same time – before looking back up again.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “It actually does.”

“Told ya,” Bucky muses. He reaches out and gives Steve’s shoulder a light shove, before stepping forward to wrap an arm around his neck, yanking him in for a hug. “Damn punk,” he mutters fondly.

“Jerk,” Steve replies, before adding, a bit more seriously. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, pal,” Bucky offers. He gives Steve’s shoulders another hard squeeze before stepping back to shove his hands down the pocket of his trousers with an exaggerated shudder. “But next time you feel like sulking around up here, bring your own goddamn jacket, will ya? Jeez, I’m freezing my ass off.”

“You want it back?” Steve asks, already moving to take the garment off, but Bucky waves him away.

“Nah. You keep it on until we get back inside,” he decides. “For some reason I think you’d be worse off catching pneumonia than me.”

“Probably,” Steve agrees. He looks up at the sky, eyes wide and clear in the dark, and inside Bucky’s chest, his heart skips a beat without his consent.

“C’mon.” Bucky makes a throw of his head towards the fire escape, smiling. “Let’s head down to Nancy’s. First pint’s my treat.”

“It’s always your treat,” Steve points out while walking ahead towards the stairs.

“Does that matter?” Bucky asks sweetly.

“No,” Steve admits. “Not really.” He turns to look at Bucky again, one foot on the fire escape, and the other on the ledge. “Besides,” he adds cheekily, “what’s the point in being a hero if I have to pay for my own drinks?”

At that, Bucky laughs, and Steve gives him a wide, generous smile as he begins to head down the fire escape. Bucky watches him go, and then sends a final look at the stars above, before going after him.

Hero or not, Bucky’s still certain that he’ll follow that kid across the plains of the Earth, should Steve only ask him to.

After all, what are friends for?

#prewar stucky #stucky #micromarvel #i can't do drabbles i need at least 1500words i'm sorry #i need practice #steve rogers #bucky barnes #chiyume #mywriting