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#I’m not sure if this fic has any fanart
irkimatsu · 2 days
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@monstrousvoice sent me fanart of Husk in a muzzle: https://www.tiktok.com/@zammyx0/video/7330695414468988166
And it's my favorite form of Husk art, the sort where I'm not sure whether to cry or be horny. Curse how hot this man looks in bondage, despite his unfortunate circumstances...
For fic purposes, though, I went strictly for the crying. Husk is being punished for disobeying Alastor, Reader finds him after a few days, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt ensues. 1.8k words. No sexual content but still emotionally rough, with mentions of alcoholism and withdrawal.
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“Niffty? Can I ask you something?”
You try not to make any startled movements as the small Sinner slowly turns her head and looks at you with her one large eye. She continues smacking her feather duster at the wall as she looks up at you. “Yeeeees?” she replies cheerfully.
“Have you seen Husk?” you say. “He hasn’t been at the bar for a few days, and no one else knows where he is. Not Charlie, not Vaggie, not Angel…” It’s not unlike Husk to disappear every so often, usually due to errands from Alastor, but it’s not like him to not warn you before vanishing for this long.
“Ohhh.”  Niffty giggles as she turns back to the wall and continues dusting. “Husker is being punished. He was a bad boy.”
“...punished?” Dear god, what did this little gremlin do to your boyfriend?!
“He’s supposed to do what the boss says! That’s the deal!” Niffty continues. “But he said no, so now he’s being punished! Those are the rules!”
“Do you know where he’s being, um… punished?”
“He’s in his room,” Niffty says casually. “He’s not allowed to leave until Alastor isn’t angry at him anymore.”
Alastor is mad at Husk, and now he’s being kept in his room like he’s a naughty child? The more you learn about Husk’s predicament, the less any of it makes sense. “You have a master key so you can do housekeeping, right, Niffty? Is there any way you could let me in there?”
“Nope, not supposed to!” she says. “Supposed to go in there to clean, that’s it! Don’t talk to him, don’t give him anything he asks for, nothing else!” 
“Please, Niffty?” you beg. “I’m worried about him…”
“Hm…” Niffty looks back up at you with her eye, giving no hint as to what on Earth is going on in her head. “Well… he is your bad boy, isn’t he? Maybe if I let you in, you’ll… punish him further?” God, her laughter about that is fucking creepy.
“Um… yeah…” You can’t be more committal about it than that, even if it’s for the sake of seeing Husk.
“Okay, I’ll let you in!” She pulls a key out of her pocket and hands it to you. “Don’t lose that! It works on all the doors in the hotel, so losing it would be very bad. And don’t let Alastor know I lent you that, or see you using it!” Her voice lowers to a menacing pitch. “Make sure you punish that bad boy real good, okay?”
You nod slowly until she turns back to her cleaning tasks, and as soon as her gaze isn’t glued to you, you immediately flee to the stairs.
The reek of booze assaults your senses as soon as you open Husk’s door. You don’t know the last time Niffty has cleaned in here, but in that time, the floor has become littered with shattered glass and puddles of drink. You shut the door behind you and gingerly tiptoe around the mess as you look around for your boyfriend.
“Husk?” you call out quietly. Are you in here?”
Another full bottle rolls to the floor and shatters as the lump on the bed starts to squirm.
“Husk…?” you repeat, more concerned than ever, as you approach the bed. You slowly pull the blanket back to reveal Husk curled into a ball, his whole body concealed by his wings. They’re in a terrible state, with feathers pulled out in clumps that left behind bloodstains. His tail is curled around himself, and the plumage on the tip has been equally tattered.
Even more concerningly, now that the blanket is gone, you can see the metal chain tying him to his bedpost.
You gently stroke at his wing, only for him to growl and shrink back from your touch.
“Fuck off…” he groans, his voice muffled by what remains of his feathers.
“Husk, it’s okay. It’s me,” you assure him.
He slowly lifts one of his wings and stares at you with pupils blown wide. Now that you can see his face, you can see the chunk of metal fastened against his mouth with a series of leather straps. Only the extreme sides of his mouth are visible, just enough for you to see sharp teeth bared into a snarl. His only other attire is the metal cuff around his neck for his chain; the rest of his body is exposed, revealing deep claw marks and bald patches all over him.
“Husk!” you cry out in horror. “What happened?!”
“What are ya… doin’ here…?!” he asks in turn. You get the feeling he’d sound a lot angrier if he had the strength to. “Get out of here… he’s gonna... be pissed-” He interrupts himself with a groan and a series of dry heaves. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” he grumbles to himself between heaving.
“I’m not leaving you like this,” you insist as you sit beside him on the bed. His body begins to spasm, and his heaving soon turns to sobs. You gently stroke one of his ears, knowing it won’t provide him any meaningful relief, but if there’s any sense of comfort you can give the poor man…
“...drink.” His groaning and mumbling finally manages to form a coherent word. “Haven’t… had a drink.”
Normally, the last thing this man ever needs is more alcohol. But as you put the pieces together, you begin to realize how he got into this state, and how this was done intentionally.
Niffty’s words echo in your mind. “Don’t give him anything he asks for!” All you can see is Husk desperately pleading with his friend for a drink, just one drink, even while both of them know she can’t risk that sort of mercy…
But you don’t owe Alastor any promises. “Where do you keep them?” you ask.
Husk weakly lifts a claw and points, and you follow the trail of glass and puddles he’s indicating to a cabinet pushed against his wall. You open the cabinet, and it’s just as much of a disaster as the floor, its shelves lined with more shattered bottles and puddles. Thankfully, you manage to find a miniature bottle of whiskey that’s survived the carnage. You take the bottle and rush it back to Husk’s side.
“Open it for me?” he asks weakly. You nod at him.
“I’ve got you. Don’t worry.”
You position yourself cross legged on the bed, then gently pull Husk’s shaking body into your lap, careful not to touch any of the bloody gashes in his skin. You balance the back of his head against the crook of your arm, then unscrew the cap on the bottle.
“I’ve got you,” you repeat, your voice much softer now, as you position the opening of the bottle against the exposed side of his mouth. “Are you ready?”
You’re not sure if his groaning response is a yes or no. All you can do is take a chance. You slowly tip the bottle up until the contents begin running out. Some of it runs down his chin and stains the panel over his mouth, but some manages to drip to where his tongue can reach. You finally find a position that gets most of the drink into his mouth, and he gulps desperately until the bottle is completely drained. Slowly, his tremors begin to cease, and his breathing becomes much less labored.
“Thank you,” he whispers, his voice little more than a ghost. “Thank you… thank you…”
Surely that one little bottle won’t be enough to fight his symptoms for long, but you’re not ready to leave his side just yet. You set the bottle down on the sheets and wrap your now-free arm around him to pull him closer to you.
You know you shouldn’t start crying. You’re supposed to be the one comforting him. And yet…
“Hey… doll…” he murmurs as he wipes a tear away with his claw. His paw is still trembling slightly, though not as badly as it was before you got him his drink.
“What happened?” you ask. “Niffty told me Alastor was upset with you, but that’s all I know…”
“She the one who gave you the key?” he asks. You nod in response, and you can just barely see  him smiling behind his muzzle. “So she figured out how to help me after all…”
“She told me I’d be in trouble if Alastor saw me in here,” you say.
“Yeah, you probably will,” he says. “Though I’ll be the one in real shit for accepting your help…”
“Why’s he this upset with you?” you ask.
“Refused his orders,” Husk says simply. “I don’t wanna do what he wants, so he’s drying me up until I’m desperate enough to go through with it. He’s done it to me before, he’ll do it to me again.”
Before? Again? You knew Husk and Alastor’s deal was heavily unbalanced to Husk’s detriment, but before now, you hadn’t fully grasped just how dire Alastor’s treatment could be.
“What is it that he wants you to do?” you ask.
He averts his gaze. “You don’t need to know that,” he says simply. “It’s just something I don’t wanna do. No matter what he does to me.”
“But what if he hurts you even worse if you keep refusing?” you ask. “I don’t want you to have to do something you’d hate! …but if it’s the only way… I couldn’t stand losing you, Husk…”
His next words are so quiet, and the muzzle doesn’t help you hear him any better. “...that’s how I feel about it, doll…”
You hold him in silence for a while, your only movement a continuous light scratch behind his ear. He returns the silence, only responding with a faint purr. As you hold him, you can’t help but look over the injuries to his body and his wings. Did Alastor do this to him?
On closer inspection, you notice that the tips of his claws are caked in dried blood…
“You should go,” he says. “I don’t want you to, but if he finds out…”
“I understand,” you say, trying your hardest not to imagine how badly Husk might be punished for daring to accept comfort in a time like this. “Just… whatever it is that Alastor’s asking you to do… I’ll understand if you do it, okay? I won’t blame you, no matter how awful. I just want you to get out of this…”
“...I can’t,” is all he says in response.
You lift him up so you can kiss the plate separating his mouth from yours; never before have you missed the taste of his alcohol and tobacco so much. He wraps his arms around you and cuddles close, and you can feel his tremors starting to return.
“I can get you another drink before-” you start.
He cuts you off. “Go,” is all he has to say. “Please.”
You kiss his forehead, desperate to feel his warmth somehow, before gently laying him back down on the bed. As soon as you let go of him, he returns to his earlier position, tucked in by his own tattered feathers. You give his wing a few more strokes, and this time he doesn’t flinch; he doesn’t do anything at all.
The only thing you can do now is leave, give Niffty her key back, and hope with everything you have that even Alastor is capable of some level of mercy for the man you love so much.
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katballesteros · 5 months
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Sachi
Commissioned by @inusmasha for @mustardyellowsunshine
Enjoy, Robin! :)
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My new years celebratory art with Qi Ring and Guzi going on a dumb little adventure together <3
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uhohdad · 8 months
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Meine Perle
Octo!Konig x Reader Fic
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Summary: Reader is tasked with feeding enemy prisoner Octo!Konig
“Just don’t step over the tape, don’t talk to it, and try not to spend too much time in there. Oh, and don’t forget the bucket.” AO3
Inspired by this fanart by @numelu that I have not been able to stop thinking about since I laid my sinful little eyes on it.
Word Count: 25.7k
Warnings: 18+, NSFW, porn with plot, tentacles, restraints, bondage, orgasm torture, tentacle fucking, light anal, light spanking, dw he uses all of his tentacles, corked like you got the suds, dom!konig, hood stays on, choking, injury, holy trinity of fluff angst and smut, no use of y/n, story and smut kinda read like two different stories, that’s my bad, i’ve never seen the shape of water but i’m assuming this is the exact plot, reader gender is obscured but afab during the sex bits for sure, women in stem
Biowarefare has made incredible strides in the last few decades, unbeknownst to the public. Experimental creatures of nightmarish horrors engineered to inflict both psychological and physical damage to enemies live in the darker shadows of war. You’d been sworn to secrecy, but remain haunted by these creatures. You’d rather not get close to them - you were just a biologist. A consultant really, meant to answer questions about organic matter and DNA. You were to assist in the designing process, but this was not a part of the job description.
“It still needs to eat in the meantime,” Your supervisor had delivered around a cheeky smile, as if he was telling a joke. Your face, however, had not shown amusement.
“Just don’t step over the tape, don’t talk to it, and try not to spend too much time in there. Oh, and don’t forget the bucket.”
With only two hours to prepare yourself before dinnertime, you weren’t able to accomplish much work. Nerves escape through bouncing legs and fidgeting fingers.
The fridge smelled putrid. A cesspool of meats and seafood, all untreated and unprocessed, some on the brink of expiration, others completely rotten. You try not to breathe as you remove the top of a crate of fish, your fingers surviving any splinters and unpleasant scents with the protection of thick rubber gloves. The mackerel are large, four to five pounds, you’d guess, just shorter than the length of your arm. You grab two, placing them in the large yellow bucket your supervisor reminded you about. Seawater and fish guts drip from your rubber gloves as you step through the empty sterile hallways.
The involuntary shake of your hands causes the handle of the bucket to rattle against the plastic as you step up to the creature’s holding cell. In front of the large metal door you take a moment to steady yourself with a few deep breaths, but the stench of dead mackerel does little to ease your nerves.
You reach to the lanyard around your neck that secured your badge, trembling fingers hesitant to place it against the reader. The usually stagnant red light flicks green, and a grating alarm sounds followed by the sturdy clunk of the lock. You’re forced to use both hands, setting the bucket down before you grip the heavy metal door. You’re lean your entire weight against it, teeth grit as your heels dig into the tile. Your foot holds the door in place as you reach for the bucket. Once in the containment unit, the big metal door slams closed behind you with a mechanical clunk. The alarm buzzes again, making you flinch, shifting hesitantly in your spot by the door as you take in the sight before you.
It’s huge, bigger than any man you’ve ever seen. It looked like a man. Seven feet tall, you think. Muscles engineered for the purpose of destroying, the purpose of killing. Its arms are bent at the elbows and positioned behind its head, restrained by ropes. The restraints looped thoroughly around massive biceps and forearms, secured to the walls on either of his sides. Another rope had suspended from a mount on the ceiling, securing his wrists in place.
Glowing eyes stare menacingly at you from under a hood that cover its face. The black hood spilled from under a tactical helmet and down his chest, hem brushing up against exposed collarbones.
Slick black tentacles protrude from underneath the hood that hangs over its face, each slithering and curling in their own direction.
Eight larger tentacles resembled that of an octopus. As thick as tree trunks at the bases and gradually thinning towards the ends, four on each side of his spine and spread from its back like wings. Each one moves independently, spread and primed as they writhe in the air.
Mesmerized by the creature before you, you find yourself frozen under its gaze. Taking in such a miraculous sight. Sure, you assist in the design, but you’ve never seen one in person before. Pondering its capabilities, knowing full well without the restraints in place you wouldn’t stand a chance against such a well engineered design. Wondering what horror the hood hides, something so awful it had to be covered. Or perhaps the creature was designed that way, the hood itself intended to further off put its victims.
When you finally break eye contact with it, your eyes find the floor. A red line of tape separates you from the creature, signifying its reach within the cell. Its got a large radius, you’re surprised by how much distance he’s capable of covering even while restrained in place.
You swallow hesitantly, taking a couple steps closer, still leaving a healthy distance between you and the glossy red tape.
“Fresh meat?” It asks, in a harsh and gravely voice that sends a chill up your spine. You weren’t sure if he had been referring to you or the fish.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.” Your voice is broken and hesitant as you eye the tentacles writhing and twisting alluringly in the air.
You carefully get down on one knee and set the bucket on the ground, your hands shaking. With a calculated push you slide the bucket across the concrete floor and into the creature’s reach. The bucket slides over the boundary a few feet before it skids and tips over, rolling in a semi circle on its side as the fish spill out of the rim one after another.
The creature laughs, a loud and wicked laugh that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. Your expression is seeped in worry as you stand, watching it eye the mess before it, cruel laugh still echoing in your ears.
“The new ones always forget the bucket.” It says, low and sinful with eyes half-lidded in menace. It coils a larger tentacle around the middle of the container and whips it back in your direction without warning.
You let out a yelp and dive to the floor, just barely missing the bucket that crashed into the cell door behind you. It bounces back, pieces of the plastic rim snapping off and scattering to the ground.
You scramble for the container, your other hand desperately clawing for your badge before slamming it against the receiver and exiting the cell in a panicked scramble.
The creature’s depraved laugh could be heard up until the door slammed shut behind you, the lock securing into place with the grating alarm. Your breaths are shallow, fishy rubber gloves pressed to your beating heart as you quickly distance yourself from the cell.
———————————————————
You had tried to convince your supervisor to give the task to someone else, anyone else, but to no avail.
“It’s your fault for forgetting the bucket!”
You mocked your supervisor’s inflection once out of earshot before burying your face into your palms with a groan.
You thought about putting in your two weeks. No! No two weeks. You’ll just leave and never look back.
You remember that the government doesn’t look very kindly upon disgruntled ex-employees holding classified information, and opt to run a hand through your hair with a huff instead.
You’ll be quick today, in and out, and then it’s done. Once a day for thirty seconds, until they find a replacement. That’s not so bad.
The second time was easier. You knew what to expect, and the spite against your supervisor, against the creature, only fueled your confidence. Features stone cold as you open the door, the grating alarm having stirred the creature. You step into the room assuredly, returning the creature’s harsh stare with one of your own.
You close more of the gap between you and the tape this time, holding the handle of the bucket with one hand and securing the bottom with your other. You wind it up behind you before using your arms to propel it forward with a huff, grip still steady on the bucket as the fish fly. The creature’s eyes follow the trajectory of the fish until they land at its feet. You had wasted no time turning on your heels and leaving, bucket still in hand.
“Someone learned their lesson.” You hear, and you grit your teeth as you let the door slam harshly behind you.
The creature left a lasting impression in your memory. Its taunts echo in your mind, and you can tell he was designed to get under the victim’s skin. To haunt them, inflicting emotional warfare in addition to physical, torturing them without even being in the same room as them.
You dreamt of it last night. You wondered if that was something that it had done to you. If he had the ability to inflict nightmares, or if he was just intimidating enough to let your subconscious run wild after only a few seconds of exposure.
In the dream, you had been caught in a sea of black tentacles, suffocating you as they wrapped around your mouth, robbing you of air while restraining your limbs from fighting back. The tentacles had wriggled until they transformed into the shape of the creature’s hood, glowing eyes staring tauntingly, but your dream had equipped him with a horrific mouth that laid over its hood, filled with sharp carnivorous teeth spread into a sickening smile. With his wicked laugh, blood spilled from the gaps of his endless rows of teeth.
You had woke up covered in sweat, gasping for air as you kicked free from the hold of your blankets.
The dream had stuck with you, the residual unease not allowing you to fall back asleep. You decided to start research on the creature although you weren’t instructed to - your way of controlling the fear of the unknown by making it known.
Detailed sketches and logs of your encounters with him quickly buried your work assignments. You were recording every detail from the number of visual abdominal muscles to his bluff behavior when encountering a threat, branching its tentacles out just like animals to in the wild do to appear bigger.
You couldn’t help the way your eyes lingered on it during feedings. To gather data, you told yourself, to understand the creature’s physiology. You’re a biologist, after all. Research is the foundation of your beliefs.
You had been able to refrain from speaking with it, even if he was rather chatty. Arrogant, he loved to push your buttons.
You didn’t let him get to you, at least as far as he was concerned. You never let your irritation show when under his watchful gaze, but grit your teeth once you turned your back.
It’s about a week and a half into your new duty when he finally makes you falter.
“You’re starving me, you know.”
Your stride stills, not yet turning towards him as your hand grips your badge. You consider his words, shed of his usually cocky tone.
He could be lying, who knows what his true intentions actually are. On the other hand, you’ve only been feeding him what you’ve been tasked to.
You slowly turn towards him, your eyes squinted as you stare at him. You’re trying to deduce his weight, but it’s hard since you’re not used to estimating in terms of seven foot creatures with tentacles. He looks like he’s made of pure muscle, and those tentacles look heavy. 300 pounds? 400? You’re trying to decide if you should be feeding him in terms of his body weight percentage in regards to a human, an octopus, or a monster.
You should have kept walking, you think. He has your attention now, and not only that, you’ve revealed from hesitation alone that you possess a moral standard to uphold a basic level of decency for a prisoner of war. Now he knows you’re soft.
He can tell you’re trying to figure out if he’s deceiving you.
“If I had food to spare, I’d have used it as a weapon by now.” His low voice drips off arrogance again, and a tentacle reaches down to grab a mackerel, curling as he brings it to the appendages pouring from beneath his hood. You watch carefully as the fish disappears, and wonder if your dream was accurate about the mouth he hides under his hood.
You take a deep breath and turn from him, gripping your badge tighter and exiting the cell as you latch the door shut with a loud clunk.
The next time you’re in that awful fridge that reeks of postmortem and cheap seafood, you add two extra mackerel into the yellow bucket with the jagged broken edges.
When he counts the fish that land at his feet during your next feeding, his tone is still gruff, but softer, “Thank you.”
He leaves it without a witty remark. He caught you off guard again, shown by the slowing in your steps. You didn’t turn back to him this time, but you wanted to believe that he was genuinely appreciative of your kindness. Even if it was just enough not to make an attempt to get under your skin this time.
Your dreams have only become more vivid. You can hear the clunk of the lock on the heavy metal door, the alarm that blares identical to reality. You’ll be having a typical day at work, fully immersed in dry research and black tentacles will emerge from every entrance, every crevice. Holding you still and swallowing you up.
It’s getting difficult to differentiate the events in the dreams to those in real life. It takes hours to reorient yourself enough to fall back asleep.
Circles develop around your eyes from the lack of rest. Your productivity had come to a halt, your thoughts and research now surrounding the creature you feed.
He refrains from making comments at you, now that you’re feeding him enough. The next few visits he doesn’t say anything, the two of you sharing the silence. You’re not sure, but you think you have come to an understanding. You feed him a little extra, and in return he doesn’t say anything about the long stares. Not even a snide remark as you leave.
“What are you?” You finally ask during a feeding, curiously eyeing the tentacles delivering a fish to his obscured mouth.
He takes a moment to consider it, or maybe he takes a moment to swallow the mackerel.
“I am what I am, same as you.”
You look down, a little ashamed at your question. Maybe you have been too judgmental. He’s displayed his intelligence from the start, he’s obviously much more than just an it or a creature.
He was just a being who never asked to be created, same as you. His potential locked away in enemy care, his conscious trapped between these four walls, restricted from moving.
“I’m sorry.” You say, standing tall with your brows pinched and eyes looking up to meet his intimidating gaze.
“For what?” He asks after considering it for a moment, voice holding a slight edge.
“That you’re here.”
You pause before continuing, “That you were made for what you were made for. That you never got a chance to just be.”
His eyes watch you carefully, narrowing underneath his hood. A tentacle curls in your direction while your eyes are trained carefully on him, and you can’t help the shake of your hands as you get a closer look at his slick tentacle.
“I’m sorry you’re here too.” He says, and you’re not sure how to take it. You nod your head anyway, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“Me too.” Your voice is strained with remorse, as if you’re personally responsible for holding him hostage. “I’m not like them.” You say, desperate for him to believe you, “I’m just a biologist, I’m meant to answer questions about DNA and nature. I didn’t- it just got out of hand.”
He studies you carefully, his muscles tensing underneath his restraints. “But you help them.” He says, dangerously and definitive.
“No! I- well, yes.” You take a deep breath, closing your eyes as you did, “This is just a job.”
You look back to him. Could you even say it’s just a job anymore? When you’re assisting and encouraging the creation of beings like him? Forced into this world without regard of their wants, made for a purpose to kill and destroy and equipped with consciousness, without given the chance to discover themselves. Destined to a fate of being slain, captured, terrorized, experimented on, or worse.
You close your eyes again, “No, I didn’t mean-“ Your moral compass is spinning now, and you don’t feel capable enough to articulate your feelings on the matter. So instead you just look at him, eyes begging for him to give you a little grace.
He takes a deep breath and you can’t help but watch his chest rise and fall, tentacles wriggling idly behind him. He doesn’t speak, just studies you, those intense eyes boring into you.
“Do you have a name?” You ask gently.
The tentacles on his back curl, his menacing frame shrinking a bit.
He hesitates before speaking.
“Konig.”
“Konig,” You repeat. You give him your name before asking, “Do you need anything?”
He looks down his hood at you, tentacles itching with curiosity. “Water.”
You give a slow nod and gesture to the cell door behind you, “Yeah, I can, yeah.”
You go through the process of opening his cell door, sneaking the bucket into the nearest bathroom and filling it as high as you can with water, but it’s awkward with the sink’s base in the way. The bucket is a lot heavier when it’s filled and you have to waddle on your way back.
Back in the cell, water sloshes out of the bucket as you use your body to hold open the heavy cell door. You hover the bucket a few inches from the ground, the handle straining under the weight as you waddle it up just before the red tape and set it down. You look at him, slightly out of breath with your hands on your hips.
“Now - you can have this, but-“ You take a hand off your hip to point at him, pausing to take a tired breath, “You have to promise me you won’t throw it at me.”
His tentacles curl again, his hood tilting down. “I promise.”
You look hesitantly down at the red tape, kneeling behind the bucket and using your weight to slide it across the floor and over the boundary. He watches you carefully, studying the way your body moved as you kneel before him. As you work for him.
Once the bucket is over the barrier you stand and hesitantly take a step back, bracing yourself in case he launches this one at your head.
Instead he wraps a large tentacle around the jagged edge of the bucket, dragging it closer in order to get a better grip. You watch as two appendages work to bring it to his feet with ease. He takes turns eagerly soaking his tentacles in the water.
You’re not sure if he’s cleaning, drinking, or moisturizing, but you don’t ask. You watch as his tentacles smoothly work, picking up what remains in the bucket and dumping it over himself, letting it drip over his front and staining his pants a shade darker. He heaves a sigh of relief, his eyes closing and his glistening muscles relaxing against the restraints.
“Thank you.” He says, low and quiet. A tentacle grips the empty bucket and extends to its full reach, placing it carefully at the boundary.
After his tentacle retracts you reach for the jagged rim, scraping the bottom of the bucket along the concrete as you pull it back into the safe zone with two fingers. “Thank you.” You give a weak smile and gesture to the empty container in your hands. “I can keep bringing you water, if you continue to refrain from throwing?”
He nods, voice bordering on patronizing as his tentacles curl, “I promise.”
When you return the next day, you’ve got a new bucket and a small hose curled up and hanging off your shoulder.
You figured if he was being held prisoner, he at least deserved a full bucket of water and one that didn’t reek of dead mackerel. Konig watched as your struggle to manage to drag in both buckets while holding the heavy door open. When the door closes behind you with its noisy thud and grating alarm, you toss the fish over first, doubling back to haul the water closer. After getting it near the tape, you have to use your back and dig the heels of your feet against the concrete to slide it the rest of the way across the tape. The water sloshes onto your hair and down the back of your shirt as the bucket slides out from under your weight. You nearly fall back into his radius, but catch yourself with a nervous laugh.
You turn to get a glimpse of his tentacle as it pulls the water bucket closer. From here you get a peek at the suckers on his tentacles, each working independently as it grips around the rim and drags the bucket closer with ease. Just one of his larger appendages was stronger than your whole body. It gave you an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, but you continued to sit on the ground inches from the boundary, your legs crossed as you watch him eat and bathe.
“Thank you.” He says, and you’re unable to decipher his tone over his harsh voice.
“It’s uh, it’s no problem.” You’re memorized by the way his tentacles move, each working independently. It’s a lot of multi-tasking, you think, but it looks like it’s second nature for him, as natural to you as walking and talking at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” He says, in between bites.
“For what?” You ask, head tilting to the side.
“For throwing the bucket at you.” He keeps his gaze to his meal, “Your first day.”
You’re caught off guard by his apology. You hadn’t expected to see self-reflection and regret from him.
You shrug, “I get it. I mean, imprisoned by enemies of war? Restrained against your will? I think everyone has a right to be a little feisty in that situation.” You give another weak smile, fingers absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on your lab coat.
He huffs, wrapping around another mackerel and letting it disappear under his hood.
He lets the silence sit, but the biologist in you can’t help but analyze his diet, “You gettin’ tired of eating the same thing everyday?”
A tentacle reaches up to pick a fish bone from his teeth before flicking it casually to the floor. He considers your question carefully, a habit of his you’ve already logged.
“I’m tired of everything,” he says, and the exhaustion in his voice makes you look to the floor in shame.
Your arm crosses over your chest, thumb anxiously running over your opposing bicep, “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve lost count.” He says.
You wonder if he actually wants to be in conversation with you, or if any stimulation is a better alternative to staring at these four walls, alone with nothing but his own thoughts.
You take another deep breath, accustomed to the overwhelming smell of fish by now.
You’re not sure what to say to him. No words could offer someone in his situation comfort. Instead you watch as he finishes his meal and simultaneously bathes his appendages. It’s oddly alluring, how he moves. You wonder just how many things he’s capable of doing at once. Such a being must be very efficient.
He doesn’t seem to mind your company or curious stares. If he does, he certainly doesn’t voice them. You think he must be used to staring by now, and you wonder if you’re no better than the rest.
When you return the next day, you’ve brought a door jam. You’ve got too many things in your arms to carry in to be able to manage the door all at once. Konig watches from his restrained position as your cluttered silhouette stumbled into the cell. You set the buckets down with a thud, letting the extra bags roll off your shoulders. You have to huff, the trek down the hall weighed down supplies stealing your breath from you. Once you’ve removed the door jammer, silencing the annoying alarm and leaving you both with privacy, you return to his meal.
“I brought you some stuff.” You say as you shake the food bucket before tossing the contents in his direction. Various seafoods you could scrounge up in the fridge scatter to the floor. Shrimp, clams, oysters, a few different species of fish. Whatever seafood hadn’t turned rotten in the walk-in fridge.
His tentacles wriggle and reach out, suckers gripping to the food before him as he brings it to his mouth.
You’re not sure, but by the way his tentacles are wiggling you think you’ve won at least a few brownie points.
You turn from him to walk the bucket of water to the boundary, letting it dangle between your legs in an awkward waddle.
“I brought something else, too.” You say with a hint of hesitance, straining a bit as you set the bucket on the concrete.
His tentacles curl in… anticipation? Curiosity? Hatred? You’re not sure, but you’ve been trying to piece together his body language back in your lab for quite some time.
He doesn’t say anything, so once you’ve got the water bucket over the boundary, you cross back to the discarded bag and rummage through it.
You reveal a small black box, setting your bag down as you extend the antennae.
“A radio.” You say with a sheepish smile. He doesn’t say anything and you look to your gift with uncertainty, “I just thought - well y’know, I wouldn’t want to be trapped with my own thoughts. Everyone deserves some sort of distraction, yeah?” You say, kneeling on the floor as you set the it into his radius.
His glowing eyes stare down the present, and you’re not sure what he’s thinking. “Not a music guy?” You ask tentatively, a hand finding the back of your neck.
A tentacle slowly extends in your direction, carefully wrapping the radio in its grip. He brings it to his face, examining it with his glowing eyes. He sets it down carefully, and while he doesn’t say anything, you’ll take it as a win that he didn’t immediately fling it into the wall, shattering it to a thousand pieces.
You stare down at the floor for awhile, the only sound filling the room is his slick tentacles tending to his meal and bath, clam shells clattering to the ground as he quickly works the meat from them.
“Thank you.” He says, in between bites. It comes out low and vulnerable, as if the words were foreign to him, or possibly held down by the weight of things unsaid. Maybe it’s because he’s having to be kind to a captor, forced to be cordial to someone holding him prisoner here - and for what? Meeting his basic nutritional requirements?
He could be playing the long con, hiding his deep hatred for you so he can lure you into trusting him. You’ll end up like the ones before you, destined to the fate of a sudden and unfortunate accident.
Your stomach turns at your predicament. You could be educating the future about the miracle that is the powerhouse of the cell, but no, you just had to take the government research job, flashy paycheck and hopes of changing the world.
He tenses for a moment, tentacles stilling except for one that loops up underneath his hood, picking something from his teeth. He holds it in front of his eyes to get a better look at his find.
His gaze flicks to you, another undecipherable stare that sends a chill up your spine. You watch with bated breath as his gaze returns to the item in his grip, tentacle moving in your direction before carefully placing it at the boundary. You watch as his appendage curls like a snake to gently nudge it in your direction. Like a marble it rolls to you, over the red tape and bouncing off your shoe. Shaking hands stop its slowing roll before you pick it up between your fingers.
A pearl, from one of the oysters you’d given him. It’s uneven, not a perfect sphere, but its texture is still smooth in your fingers. You wipe the spit and oyster remains on your lab coat before letting the pearl rest in your palm, tilting it in the light to get a better look at it. It’s a purplish gray, iridescent colors shifting as you move it.
“How neat.” You say, tone that of an interested biologist, “Poor guy must of had a splinter.”
Once you get a good look at it, you set the small treasure back across the tape to return it to him, but he stops you.
“For you.” He says, definitively enough that you can’t argue.
You lips part as you look to him, stunned and wide-eyed at his gesture.
Maybe he hadn’t hated you.
You wrap your hands carefully around the pearl, bringing it close to your chest.
“Thank you,” You say, voice breathy in awe.
You unwrap your hand to study it carefully in your hands, your little pearl. Cradling it as if it’s a fragile being if it’s own, not a resilient clump of calcium carbonate that survived both a life in an oyster at the bottom of the ocean and engineered predator teeth capable of cleaning the meat off a skeleton in seconds.
He watches you study your gift, the same way you had studied him with eyes wide in amazement and curiously. You don’t see his muscles relax against his restraints. He continues to eat, slowing his pace as his stare stays on you.
You hadn’t exchanged any other words during that interaction, but you think the silence that encompassed the cell was comfortable. At least on your end, you’re not sure about Konig.
He passes the empty water bucket back you, and before you gather all of your things, you tuck your precious pearl away in a pocket of your lab coat.
Back in the lab, you rolled the pearl in your fingers, wondering if Konig’s gesture had meant the same to you as it had to him.
Humans regard pearls as highly as a precious gem, but maybe to him it was no different than discarding trash, just as he had flung the fish bones that got stuck in his teeth. He may have even been demonstrating his annoyance with you.
How dare you not clean his oysters before you serve him, do you want him to choke?
Does he know the rarity of a pearl? How we string them into necklaces? Adorn ourselves with them to elevate our look? How we gift them to our loved ones?
There was so much you didn’t know about him. His mystique kept you up at night and your mind wondered with the possibilities. You were a researcher at heart, aching to get an understanding of him from the inside out. Endless analyses filled your days and black tentacles swarmed your dreams. In the hours between night and dusk you considered your own morality. You’d never met one of the biowarfare creations up close before. You didn’t realize they were capable of sentient thought. That they are truly beings of their own freewill instead of a programmed organic weapon.
You think you’ve already crossed too far over the line, that there was nothing you could do to make it right.
The next time you visit Konig, the sound of the radio floods the cell between the calls of the grating alarm. Once the door secures behind you, you can make out a talk show. The news or perhaps something educational, judging by the dry voices and even tones you hear before he turns the dial off with a tentacle, his glowing eyes giving you his full attention. You don’t say anything, but it does make your chest fill with a slight warmth to know he’s using your gift.
“I took a trip to the dock this morning,” You start as you drag the bucket of seafood to the tape, “I don’t think I’ll be able to get the smell out of my car, but it’s crab season, so, I got some. Got a tuna, too. Oh, and scallops, you eat those?”
He doesn’t answer, but his eyes narrow and his tentacles twitch and curl behind him.
“Lobster was a bit steep, but I can keep my eye out.” You say, setting the entire bucket just over the boundary. He had earned his trust with the bucket, and it was too demeaning to force him to eat his food off the filthy concrete floors.
His eager tentacles pull the bucket to his feet, digging into it to uncover your gifts. He wastes no time getting them underneath his hood, you can see his arms tense and steady beneath his restraints as his teeth sink into his meal.
You slide him the bucket of water and then stand back to observe as his slick tentacles take it from you. Simultaneously he’s able to clean multiple crabs at once, expertly working the meat out of its complex exoskeleton and leaving nothing but shell. Much faster than you’ve ever seen any octopus feed.
You think briefly to the feeders before you, wondering if their sudden and unfortunate accidents were just Konig cleaning the meat off a skeleton. You wonder if he was designed to feast on his enemies, if his diet had held space for human.
Another meal.
You look down to the space between you and the red tape. Three paces away. You casually make it four, just for good measure.
“Thank you.” He says, and it’s slowly becoming your language. The words thank you uttered a thousand different ways, each with a different meaning, weight, and inflection, neither of you fluent or able to decipher the other.
You don’t feel comfortable prodding, instead you steady your feet and watch him mesmerizingly tear apart his meal, body restrained but tentacles still fully dexterous. You wondered if he minds you watching him eat, or if he felt like a zoo animal under your watch. Your hand creeps into your pocket to nervously play with the pearl, fingers running over the smooth surface.
After he clears a few more crabs, he looks up from his meal to eye you carefully. He noticed the dark circles under your eyes, how disheveled you look.
“Tired?” He asks.
One hand stays with the pearl while the other rubs the back of your neck. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep last night, uh, so I went to the docks early this morning.”
He flicks another shell into his pile, studying you carefully. After a few moments his tentacles outstretch welcomely, some resting against the concrete floor, “You can rest here.”
You tense under his stare, your eyes shifting hesitantly to his tentacles. “Oh, no - I just have a lot of work to do.” You eye his core for a moment before returning to his gaze, “I can sit for a little, though.”
He gives a pleased hum as you do, eyes narrowing as he watches you prop yourself against a wall on his side, leaving about three feet between you and the red tape. His gaze turns back to the seafood as he works. You observe him, resting your head against the cool concrete and staring down your nose. You can’t help but close your heavily eyelids, listening to the sound of shells snapping and being tossed to the floor.
Your fingers continue to smooth over the pearl in your pocket. It became a habit of yours, fingers finding the pearl absentmindedly, rolling it between your touch to soothe yourself.
You’re thinking about all the things you want to ask him. About his physiology, his full capabilities. About how he feels, what thoughts and emotions exist in a brain engineered for warfare. About his opinion of you, if he’s disgusted with you or if he understands that you’re both just products of a horrific environment.
Is he capable of empathy?
You couldn’t ask. Your relationship seemed so fragile and delicate as it was, so you both opt for silence.
You’re not sure how much time has passed when you open your eyes again, but he’s done his feeding and bathing, both buckets emptied and placed at the boundary in the center of the room. He’d tidied his cell, the floor cleared and the food bucket now holding his cleaned crabs, various shells, and fish bones.
His tentacles stir when your eyes meet his, and you take a sharp inhale as you rouse. You touch a hand to your heart, the other feeling for the pearl through your pocket. Your eyes find the red tape, and you’re still in your spot, propped up on the wall three feet from the boundary.
“Did I fall asleep?” You say, touching your forehead. If you had, you don’t remember having a nightmare.
His hood tilts up and he shrugs.
“How long’s it been?”
After a moment he shrugs again, tentacles working in rhythm to his movements.
Right, he wouldn’t know. You give a small nervous laugh at your foolish question, leaning forward and resting your arms on your knees.
“I should probably get going.” You say, but you don’t move from your spot, and he doesn’t wish you goodbye.
You stare at the floor on your side of the red tape. You can see his larger tentacles wriggling in the corner of your eyes, along with the glow of his stare.
Your back ached from sitting on concrete for an extended period. It made you wonder how sore Konig was, his arms having been restrained to their position bent behind his head for ages, forced into a standing position every hour of the day.
“I’ve made a huge mistake.” You say with a laugh, one in disbelief of yourself. You lay your palm flat on your forehead again. “I don’t know how it got this far, really.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing at you. He doesn’t say anything, and you continue.
“I’m just in too deep, right?” You huff, throwing your hand back down to your thigh. “I’m all torn up about this. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I’m just thinking about this nightmare of a job I’ve got myself in. You get so caught up in the paperwork and day-to-day, you forget what the end result is. I didn’t realize you were so sentient.” You give another nervous laugh, exasperated.
“Now I don’t know what to do.” A hand moves to your pocket and pulls out your pearl, holding it tightly in a closed palm by your side. “I’d try to make it right, but I don’t know how, okay? I really don’t know what the right thing to do is. I don’t know if there is a right thing to do, I think that ship has sailed.”
The right thing would have been never getting involved in this line of work, to never have learned of or aided in the creation of beings like him in the first place. But you’re both here, together, and there’s no way out.
You gnaw on your lip, looking to the ground. His eyes don’t leave you. Silence drapes over the cell as your words echo through both of you.
After the long pause he speaks, harsh voice layered with a hint of optimism, and his tentacles twitch and curl with his words.
“It’s not too late.”
You’re not able to meet his gaze, so you solemnly shake your head at the floor. You already know what he’s suggesting.
“You understand why I can’t do that, right?” You ask, soft and defeated.
He tenses under his restraints. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t push. You hope that means he understands. That he understands the risks he’s asking you to take. The threat of your employers, the threat of him, fully realized and unrestrained. That you wouldn’t stand a chance against a powerful being like him. That no matter how many gifts and thank yous are exchanged, your actions will always layered with a high probability of deceit. That trust is inherently not possible in a relationship between a prisoner and the keeper. Between a being made for killing and the target he’s designed to kill.
The silence falls over you both again.
When you finally stand to retrieve the buckets, his gaze follows you.
“Perhaps in another life, we’ll get it right.”
Your shoulders tense at his words, your pace slowing. You don’t meet his eyes as you leave to discard his scraps, the harsh alarm and clunk of the door concealing your exhausted sigh.
The next few visits, you wordlessly hand over his meals and water before sitting on your spot against the wall, resting as you wait for him to return the buckets. It feels so nice to close your eyes, and it’s hard for him to haunt your thoughts when you know exactly what he’s doing. Your subconscious has a difficult time running wild when presented face to face with reality. It’s the best rest you’ve gotten in weeks, even if the concrete hurts your back and leaves your neck stiff. You feel oddly comforted being in the presence of the only other being who understands your struggle, even if he was the heart of your conflict.
Konig doesn’t seem to mind when you doze off, at least he doesn’t complain. He may just not want to bite the hand that feeds him anything other than mackerel on the brink of decomposition. Sometimes you’re out for a few minutes, sometimes hours, not waking up until well into the evening, long after you should have left the building.
He never disturbs you, letting you rest as long as you need. Listening to the light snores you make, his gaze fixed on the rise and fall of your chest.
He can tell you’re still afraid of him, when the first thing you do as you stir is search with wide eyes for the red tape to ensure you’re still safely outside his radius. You always relax when you meet his stare, though, watching his tentacles curl as you rouse.
You always run your hand over your left coat pocket, usually at the same time you’re searching for the red tape in a panic.
He wonders if you’ve brought something to defend yourself if things go wrong for you. If your hand reaches for the outline of a weapon in your pocket, some feeble defense to soothe your fears of him.
You usually offer an embarrassed laugh or coy smile as you adjust, usually while rubbing out a knot on your back.
Sometimes, especially if you haven’t gotten a lick of sleep the night prior, you’ll readjust from your spot against the wall to the floor, curling up on the concrete and positioning your arm underneath you as a pillow. You’ll rub the sleep from your eyes when you wake, propping yourself up on your elbow to look for a watch that doesn’t exist.
Little words are exchanged. What words could be shared to offer either of you comfort? Anything he says could just be a ploy to gain your trust. Anything you say does little to aid his position as prisoner.
There’s one visit, when you stir, where your back is fully flush to the concrete and you get a view of the ceiling of his cell. Your eyes widen, always with a sharp inhale, as you turn over and prop yourself up to search for the red tape. It takes you too long to find it, having to press your chin to your chest to get it in your view.
You had rolled over in your sleep, bust having crossed over the boundary, forearms propping yourself up in Konig’s radius.
You freeze, eyes wide as you look to him, wondering if he was aware of the easy prey ready for the taking.
He stares at you, tentacles still wriggling, but not outstretched. He keeps them pulled close to him, unlike his usual intimidating posture.
You’re still frozen in your spot, eyes wide and locked onto him as you process.
He could have easily wrapped a tentacle around your neck and ended your life before you had even woken up. Or worse, he could have restrained you, tortured you, and held you hostage as a mean to earn his freedom.
But he didn’t.
He’d left you undisturbed while you rested, as he always does.
Your heartbeat has made its way to your ears, muffling the sounds of hitched breaths escaping your parted lips. You two haven’t broken eye contact as you lay paralyzed on the floor.
He had spared your life, that was clear to you. He had resisted the urge to effortlessly snap your neck or get revenge on you for assisting in holding him prisoner.
You slowly sit up, locked on to his gaze.
Another trick to gain for your trust, you wonder. Spare your life now and stab you in the back later.
You slowly scoot outside his radius, not turning your back on him as you hesitantly stand and clear your throat.
Once you’re outside of his reach, you feel for the pearl through your pocket, but you can’t find the telling bump through the fabric of your lab coat. You reach into your pocket, finally taking your eyes off Konig’s glowing stare. Your fingers come up empty and you look to the floor where you had fallen asleep, and your eyes find it a few paces from the boundary.
When Konig sees what you had been hiding in your pocket all this time, and your hesitance to step back over the red tape, a tentacle carefully reaches to pick up your pearl. Instead of nudging the pearl back over to the tape and letting it roll to you as he did the first time, he flips his tentacles over so it’s sucker-up, unfurling it to his maximum length to present the pearl to you at waist height.
You can’t help the way your brows retract and your mouth parts as you study his slick appendage. You’ve never gotten this close of a look at his tentacles before. Each sucker wriggles independently, just as his tentacles did. You wonder if it’s autonomous to him, or if he has control over each one. Your shoes scrape the concrete as you shuffle nervously to the boundary, toes pressed up on the red tape to take the pearl from him. He could easily wrap his appendage around your wrist and pull you fully into his reach, just as he does with the buckets. Your fingers tremble as you reach for your possession, the involuntary shaking causes you to brush against his tentacle, leaving behind a clear slick on both you and your pearl.
His appendage retracts once you’ve taken it from him. A heat creeps up your cheeks, embarrassed that you’ve been caught hanging onto his gift like this. Carrying it around with you and visibly worried when you lose it.
If he had been simply discarding his trash instead of giving you a gift, unaware of the value of such an item, he probably thinks it’s strange of you to continue carrying it around.
He doesn’t voice his thoughts if he has any, just watched quietly as you tuck the pearl back into your pocket, smoothing over it once it’s secured.
“Thank you.” You say sheepishly, your eyes still wide as you digest his actions and lack there of. You’re not sure if you’re thanking him for returning your belonging or for refraining from killing you.
You have trouble making eye contact with him, eyes glued to the floor.
You’re thinking that maybe there might be some trust between you two after all. You’re thinking about the new details you noticed on his tentacles from your close view that you’ll surely record later. About gifts and thank yous and curious states and defined muscles engineered to kill. About how you can only get rest when you sleep under his watch. About what’s hidden under that hood. About how he didn’t kill you when given the opportunity like you had suspected he would.
You think about what he’s thinking.
Then you look to the buckets, still at his feet and not emptied and placed back at the boundary like your usual routine follows. Your brows furrow as you meet his glowing eyes.
Your chest rises and falls as you study him.
“I should probably get going.” You say, nodding to the buckets in an attempt to get him to pass them back over to you.
His tentacles curl and writhe at your statement, and his head tilts upwards. He lets your words hang in the air before he responds.
“Not finished.” He says evenly.
Your brow quirks at the unusual occurrence. It’s not like him to leave a meal unfinished, to stray from the routine.
You give him the benefit of the doubt, choosing to remain optimistic about your new step in trust, “I’ll come by for it later, then.”
You turn on your feet to leave, hands reaching for the lanyard of your badge like muscle memory. You swipe for it a few times, fingers coming up empty. Your chin meets sternum as you look down to confirm its absence, patting pockets and swiveling on your feet to look to the floor where you had lost your pearl.
You don’t see it, so you eye Konig, stare narrowed.
Time slowed as a tentacle, previously obscured behind his back, unfurls and stretches far above his head. The end of his appendage loops around your lanyard, light reflecting off the lamination of your ID as it rotates in the air. He dangles it above you both tauntingly.
Your gaze switches between Konig’s stare and the badge. It feels as if the air has been sucked out of the room. You don’t want to believe it - you’re in denial waiting for him to pass it back to you just as he did the pearl. He doesn’t, keeping your badge far on his side of the boundary a few feet above his head, playing keep-away with your freedom.
You shift in your spot and swallow.
“Yeah?” You ask, voice breathy but with an edge. You need him to verbally confirm he was stabbing you in the back, hoping he says anything to clear up the misunderstanding.
The tentacle holding the badge shakes, and the rest of his appendages outstretch, just as he had when you approached his cell the first time.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” He says definitively, a few of his tentacles curling inwards with his words.
You rub your lips together and nod your head, digesting your predicament. He must have worked the badge off your neck when you rolled into his reach, delicately enough not to wake you.
You’re not scared, surprisingly, not afraid that you’re locked in here with him, most likely on a path to a sudden and unfortunate accident.
You’re more shocked at his betrayal, though you understand you probably shouldn’t have been. You’d been predicting this outcome from the beginning, that he was just hedging his bets and getting on your good side until you let your guard down. It appears your heart still bleeds regardless of your logical analysis, and you can’t help the lump that forms in your throat. You really had wanted to believe you two had an unspoken friendship, that regardless of the circumstances, you had his trust. You felt naive that some part of you had fallen for it. That you had invested enough of yourself to him to be hurt by his betrayal.
Your face burns as tears well in your eyes. You shift in your spot, sure the pain is obvious on your features.
“Don’t do that.” He pleads, tone a lot softer than his words. A few empty tentacles reach in your direction to offer comfort.
You don’t take it, your hand covering your mouth as you screw your eyes shut, tears escaping down your cheeks. You sink to your knees in defeat, almost perfectly between the middle of the cell door and your side of the red tape. All of the worry and ache and exhaustion you’ve experienced in the last few weeks involuntarily floods out of you in broken sobs.
Konig’s tentacles writhe as he watches you cry.
After a few moments, you sniff, wiping snot and tears from your nose with your coat sleeve, “Just give it back, please.” You plead at a whisper, stare desperate, “We can pretend this never happened, it can go back to how it was before.” You look up at him, face red and eyes brimmed with tears, “Please.”
It takes him a moment to consider your proposition. He lowered the tentacle holding your badge, but keeps it close to him. His words come out strained.
“You understand why I can’t do that, right?”
A loud sob escapes you at having your words thrown back at you. Without much other choice, you bury your face into your knees.
You cry for the better part of an hour, muffling your sobs into your thighs, curled up in a ball on the concrete.
When you’ve finally regained some composure, you wipe your face for the final time with a sniff.
When you speak again, your voice is forceful but nasally from the congestion of crying. Your head cocks back and you put your palm flush to the concrete, leaning back almost casually to support yourself.
“So what’s the plan?”
He tilts his head at you, and you don’t wait for him to answer before you continue.
“I don’t get the badge until I let you out, right? We both wait, you waiting for me to give in to starvation, and me waiting for someone to come to my rescue before it gets to that point - is that it?” It’s obvious you’re angry with him, words dripping with malice.
He huffs, muscles tensing against his restraints. His eyes narrow at you, tentacles outstretching to fill the space of his cell. You’ve grown accustomed to his bluffing behavioral response and it does little to intimidate you now.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” He says, appendages curling inwards. “We can work together.”
You give your own huff, breaking eye contact with him. “It’s a little late for that.”
“I tried.” He said firmly, “I tried to do it the right way.”
You think back to your rebuff of his first proposal and groan.
“What choice did I have?” He asks, leaning against his restraints, ropes digging into his arms as the badge lowered to his side, “You wouldn’t have done the same if you were me?”
Your lips purse as you mull it over. Your eyes are still locked on to the floor and another frustrated groan leaves you. You didn’t want to put yourself in his shoes, you just wanted to be mad.
You do what you can to be spiteful with your limited resources, lying to the floor with your back facing him. Your arm is propped under you and your legs curled up. You stare at the cell door, brows pinched as you fume.
Rationally, you know you won’t last long. That you just cried all the hydration out of your body and haven’t been feeding yourself well in the past few weeks, including today. Meanwhile Konig’s been consistently eating full meals with your help and kept his buckets of food and water unemptied and close for him to ration over the coming days. You’re not in the best shape mentally, either, compared to Konig who has absolutely nothing to lose in his position. Even if soldiers bust down the cell door and filled him with lead, would it really be a worse fate than locked and bound in these four concrete walls?
Regardless of your long lists of disadvantages, you’re too upset with him to even consider giving into his demands at the moment.
You stew for hours.
You’ll occasionally adjust in your spot, sitting up to stretch the ache in your muscles before switching to lay on your other side, never facing Konig or even so much as sneaking a glance in his direction. You’re too upset with him to look at him.
Your mind is swirling, thoughts interject thoughts, throwing you new details to fuss over. You’re angry that he stole from you, that he took advantage of your vulnerability, the restlessness he was responsible for. You’re angry that he trapped you in here, imprisoned you even though he knows how awful it feels to be a prisoner. You’re angry that he can stomach sitting back and watching you starve and dehydrate yourself out of spite. You’re angry that he had plotted against you, made you out to be the fool, even if you’d suspected he had been doing so this whole time.
Mostly you’re just upset that you got your hopes up.
Instead of thank yous, your new shared language becomes silence.
You wonder if he can tell the difference. Between the solemn silence, the seething silence, the desolate silence. The thoughtless silences that come after running your mind in circles enough to physically exhaust yourself. The silence that falls on you when you finally shut your eyes, slipping into the comforting arms of unconsciousness.
You wake with a sharp inhale, desperately searching for your precious red tape. It takes you a moment, when you stir, to remember the events of yesterday. Or today, you’re not sure how long you were asleep and you have no way to tell the time.
You had already locked eyes with Konig. His tentacles wriggled and stretched when you looked at him for the first time since his betrayal, but when you see your damned badge on his side of the boundary it comes flooding back to you. An audible groan leaves you as you roll back over to face the wall.
You try to fall back asleep, desperate to escape from reality, but the dryness in your mouth is impossible to ignore.
Your mouth is begging for moisture and your joints are stiff. A dehydration headache had settled behind your eyebrows.
You need water.
You have two options.
Beg Konig to share his water bucket, or let Konig free and you’re free to get your own.
You decide you’ll just rot on the floor, instead.
You close your eyes and try to ignore the sandpaper feeling in your mouth enough to lull yourself back to sleep. You’re mulling over your options for water, and a detail you can’t believe you’d missed makes you sit up to look at Konig for the first time intentionally. Your head had swiveled around quickly, brows lowered in offense, “How do you expect me to get you out of here without giving me my badge back?”
He lets your question hang as his glowing eyes meet yours. His stare is intense, but yours doesn’t falter.
“I asked you a question, Konig. I don’t have anything to free you with. I know you don’t have anything to free yourself with.”
Your words are sharp and dangerous.
“So what’s the plan? You’ll have to give me my badge back to get something to cut you free.”
He looks to the pocket that held your pearl. His plan had one flaw - that he had not accounted for the outline in your pocket you’d reached for whenever you stirred being anything other than a weapon. He was sure you had brought something to defend yourself with if he had attacked you. Something that you could use to cut his restraints once you gave in to your starvation. He miscalculated the amount of trust you’d placed in him and it should have become obvious to him the moment you had looked to the pearl after finding your pockets empty.
He eyes the mounts that hold his restraints, two on the floor to his left and right and one in the ceiling directly above his head, all out of his reach.
“You’ll untie it at the base.” He says definitively.
Your teeth grit as you look to the ceiling, “How do you expect me to get-“ You cut yourself off when you realize what he’s suggesting, “No! No.”
His head tilts down but his stare says on you.
“No. Too far.”
A few of his tentacles curl, “I don’t want to watch you starve.”
“Then give me my badge back, Konig!”
His body tenses at the way you say his name. Coated in wrath and following a harsh demand. Your aggressive volume and fists clenching by your sides trigger his bluff behavior, tentacles stretching to fill the space of his cell.
He says nothing, and your eyes dart around his features before you let out a huff, turning away from him again.
You regretted saying anything to him. You’d wished you’d just swallowed your realization a little longer to mull it over before your compulsive outburst.
You hadn’t had a chance to consider that he would offer to give you a lift. You had been so focused on avoiding his reach that the thought of him wrapping around you and lifting you up in a tentacle was foreign to you. You’re not sure you would have thought of it even if you had taken time to consider it. The idea of getting close to him once he was cut free from his restraints was nerve wracking enough, let alone trusting him enough to hold you steady a story in the air as you free him.
You manage to sit with your spite and dehydration for a few more hours, even sneaking in short nap before you break.
You sit up slowly, head pounding as you prop yourself up with a palm flush to the concrete. You look at him, eyes pleading.
“Konig,” You say, so much softer than the last time you said his name, “I need water.”
His tentacles twitch, but he says nothing, glowing eyes staring you down.
“Please, Konig.” You say, voice broken.
He doesn’t respond, and you can’t help but sob, no tears escaping your dry tear ducts.
Your voice raises in desperation.
“Konig, don’t do this to me!”
He closes his eyes, the glow of his stare disappearing behind black eyelids. A tentacle reaches down to turn on his radio, and he dials the volume up to drown out your pleads.
A heartbroken expression spreads on your features. How could he do this to you? How could he put you in this position, after everything?
Your eye catches the water bucket by his side.
He doesn’t want to give it to you?
He thinks he can make you beg and plead for your lifeblood?
Fine.
You’ll just get the damn water yourself.
Your brows pinch as you check on Konig, who still has his eyes closed to rid the visual of your crying.
Your palms have already sprung yourself forward before your feet catch up to you, having to straighten your upper half as your shoes scrambled for concrete. After light fumbling you quickly pass over the red tape, beelining for the water bucket. You’re running so fast you overshoot, having to extend your leg to skid the sole of your shoe on the floor to slow yourself. Your body lowers to the ground with your extended leg as fingers wrap around the handle of the bucket. You’d looked to Konig, whose glowing eyes had snapped open and darted straight to you at the sound of your shoe skidding and plastic scraping against the concrete as you struggled with the bucket.
You catch a glimpse of his tentacles writhing furiously before starting your dash back to safety. You’re reminded of the heavy weight of the water bucket, stumbling over yourself as you struggle to manage both its heft and your panic at the same time. You’re inches from safety when a tentacle shoots out and loops around your ankle, pulling your leg out from under you when you go to take your final leap over the red tape. Your palms extend to brace the concrete, and while you manage to narrowly avoid hitting your head, you hear an internal rip that makes your stomach turn and a blinding hot pain bracelets around your wrist, stunning you. The bucket had crashed to the ground on its side, water spilling to the floor and soaking your clothes.
“No!” You grit, but you don’t have time to think about the water or your wrist because Konig starts to drag you backwards through the puddle and into the air with the tentacle wrapped firmly around your ankle.
A gasp escapes you and fingers desperately scratch at wet concrete until you’re fully airborne, hanging upside down and clawing for the ground.
You curl up in an attempt to rip his firm grip off your ankle, but your core isn’t strong enough to reach, so you end up just wriggling in his grasp like a fish out of water.
Another meal.
You hear the radio turn off, and your eyes find the ground, partially curtained by the tail of your lab coat. Your soaked shirt has slipped down, revealing your core. Water drips from your soaked clothes and splash onto the concrete. You can tell the ground is a long fall away and when you give up reaching for your ankle, your hands stretch out towards the ground and preemptively brace your fall, injured wrist pulsing as you follow your instincts. Involuntarily squeals are leaving your parted lips as he stills, dangling you so your body is above both of your heads and you’re eye to eye with him as you hang.
You look at him with fear swelling in your eyes. You’ve never seen him up close before like this, even if upside down. You’re inches from the hood that covers his face, glowing eyes reflecting off yours. You still, free limbs falling in line with gravity as you stare into his narrowed gaze with wide eyes. Your headache is severely exacerbated by hanging upside down, feeling your own pulse in your head as the blood drains to it.
When he speaks, his voice is low and dangerous, and he gives you a slight shake with his tentacle for emphasis.
“I think it’s time for you to let me out.”
His growled yet arrogant words send a chill up your spine. Reminded you the being you’ve come to feel so much for was still a monster.
He’s left no room for argument. He’s given you plenty of chances to let you make the choice yourself, and yet you resisted. You had opted for the hard way, and you had left him no choice.
Release him, or suffer a sudden and unfortunate accident.
“Okay! Okay!” You squeak out with a slight flail, hoping it pleases him enough to prevent him from slamming you as hard as he can into the concrete.
You still again, slowly holding your hands up, palms showing. You calmly let out one more, “Okay.”
His head tilts backwards slightly, silently keeping your stare.
“Can I at least be upside-right? Please?” You squeak out, heart racing intensely enough you can hear it in your ears.
He lets you dangle for a few more moments before a tentacle curls around your waist. Instead of using the end of his tentacle like the one around your ankle, he had secured around your bare waist with the middle part of another appendage, the thicker grip giving him a sturdier hold on you. You think this must what it be like to be in the hold of a boa constrictor, trapping you and reminding you of its strength but not yet squeezing the breath from you.
He slowly flips you upside right, but keeps your flushed face inches from his. Your feet are only a few feet from the floor now, but you don’t bother trying to remove the tentacle on your waist. You’re well aware of his strength and you can feel his grip threatening to tighten around you. You won’t stand a chance against even one of his appendages, let alone all the others at attention behind him.
He takes his time looking you over, watching your eyes flick nervously between him, the tentacle firmly coiled around your waist, and the floor beneath you. Your mouth was stretched in fear and unease, breath hitched. You weren’t flailing anymore, but your feet did still mindlessly search for foundation and your hands had gripped on to his slick tentacle in an attempt to steady yourself.
He gives a huff before moving you through the air again. He goes slow, extending you out to the wall to his right. He has to pass you off to the end of another tentacle in order to use his full reach. You can’t help but feel felt up as he wraps and curls around you to keep you steady in the air.
He has to lay you almost diagonally with your head tilted towards the floor to get you close enough to the mount that tied off his binds. He uses some extra appendages to secure around your lower thighs and hips.
You let out a few breathy expletives as he adjusts you, grabbing and moving you against your will through the air.
You had to reach your arms out in a full extend, and even then the cool metal of the mount is just barely grazing your fingertips.
You wriggle in his grip, swiping at the post, grunting as you do so. He does his best to use the very end of his appendages to hold you in order to get you closer.
“Got it.” You say breathily as your hand grabs the mount. You give a light huff as you try and pull yourself closer, but Konig is extended his full range and instead you yank against his tentacles.
The knot of his ropes are tight around the loops of the metal post. You’re not sure if you’ll even be able to untie them with just your fingernails, but you don’t think Konig will accept an excuse.
He’s not hurting you, but his grip is definitively still tight, putting an uncomfortable pressure on your ribs. Had your clothes not already been soaked with water he would have left stains on your lab coat from the slick of his tentacles.
Your hands shake violently as you fuss with the knot. You’re forced to stretch, already sore muscles aching as you overextend them. Involuntary grunts escape through your gritted teeth as you dig at the knot, feet kicking as if you’re trying to swim closer to it. You try for minutes, but the knot is way too tight for you to even get a fingernail into. It doesn’t help that you’re being suspended, squished, and held at an angle, and your hands are soaked with water and Konig’s slick. You think your wrist is most definitely sprained, possibly broken, judging by the sharp decline in dexterity and searing pain that’s impossible to ignore as you fidget with the ropes.
The panic bubbles quickly, fingers scratching desperately at all of the loops of rope. You’re pleading under your breath for one of them to loosen, loosen just enough you can slip a finger in - but it doesn’t budge. One of your nails snap as you force it against a crease in the taught knot.
You’re guessing every time Konig has ever pulled against or leaned on the restraints it only forced the knot tighter, and with how long he’s been in this cell the rope has fused together with friction and time.
The panic isn’t on your side, causing you to thrash at the ropes and undo whatever insignificant progress you had made. Your whines would be matched with tears of irritation and fear if you had any water left in you.
“Konig?” You sob, “I can’t do it! I’m trying, really - the knot’s too tight!” You give the knot another frustrated claw with your broken nail, “I need a knife, scissors, something!”
You sigh and go limp, arms and top half dangling as his tentacles support you.
“Just kill me,” You whisper through your dry throat, eyes screwed shut and voice cracking.
You pause, and when you speak again your voice is quiet in defeat, but still holds an edge of malice, “Just do it and get it over with, hopefully the next feeder will be smart enough to bring a weapon.”
You’re still facing the wall, but you can feel his tentacles tense around your middle and lower limbs.
You both still, aside from the involuntarily and uneven heaving of your chest as you sob and wait for death.
All the appendages wrapped around you pull you closer to him. Two additional tentacles move to coil around your upper arms, and he tilts you so you’re upright instead of diagonal. You stay limp, feet and sprained wrist dangling. You let him move your body like a marionette, with your head tilted all the way forward and hair obscuring parts of your face.
He stops when you’re right in front of him again, you would be eye to eye if your chin hadn’t been pressed to your chest, feet only a few feet from the ground.
He holds you steady.
Considering how he wants to kill you, probably. Drag it out a little perhaps? Get a little torture in before he does it maybe?
Maybe your kindness will have not been for nothing, maybe he’s thinking about all the food and gifts and thank yous and he’ll repay you by making it quick. One swift snap of the neck or extra hard hit to the concrete, maybe.
He doesn’t do either.
He slowly lowers you to the ground. When your feet touch the floor and they don’t move to support your weight, he lifts you up an inch and comes in a second time at an angle, gently lying you on the ground so you’re flush with the concrete. His tentacles gently release from you and retract to his sides. Your badge gets placed gently on your stomach, and then all of his tentacles are off of you.
You don’t rush for the badge or the exit. You had already given up, and you weren’t about to give up on giving up, too. Your ass backwards way of maintaining some scrap of dignity.
You continue to lay limp on the floor, ignoring the badge he’d returned to you and keeping your eyes closed, tearlessly crying.
You’re not sure how long you lay on the floor, waiting for him to change his mind and kill you.
You think maybe he wants a challenge, maybe he likes a hunt. Or maybe he just wants to look you in the eyes while he does it.
So once your sobs subside you slowly sit up, your red and puffy eyes staring into his glowing eyes. His whole body is tensed, but he keeps all of his appendages close to him as they curl and twist alluringly.
You’re slouched as you stand, arms hung in front of you before you shift sloppily on your shoes, badge hitting the floor as it falls from your stomach.
You cock your head back to look at him and lick your chapped lips before giving a broken hum. You hold your arms out on either of your sides, as if inviting him to a fight, but you’re weak from dehydration, starvation, and your injury, so your movements are slowed.
You don’t speak, but your face reads Come on, kill me! What are you waiting for?!
He just stares at you, a look you’re unable to decipher from under his hood. His tentacles are writhing, but he keeps them close to his body, even if your stance is aggressive.
You let out a huff and roll your eyes, breaking the stare off. You walk over to his food bucket and empty out its contents onto the floor before stepping over to water bucket, shoes splashing in the puddle it sat in. You stack both buckets so you can carry them with one hand, before doubling back and swiping your badge off the floor with your broken nail, not so much as looking at Konig before you exit the cell.
Your first stop is to the bathroom, where you shed your lab coat, its thick fabric still wet.
You bend your aching muscles to awkwardly crane your head underneath the faucet, gulping down the streaming water. The sweet, precious water. Bathroom sink tap water has never tasted so good.
You’re drinking so fast you don’t even stop for breath. When you pull away, chin dripping and face puffy, you’re gasping for air. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror behind the sink you had drank from.
Your hair was disheveled from being dragged and hung in the air, face puffy and swollen from crying, and skin showing your dehydration. Clothes soaked from the water bucket and Konig’s slick, face still dripping as you breathe deep.
You take a few more sips from the sink for good measure before turning the faucet off with force. You drape your coat over your injured arm and grab the buckets with the other before you march out of the bathroom and straight to your supervisor’s office.
Oh, the speech you were going to give him was going to be therapeutic. You are planning on letting him have it, telling him to post your position because you’re done, and then you’re going to tell him where he can shove his buckets.
You open his door hard enough the doorknob slams into the wall and bounces back with a shake, but his office is empty, and you let out another groan at the discovery through gritted teeth.
You go back to the lab, gather your things and leave, regardless of the time. You’re caught off guard when you get to the nearest window and see the dark sky. Nighttime.
You cry the entire ride home, not yet ready to process the events but stuck with an overwhelming feeling of dread and exhaustion in the pit of your stomach.
Your wrist was red and swollen and the movements of your steering wheel turned the pain to a cruel pulsing throb.
Once back in your home, you think about a list of things to do to take care of yourself, but opt for wrapping your wrist and popping a few over-the-counter pain relief pills while finishing a bottle of water at the same time. You crawl into bed and pass out without even getting under the covers.
—————————————————————-
You hadn’t set an alarm, so you wake to a tentacle-ridden nightmare with a sharp gasp. You jolt to a sit, wincing when you feel the searing hot pain that bracelets around the sprained wrist you’d used to support yourself.
You get your weight off of it, holding your wrapped arm in front of your face. It triggers the memories of Konig tripping you and your wrist hitting the concrete. Of him dragging you across the concrete floor by your ankle. Holding you prisoner. Starving you. Making you cry. Betraying you.
Threatening your life and then sparing it.
Had it all just been another one of his bluffs? Had he known from the beginning he wouldn’t be able to follow through with his plan, or did he change his mind about killing you once you’d pathetically given up, going limp in his tentacles?
When had he changed his mind?
Somewhere between the first day when he threw that bucket at your head and the moment he’d laid your limp body down on the ground he had changed his mind about killing you, that you knew.
He wasn’t just a mindless programmed weapon, he was capable of some amount mercy. Control.
Unless he knew that if he had killed you, he wouldn’t have been able to get his varied meals and water buckets. Maybe he had kept you alive as just another means to an end.
But he had kept you alive, that was understood.
You close your eyes, falling back onto your mattress. You’d been thinking about Konig non-stop these past few weeks. Obsessing, even. It was exhausting, him and you and both of your mortalities and the constant threat haunting you in and out of your dreams.
You decided you weren’t going to think about him now, that for the sake of your own sanity you needed to focus on yourself.
You treat yourself to a full breakfast for the first time in awhile, topping it off with more pain reliever and water. A long shower eases your aching muscles, but the one-handedness makes it awkward to bathe yourself.
You put on loungewear after you towel off and reapply your wrist wrap, in need of the extra comfort. You leave your dirty lab coat at home before you head back to the office, still in your lounge clothes. You won’t be there long, you decide. You’re going to tell your supervisor what happened, chew him out a little bit, and then let him know he’ll need someone to feed Konig while you take time off to heal and process.
You stop by the lab to pick up your buckets before heading straight to your supervisors office.
You open his office door without knocking and when his eyes meet yours his brows furrow as he gives your clothes a scan.
“I’m going to need some time off,” You say firmly, gesturing to your wrapped arm.
“What happened?” He says, brow quirking.
You laugh, “What happened? What happened?” You use your uninjured hand to shove the buckets to the ground forcefully, your tone dangerous, “Is that I accepted this shitty job offer in the first place. What were you thinking?”
He’s sweating now, eyes wide with shock as you raise your voice to him.
You continue, “You saddled me with feeding him. You gambled with my life.” Your tone goes from angry to quiet and stern, “He almost killed me.” Your gaze flicks to between each of his nervous eyes.
He sputters, “What- What do you mean? What happened?”
“He stole my badge and trapped me in that cell with him! He starved me! NONE of you came for me, NONE of you checked on me.” Your animated tone lowers to one of cold malice, “You saddled me with a deadly job and then left me to die. Not a single reinforcement.”
“How did he steal your badge?” He asks, face stretched in confusion.
You hesitate, “I-“ You cut yourself off. You can’t tell him you fell asleep in there. Because then you’d have to tell him about how you had fallen asleep waiting for him to empty his bucket. The bucket he wasn’t supposed to have. The loitering you were instructed not to do. The conversations you were forbidden from having. The unauthorized tape crossing.
“It doesn’t matter! I’m-“ You’re frazzled now, face reddening, “I’m leaving! Just make sure someone feeds him!” You fumble for the doorknob, leaving him with a bewildered expression and two colorful buckets.
“Are you quitting?!” He yells out after you’re already down the hall.
“Yes! No! I mean - maybe! I’ll let you know!”
You take three days off to take it easy, catch up on sleep, and ice your injuries. It’s been awhile since you’ve been able to relax, just getting lost in a mindless TV show and forgetting your worries for awhile. You didn’t want to think about Konig, it was too painful, but your thoughts kept leading you to him and you had to often remind yourself that you were supposed to be taking a break from him.
After three days, you’ve managed to steady yourself enough to get back to your research. The work had piled up during your stint as a feeder and you thought your normal work would be a good distraction.
The first time your supervisor catches a glimpse of you, he does a double take through the circular glass pane of the lab’s swinging doors before he enters.
He says your name, surprised but still cheerful, “It’s good to see you! Lab coat and all.” He lowers his voice, “I, uh, I didn’t think you’d be back.”
You don’t say anything, attention still to your work.
He clears his throat before continuing, “How’s your wrist?”
“Still sprained,” You say dryly, still not turning to him.
He sputters a bit, “Hope you feel better soon, uh.” He clears his throat again, “You’ll be happy to hear that,” he trails off for a moment before continuing, “It’s being put down.”
Your eyes finally find him, darting over quickly as you set down your notes.
“What’s being put down?”
“The creature.” He says with a smile, as if he’s offering his saving grace.
“No!” Leaves you involuntarily. The wrist with the bandage finds your heart as you stand, shaking your head at your supervisor, “You can’t do that!”
His brows pinch, “What do you mean? I thought you’d be happy about this. He tried to kill you.”
“No, if he tried to kill me I’d be dead, he almost killed me, he spared me!”
Your supervisor steps closer you, holding his palms up in a weak attempt to calm you. You back away from him with each step he takes, still shaking your head.
“He hurt you!”
“That was an accident!” You say, angrily. The edge in your tone causes him to still his stride. You don’t usually speak to him like this.
He says your name again, voice soft and eyes full of pity, “He put your replacement in the hospital.”
Your face goes slack as you look at him with wide eyes, shaking your head slowly, “No!”
He says your name again, “Yes. Listen, I see this has left you on edge. Maybe you should take some more time off, no problem. We can even get you in touch with a counselor specialized in war trauma.”
“No, listen to me, you can’t kill him!”
“How many more sudden and unfortunate accidents do you think we can continue reporting before the wrong person starts asking questions?!” His voice has lost his pity, obviously frustrated with your disapproval.
“You can’t be mad at a wasp for stinging when you whack its nest, can you?! He was made for that purpose!”
He raises his voice, stern enough it stuns you, “And what do you expect us to do with a monster made for the purpose of killing? Let it out into the public? Let it rot in a jail cell while we keep feeding him our employees?!”
“He didn’t kill me!” You say exasperatedly, “He didn’t kill me because you guys are starving him! You’re not feeding him enough. That’s enough to make any man kill.”
“Why are you sympathizing with it? It’s a monster!”
You look at him with squinted eyes and mouth parted in disgust, “He’s not a monster! He’s-“ You cut yourself off.
Your supervisor lowers his head in your direction and crosses his arms over his chest. “Go on.” He says.
You put your palms together gently in front of you, careful not to bend your injured wrist. A sigh leaves you.
“Look, I’ve been doing research on him, okay? He’s rather remarkable and he’s surprised me more time than I can count.”
He scoffs, “I’m sure it has.”
Your eyes screw shut for a moment as you groan in frustration, “No! I mean, sure, he is a miraculous biowarfare weapon equipped with superior predator features, that’s a given, but in addition to that he’s an intelligent creature capable of independent thought! He is capable of being kind and showing mercy. You don’t understand!”
He cocks a brow at you and sighs, “I guess I don’t.” He reaches out, as if he’s going to put a hand on your shoulder to comfort you, but stops himself. “Look, it’s been a rough week for everyone here, okay? Why don’t you take some more time off and we’ll take care of things here.”
You realized there was going to be no getting through to him. That there would be no way to get him to see that Konig was an intelligent being capable of restraint, that he had no say in his creation as a weapon, that he was misunderstood due to the weight of being a prisoner, and that even the worst behaving prisoner deserved not to starve.
“You’re still going to kill him, aren’t you?” You say, more of a statement than a question.
He doesn’t say a word, pity still flooding his stare. He turns slowly, stopping once he’s got the lab door ajar at his finger tips,“I’ll see you when you’re feeling better.” He slips out, and you watch the lab door swing to a still as you swallow his words.
It doesn’t matter how you feel about Konig right now, all of your complex feelings have been pushed to the side. They can’t kill him, he doesn’t deserve that fate, that’s for sure. You can’t hold a being prisoner, underfeed him, and then expect him not to act on his primal urges. Not even a human would pass that test.
That and the idea of him disappearing from your life permanently is enough to make your heart pound and your head spin, having to press your uninjured hand to your forehead to wipe away your sweat.
This is your fault, you’re thinking. That if you hadn’t let a substitute go in there after you left things so messy with him maybe this fate would have been spared.
No, no. You can’t afford to think like that. You can’t afford to blame yourself for his actions.
But your actions could save his life.
“Yes,” you say, out loud frantically to yourself at your own idea, “Yes!”
You’re searching the lab, pulling open cabinets hard enough they slam against their holds, leaving their doors open as you dig out their contents and leave them scattered on the floor.
You find what you’re looking for, the sharpest object you could think of in the lab, a scalpel.
You had grabbed the entire dissecting kit with the firm grip of your uninjured hand, finding a sprint as soon as it’s in your grasp. As you run you lay your injured arm across your chest, setting the pouch on top of it like a makeshift table as you pry the zipper open and dig for the scalpel. Your feet are hitting the tile hard and each step jostles your injured wrist but you’re not sure how much time you have.
You have the horrible thought that it might be too late, that when you get there you’ll find an empty cell and you’ll never have the chance to say goodbye, I’m sorry, or thank you again. The lump in your throat and the prick of tears in your eyes makes you stumble, and you use the opportunity to slow to find the scalpel, pulling it from the hold of the pouch through blurry vision. You let the pouch slide off your bandaged arm and crash to the hall floor, returning to your quick pace, damned be lab rules of running with sharp instruments.
You slam your badge into the receiver in a panic, the tears already threatening to spill over at the thought of never seeing Konig again. The scalpel scratches against your badge and when the alarm sounds, you’re looking frantically down the halls to see if anyone is going to try and stop you. When you pry open the heavy metal door enough you stumble into his cell.
He’s still in there, alive, and your tears quickly turn to that of relief.
You’re don’t hesitate, crossing the red tape and closing the distance between you, scalpel in hand.
His tentacles are at a bluff, writhing and fully extended as you dash at him. You realize that sprinting at him full speed with a weapon after the way you left things was probably not the best way to approach the situation.
“Konig!” You say, out of breath and slowing to turn your direction towards the ropes instead of him. You waste no time scraping the scalpel against the taught restraint with your uninjured hand, “We got'ta get you out of here - they’re going to kill you!” The tears are flowing down your cheeks again. You’re not sure if it’s the panic, your upset feelings of him bubbling up at seeing him, or the thought of him being killed.
“We gotta get out of here, we have to go!”
You struggle through the first rope, handicapped by your injury and fraying it in multiple spots as your hand shakes. The scalpel slices all the way through, and the rope snaps back, the loops around Konig’s bicep releasing in large coils.
You make a dash for the rope restraining his other arm, out of breath and tears blurring your vision. Your hands shake as your uninjured hand slices the ropes, unable to grip the restraint with your other hand. You fumble it for moment, panic slowing you down. Something grazes your hand and you flinch, but relax when you see Konig’s tentacle gently tapping your palm. He flips it sucker up, offering to take the scalpel from you.
“Oh, yeah.” You say, a dizzy heat creeping up your cheeks. You hand him the scalpel, blade facing your chest so the end of his appendage can safely coil around it.
He takes slices precisely through one of the indents you started in the rope with ease.
You can’t help the awe as you watch him, mouth slightly part as your eyes follow the tentacle slice through the rope securing his wrists to the ceiling. You take a step back, hands slightly braced at your sides.
His free tentacles are curling and writhing in excitement as he gets the final swipe through his restraints, the slack releasing and dropping to the ground in loops. Once fully unrestrained, he takes his time stretching his muscles, eyes closed and small grunts leaving his lips as his tentacles move in synchronization with his movements. He rubs out the red and irritated lines the ropes left behind on his arms.
You’re still in awe as you watch him, eyes wide and slack jawed. You hadn’t given yourself time to prepare for being in a the same room as a fully unrestrained superbeing designed for killing.
Had he just been being nice to you for his own benefit, you’re thinking this would be the time for him to kill you.
Once he’s done working out his muscles, he steps over to you slowly, eyes not leaving you as his boots make their commanding presence known on the concrete.
“Oh, I-“ You cut yourself off, looking to the side as you take a few steps back. Your palms are out, and you’re thinking maybe you should have thought this through a bit more.
He says nothing, his glowing gaze boring into you as he closes the gap, leaving only inches between you two.
The nerves are apparent on your face as you stare up at him, having to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. He frame towered over you and his tentacles curled behind him alluringly. You flinched when the end of a tentacle came up to brush your cheek, leaving behind a small line of clear slick.
“Thank you.” He says, and for once you know what he means.
“Thank you.” You respond with a shaky voice, eyes flicking around his features nervously.
“Are you ready?” He says, nodding to your badge.
You’d forgotten he’s being hunted. Your unease of him is overtaken by the panic to save him.
“Yes, yes! We should hurry.” You say, starting a sprint for the door, but a tentacle loops firmly around your waist and lifts you up, your feet still searching for floor. Another tentacles comes underneath you like a swing, allowing you to place to weight on it. You can’t help but let out a few nervous squeaks as you’re adjusted in the air. Once you get your bearings you he puts you close to his back, letting your head sit next to his so you’re looking over his shoulder. You’re in a nest of slick tentacles, securing around you to keep you steady, and you’re reminded of the nightmares you’d experienced with a sea of tentacles swallowing you whole.
One appendage is offered to your injured wrist so you could rest it. He does all of this without looking at you, his focus on carrying your through the cell.
He stills and a tentacle reaches out, sucker up, and it takes you a moment to understand he’s asking for your badge. You give a nervous laugh when you realize, pulling it from your neck and ruffling your hair with the lanyard as you do. His tentacle curls around the badge and it disappears from your view.
You hear the grating alarm and the clunk of the lock. Two tentacles return instead of one, opening the lanyard of the badge to place it gently around your neck so you don’t have to. He simultaneously gets the door you struggled so much with opened with ease, and he’s careful as he gets both of you through the doorway.
“Which way?” He whispers through his harsh voice.
You point over his shoulder so he can see your arm from behind him. “That way, I need to grab my keys.”
As soon as he’s starts moving you realize why he didn’t let you run. He’s scarily fast, moving efficiently through the hallways as his tentacles allow him lengthier strides. You’re mesmerized by the way they shoot out, using the walls, floor, and ceiling to support himself as he moves. It’s like something from a horror movie, you think, and you can’t help imagine the fear a victim would feel being charged at like this.
“In here!” You point to the swinging doors of the lab. He’s got you smoothly inside, careful to make sure the doors don’t hit you on the recoil. His tentacles place you down gently, ensuring your feet are steady on the tile before removing his support.
You’re quick once on your feet, running to one of the undisturbed cabinets and shoving your stuff into your lab coat pockets with your good hand before dashing back to him.
“Okay, let’s go!”
But he doesn’t move, because some papers strewn on the lab table had caught his attention. He picks up a piece of paper with his hands and holds it up. The light shining through the page lets you see ink of a sketch you did of him during your obsessive research.
“Oh, that- yeah, that’s, uhm.” You purse your lips together and squint, trying to find an ending to the sentence you hastily started, “Hard to explain.”
He sets it down gently, using his hands to sift through a few more sketches of himself, anatomy labeled and fully detailed. Separate sketches of just the close details of his tentacles. Theories to what’s under his hood and his skeletal structure. His eyes scan over more pages and he find logs of your interactions, his diet, body language.
You laugh nervously, flush creeping up your neck as your eyes dart to the side.
“We should go.” You say, less urgent and more breathy than you meant it to.
He looks at you, glowing eyes piercing into you and you’re not sure how to decipher his stare.
He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, stacking the papers together and rolling them up in a way not to crease them. He tucks them into the waist band of his pants as he wordlessly returns you to your spot on his shoulder as he takes you from the lab.
“Which way?” He says once you’re both in the hallway, but a screams echoes from behind you, and you both whip around to look.
“Go, go, go!” Your hands frantically tap his shoulders to emphasize your words after meeting the horrified stare of a coworker, who had turned quickly on her heels to flee from you two.
He starts to sprint towards the person running from him and you tap his shoulders more forcefully, “No, the other way! Away from people!”
He gives a single nod, grunting in response as he turns on his heels and heads the opposite direction.
There were workers at the end of this hall, too. Three of them, and you can see your supervisor as he rips his attention away from the conversation he was having and turns to the mass in the corner of his eye.
He stumbled backwards, and the others turn to gawk too, screaming and fleeing from you both in a panic. You supervisor had froze, pressing his body against the wall as his shock and horror melds with confusion when he made eye contact with you, perched on Konig’s shoulder.
He shouts your name in panic, eyes searching frantically for aid.
As you Konig tentacles reach out to the halls to quickly pass him, you put one finger up on your good hand. “Don’t forget this!” You say cheerfully.
The dumbfounded and offended look on his face leaves you with an overjoyed smile as you turn back around to rest your arms back on Konig’s shoulder, lower half still supported by his tentacles.
“The stairs are through that door.” You say, leaning forward on his bare shoulder to point.
You both stop in your tracks at the sound of a blaring alarm, much more shrill than the one of his cell. It’s deafening, shrilling through the entire building. There’s bright emergency lights that reflect off the walls from the lockdown sirens.
He looks to you, and instead of yelling over the loud alarm you just point to the doors to the stairs and tap his shoulder frantically again, hoping your urgency translates.
It does, and he continues through the halls, tentacles clearing his strides and pushing open the door to the stairs. The alarm can still be heard, but you’re farther away from the speakers and it’s easier to hear the chorus of heavy footsteps echoing up the stairwell. You grip tightens on Konig’s shoulder, a nervous squeak escapes you.
You both lean over hand rail to see the commotion below, and you can make out flashes of tactical gear and weapons of dozens of soldiers moving in a group up the stairs.
Your eyes widen and you look to him nervously, unsure of your next move.
You really did not think this through.
It’s hard to tell with his hood, but he seems unnerved. He watches carefully over the stairs, and you’re tapping him quickly, silently pleading with him to keep moving to search for another way out.
A free tentacle reaches out to rest on your palm, leaving behind a slick and letting you know that he’s got this. You swallow and let your hand lay on his shoulder. You can’t help the way your fingers dig in to his firm shoulder.
The soldiers are close enough you can hear their voices below you. You screw your eyes shut, trying to search for your trust in Konig and hoping this hasn’t just turned into a suicide mission.
The soldiers are almost in your view when Konig’s tentacles moves you both to the gap in the middle of the stairwell that drops all the way to the ground floor. He’s got you both suspended in the air, his grip on you tight, with tentacles laced onto either side of the handrails of the floor you’re on.
He releases the rails he had held in his tentacles for support, letting you both free fall past the soldiers and down to the ground floor in a blur, catching you both with his tentacles against the bottom floor hand rails.
Expletives leave you without thought, and he turns his head to you to check on you as he exits the stairwell, now on the ground floor.
The alarm is defeating again, so you resort back to using the taps and points to direct him out of the building.
He freezes when the sun hits him, having to hold a tentacle up to shade his eyes.
Does he even remember the last time he saw the sun?
It takes him a moment to steady himself.
“My car’s over there!” You point once he’s steady.
You can hear yelling from the building behind you, the lockdown drill still blaring.
Once you’re at your car he sets you down, and you race to fling the driver door open, fingers fumbling as you start the engine.
He opts for the backseat, and you think it’s a bit odd before you consider the need for him to have room on both sides of him. He’s forced to hunch over in the middle seat, his head is pressed up against the ceiling. His tentacles had spread to the trunk, the front seats, pressed against the windows and coiled up on the seats next to him to get them all to fit. He’s blocking your view of the rear windshield window but you can make it work, you think.
You throw your car in reverse, using just the side mirrors to guide yourself out of your parking spot. You can see the building doors burst open, soldiers pouring from the building. One points to your car.
“Shit, shit, shit!” You say, pressing on the gas, tires squealing as you exit the parking lot.
You hang a skidding right and shoot for twenty over the speed limit, but get slowed by traffic.
“C’mon…” You say to the car preventing you from speeding as you nervously eye your rear view, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. You drive with just one hand, your bandaged arm resting in your lap.
You get a glimpse of a familiar military vehicle in your sideview and you squeal, “OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck.”
The gas pedal slips out from under you and you slide your knees over to glance down in a panic before your eyes return to the road.
You weren’t going fast enough for Konig’s liking, apparently, because his tentacle had stole the pedal from you, pressing it to its full extend against the floor mats. The engine roars as it struggles to keep up, and you have to used your injured hand to steady the steering wheel as you swerve off the road to desperately navigate the other cars.
Your foot desperatly searches for the break, but another tentacle shoots out from your left, coiling around the metal that held the brake pedal and holds it firmly in place. You tried to push it down with all your might, but you were no match for his strength, as if you were trying to crack a boulder with just one foot.
He doesn’t let you use your arm for long, two tentacles coming in to take the steering wheel from you. Your engine is roaring and your eyes find the odometer, you’re going 40 over and climbing.
He coils a few tentacles around you and your seat for good measure, bracing your head and core in the event of a crash.
The expletives are falling from your lips without thought. You’re going well over 100mph now, never having gone this fast in your car before.
“Konig, slow down!”
He’s navigating with ease but too many close calls makes you screw your eyes shut to brace yourself.
He finally lets up once you two are out sight of the soldiers tailing you, letting off the pedal and offering you back control of the wheel.
It takes a few deep breaths and expletives before you take the wheel from him, leaning forward once his tentacles release you.
“Don’t!” Sharp inhale, “Ever do that again!” You say, heart pounding in your chest as you nervously eye the sideview mirrors for signs of trouble.
“I didn’t want them to catch us.” He says evenly. There’s a pause, and you catch each other’s eyes in the rearview mirror in between checks of the road.
“I’m sorry if I scared you.” He says with a flick of his tentacle.
You take a few more deep breaths, wiping away the clear stick Konig had left behind on your forehead, “Well, we didn’t crash.” You’ve regained the wheel and find your groove going twenty over.
“I don’t know where to take us.”
“You don’t have a home?” He asks.
“I do, but they have my address in my employee files. It won’t take long for my place to be flooded with soldiers looking for you.” You say, briefly holding the wheel with your bandaged hand so you can put on your indicator to change lanes, sprained wrist returning to your lap.
Silence falls on you both mull it over. You keep driving, wanting to put as much distance between his capturers as possible.
The tentacle stretched in the passenger seat moves close to your bandages, “What happened?” He asks, voice low.
“Oh, uh,” You keep your eyes on the road. You had assumed he would have been aware of what he did to you. It made sense he didn’t realize it happened when it did, his attention elsewhere at the time.
You debate telling him in your head, but decide it’s best to be honest with him, “My wrist sprained when it hit the concrete. When I uh, tripped.”
You swallow hard, glancing at him in the rearview. He’s leaning forward between the two seats, his head close to yours.
“I did that to you?” He asks with a tense frame.
You look at him again briefly before your eyes find the road. “It happened so fast. Neither of us were thinking properly.”
He leans back in his seat, still having to hunch over to fit under the car’s roof. The tentacle outstretched to you retracts to the back seat with him.
Another silence falls over you both as he digests the new information.
“I’m sorry.” He says, voice strained, “I never wanted to hurt you.”
You glance at him in the mirror again, his eyes are turned to his boots. “It’s okay.” You offer a weak smile, even if he can’t see it. “I would have done the same, remember?”
He doesn’t say anything, but he gives a slow shake of the head, and in between checks of the road you can see the fabric of his hood rippling with his movements.
You continue down the highway in silence, keeping your eyes on the stretch of road ahead of you. You drive until the sun sets, making stops for gas only when the station is empty, quickly filling your tank in fear someone will spot the ultimate creation of biowarfare resting in your back seat.
You see a sign for a motel and you decide you’ve covered enough ground today.
“Ready to stop? We can rest for the night here. Give you a chance to stretch out in privacy.”
He hums, but ignores the question, attention directed out the window and over the horizon, “I forgot how beautiful the sunset is.”
It catches you off guard, the sweet words whispered in awe from his intimidating frame.
Your eyes find the clouds reflecting the orange of the sun’s warmth. The bright colors gradually shift to the calm blue of dusk as the sky stretches on. Some of the brighter stars of the night sky are already making an appearance on the other end of the sky.
“It is beautiful tonight.” You say.
A small smile creeps on your features, finally feeling anything other than regret and worry about your impulsive decision to free him. Maybe the hasty ruining of your life and being forced to live on the run was all worth it, because now Konig gets to see the sunset again.
You pull into the parking lot of the motel, pulling out your wallet as you speak, “Stay out here and try to lay low. I’ll get us a room.”
You leave the engine running for him as you handle things at the front desk. The motel was as shady as it looked, not requiring your ID and accepting cash for payment.
Perfect. Untraceable, that’s what you needed. The man in the white stained undershirt doesn’t even give you a second look when he hands over the room key.
You turn your head both ways to scan the parking lot before preemptively unlocking the door to your room. You return to the car with an awkward jog, opening the driver side door to gather anything you’d need.
“We should be good. Just move quick.” You say, closing the driver door behind you.
You watch as he gets out, tentacles pouring out of the car one after another.
He doesn’t seem to be in as much of a rush as you, taking a moment to stretch out his back with a pop.
You’d gotten a head start to the motel room, but he still catches up before you reach the door, opening it for him so he can get all of his appendages inside. You nervously peek out to the parking lot one last time to make sure no one saw you two, closing and locking the door behind you before securing the blinds shut.
“Okay, we should be safe.” You say as you move to pull the sheets up on the mattresses to check for bed bugs.
The room is as dingy as you expected it to be. Peeling wallpaper stained with years of cigarette smoke. Outdated decor and furniture. Stained and faded carpets. An old box television perched on a dresser facing the two queen beds.
“No bugs.” You announce once you’ve thoroughly checked both mattresses. You look to Konig, who’s standing in the doorway of the tiny bathroom, eyeing up what you assume is the shower. You hear the water turn on in a spray against the shower’s porcelain followed by the sound of a belt jiggling.
Your brow quirks as you kick off your shoes and shed your lab coat, stretching your sore back as you settle in on one of the mattresses.
He starts a shower and you can’t help but picture him soaking his tentacles and sore body through the wall of the motel room. He left the door open, and some sinful part of you thinks about peeking.
You don’t, forcing your attention to the TV. You mindlessly flipped through channels with the remote, thoughts lingering on Konig showering. You settle on reruns of a lighthearted show.
You hear the shower turn off with a hearty thud of its noisy pipes. Some more time passes, and you can see flicks of corners of a white motel towel from the doorway.
The jingle of his belt makes an encore, and after a few more moments he reappears, turning the light off for the bathroom with a free tentacle. Another continues to works the towel, dabbing off stray water beads from his skin.
Your cheeks flush, and you catch his wet muscles flexing from the corner of your eye as he makes his way to the other mattress, laying down on his front with a relieved huff. His tentacles relax as well, draping themselves on the duvet and hanging off the sides, the ends lazily flicking and curling as they dangle.
You both sit silently for awhile, forcing your attention towards the TV set while you watch his tentacles curl alluringly in your peripherals. You’ve settled into your spots on your respective beds, trying to find some respite after such a stressful day.
He breaks the silence first.
“I will never forget your kindness.”
“Oh,” You start, heat still flushing your features but keeping your stare towards the television, “It’s nothing.”
“You sacrificed everything to save my life.” He says definitively, “Even after what I did to you.” His eyes linger on your bandages.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do.” You shrug, your eyes finally meeting his. “I was really only at that job for the paycheck.” You pause again, fingers fidgeting with the TV remote, “The guilt was starting to weigh on me anyway. Better to live honestly and on the run than settled-in but trapped, right?”
His glowing eyes stare into yours as he considers your words.
He nods slowly, tentacles twitching and curling.
You give him a cheeky smile and a point, “But no more killing people, okay? I’m responsible for your actions from here on out.”
He huffs in amusement, lifting up one tentacle in the air as if giving an oath, “I promise.”
He stirs suddenly, as if he had remembered something.
“I have something for you,” he says as he sits up, reaching into his pants pocket. You quirk your brow as he stands, closing the gap between your beds and as he presents his fist to you. He towers over you, even more so from your spot sitting slouched on the bed.
You look at him with intrigue, cupping your hand underneath his, “It’s not a bug, is it?”
He laughs, and it’s the first laugh you’ve heard from him aside from the wicked laugh from that first day you met him, the laugh that raised the hairs on your neck and haunted your dreams. This one’s different, softer and playful. It makes your chest warm and you can’t help the goofy smile you give in return.
“No, it’s not a bug.”
He lets the small item drop into your palm and your brows scrunch as you study it.
Your pearl!
You let out a quiet gasp, eyes darting to him once you understand. It must have slipped from your pockets when he had held you upside down during your altercation in his cell. You hadn’t even thought about it, didn’t realize that you had lost your precious pearl. You had been avoiding thinking about Konig up until you heard about his pending execution, and at that point you had bigger things to worry about.
You pick up the uneven pearl with two fingers, moving it in the light, “You had it all this time?”
“I’ve been keeping it safe for you. I was worried I’d never be able to return it to you.”
You purse your lips at the way you had left things. Leaving him without closure in that sterile cell, forcing him to sit with his unresolved feelings and thoughts without an explanation. Never knowing if you’d be back.
“I’m ashamed, at how I treated you. I thought I had ruined the one good thing I had in there.”
Your cheeks flush at his words and you wrap your fist around the pearl. You’re forced to break eye contact with him, hoping he can’t see the heat beneath your skin.
“I’m sorry I left you alone.” You say, eyeing the floor by his feet. “I just needed time.”
He considers your words carefully. “I can’t blame you for that.”
His eyes flick down to the hand that held the pearl and both of you bask in the silence for a moment.
“Maybe tomorrow we can get you a necklace for it, so it doesn’t get lost again.”
You tilt your head to meet his gaze, mouth parted and eyes wide. A tentacle brushes the apple of your cheek, and he looks at you like he had eyed the sunset, in awe and stunned with its beauty.
He had understood the significance of the pearl this whole time, and he returned it to you post-freedom, meaning there was no chance of him attempting to gain your trust for his benefit.
“Konig,” You whisper, voice breathy.
“Yes, meine perle?”
“Thank you.” You hold the pearl in a fist placed over your heart and keep your eyes fixed up at him.
His hand reaches down to your face, tracing a finger on the underside your jaw. Your breath hitches at the chill that shoots down your spine.
“I’ve been watching you.” He says, finger resting just under your chin, keeping your gaze on him. Your eyes flick nervously to his tentacles curling alluringly over his shoulder before returning to his stare.
You’re not sure what he means, but you’re too stunned by his words and the light touch of strong fingers, breath still hitched and heartbeat pulsing in your ears.
He pulls out the rolled up stack of papers he took from the lab and held close. All of the sketches and logs and theories you’d made during your obsessive research, “Looks like you’ve been watching me, too.”
He gestures to the papers in his hand before placing them on the nightstand to his side.
The tentacle that brushed your cheek moves to your hair, curling strands gently between the slick end of his appendage. Another gently takes the pearl from you, setting it down with the papers.
“Am I wrong, meine perle?”
Your jaw slacks open a little further as you stutter out the beginning of a few sentences, each quickly abandoned one after another.
You settle for a shake of your head accompanied by a full flush of your features.
He gives a hum of satisfaction as he leans down close enough that his hood almost brushes up against your skin. His glowing eyes are inches from yours.
“I want to repay you, meine perle.”
His thumb continue to soothingly stroke your jaw, His voice drops, soaked in a sultry tone as his gaze maps your features.
“You worked so hard for me. Went through so much, didn’t you? So good for me.”
You give a sharp inhale at the praise, a warmth suddenly pooling in your lower abdomen. You’re hypnotized by his large frame, his gentle touch, the inflection of his words. You can only stare up at him in anticipation, caught off guard by his change in demeanor.
A tentacle rests on your knee and begins to creep up your thigh. You try to look down but his hand under your chin keeps you steady.
“I want to make you feel so good, meine perle. Will you let me do that?” His voice dropped to a low whisper, and another tentacle creeps up behind you, making you flinch as it slithers down your shoulder and curls around your collarbones, “Will you let me reward your hard work?”
Your thighs spread obediently at the touch of his tentacle and Konig takes the opportunity to stand between your thighs, keeping them open. When you go to answer the only thing that comes out is a nervous squeak, so you opt for nodding your head.
The grip on your face tightens, a few of his fingers indent the soft flesh of your cheeks, “Ah, ah.” He gives a slight shake of his head. “You have to say it, meine perle.”
It takes you a moment to find your voice. “Yes, Konig.” You whisper through shallow breath, eyes wide as you look up at him. “Please.”
He gives another pleased hum, a tentacle eagerly coiling around your waist and picking you up from your spot on the edge of the bed.
A gasp leaves your parted lips, hands finding the slick coiled appendage at your center for leverage. Your socks scraped the duvet as he repositioned you to the middle of the bed.
Two tentacles work the button of your pants, a sharp inhale leaves you as they yank your zipper down and slide the waistband to your thighs. His eyes trace every inch of newly revealed skin as his tentacle placed you down on the bed, removing the appendage looped around your middle. By the time he gets your jeans off and discarded to the floor, two more tentacles have already begun sneaking up the hem of your shirt, slithering up your stomach and lifting your slick stained shirt with it. You obediently, albeit hesitantly, put your hands over your head to let him take your shirt and bra off in one swipe, ruffling your hair as he does.
You’ve got your upper half propped on your good arm, palm sunk in to the mattress. He corrects this by looping a tentacle around your good wrist, giving it a careful but firm yank as another presses to your sternum and guides your back flush with the mattress. Another simultaneously wraps around the forearm above your injured wrist, gently pinning it to the bed and forcing it to rest on the mattress above you. The two tentacles that removed your shirt trace down your exposed core and down each leg, giving you goosebumps behind the trail of slick they leave behind. The tentacles stop at your ankles, wrapping around them and up your calves like a snake coils its prey.
In quick movements your ankles are forced to in the air, extended and spread. He kneels onto the bed at your feet, positioning himself so he’s kneeling in the new space between your thighs.
He stills, tentacles holding you firmly but comfortably. You can feel his suckers against your bare flesh, each having their own independent wriggling grip on you. Your chest rises and falls, trying to swallow your nerves of being undressed and fully restrained at the hands of the powerful being you’d freed.
His eyes are tracing all of the newly exposed flesh, and you can’t help but squirm against his appendages as you fight the urge to cover yourself. He holds you steady, all your limbs extended as he takes his time committing the curves and dips of your delicate body to memory.
His eyes find your panties, already stained with arousal at the way he spoke to you, manhandled you.
“Such a delicate thing you are, meine perle.“ He says, eyes half-lidded as they admire you.
“You knew you wouldn’t stand a chance against me, didn’t you little one?” His voice is low but gentle, and you’re stunned by his words, his forwardness. You can’t help but be intimidated pinned beneath him.
“You knew the risk you were taking. You knew I was deadly.”
One of his tentacles come up to gently smooth the hair he had disheveled when removing your shirt. You flinch at his touch, and he gives a pleased hum once he successfully fixes your hair.
“And yet you couldn’t help but throw yourself at me.” His eyes briefly widen before returning to their half-lidded boring stare, “Time and time again,” He shrugs in casual disbelief of you, “I’ve never seen anything like it, your carelessness.”
A free tentacle sneaks up your leg again, curling to stroke your spread inner thighs.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re self-destructive. Suicidal, even.”
The tentacle at your thigh creeps up, teasing the waist band of your underwear, and you suck in a breath through your teeth.
“But I do know better, though, don’t I?”
The tentacle lets your panties snap back to your hips, and the appendages holding you as restraints tighten on your limbs threateningly, excluding your injured arm.
His eyes narrow and his voice drips of arrogance.
“You’re just a little masochist.”
The tentacle drags down your front, teasing your slit over the fabric of your panties.
“Aren’t you meine perle?”
Your thoughts are clouded with a haze as you cling to his words, hypnotized by his chilling voice, domineering tone, and arousing touches.
He lets you get away with not responding this time, studying your responses to his teases before he continues. He gives another hum, a tentacle tracing down your neck and core, leaving behind a cool trail of his slick.
The tentacles tracing your cunt curls around your waistband again, while the two appendages securing your ankles maneuver your legs as they slide your panties down.
“Do you like that I have so much power over you?”
He has to unravel the appendages on your ankles to remove your underwear, discarding them over his shoulder. The cool breeze on your dripping cunt makes you shiver, tensing your core and arms in his restraint.
“That I’m a predator and you’re just a sweet defenseless little thing?”
His tentacles quickly rewrap around your ankles, but this time he secures the thick middles around you, covering the tops of your feet in his slick suckers as he forces your legs spread. His tentacles slither all the way up your legs from foot to upper thigh like thick black vines, and he leaves the ends of his tentacles with extra slack so the tips can tease the lips of your dripping cunt.
“Does the danger turn you on, meine perle?”
He gives a hum as he eyes your exposed and spread cunt, thoroughly slicked with your own arousal.
“I can see it does.”
You flush under his stare, still mesmerized by his words and the heat pooling in your lower abdomen.
He leans forward, his hands finding the mattress on either side of your core. You shrink under him as he leans down. He presses the front of his pants against your cunt, spread open by the tentacles looped around your legs.
“You were afraid of me.” He says, and you let out a broken sigh as he grazes your clit, your hips giving small involuntary grinds against him, “Yet you still gave yourself to me, so willingly.”
He hovers his face inches from yours, glowing eyes reflecting off your wide eyes. His voice drops low, and the hem of his hood drags across the curve of your breasts. The smaller tentacles that pour from under his hood curl around your tits, and you flinch under his touch when the ends of slick appendages start to tease your nipples to attention.
“I think someone that brave deserves to be thoroughly rewarded.”
He keeps his face close to you, leaving the equivalent of kisses through his hood down your middle as his smaller tentacles trace your skin.
He kisses all the way down to your cunt, spread open by the larger appendages coiled around your legs. You lift your head to watch him, and he keeps his half-lidded stare on you as the tip of a smaller tentacle swirls slowly around your clit. Another traces your dripping entrance.
A breathy sigh leaves you, your thighs tensing under his tentacles, but he holds firm.
“I am curious,” He starts, eyes locked on yours as he lays his chest flush to the mattress between your wrapped legs. He props himself up on his elbows, and brings a hand up to his hood to slowly pull it up halfway. His smaller tentacles part like curtains to reveal his mouth, and your eyes widen at the sight.
Your dreams had been scarily accurate, a taunting smile made up of rows of predator teeth. Razor sharp and killer. Concern and awe melded on your features, eyebrows pinched and eyes wide.
“Are you still afraid?”
He sticks out his tongue, and your face twitches as you watch it extend unnervingly far from his pointed teeth. The length and curl reminded you of another tentacle, but made of the flesh of tongue.
He dives his tongue up the slit of your cunt, a long deep stripe from hole to clit.
You let out a pathetic whine, your thighs begging to clench around him but tentacles forcing you spread. He hums, tongue sending the vibration straight to your pulsing clit.
He starts slow, tracing circles around you with his precise tongue.
Your hips grind into the pleasure, and he huffs in amusement at your eagerness. He lets his tongue unfurl, completely smothering your cunt with his slick tongue. He loosens his grip on your thighs just enough to allow you to get a better range to thrust into his face.
You give another whine when he stops teasing you, but continue to grind your clit against him in a desperate search for pleasure.
You give him a pleading look, mouth slightly parted for breathy exhales. He lets you grind long enough to embarrass you, waiting for the telling flush of your cheeks.
He finally pulls away with a long swipe along your cunt as you let out a sinful moan. The tip of his tongue returns to your aching clit, flicking side to side. He starts teasingly slow but hungrily picks up once he hears the hitched breaths you take.
You have to lay your head back to the mattress, closing your eyes as you give in to the pleasure.
He presses the tip of his tongue to your clit head on, pushing his tongue forward and letting it slither down your cunt. It curls around like a ribbon, the wide part of his tongue rolling down your clit as the tip curls back to your entrance, rimming your dripping hole. He teases you for a few moments before diving the tip of his tongue into your warmth, keeping the middle of his tongue pressed against your clit.
You let out a gasp as he enters you, and he gives a low pleased hum into your dripping cunt in return. His tongue slithers further into your warmth, the thick of his tongue continuing to graze your clit.
You start to grind down on him again but the tentacles around your legs climb further up your thighs, securing your hips as the ends continue spreading your cunt open for him. You give a whine, and he complies by pushing his tongue in and out of you, fucking you while stimulating your clit.
Your toes curl under his suckers and the moans are falling from your lips without thought as he tastes you.
When you tilt your head up to meet his eyes, cheeks flushed and breaths shallow, he’s eyeing you the same way he had eyed the meals you brought him. Free tentacles twitch in excitement as his hungry gaze follows his prey.
The corners of his mouth curl into a smile as he quickens the movement of his tongue, causing you to pull against the tentacles restraining your limbs, desperate moans leaving your parted lips.
He retracts his tongue, an arrogant laugh leaving him as he leaves your dripping cunt rutting into the air.
He licks another deep stripe against your entire cunt one more time, letting his nose swipe against your slit as he drags up. His eyes roll once he retracts his tongue again, a sinful moan leaving him.
“You taste so sweet, meine perle.”
You let out a whimper, rutting your hips in desperation at the sudden lack of touch. He gives another pleased hum as he sits up on the bed, eyeing you from above.
A free tentacle creeps between the mattress and your middle, and when you obediently arch your back he coils an additional appendage around your waist. He hauls you into the air with ease, the four tentacles on your limbs still spreading and supporting you. The tentacle on your injured hand, still less taut than his restraints, slithers up further to keep your wrist in-line with the rest of your arm in absence of the support of the mattress.
He puts you above his head, cunt resting just above his head. He tilts his neck back before burying his tongue back into your cunt while keeping you in the air above him.
A squeak leaves you as you tense against him, unnerved by the sensation of being suspended in the air. Your worry melts to pleasure as he fucks his tongue into you, his tentacle restraints bouncing you up and down in rhythm with his slick tongue.
The jostling and the tentacle coiled firmly around your ribs allows the moans and squeaks to leave you with ease, and he hums in satisfaction at the cute little noises you’re making for him.
He retracts his tongue again, letting his hood drop, and you look to him with pinched brows - as if offended he revoked your pleasure.
“I could eat this cunt everyday and not get tired of it.” He says, and even though you can’t see his mouth you can tell he’s wearing a cocky grin.
You let out a pathetic little whine, giving a weak tug against his restraint.
“Don’t worry,” He says, almost mockingly, before you feel a thick tentacle slither up to tease your cunt, a relieved whimper escaping you.
He uses his thick appendage to swirl around in the slippery mixture of your own arousal, his slick, and spit. He uses the smooth side of his tentacle, curling it against your slit as he moves your restraints, forcing you to grind your dripping cunt on his tentacle. Two more free tentacles slither up your chest, cupping your tits and teasing your nipples with the ends of his slick appendages. He continues grinding you against him as he lays the two tentacles over your tits, a sucker on each covering your nipple and applying suction. The stimulation makes you gasp and pull against his restraints, overwhelmed with him sucking both your nipples and forcing your clit to grind on his thick appendage at the same time. Your squeaky and broken moans echo throughout the motel room.
“I’m just getting started with you.” He says, low and dangerous, “Make sure to save some of those pathetic whines.”
The thick tentacle swirling your cunt teases your entrance before impatiently slipping into you.
You let out a pornographic moan as he plunges into you. You’re sure it was loud enough for the neighboring rooms to hear but being filled up by Konig’s tentacle felt too incredible for you to care. His slick tentacle was thicker than anything a human could offer, and his suckers allowed for a ribbed sensation as he fucked his appendage in and on of you. His dexterity allowed him to find your g-spot with ease, the end of his tentacle massaging it as he fucks in and out of you.
Your eyes close at the overwhelming pleasure, weak and limp as he puppets you up and down on his tentacle.
He’s using all of his tentacles on you now, and you’re helpless to stop him as he removes the appendage that secured your waist and coiled it around your neck, close enough to graze your flesh but not yet applying pressure. Your eyes open at the touch, half-lidded in pleasure as you find his glowing stare. Even through the overwhelming stimulation, it’s an unnerving feeling having him wrap around your neck, reminding you of his power. He could end your life, easily, and there would be nothing you could do to stop him.
He slithers further around your neck, and you can help but shiver under his threatening touch. He sees your brows pinch in worry and his eyes squint. While his hood obscures his mouth you’re guessing it’s twisted into a smile, as if he knows what you’re thinking and had planted the idea on purpose, reigniting your fears before you get too lost in the pleasure.
There’s a sinful glint in his eye, “Do you trust me, meine perle?”
He doesn’t give you a chance to answer, his tentacle tightens around your neck, cutting off your moans with a harsh gasp.
Your eyes widen in fear, your fingers scratching the air instinctively as you wiggle in his grasp.
The tentacle fucking your tight cunt doesn’t let up. You’re left with your mouth open as you ride him, the moans that would be coming out silenced by his tight grip on your airway. The lack of oxygen allows a fuzzy haze to cloud your brain, and suddenly you’re not even thinking about the danger or the tentacles restraining and choking you. All you can think about is the sensation of your cunt being teased and fucked as your nipples are milked by his suckers. You let your body go limp in his grasp, no longer anxious for release. You’re still looking at him, but he’s getting farther and farther away, your vision blurring his bold silhouette.
He waits for your eyelids to unevenly flutter shut before he loosens his grip, keeping his tentacle looped around your neck like a scarf.
Your first sharp inhale is involuntary, followed by desperate sharp gasps for air. He continues pounding your cunt, his tentacle diving further into you, stretching you open as you return from your haze.
His smug snicker progresses to a deep hum of satisfaction.
He gives no warning before he cuts off your air again, watching as you fight against his restraints while managing the overstimulating pleasure.
“I like watching you struggle, meine perle.”
He takes a moment to look you over, watching you tense and feebly wriggle against his strong grip. He soaks in the look of concern and arousal on your features. You fade away quicker this time, eyes going cross as you zero in on the tentacle fucking your soaked cunt, suckers clinging to your walls as he massages your g-spot.
“I’d feel bad about it, but I know you like it too.”
He releases his grip on your neck, tentacle unfurling and leaving behind a necklace of clear slick and imprints of his suckers. You’re sputtering and coughing as he allows you breath, struggling to steady yourself as you’re bounced up and down on his thick tentacle.
Once you catch your breath you’re giving him breathy moans again, tensing beneath the tentacles on your limbs.
“Look how aroused you get when I threaten your life. This tight little cunt is so wet.”
One of the smaller tentacles that extends from under his hood runs circles on your pulsing clit. The tentacle that had retracted from your neck traces a line down your spine, stopping to rim your ass.
Your eyes widen at him as he slicks up the entrance of your hole. You’re nervous about anal, but you don’t find your voice to stop him. He slips a slick tip in, allowing you time to relaxing on just a few inches as he continues working the rest of you.
You were right about him being good at multitasking. It’s a lot to handle a once, your clit being teased, cunt pounded, nipples being sucked, and ass being stretched around the end of his appendage, all while being restrained and unable to relieve the tension building inside your body.
You’re lost to the stimulation, moans and expletives and sweet nothings pouring from your mouth in jumbles.
Konig’s enjoying the show, reveling that he’s made you come undone under his power. The mess he was making over you, covering you in his slick and getting you drunk off his touch.
A white heat steadily builds underneath your skin, pooling to your lower abdomen.
“Konig! It’s too much- it’s too much I’m gonna -"
“Come for me meine perle.”
The waves of pleasure rip through you, convulsing in his grip as you come. Konig doesn’t let up as he fucks you through orgasm. Mercilessly pounding your cunt with his thick tentacle while you clench at the intense euphoria.
“There you go, so good for me.”
You let out a strangled moan, hands searching for something to grab onto for stability but they come up empty, straining against his restraints while powerless to the pleasure.
“Konig - please.” You manage out between your broken moans and meaningless stuttering.
He gives another low hum of approval and he still doesn’t let up, the tentacles still working all your sensitivities.
“Not done with you yet, meine perle.” He warns, and you let out a whine in response.
You’re quivering in his touch now, futilely arching away from him, your pleasure turning to over-sensitivity.
“‘s too much.” You mutter out, shaking in his grip and too weak to escape his touch.
“I know, but you’re going to take it for me, aren’t you meine perle?”
You let out another whine in response, twitching at the stimulation that was turning nearly painful.
He offers some relief by removing the smaller tentacle from your clit, but he keeps the rhythm of both tentacles inside you, filling you up and forcing you to bounce on him. He continues teasing your nipples with his suckers, enjoying watching your back arch desperately as you squirm under the sensitivity.
You keep his gaze, teeth still grit at the overstimulation, eyes pleading.
He removes the tentacle from your cunt as he holds you steady, no longer bouncing you but still teasing your ass as he undoes his belt. He pulls it free with one firm tug, discarding it with the rest of your clothes.
His hands ease his zipper down and he takes his time, amused by your expression seeped in curiosity, desperation, and awe. He inches his pants down enough to expose his genitalia.
A fleshy appendage, a few inches longer than what a standard human male would have, springs to attention from the waistband of his clothes. The entire appendage was a uniform deep pink with no head. The shape reminded you of another tentacle, larger at the base and ending in a slick tip. Slight indents that ran up the sides of his shaft.
He lets you admire him for a few moments before he lines your used cunt with his appendage, plunging into you without mercy.
You let out a loud moan at being filled again, and he rock his hips, letting his appendage grind in you as you sit on his full length.
“Shh,” he whispers teasingly, “Don’t want anyone finding out how much of a desperate slut you are for me, hm?”
He brings the tentacle that had occupied your cunt up to your lips, and you obediently open your mouth to let his tentacle slip in, silencing you as you suck on the end, tasting the mixture of your arousal and his slick.
Your moans and whines are muffled by his tentacle as he pounds into you, his restraints moving you up and down in rhythm with his hips, meeting your hips in the middle as he fills you up.
He lets out a low growl that shoots a tingle of excitement down your spine.
“This pussy feels even better than I thought. So fucking tight, meine perle.” His pace quickens, now pounding ruthlessly into your soaked cunt.
His hands find your hips, fingers pressing into your skin as he guides you on his appendage. The tentacles supporting you allow you to lift almost all the way off him before forcing you down his entire length over and over again.
The moans are pouring from you again, but gagged by the appendage fucking your mouth - slick, arousal, and spit dripping down your chin.
When he pulls his appendage away from your cunt, the rest of thick tentacles still work your ass and nipples as he works to flip you over. He forces you into an all-fours position in front of him, letting you rest your forearms and knees on the duvet, his restraints staying firm on your limbs as he bends them into position as if you’re his doll.
You obediently arch your back and lower you head down on the mattress, sticking your ass into the air. He can see you spread open from behind, and he watches the tentacle work your tight little ass as he shifts to his knees behind you.
He gives you a firm smack on the ass with his hand, huffing in amusement at your shocked gasp around his tentacle gag. He gives you a few more, alternating cheeks as the sound of flesh on flesh echoes throughout the motel room.
He hums in amusement at the squeaks that come from your gagged mouth.
“Such a naughty perle,” He teases in his arrogant tone, “Always putting yourself in danger, hm?”
You whine, fingers clawing at the duvet as you brace yourself, flushing at the idea someone might hear your punishment.
He stops not long after, leaving behind his handprints on your flushed cheeks. He’s getting impatient, so when he lines his appendage back up with you he slides in without warning, hands finding your hips for grip as he slides in and out of you.
He’s too excited, he can’t refrain from letting his hips flush with your pink sore ass.
The tip of his appendage curls forward inside of you, massaging your g-spot as he fills you.
He doesn’t let up, keeping a steady rhythm with his hips and all of the tentacles working you. Your tits groped, nipples sucked by his tentacles, mouth and both holes filled and fucked - it’s overwhelming enough to make you go limp in his hold, not a single thought occupying you as you mindlessly work your tongue around the tentacle gagging your mouth. You’re too focused on the pleasure, how good it feels to be at his mercy.
“Watching you got me so excited, meine perle.” He says though heavy breaths, his grip tightening on your hips, “I’m already getting close.”
His thrusts get more intense, and you think you’d be yelling if you hadn’t been gagged. You probably wouldn’t have been able to warn him about your second finish even if you hadn’t been silenced, too cockdrunk off the overstimulation to properly string together a coherent sentence.
Your cunt clenches around him as another orgasm rips through you, causing your muscles to tense in his restraint.
He lets out a hearty moan, his thrusts becoming slightly uneven as he struggles to keep his composure in your tight walls.
He comes everywhere, his finish not only marking his claim deep in your cunt, but also from each of his tentacles, tips releasing his come into your ass and mouth while coating your tits and spread cunt.
He twitches inside you throughout his finish, fingers digging into your hips as he gives a few light thrusts, milking every drop of his finish into your filled cunt.
You’re still limp when he finally pulls away with a strained moan, his tentacles placing you down gentle on the mattress. You’re on cloud nine, too high from your finishes to be able to support yourself. You let the mattress support you, basking in the warmth of the afterglow, bliss settling over you as you recover.
He gives another hum of satisfaction at the sight, having completely unraveled you and marked you with his seed. He leans down to plant a kiss through his hood on your back, his hands giving a light squeeze on your hips as he props himself up next to you. He runs his fingers up and down your back, swirling through the clear slick his tentacles had left behind.
He lets you rest for a few moments, waiting for your breathing to settle before a tentacle gently drapes across you.
“How about we get you cleaned up, meine perle?”
You let out a dazed hum of approval, letting his tentacles coil around you to carry you to the shower. He presses you to his chest, your head resting against him as he cradles your back and the crease of your knees.
When your eyes flutter open, and you meet his glowing stare, your face stretches into a warm sleepy smile. He unwraps your bandages carefully, and he doesn’t let you lift a finger once you’re both in the cramped bathroom, standing outside of the tub as he scrubs you down. You exchange little words, both of you still basking in the afterglow.
He takes his time wiping the slick and come off your skin, easing around the flushed marks his suckers had left behind on you.
It’s soothing - the warm water embracing you, and Konig smoothing a washcloth over your skin. Intimate, even, how he’s washing your upper arms as he holds your hand with his free hand, watching you while you relax into the water. He’s extra gentle with your injured wrist as he cleans you.
He’s in no hurry as he cleans your middle and legs, enjoying the glisten of the water on your plush breasts and thighs. He thumbs the bubbles on your skin under his soft grip.
He even washes your hair, his large hands massaging your scalp as he runs the suds through. He’s careful not to get soap in your eyes when he rinses the bubbles from your hair, using a tentacle to shield your forehead as he guides your head back under the stream of the shower, disregarding the water spraying all off the motel bathroom floor.
He’s being so careful with you, so sweet and soft, it was a jarring contrast to the Konig that had been ruthlessly pounding you moments before or the Konig you’d come to know trapped in his cell.
Once you were all clean, he shut off the showers with its noisy clunk of old pipes, he was quick to wrap one of the motel towels around your dripping body before he carried you back to the beds. When he stilled you meet his eyes, resting your hand on his chest.
“Guess we’ll have to share a bed.” He says in his cocky tone as you follow his gaze to the mattress, thoroughly soiled and stained from your session.
You roll your eyes at him, giving a soft tap on his chest in your disapproval of his corny flirting, but the smile on your face betrays any hope of hiding your enamor.
His eyes squint from under his hood with a smile, you assume, as he carries you to the bed with his strong arms.
It’s not easy for a being with tentacles shooting from his spine to cuddle. He wasn’t designed for cozy naps and soft embraces, but he does what he can. He presses against the pillows sitting up, at an angle to leave space between the headboard and his back for his tentacles to settle. He nestles you at his side, keeping your head on his chest as your arm rests against over his core. Your leg props up on his as you rest the side of your body on the mattress.
His arm wraps snuggly around your back, fingers making soft circles at your curve.
You’re already halfway to sleeps clutches when you mumble into his chest.
“Thank you, Konig.”
“Thank you, meine perle.”
———————————————————-
More by uhohdad:
HIS - A Stalker!Konig Fic
EXPERIMENTAL - Konig helps Researcher!Reader with a new technology, and Reader sees something they’re not supposed to.
Original Works Masterlist
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just-jordie-things · 10 months
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you know you got me in your pocket - okkotsu yuuta
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word count: 13k warnings: light swearing.  reader has a cursed technique that has to do with healing but i don’t explain it bc i’m lazy. summary: the path from friends to lovers may take time but it is a simple, true love they share more info: ultimate friends to lovers fic this IS the template a/n: loosely based on this fanart i found on pinterest and also the song always forever by cults bcuz i love that song its so friends to lovers coded ___
[ you and me, always, forever ]
Unlike most cases of friends who harbor crushes for each other but never seemed to figure it out, (y/n) had taken a liking to Yuuta the day they met.  She’d known right away that there was something about him that drew her to him like a magnet, something adorably mysterious, strangely alluring, and completely thrilling.
Seeing him on campus wasn’t a surprise.  Gojo had told her about his recruitment, and upon giving her further detail she’d lovingly told him it was more of a kidnapping.  He’d laughed.  And since then nothing had really changed.  She continued her studies with Shoko in the infirmary, only occasionally seeing the Six Eyes when he needed a new audience to bother, and in fact, she’d almost forgotten the news of a new student her age.
It’s not like there were many instances where she could be reminded.  She didn’t see the other students at Jujutsu Tech often, since they spent their time training to be sorcerers, while her cursed technique was more equipped for the behind the scenes of jujutsu society.  
So when she feels a heavy presence of cursed energy looming through the front gates, the hair on the back of her neck stands up, and she’s unusually drawn out of her studies to scan the area for the source of the prickle traveling down her spine.
If she didn’t know better, she might have just assumed it was just Gojo.  But it only takes a split second for her to identify this as someone else entirely.  She’s not sure if her shiver is due to fear or intrigue, but either way she just has to learn more, doesn’t she? 
And so you could imagine her surprise when she finally catches the sight of the sorcerer carrying all of this cursed energy, dragging along the main path on his way to the main building.  She can’t recall his name right away, but she assumes he’s the new kid that Gojo had told her about a week or so prior.
She’s far enough away that she doesn’t get a good look at him, but she can see enough from where she sits amongst the trees.  He’s not at all what she had been expecting.
He didn’t look like the piece of shit egotistical douchebag that she had assumed he’d be when Gojo had told her about him.
And if she couldn’t feel the cursed energy radiating off of him even from this far away, she might’ve thought he was a non-sorcerer altogether.
His shoulders sagged like gravity was heavier on him than most people.  He moved slowly.  His sneakers scraped along the pavement.  His hands were fiddling with each other anxiously, fingers catching and pulling and twisting over and over.
Perhaps she was letting her curiosity make her naive, but any fear she might have felt when he first entered the courtyard dissipated as she tracked his awkward movements towards the school.  Awkward.  It was the perfect way to describe her first impression of him.
He hadn’t seemed to notice her during her assessment of him.  And this was proven when their paths did properly cross.
It had happened late one evening, shortly after Yuuta’s initial admittance to Jujutsu Tech.  It only took one text from Shoko for her to be out of bed, in her uniform, and on her way to the infirmary.  Apparently, Yuuta was also racing around campus, for whatever reason, and that’s how he (almost literally) ran into her.
“Oh!” 
His greeting was just as awkward as her first impression of him.  She can’t help but laugh a little bit.  He’s clearly flustered, his eyes wide and his mouth not making any proper words, and the large knife in his hand looks severely out of place.
But he must see her look straight at it while he’s trying to figure out how to politely ask who the hell she was because he’s never seen her before- because suddenly he remembers how to speak.
“This isn’t mine!” 
He doesn’t mean to shriek, but he feels like he should explain why he’s running around at night with a knife.  It doesn’t dawn on him at all that she’s used to people casually carrying weapons around, and this little knife isn’t even close to being a concern for her.
Nonetheless, she goes along with it.  She should be rushing to the infirmary, but something keeps her put before him.
“Oh?” She tries not to laugh as she takes in his heavy wince.  “While I find your courage outstanding, I’m not sure this is the place you want to go stealing people’s knives,” She’s only teasing, but it does nothing to relieve the panic on his face.  “You know, cause people around here don’t need knives to kill you,” 
Yuuta swallows, and (y/n) finally gives him a break and shakes her head as she laughs to herself.
He expresses his anxiousness in small shuffles of his feet, and he tries to laugh along but the sound is strained and nervous.  If she knew him better and understood him, she likes to think she’d tell him to lighten up, but that feels like a bold step, so she tries to ease his anxiety with more subtlety.
“You didn’t spook me with that knife,” She clarifies.  “I’d be more scared of all that cursed energy you’ve got, if anything” 
“O-oh” 
“But I’m not,” She tells him, matter-of-factly.
He gives her a look like he’s not sure if he should believe her.  With the way the other students had reacted when they first met, he’s surprised she doesn’t have him in a chokehold right now.  Instead, she stands before him without a defensive stance, and she gives him a small smile.
“But… what are you doing out this late?” She can’t help but have curiosity about what he was doing there in the first place.  “Aren’t you all going out on an assignment first thing in the morning?”
Normally, she didn’t listen much when Gojo rambled on about his teachings.  However yesterday’s lessons with Shoko had been few and far between, so when her old friend stopped by for entertainment, she boredly listened along while he bragged about taking his class on a group outing.  She supposed that little piece of information became useful for small talk now.
“Yeah, well,” Yuuta sighed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously.  “I was supposed to return this earlier, but I forgot, and now I…” 
His words trail off, along with his eyes as he turns to stare at the floor out of embarrassment.
“I got lost” 
“It’s Maki’s, isn’t it?” She asks knowingly, even though she’s not familiar with this knife.
Yuuta nods.
“I’ll show you the way” She says, gesturing for him to follow her, and walking off before he could really comprehend what she was offering.  His sneakers squeak on the linoleum floor as he rushes after her a few seconds delayed.
He takes a minute or two before he finds the courage to say something.
“Thank you,” He settles, peeking over at her from the corner of his eye.  “I’m Yuuta, by the way” 
She turns to give him a beam as she replies, “I know,”
It has a lump forming in his throat, his chest filling with something warm and akin to bashfulness.  He’d never seen her before, and he was certain he would have remembered if they’d met, especially since she was so pretty, but she appeared to be his age too, and he wondered why she hadn’t been around for any classes, or training sessions.
“I’m (y/n)” She introduces herself after a beat passes.  Yuuta wants to say something more, but he doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all.
He fidgets with the knife as he follows her through the corridors.  It’s a large building, and the longer they walk, the more he’s grateful he hadn’t gotten more lost than he had.  It takes a few minutes until she finally stops at a door, and slides it open.  Yuuta recognized it as soon as it’s contents were revealed.
Every inch of the walls were filled with weapons.  Racks with blades and staffs of all shapes and sizes, shelves of an assortment of more alternative weapons, he’d been in here when Gojo had given him a speedy tour on his first day.  Although now that he’s not being rushed from room to room, his gaze travels around the small space, taking in every deadly tool here.
“You’ll get used to it” (y/n) speaks, and he’s drawn out of his reverie when she plucks the knife from his hands to put it back in it’s proper place.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to any of this” He mumbles back, eyes caught on a rather daunting gun propped up among other things.
Nunchucks and knives were one thing.  He was pretty sure that was an AK-47.  He’d only ever seen those in movies.
(y/n) chuckles softly, amused by how out of place he seemed.  For a guy with more cursed energy than he knew what to do with, she found it interesting how juvenile he came across.
Not that it was a bad thing.  It was sort of… refreshing, if she thought about it.
“You will,” She assured him kindly.  “It’ll feel weird for a while, but, yaknow.  Eventually everyone settles in, right?” 
He tears his eyes away from the machine gun to see that she’s giving him a small smile, and he doesn’t know her very well, or at all, but he can tell that she’s being genuine.
“I guess”
He doesn’t know what else to say.
“Well, I have to get going to a lesson,” She explains, jerking her thumb back towards the door.  “You good to get back to your dorm? I probably wouldn’t get in trouble if I explained I was just helping the new kid” 
Yuuta nods, the movement awkward, and shaky.
“Yeah, I’m good, I think” He doesn’t sound so sure, but (y/n) assumes the best way for him to learn his way around is to get lost just a little.
“Alright, I’ll see ya around then,” She gives him a wave as she ducks out of the small armory.  “Good luck with your assignment tomorrow!”
Her voice carries as she jogs through the corridors to quickly get to where Shoko was waiting, leaving Yuuta to linger, a bit dumbfounded and bewildered by the whole interaction.
He supposed he’d gotten her name, but he still had no clue who she was.  He’d have to make a better effort to reach out next time their paths crossed.  She was the first person here to give him a semi-warm welcome, after all.
When (y/n) arrived at the infirmary with a brighter-than-usual smile and the remnants of a blush on her cheeks, Shoko eyed her curiously, but didn’t outwardly call her out on the strange demeanor.
[ say you’ll stay, never be severed ]
The next time Yuuta does see (y/n), he’s sitting alone at a picnic table in the courtyard with only the company of his lunch bag.  He sees her walking out of the building with a bag on her shoulder.  She’s clearly on a mission, but he finds himself calling out to her and waving his hand anyways.
He assumes she’ll give him a polite nod and keep heading on her way, but she stops in her tracks to turn his way, waving back, before she’s actually walking over to him.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but Yuuta panics a bit.  He had yet to form any solid enough friendships with the other students in his year, hence the lunching alone out here, and he had a worry that soon she would also see him as a loner and an outsider, and she’d avoid him too.
But as she approaches the wooden table, she gives him a smile so friendly he could never believe it was forced.
“Hey,” Even her voice sounds kind.  “You eating alone?” 
“Uh-” Yuuta glances around as if looking for an excuse, but the bento box in front of him and lack of any other person around is evidence enough.  “Yeah” He replies sheepishly.
Here it comes, Yuuta braces himself, the beginning of her thinking he’s a loner.  He shouldn’t have even held onto that scrap of hope when she’d walked this way, but here he was, holding his breath.
“Want company?”
His head turns back to her, assessing if she really meant it, and seeing that small smile still curled on her lips, he gives her a short nod.
“Yeah,” He answers.  “Yeah, that’d be… nice” 
Her small smile turns into a grin as she sits on the bench across from him, setting her bag on the table.
“How are you settling in?” She asks him kindly, and he gives a weak shrug of his shoulders.
“I guess… as well as I can,” He says honestly, and she nods back in understanding.  He pushes past the urge to sit in silence where he knows he can’t say the wrong thing, and continue talking to her.  She’s nice, he tells himself.  She’s nice, and I want to make friends here.  I want to be happy here.  “I think everyone’s a little afraid of me, to be honest,” He admits.  “Or they’re annoyed with how behind all of them that I am” 
“Maki can be a little stand-offish,” (y/n) thinks aloud.  “And Inumaki is hard to get to know at first.  But he’s a really nice guy once you do get to know him.  Just don’t be nervous when he’s silent.  He’s a goofball,” 
Yuuta takes her advice to heart, hoping that she could give him all the keys to friendship he’d been lacking.  He nods earnestly.
“And so is Panda,” She continued.  “But it’s been awhile since there’s been someone new around here.  That doesn’t really happen for us” 
“Really?” He asks, and she nods.
“Yeah.  Most of these people have known each other since they were young.  Or at least are aware of each other’s clan politics” 
“I see” Yuuta mumbles, feeling yet again like an outsider.  (y/n) can tell this information doesn’t sit well with him.
“I think it’s nice,” She says boldly, and truthfully.  He stares at her like she just said something ridiculous.  “When the only people you get to see every day are people you’ve known your whole life, it can be sorta lonely,” She admits with a small chuckle.  “It’ll be nice to get to know someone new,” 
She leans over the table a bit, setting her elbows down so she can rest her head in her hands.
“If that’s not too forward” She says with a bashful smile.
Yuuta blinks once, twice, before shaking his head with certainty.
“It’s not” He says, fast.
“Good,” (y/n’s) beam brightens.  “Want to have lunch with me again tomorrow?” 
He nods again, his nerves starting to melt away, letting him smile back at her.
“Will you be in class tomorrow?” He asks hopefully.  Maybe now he’ll finally have someone he can sit with, even if he’s still too shy to strike up a conversation, at least he won’t feel so alone all the time.
“Oh,” (y/n’s) lips quickly fall to a frown.  “I’m actually not one of Gojo’s students,” She tells him, and it makes her sad to see him deflate so fast.  “I’m training in the infirmary, with Shoko.  Have you met her?” 
Yuuta shakes his head.
“I don’t think so” 
“Well I’ll introduce you sometime,” She tells him.  “But I don’t have a decent enough cursed technique to be a sorcerer, so I’m studying under her in order to go more into the… background things” She explains.
“I see,” Yuuta tries not to let his disappointment show, so as not to make her feel bad.  He focuses instead on getting to know her better.  “So you’re working in, like, the medical field then?”
(y/n) nods her head from side to side.
“Something like that,” She chuckles.  “It’s mostly watching Shoko use her technique to heal injuries after rougher assignments.  I don’t get to use mine too much, but I’m starting to learn how to heal myself, so that’s a start, I suppose” 
“That’s cool!” 
(y/n’s) eyes blink wide in surprise.
“You can heal yourself?”
“I mean, I healed a papercut once” She laughs bashfully.  In comparison to Shoko’s reverse cursed technique, doing a shoddy job at patching up a small slice on her finger seemed like a joke.  But Yuuta grins like he’s never heard anything more interesting.
“You’re lucky,” He tells her, and she raises a brow at him, wondering if this was all some elaborate prank where he’d wind up laughing in her face at how weak she was compared to everyone else, compared to him.  “That’s a really useful ability.  That’s not background at all.  It’s helpful” 
As she processes the kind words, (y/n) wonders if this is why she’d felt drawn to him when they met a few nights ago.  Underneath the shy exterior Yuuta displayed was nothing but kindness, and warmth.  She could feel it in her cheeks, and in her chest.  Her heart even stuttered a little.
“I mean, I barely have a handle on it,” She admits.  “I don’t think I’ve been all that helpful to anyone” 
“But you’re learning, right?” Yuuta shrugs a shoulder in understanding.  “I guess that’s sorta how I feel, too,” He realized, dropping his gaze to his forgotten lunch as he thought about it.  “I just want to be…”
He trails off, but (y/n) waits with eager anticipation for him to continue his thought.
“Useful”
His voice is quiet, and his expression is unsure as he looks back up at her.  Suddenly feeling like that was far too pathetic of a thing to say to someone that he’d like to become friends with.  But before he can backtrack and supply a better word, like strong or courageous, she’s grinning.
Her face nearly splits in two as her beam stretches from ear to ear, all teeth and twinkling eyes to match.  A small laugh escapes her before she starts to nod passionately.
“That’s exactly how it feels,” She agrees, filling him with relief so strong it’s visible in the way his shoulders relax.  (y/n) notices, but doesn’t say anything.  Something warm and fuzzy nestles in her chest, and she has a good feeling about this new friendship blossoming.
Truth was, (y/n) got along fine with the other students here, but they’d only cross paths on occasion and she couldn’t say that she was necessarily close to any of them, simply on good terms enough to catch up in brief passing with one another.  The disconnect between her studies and the rest of the sorcerers-in-training around here was a trench of a gap, and if she was honest with herself, it could prove to be a little lonely.
Shoko was a great teacher, she was kind and involved, but she was still a teacher.  Gojo was… about the same, with just a bit more peskiness to him when it came to involving himself.  But it was all in good nature, he knew that she was a bit isolated here.
But then Yuuta came along.  And even just this short interaction had her glowing with excitement at finally forming a connection with someone.  He probably thought she was just being pleasant since he was the new kid and he’d been eating lunch alone, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.  She had a genuine interest in him that had started innocently enough, but she had a feeling it would only blossom into something more.
“I think that we’re going to be-” 
She’s about to voice this thought, about to tell him that she knows in her heart that they’ll make excellent friends, but her timing was just a tad too slow, and she was interrupted by her phone ringing.
With the intention of silencing it and ignoring the call for now, she gives him an apologetic look before pulling it out of her pocket, only to huff when she realizes it’s not a call she can just silence.
“Sorry,” She frowns.  “It’s Shoko, I should take this, she’s probably got something for me back at the lab” 
“It’s alright,” Yuuta smiles as he shakes his head in understanding.  “I get it” 
“Thanks,” (y/n) grabs her bag as she jumps up from the table, disappointed to cut their time short, but excited to see what Shoko would have in store for her today.  Before she can race off, she pauses, one hand gripping the strap of her bag and the other occupied with the phone that’s still ringing.  “Lunch tomorrow though, right?” She double checks.
The pink that dusts Yuuta’s cheeks is undeniable, and it makes a smile bloom on her face, too.
“Right” He says with a shy nod while he rubs his clammy hands over his knees.
“Alright,” (y/n) nods back, and she’d like to think she’s smooth, but she’s blushing just the same.  “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Okkotsu” 
She takes off before she can see his face turn from pink to red, his enthusiasm for having plans with a friend- a cute friend- shining in the heat of his cheeks.  
He spends the rest of his lunch period trying to think of things to talk to her about tomorrow, questions to ask, stories to share.  He racked his brain for fifteen minutes before going to class, where he then gets a little lost in space as he wonders about it some more.
[ you know you got me in your pocket, you don’t just have to wait around ]
When (y/n) feels that lingering fuzziness in her chest turn into something more, it was shortly after she’d spent the better half of an hour telling Shoko that her friendship with Okkotsu Yuuta was just that.  Friendship.
“If you say so,” The woman shrugged a shoulder as she pulled the gloves off of her hands, getting ready to wrap up the day.  “Just sayin’.  You talk about him a lot” 
(y/n) gave her a look, blindly tossing her own latex gloves into the trash.
“He’s my friend, I like talking about him,” She explains with nonchalance, even though her heart stuttered in her chest a little bit, as it did every time she mentioned him.  “And I’m also a boring person.  There’s not much to talk about”
“That’s not true, but whatever” Shoko brushes off the lame excuse, and (y/n) rejoices inwardly that the topic can be dropped before Yuuta actually shows up in a few minutes.  
Like most days, they had plans to meet up for lunch, except today they’ll be spending it with the rest of the first years.  After a couple of months, Yuuta finally felt like he belonged here, and had made decent friendships with his peers.  This morning he had texted her to ask if it was alright if they joined them.
[yuuta] : panda offered us seats at the lunch table with inumaki and maki too. do you want to have lunch with them? 
[yuuta] : ok if not!! just wanted to extend the invitation !!
It had made (y/n) smile when that second text popped up so quickly on her phone after she’d opened the first right away.  She could practically see him back pedaling just in case she wasn’t comfortable with a larger group for lunch.  Of course she was, she’d typed back an agreement with a little smiley face within a few seconds of reading the texts, but it was sweet that he’d stick to their usual plan of just the two of them.
Don’t get her wrong, (y/n) had grown to really cherish the time the two of them spent together.  She got to know Yuuta very well during their lunch breaks, and during a few hangouts after lessons and training, too.  She was happy to see how much he opened up once you got to know him, and she loved learning more about him every day.  He was kind, and funny in that nervous sort of way, and he picked up on things quickly.  
The couple of times (y/n) had spent her breaks from the infirmary on the bleachers to watch him train with the other first years, she’d seen a drastic change in his abilities with each session.  It wasn’t often that she was able to slip away long enough to get all the way to the bleachers, watch for a bit while having a snack or catching up on some reading, and then get back to the infirmary before Shoko called her out on trying to ditch her lessons.  Still, she was always impressed with how fast of a learner Yuuta was.  Whether it was with cursed energy or with a bamboo staff to practice wielding a proper katana, he seemed to be comfortable with learning how to fight.
In fact the last time she’d watched him, he looked so natural she could have assumed he’d grown up in jujutsu society just like the rest of them.
When he does make an appearance at the infirmary, Shoko notices him outside the door first.  With a smirk, she nods her head to get (y/n’s) attention.
“Your friend is here,” She says with a teasing lilt in her voice, despite her face remaining as stoic as usual.  
(y/n) gives her a look before turning around to see him waiting politely outside.  When their eyes catch, she gives him a smile and waves at him to come in.
“Picking you up for lunch, hm?” Shoko hums.  “What a little gentleman”
(y/n) shoots her another look, this time as if to say be nice when Yuuta walks in.  He’s still wearing his sheath, but the awkward smile and nervous fiddling of his hands makes a sword on his back look out of place.  For some reason, (y/n) has always found his simple juxtapositions adorable.
Despite having met Shoko before, a few times, actually, Yuuta always gets anxious around her.  It was probably her quietly peculiar aura, something (y/n) had grown used to after so much time spent with her, but in comparison to Yuuta’s teacher who’d never learned to revel in peaceful silence, it could be intimidating.
He gave her a small wave and nod in greeting.  Shoko smirked back at him before turning to (y/n).
“You two get back before too long, alright? No funny business” 
Yuuta visibly paled, his mouth opening to make an explanation that wasn’t coming to mind and left him standing there gaping.  (y/n) rolled her eyes as she grabbed her bag, hoisting the strap over her shoulder as she waved Shoko off.
“Bye Shoko” She said with a half-playful glare, before grabbing Yuuta by the sleeve and dragging him right back out the door before he even got the chance to say hello.
It’s not until they’re out in the hall that he finds his voice.
He tugs at his collar to relieve some of the heat from his neck.
“How were lessons today?” He settles for the safe topic of conversation.  Predictably, (y/n) lets out a small laugh.  She always seemed amused when he was uncomfortable.  He had yet to understand why.
“Good,” She’s kind to him today, not teasing him for his flustering.  At least not beyond that little smirk that makes her eyes glint when she looks at him.  “You?”
He nods his head from side to side.
“Maki kicked my ass,” He said sheepishly.  “But I did get a hit today” He said in a quieter voice, but there was still a hint of pride in his voice.  (y/n) beamed at him.  She understood this was a meaningful accomplishment.
“That’s awesome!” She cheered for him.  “You’ll knock her down next time for sure,” 
He thinks she could be messing with him, but when he looks over at her, her beam is nothing but genuine.  He laughs quietly, not as sure as she was, but appreciative of the sentiment nonetheless.
“Just make sure to invite me next time you spar,” (y/n) continues.  “I want to be there for the big day” 
Sometimes, she has a way of speaking that makes Yuuta wonder why she doesn’t really hang out with anyone but him.  She wasn’t exactly a soft person, he supposed it was this line of work they shared, but there was something inherently friendly about her.  He’d noticed it the first time they’d met, of course, and ever since he couldn’t ignore it if he tried.  For whatever reason, she seemed not only to care about him, but she actually believed in him, too.  More and more, Yuuta began to wonder why.
Inumaki, Panda, and Maki are already at a table with their lunches before them when Yuuta and (y/n) arrive.  Panda notices them first, grinning and waving a paw for them to join.
“(y/n)! Long time no see!” His voice holds pure joy upon her arrival, “How’s the infirmary?” 
“Oh, you know,” (y/n) smiles as she shrugs her shoulders.  “Blood.  Bones.  Repeat.  I can’t complain” 
Panda and Toge are sitting on one side of the table, Maki on the other, and (y/n) happily sits beside her.  Yuuta follows shortly.
“Yuuta told me next time, he’s going to knock your ass out,” She says boldly.  Maki raises a brow, her chopsticks stilling over her dish.  “You’ll let me come watch, yeah?” 
Maki’s eyes shift to Yuuta, a glare behind them that has him straightening in his seat.  Maki smirks at his discomfort, and when she turns back to (y/n), she grins ear to ear.
“I do love an audience,” She agrees, her smirk stretching into a grin at the idea.  She looks back to Yuuta, who’s focused intently on his rice.  “You two have been gettin’ real chummy, huh?”
(y/n) simpered at the comment.  Yuuta tucked his chin against his collar in hopes that they wouldn’t notice the way his face bloomed with heat.
“Tuna, tuna” Inuamki giggles as his elbow bumps into Panda’s arm, and he too begins to chuckle as they watch the pair’s reactions to Maki’s simple observation.
“(y/n’s)- uh- she’s-” 
“Yuuta’s a great friend” (y/n) speaks before Yuuta’s stammering can be laughed at any further.
“Must be, to make you finally come hang out with us” Panda says as he tries to quell his amused chuckling.
“Ikura” Toge mutters.
“Yeah,” Panda nods in agreement with the cursed speech user.  “We didn’t think you liked us anymore” 
Yuuta peeks over at (y/n) in his peripheral vision, but she plasters on a smile and shakes her head to disagree.
“Been busy” She says simply.  There is no follow up, no explanation or excuse.  She pops a grape into her mouth and leaves it at that.
Their lunch continues on as expected.  Catching up, teasing, swapping food.  Thirty minutes seem to pass faster than ever.  And despite enjoying himself amongst his friends, Yuuta can’t help but hyperfixate on that small, odd interaction.
It appeared as though (y/n) and the other first years had gotten along just fine.  Even mirroring old friends.  But he couldn’t help but feel like something was off, that things hadn’t always been this way, that there was a rift he hadn’t been present for.  He knows better than to question it straight away, so he matches energy and remains friendly the rest of the break.
But after telling his classmates he’ll meet up with them shortly, he lingers at the table while (y/n) packs up her things.
“That was nice” His voice feels stiff.  He clears his throat.
(y/n) looks up at him as she pulls the strap of her bag over her shoulder, a soft smile curling on her lips.
“It was” She affirms.
Yuuta shifts his weight from foot to foot as he tries to find the right thing to say next.  (y/n) watches this, and waits, patiently, for him to continue.
“I mean I… I like having lunch just… us,” He says, slowly, afraid of sounding too forward and insinuating something that could be off putting to her.  “But I’m glad you wanted to hang out with…” 
He struggled to find the right thing to say.  (y/n) tilted her head at him curiously, before providing the words for him.
“Your friends?” She suggests with a small smile.
Yuuta blinks, color spreading over his cheeks before his smile mirrors hers, and then he nods.
“Yeah,” He concurred.  
It must have been a rush of courage that compelled him to say what he did next, because as soon as he said it out loud, blood rushed up his neck and into his cheeks.
“You’re a great friend, too, by the way.  I’m glad you were here.  Or, well, are here”
She laughs, not because what he was was funny, but because she was overcome by delight by his words that she simply couldn’t contain it.  Her fingers curl tightly around her bag, her heart flutters with something sickeningly sweet in her chest.
This was that something more.  This wasn’t just silly eagerness towards a new friend.  This much more.  It was heavy.  It filled her heart until it burst and flooded her body with warmth, traveling down her spine in ticklish sparks, and ending in the tips of her fingers and toes.  It almost felt like cursed energy, the way it buzzed through her excitedly, on it’s own accord, but she knew better.
This was infatuation.  She was infatuated with Yuuta.  She had feelings for Yuuta.
“I’m glad you’re here, too, Yuuta,” She speaks with every genuine bone in her body, now reinforced with that tingling feeling that has her soft smile turning into a full blown grin.  “Really glad” She repeats softly.
He should feel embarrassed because he knows he’s blushing and he’s having a hard time holding eye contact with her, but for some reason, he doesn’t feel embarrassed at all.  Instead he smiles, bright and beautiful.
“I- I have to-” 
“You have class,” (y/n) laughs bashfully, turning away in an attempt to calm her warm cheeks and dopey grin.  “You should go before you’re late- I- I should go before I’m late” She stammers over her words, which is unlike her and more like him.
“Right, yeah,” He nods in a jerky motion as he starts to turn to leave, realizing he was going to have to run now if he wanted to make it on time.  “But I’ll- I’ll see you after? Maybe? Or do you have plans already we can just wait till tomor-” 
“After lessons works” (y/n) agrees.
“Okay- okay, yeah,” He’s still beaming, giddy with excitement now.  “After lessons” He repeats.
(y/n) giggles as she begins to make her way back towards the infirmary, in the opposite direction as him.  She gives him a small wave as she takes off, and Yuuta’s stunned in place for a moment before realizing that his tardiness was going to get him into trouble.
When (y/n) bursts through the infirmary doors with a string of excuses and pink cheeks, Shoko doesn’t say a word.  Not that she has to, her face says it all.
Yuuta is not spared in the same way.  When Gojo asks where he’s been, Panda is happy to supply what- or who- had kept him occupied.  He was teased relentlessly for the following fifteen minutes, but it didn’t bother him too much.  Sure, he was a little awkward at handling it and brushing off their assumptions.  He just hoped his classmates wouldn’t meddle and tell her about it later.
[ just come here and we can settle down ]
If Yuuta ever underestimated anything in his life, it was Gojo Satoru’s joy in meddling.
It’s a few weeks after the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.  Jujutsu High is still under reconstruction, but it’s getting somewhere.  The gardens are being replanted, the courtyard isn’t just a pile of rubbish anymore, and slowly but surely, everyone is healing.
Especially thanks to (y/n), who had mastered her cursed technique.  Just in time too, as there were a lot of people that needed help.
Maki was finally recovering after pushing herself through physical therapy at a rate faster than (y/n) had ever seen in anyone before.  She was more amazed than surprised.  She would never underestimate that young woman’s abilities.
Toge was just starting to use his voice again, despite all of his friends telling him to just keep his mouth shut even if he was speaking in onigiri ingredients.  His sore throat still made his words sound choked and raspy, but he communicated with his friends nonetheless.
There were many other sorcerers that had gotten hurt that night, but just as her friends had, they were recovering, physically and mentally, from that horrible night.
Today the sun was shining.  It was still a chilly January day, but something about the clear skies drew (y/n) to linger on the steps of the main building.  She studied them beneath her boots.  Now that they were clear of snow, it looked as though a different color of stone was selected for their redesign.  Not too different, it was still a light brown, almost like sand, but different enough that the longer she stared at them, the more she could pick out the other differences between these and the old ones.  
“Ditching lessons?” 
Her eyes drag slowly away from the stone steps to see Gojo Satoru scaling them towards her.  His long legs had him next to her in a matter of seconds.  Truthfully, Shoko had said she needed a longer smoke break than usual today- which was only unusual because ever since christmas, she’d been taking longer smoke breaks, she’d only just mentioned it today.
“Not really.  Maybe” (y/n) replied indecisively.
“I’m still a teacher you know,” Gojo laughs at her honesty.  “I could get you in trouble~” 
The grin on his face tells her that there was absolutely no bite to his bark.  He just liked to pretend to be an adult sometimes.  (y/n) gives him a half hearted smile in amusement.  His grin weakens at the way hers drops as soon as she stares down at the stairs again.
He already knows what’s on her mind.  He was a better teacher than even he gave himself credit for.
“So he told you about Africa, huh?” 
Her head shoots back up, brows furrowed in a sad expression as she frowns at him.  
Yeah, he told me about Africa, she thinks, bitterly, even the thought making her mouth go sour.  She gnaws at the inside of her cheek roughly.
“I know you’re close.  I’m sorry that it’s happening,” Gojo sighs.  He stuffs his hands into his pockets.  “Kid’s got real potential.  He might even be stronger than me,” 
Just like his grin, his smirk speaks volumes.  (y/n’s) not sure if he really believes that, but she can tell he believes in Yuuta.
“Special Grade Sorcerers aren’t what they used to be, huh?” He asks, and she’s not sure if it’s rhetorical, so she just shrugs her shoulders, and directs her gaze downwards again.
Her throat burns.  Was that tears? 
“It won’t just be Africa,” Gojo says, slowly, like he’s trying to be careful.  She’s never known him to tread lightly.  He must really worry about her feelings.  She wonders why.  “Once he’s mastered his techniques, the geezers are gonna throw him at every curse they can sniff out” 
“I know” 
Her voice is small, but it holds enough certainty for Gojo to understand that she doesn’t need to be told what Yuuta’s future has in store.
“So,” Gojo takes a different tone as he kicks the toe of his shoe into a step.  “You’re not bothered that he’s a young widow, hm?” 
(y/n’s) face contorts into something strange and confused as she looks at him again.  She could almost laugh, if she wasn’t so disturbed by her teacher prying into her personal life.  She could tell him to buzz off, but it’d make no difference.  He’d probably just pester Shoko for the details and that would be even more embarrassing.
“I don’t even know what to-” 
“He cares about you a lot too,” Gojo says before she can finish.  (y/n’s) features relax as her eyes widen a little.  He looks out into the courtyard as if something interesting was happening over there.  “But Africa will be good for him.  And he’ll be back soon enough.  I’ll try ‘n pull some strings to have him visit, or something” 
Her impulse to say something snarky and get him to move on from the topic disappears.  Instead, she gives him a small nod, before tucking her cold fingers into the pockets of her coat.
“That would be nice,” She tells him, quietly, but surely.  “Thank you” 
Gojo grins from ear to ear as he turns back to his.  She has a feeling that under the white bandages, he’s winking dramatically.
He leaves without another word, leaving (y/n) a little bewildered by the sudden exit.  But then she sees another figure ascending the steps, and suddenly the cold isn’t the only thing making her cheeks pink.
Yuuta gives her the same smile he always does when he crosses her path.  Whether in passing or when he’s meeting up with her to hang out, his lips curl into the warmest smile she’s ever seen.  Even as clouds creep across the sky and snow begins to fall, she starts to feel toasty in her hat and coat.
She lies and tells him she has a few minutes to spare even though she’s been gone from the infirmary for a good twenty minutes now.  As they take a short walk around campus, her mood lightens up.  
They don’t talk about Africa.  Only good things.  A funny meme she’d seen, how Toge will be by the infirmary later because he refuses to keep his mouth shut to heal properly.  Maybe that wasn’t so much of a good thing, but Yuuta is laughing as he tells her about the pile of bloodied tissues accumulated at Toge’s desk.  Despite the twinge of guilt for laughing at their friend’s discomfort, she can’t help it.  Yuuta’s happiness is infectious.
This must be what swooning feels like, she thinks as she stares up at him while he tells her about his day.  It’s a silly story, maybe even kind of boring, but she hangs onto every word with eager anticipation at what he would share next.  He could read her the goddamn newspaper and she’d sit there with her head in her hands and give him her undivided attention.  Yeah, this is probably swooning.
“When do you have to be back?” Yuuta cuts off his rambling about training when he realizes they’ve been walking for some time now.
“Oh,” (y/n) shrugs sheepishly.  “Probably ten minutes ago” 
His eyes widen and he stops in his tracks, and before he even speaks she knows he’s about to apologize for taking up her time, so with a small laugh she shakes her head at him before he says a thing.
“Don’t worry about it,” She says, urging him to keep walking with her.  “Shoko needed some extra time today.  I don’t mind if I’m a little late” 
“You’re sure?” He double checks, because he doesn’t like being responsible for getting her behind schedule.  Nonetheless, he catches up to her as she keeps walking along the path.
Little does he know, if he asked her to ditch the rest of the day with him, she would take him by the hand and sprint off campus.
“Positive” (y/n) replies.
They continue to walk in the snow and talk about anything but Africa.  An unspoken agreement that it could wait.
[ oh darling, it’s alarming, to think of us apart ]
Eventually, they have to talk about Africa.
It comes up the morning Yuuta leaves. 
It’s early enough in the morning that it’s still dark.  Panda had helped him load his bags into Ijichi’s car, before giving him a quick goodbye so he could go back to bed.  Maki and Toge lingered a little longer, even in their pajamas.  But at some point Maki cursed about how early it was, gave her new friend a friendly- but not light- punch to the shoulder, and returned inside.
Toge and (y/n) were equally quiet, although for their different reasons.  Eventually Yuuta couldn’t fill the silence anymore, and they were out of time to stall.
To his surprise, Toge gave him a quick hug.  Just enough to give him a kind pat on the back and an eager ‘salmon!’ certainly wishing him luck on his big assignment.  Yuuta thanked him with a grin, proud to understand what he really meant.
Then he turned to (y/n), who’d barely moved an inch since sleepily walking out here.  He’d insisted to everyone last night that they could say their goodbyes then, but she’d stood her ground that she’d see him off today.  The others agreed.
Her arms were wrapped firmly around herself, and the smile on her face was sad when his eyes met hers.  Even when she tried to brighten up, to properly display her pride in him, she just couldn’t quite do it.
Toge watched as they stared at each other for a moment, neither one of them finding anything to say.  For a minute he thought it might be awkward, and he figured he should probably leave now.  
It only took Yuuta one step forward, his arms barely outstretched, before (y/n’s) finding the energy to leap towards him, crashing into him.  Her arms are thrown around his neck as she hugs him tightly.  As she tucks her chin against his shoulder she’s willing herself not to cry, because she knows it would make him feel bad, and that wouldn’t be fair.  Yuuta’s surprise has him hesitating for a second before he’s hugging her back, hoping to hold on just as securely as she’d latched onto him.
“Text a lot,” When she’s certain her voice won’t crack, (y/n) finally speaks.  “And call, too” 
Yuuta chuckles.  His eyes close as he rests his cheek against her head.  She’s never hugged him before, but he’s decided from this one that she’s the best hugger in the world.
“The time difference is-” 
“I don’t care” She mutters, and it’s punctuated with her arms squeezing around him a little tighter.
He returns the affection.
“Okay” He murmurs.
When they have to part, she lets out a shaky breath, and plasters on the widest smile she can.  She hopes he can see the tears in her eyes.  He does.
He gives her and Toge a wave before finally opening the door to the backseat.  He doesn’t say goodbye.  Instead he settles for, “See you later” 
(y/n) manages a little wave back.  It’s not until the car pulls away and is out of sight before a tear falls.  She’s quick to wipe it away.
Her and the cursed speech user walk back towards the main building together.  He gives her a sympathetic look.  She gives him a weak smile.
“Yeah, I know,” She sighs, drying her eyes once more and taking a deep breath in the hopes of not crying again.
He smiles back, but unlike hers, it’s bright, and cheeky.  He draws a heart in the air with his fingers.  She wants to roll her eyes, but she lets out a watery laugh at the action, and she knows her face is heating up with evidence of the truth.
“Something like that” She mumbles.  They don’t say anything else before parting ways to go back to their rooms.
By the time she collapses back in bed, she’s too awake to think about sleeping a little longer before her lesson with Shoko.  Pulling out her phone for a source of entertainment, she finds she already has a notification at this ungodly hour.
[yuuta] : try not to miss me too much :) i’ll be back before you know it
Tucking the blankets up to her chin, (y/n) settles into bed with a small smile.  Yuuta wasn’t often cheeky.  And when he was, it was always followed by a nervous laugh and bright pink cheeks.  Behind the shield of his phone he clearly has a leap in confidence.  She even laughs a little as she types back her response.
[ you and me, always, forever ]
Yuuta had some mixed feelings about going to Africa.
On the one hand, he was ecstatic.  He had finally climbed the ranks in this new life that he thinks could make everything make sense.  He felt a new sense of responsibility along with his new sense of self, and he knows that this debut of his in Africa was the next big step forwards.  He’d prove himself, he’d push himself, and he’d come home stronger than before.  He’d make his friends, and his teachers, proud of taking a chance on him.
On the other hand, his new purpose, this new sense of self that he was still discovering, felt so much more worth exploring when she was there too.  Yuuta wasn’t as naive as some may make him out to be.  He knew what love felt like.  He recognized that the ticklish feeling in his chest when she laughed, he was familiar with the buzz in his fingertips when she walked too close and her hand brushed over his.  He knows when he’s lying awake at night and she’s the one who crosses his mind that it’s no coincidence.
Yuuta knows that his heart holds much more than platonic regards for one (y/n) (y/l/n).  He knows that he adores her.  He knows that his heart longs for her in a way that couldn’t possibly be platonic.  The fact that they’ll have to be apart for some time makes him sad.  It makes him lonely.
Even now, after seeing her twenty minutes ago when they said their goodbyes, he already missed her.  He couldn’t help but text her right away, the desperation for keeping in contact pumping through him like ice, making him feel wide awake even at five in the morning.  The thought of losing touch over the next few months of him being away makes him sweat.  
He’d have to make sure to keep in touch, he makes a mental plan to always text her first thing in the morning, and last thing before he goes to sleep.  That way, even if he got busy throughout his day, he’d always have the time for her.  He wanted her to know that he’d always make the time for her.
Yuuta’s heart is racing, the adrenaline a toxic mix of excitement and anxiety.  Had he eaten a proper meal this morning he might’ve thrown up.
Just as he’s contemplating rolling down the window for some fresh air, his phone pings.
[(y/n/n)]: i take it you miss me already, yuuta?
It’s a silly little emoji, but he swears she’s sent him her heart in digital form and it leaps right from the screen and into his open palms.  He's smiling at the screen and responding with a reaction image he’d snagged from Toge just a few days ago.
[ you and me, always, forever ]
Gojo follows through on his promise.  Yuuta comes back to Jujutsu Tech for a small break after two months in Africa.
He gets to campus earlier than expected, surprising his classmates in the middle of a lesson.  Luckily today the lesson was rating the different flavors of kikufuku from a new shop Gojo had found, so he hadn’t interrupted anything too pressing.
It’s shortly after his early arrival that he asks the question that his friends think they should have placed money on him asking.  Maki mutters something to Toge about how she would’ve won had they done so.
“Where’s (y/n)?” 
While he stares at them with a dumbfounded expression, his friends laugh.  Loud cackling that’s intended to make him feel embarrassed, but he’s more confused than anything.  Even Gojo joins in once he’s not distracted by his leftover treats and Panda merrily tells their teacher that Yuuta’s already sick of them.
“That’s not it!” The poor boy puts his hands up in mock defense as he jumps to explain himself.  “I just want to tell her I’m back-” 
“She’s in the infirmary, genius” Maki crosses her arms, but her displeased attitude crumbles when a smirk tugs on her lips.  Yuuta forces a smile, but it’s awkward.  His nervous energy begins to shine through his excitement about returning home.
It’s not long after this that he’s delivering a string of excuses before darting out of the classroom and running to the infirmary.  Was it a little embarrassing to race towards her like this? Yeah, but there was barely anyone on campus right now anyways, so no one had to know just how eager he was to see her again.
Even though every bone in his body was practically vibrating by the time he made it there.
He peers through the small windows on the heavy doors outside the hospital classroom, making sure it was safe to enter before he barged in.  As soon as he looks inside he sees Shoko leaning against the cabinets.  (y/n) was standing in front of her, her back to the door, but she was easily recognizable to him.  Before he can knock to make himself known, Shoko catches him in her line of sight, and gives him an uncharacteristically wide grin.
In fact it’s so unusual on her face, that (y/n) perks up in the midst of whatever conversation they were having, curious to see what could've caught her interest so much.
Okkotsu Yuuta was not at all what she might have expected.
He gets to watch her light up in real time.  He hears her excitedly squealing from the other side of the door.  And somehow, even though it’s been a whole two months since he’s seen her, the ten seconds it takes for her to fly through the doors and into his arms seems to take too long.
She crashes into him so hard he stumbles to balance his footing.  She’s laughing and bouncing and rambling on, ‘I’m so happy you’re here! You’re early! I would’ve helped you with your things! Have you settled in? Have you eaten? Should we go get some food? I’ll order food! And we can stay in!’ She’s talking so fast that he catches about half of what she’s saying.  He only chuckles, not having the heart to tell her he can barely understand her.
Her arms squeeze tight around his neck before she finally lets him go.  With twinkling eyes and a smile so wide it must be sore on her cheeks, Yuuta’s slowly melting heart completely dissolves.
“Your hair’s different” She tilts her head at him while she admires the way his slightly longer hair is styled around his face.  She lets her curiosity get the best of her, reaching a hand out to gently push a strand away from his forehead.  
Yuuta hadn’t really given any thought to his hair.  He can’t remember when exactly it had gotten too long, when he’d parted it differently so it wasn’t a hindrance, but now he’s second guessing the change in style as if that change had been a conscious choice.
“Bad different?” 
There’s a small giggle in the back of her throat that she can’t help when his brows furrow at her.  He’s so cute, she thinks her heart could melt right here.
She shakes her head at him in a small motion.
“No,” She assured him.  “Good different” 
A small smile tugs at the corners of his lips, a proud little smile, like he’d gotten her to admit her deepest, most well kept secret.
“Good different?” He repeats, his voice dripping with mirth.
She rolls her eyes and crinkles her nose, but there’s no hiding the warmth in her cheeks and the way her dimples show when she smiles, even when she ducks her head from him.
“Shut up, Yuuta,” She pushes his shoulder but just as quickly grabs him by the elbow.  “Now come on! The day’s almost over already and we have so much we need to catch up on!” 
She forgets her bag in the infirmary as they wander campus together for a while, making pitstops to get him unpacked for his short visit and to snack up before they make their simple plans for the evening.  Conversation never ceases, even when she’s trying to place a takeout order over the phone, she finds herself remembering various little stories and jokes that she’d tucked away in her memory to share with him.  
There’s been a change in him.  It wasn’t just the training that treated him well with lean muscle, it wasn’t just the haircut, or the way he’d learned to wield his katana like it was an extension of him.  It was confidence.  It was happiness.  He didn’t stutter over his words nearly as often.  When he spoke he was sure of the things he said.  He would still blush when she got close enough or whispered something exceptionally sweet to him, but he was better at holding eye contact, and grew quite comfortable with reciprocating the small affections.  Maybe that was just it, he was finally comfortable here, and with himself.
Time flies faster than it had when they were apart.  The afternoon turns to evening which turns to the middle of the night.  They’re still sitting on the common room couch, side by side, lost in their own little world as a forgotten movie plays in the background.  Some of it had been watched when they’d eaten, but the takeout boxes on the coffee table are empty now.  Yuuta’s yawning and (y/n’s) eyelids are heavy as she tries to keep her attention on him while he tells a story, his voice getting lower and his words coming out slower the later it gets.  It’s not until he’s slumping into the uncomfortable cushions of the old couch that they even think to check the time.
When they do decide they’ve been up for too long, they make their way sneakily back to their rooms, hoping to remain as silent as possible.  But anyone who was up at this hour would hear their hushed laughter and aggressive shushing.  Yuuta bids her goodnight with the promise of taking everyone out for breakfast in the morning, but before he drops her off at her door, they share one more embrace.
She means to keep it quick, she really does.  She knows he’s tired, and maybe a little annoyed with all of the affection today, but she was so happy to have him back that she couldn’t help but want to keep him close forever.
Yuuta doesn’t seem annoyed in the slightest.  He hugs her back tightly, and makes no move to let her go anytime soon, so she doesn’t, either.  They stand that way at her door for an unknown amount of time, each waiting for the other to pull away first.
It takes some time, but eventually she shuffles out of his hold and gives him a bashful little smile followed by, “I’m really glad you’re home, Yuuta” 
The tension lays itself on thick, making sure to smother Yuuta until the back of his neck feels hot and his heart beats so hard in his chest he’s certain she’s going to notice and tease him for it.
“Me too” He manages to murmur back.  
He’s lucky he’s able to return her sweet ‘goodnight!’ too, because his throat is tightening on itself and he thinks he could start choking just standing there.
When he drags himself back to his own room and his heart calms down- just a little bit- Yuuta decides he’s going to have to do something about that tension before it kills him.
[ you and me, always, forever ]
“This is getting ridiculous,” Maki declares before kicking open the classroom door.  Her two friends follow in behind her.  “It’s actually going to make me sick.  I think we should just say something already” 
“Don’t kick doors down Maki” Panda sighs, but his warning goes ignored.
“Salmon,” Toge shrugs his shoulders, raising his hands to be palms up, as though indicating what else is there to do?
“Well for starters, we get the idiots to talk to each other,” Maki states, picking up the notebook off her usual desk.  
It was the whole reason they came back to class so late in the day, seeing as this particular notebook had the notes from their lesson earlier.  It was important she made the trip back for it before they started their study session.  She did take the better notes of the three of them.
“Apparently all their time together isn’t getting anywhere,” She huffs.  “I swear, all he does is talk about her.  He’s bound to have something good enough to confess already, right?” 
Toge giggles into his collar.
“Ease up a bit, they’ll come around to it when they’re ready, won’t they?” Panda tries to be the voice of reason.  
There’s a pause for silence.  And then Toge and Maki are cackling so hard they have to hold their stomachs to relieve the twisting knots of their muscles.
“It’s been months!” Maki hollers through her mania.
“Salmon!” 
“I mean, how much more of this can you guys take?” She doesn’t give them the time to answer her question.  “I can’t stand listening to him ramble on and on about her.  Did you know the one phone call I got, he talked about her the whole time?” 
“You’ve mentioned” Panda mumbles, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.
“Tuna tuna” Toge agreed, before making a crude motion with his hands that had Maki bursting into laughter again.
Maki rolls her eyes, before grabbing her missing notebook from her desk and stuffing it into her backpack.  She’d been holding back on intervening on these two for months now.  At first, she didn’t care enough.  If (y/n) and Yuuta wanted to dance around each other like children with crushes then that was their business.  But now the romantic tension was so thick it choked her up to be in a room with them.  The lingering stares, the flirty giggles, the blushing- gah- she couldn’t stand it.
Don’t get her wrong, she didn’t hate love, and she didn’t hate either of them for being in love.  She hated wimps.  And these two were being the wimpiest people she’s ever seen for not fessing up already.
Also, wasn’t she just being a good friend for getting two dumbasses in love to admit they’re in love with each other? She did want them to be together after all, they were good for each other.
“I think it’s sweet that he loves her so much!” Panda argues.  “I don’t mind listening to it.  (y/n’s) really nice.  They deserve each other” 
“Oh, yeah, they deserve each other,” Maki agrees but her tone drips with something hostile.  “No shit, do you not see how much she stares at him?” 
Toge’s snickering gets louder.  It wasn’t often there was gossip among the small group, there wasn’t exactly time for it.  But this was rather entertaining, and watching two of his friends trip over themselves with how hard they’d been crushing on each other had been the cherry on top.
“Well, yeah,” Panda finally lets out a small laugh.  “Actually, the other day I was talking to her, and I don’t think she heard a word I said,” He chuckles as he recalls the way her eyes glazed over and a dopey little smile took over her face.  “I don’t know how he hasn’t noticed it” 
“Salmon” Toge scoffs.
“Yeah, he’s more oblivious than she is” Maki agrees.
“But I don’t think we should do anything about it” Panda tries to reason.
“They’re never going to make a move if we don’t say something,” Maki huffs.  “Can’t they just get it over with already? How hard is a confession anyways?” 
“Like you’ve ever confessed to anyone” Panda throws back at her with a proud grin.
Toge makes a sound of delight to see the gossiping turning into something much more interesting.
Maki glares at the both of them before snarling.
“That’s it!” She declares, throwing her bag over her shoulder.  “I’m going to go tell them right now.  Whoever I find first is going to hear great news today!” 
“Maki don’t!” Panda hollers, marching after her out the door.  “It’s not our place! That’s an invasion of privacy!” 
Toge’s enthusiastic babbling of rice ball ingredients follows them out into the hall, eager to see where this was going to go.
The classroom door slides shut behind him, and the sounds of their heavy, quick footsteps drones on until they’re too far to be heard.  It’s not until the room is completely silent that a small exhale of relief is heard, under the large desk that Gojo pretended to use during his lessons.
“I think we’re in the clear” Yuuta whispers, once he’s absolutely certain that no one is left in the room.
He drops his hand from over (y/n’s) mouth, where she’s been gnawing on her bottom lip for the last six minutes in fear that their classmates were going to notice them hiding under there.
“Really?” She asks in a teasing tone of voice.  “Because it sounds like they’re looking for us” 
Yuuta huffs in defeat, a look on his face that completely contrasts her own.  (y/n’s) brightened, grinning from ear to ear and giggling under her breath.  
They’re squished into the small space so when she giggles he can feel her breath fanning over his neck, and even though he wants to grab her by the shoulders and make her come back to reality- which is that their friends are on a rampage right now to get them to confess to each other, something they’d just done minutes before they’d stormed into this very classroom- but he can’t.  He takes one look at her, with her starry eyes and cute smile and he accepts whatever fate has in store for him.
(y/n) had surprised him here, happily announcing she wrapped up her lessons early so that they could spend the afternoon together.  He only had a few days left until he’d be shipped off to Africa again, so she’d worked diligently today to be sure she could give him every spare minute of her free time.  Somehow they’d wound up in the classroom alone.  
One minute Yuuta’s going on about how excited he was to hang out with her and the next thing he knows he’s accidentally letting it slip that he’d like to have her all to himself all the time.  He realized instantly that he’d said something a little too romantically charged because suddenly she’s staring up at him with those damn wide eyes and a smile full of secrets.
He must’ve said something right though, because one thing led to another and she had an iron grip on his collar while her strawberry gloss smeared all over his mouth.
(y/n) smirks now as she reaches her thumb up to his lips now, wiping away a subtle speck of pink glitter that had been left behind there.  Her face heats up as she recalls how carried away she’d gotten just minutes ago.  Until their friends showed up and nearly caught them in the act.  
Had Maki kicked down that door just a minute earlier, they surely would’ve been caught in their scrambling.  More specifically, they would’ve caught the awkward way Yuuta had lifted (y/n) off the desk he’d just set her on, only to hustle them both under the desk, the only half-decent hiding place in this whole room.
“You’re kidding,” She’d mumbled when he drew his knees to his chest and beckoned her to duck under with him.  She crowds into the space, but not without scolding him.  “They’re definitely going to-” He covers her mouth with his large palm, effectively quieting her, just as the door slams open.
Now she knows they should be scrambling out of here, before they were eventually caught- again- but she stays put in the tiny space where their legs are sore and cramped together.
“So you talk about me to all your friends, hm?” She muses, leaning in impossibly closer to give him her best shit eating grin.  It easily has Yuuta blushing from his neck to his ears as he turns his head to relieve himself from the heavy eye contact.
“Yeah yeah,” He mumbles, tugging at his collar in an attempt to soothe the heat.  Just as the embarrassment settles in, he whips his head back to meet her stare with a wild look in his eye that actually catches her off guard.  “But you’ve been staring at me!” He says.
She opens her mouth to defend herself, but the proof had been hollering in this very room just moments ago during Maki’s fit.  Panda had happily supplied the damn evidence.
So she shuts her mouth, and now Yuuta’s beaming at her with victorious pride.  
“So it’s true!?” He asks excitedly.
“You already know that, jerk,” She rolls her eyes at him, but it’s filled with affection.  “You’re the one who’s in love with me!” She says with a jab to his chest.
Yuuta catches her hand with his before she can pull it away, making her pleased little grin fall to something softer.  He’s able to watch in real time as her eyelashes flutter when her glance darts down to his lips, and when she looks up at him again, it’s with color in her cheeks and a sweetness in her gaze that has him turning to putty.
What was meant to be a half-hearted jest based on something Panda had said that she wasn’t exactly meant to hear now hangs in the air between them so heavy it feels like gravity grows in strength.  Her heart is pounding in her chest.  Her hand feels hot in his.  And now she sits with baited breath and wide eyes as she waits for him to say something.
Yuuta’s smiling, his free hand coming up to the nape of her neck, sweeping her hair away before pulling her closer.  She tilts her head towards him, but he stops just before their lips could graze over one another.
“You love me too?” He whispers.
He phrases it like a question, but he already knows it to be true.  He just wants to hear her say it.
Her lips quirk into a sweet smile as her eyes flicker between his, lashes heavy, pupils blown wide in her irises.  She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and the thought of getting to love her and be loved by her has his heart racing so fast he’s almost forgetting that he’s asked her a question because all he wants is to kiss her.
“Of course I do,” She murmurs, her soft lips ghosting over his, eager to feel them against hers again.  “Think I’ve always loved you, Yuuta,” She adds in a quieter voice.  A carefully protected deep adoration in her heart, now bestowed upon his.  “Think it’s always been you and me” She hums softly, taken away by the warmth in her chest and the butterflies in her tummy.
She could sit here and whisper sweet things to him for hours, maybe even forever.
His thumb strokes under her jaw in a gentle motion, caressing the junction at her jawline and neck.  He looks radiant, smiling down at her like nothing’s ever made him so happy.  This spurs her into wanting to say more sweet things, but before she gets the chance, he’s slanting his lips over hers.
She melts into him in every sense of the word.  Her free hand reaches for his shoulder, before sliding around his neck so she could lean into him further.  The small space they’re still hiding in only shrinks as she tries to get closer to him.  Both pairs of their legs are too long to keep bent under the desk, so she sticks one leg out, accidentally kicking the chair in front of them but she pays it no mind.  She just focuses on getting closer to him, hooking her other leg underneath herself to give her better leverage and a tiny bit more space to scoot closer.
Her hands are on his collar again as soon as he grabs her by the hips.  He gives them a gentle squeeze and she giggles softly into his mouth, breaking their kiss for only a moment.  They share wide smiles and lovesick eyes before leaning into each other again and sealing their lips in a heated and much more passionate kiss.
They don’t think at all about the noise of the chair clattering across the floor or the distinct sound of their giggling as they get swept away with one another.  In fact they completely forget that they’re only in this position because they’d been trying to keep hidden.  Both too consumed with memorizing the feeling of each other’s lips.  
It’s a sweet moment, really, the first time young lovers get to explore the way the other kisses.  Gently, with timid, inexperienced brushes.  Or hungrily, with eager, heated desire.  Taking their time was a luxury they’d thought they could finally afford.
But this time when the door opens it’s with stealth.  It slides in silence, and the steps that creep in are also with slow precision, so as not to make even a creak in the floorboards.
All that can be seen by the three intruders are the three legs jutting out from under the desk.  A familiar pair of Converse and one familiar Mary Jane with a heart shaped buckle kicking gently about on the floorboards, rocking with delight.
The hushed sound of lips smacking only ceased when there was a giggle, one of them or both of them, murmuring between kisses and giggles like a pair of school children.
There’s a few things that are audible, murmurs of ‘I love you so much’ or ‘you’re so pretty’ repeated between them like mantras.  This continues for a minute until one of the three takes a heavier step than he means to with his paw, and the room goes completely silent- save for the lewd ‘smack!’ of a pair of lips seizing upon hearing the tell-tale sign of a lurker.
Maki and Toge glare back at Panda, who sheepishly grins and shrugs his shoulders.
(y/n) and Yuuta stare at each other in horrified shock.  They don’t get the chance to come up with a plan of attack before someone is on top of the desk with a squeak of sneakers.  And then Toge is bending over the surface, staring wide eyes at the two in a rather compromising position- (y/n’s) leg is thrown over Yuuta’s lap and being kept there by a firm hand, her hands are still balled up in his unbuttoned collar, their lips are thoroughly swollen she’s effectively transferred most of her lip gloss onto his mouth, and chin and neck- there’s nothing innocent about them.  Toge stares between them both before he lets out a whistle, giggling as he hops off the desk again.
Yuuta winces as he quickly releases his grip on (y/n’s) leg so they can both scramble out from under the desk and up to their feet.  It’s ungraceful, uncoordinated as they awkwardly untangle to clamber upwards.  Yuuta hits his head on the hard oak loud enough that they both wince, (y/n) quickly inspecting the instant bump that forms at the occiput of his skull.
“No way!” Maki breaks the tension first, her jaw hanging open as she grins in amusement at having caught the two of them here.  “You were hiding out in here the whole time!?”
“Tuna!” Toge shoves his finger in their direction in accusation.
“Kissing!” Panda gasps, his paws over his face.
“Why didn’t you just say something,” Maki huffed.  “Walked around for ten minutes for no reason.  Waste of my time” She grumbles as she crosses her arms.
“Uh, sorry” (y/n) said sheepishly.
“Yeah, sorry,” Yuuta pipes up.  “It was just… uh… awkward” 
“You’re awkward!” Maki barks back with a dismissive wave of her hand.  “Jeez, glad you got it over with finally” She bids them her blessing with rough words before spinning around and leaving the room without saying anything else.
Panda gives them a bright smile and nod of his head, his own friendly way of telling them he was happy for them.
“Hope you’re happy” He tells them out of the kindness of his soul before excusing himself as well.
“Salmon!” Toge agrees with a grin and friendly wave before also leaving.
All the lurking around they’d done, only to give them space as soon as they caught what they needed to.
The remaining pair turned to each other, gaping mouths turning into shy smiles as they slowly burst into laughter together.  What was supposed to be a slow introduction of new feelings to explore had now been on display to pretty much everyone they knew.  Shyness began to wash away as there was no more use for it.  Yuuta reaches for his hand and (y/n’s) fingers intertwined with his as though they’d familiarized themselves there before.  She smiles as he uses her hand to pull her closer to him, until the toes of her shoes barely bump into his.
They don’t say anything, they don’t need to.  (y/n) knows what he means when he cradles her face in his palm and smiles down at her.  He knows what she means when her nose crinkles and her free hand reaches to hold onto his collar once more.  Their ‘i love yous’ had almost always been silent, and they would forever understand it in its unspoken form.
__
this is for @staygoldsquatchling02​ for being excited about my rotting brain full of yuuta fluff a/n: y’all i got soo carried away with this-
xoxo ~ jordie
2K notes · View notes
shlonguru · 2 months
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hey omg I’m not sure if your still taking smut fic/shot requests but I saw your alastor one where he fucked y/n in his booth and broadcasted it and now I need a Vox version if you haven’t already!!! (obviously no rush and I apologize if your not taking requests thank you anyway and I am obsessed with your fics and fanart keep up this absolutely amazing work 🗣️❤️‍🔥)
Hi! Thank you so much for your request I love it 😭 I'm so glad you enjoyed my work 🥹
I'm so sorry for the delay guys school's been rough and I've been sick but I'm back on track and ready to report ! o>
Thank you all for your patience and I hope you like this one! I have more coming up but I wanted to finish this one first.
On another note I’m not sure this series has passed the Bechdel test yet T^T
But without any ado, I present to you :
Alastor x Fem!Reader x Vox 3 - Sealing the deal !
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Credit of the gif : @SSerenitytheOtaku on DeviantArt
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Summary : Waking up ready for round three but how does one get the attention of two busy men ?
Warning/Tags : 18+, Smut, Oral, cumshot, pussy eating, dirty talk, teasing, brat taming, edging, cum eating, oral creampie, double penetration, hair pulling, piv, anal, brat taming, praise, rough, spanking, threesome, toys.
Word count : 6368 words (Idk what to say) -> Not proof read yet but I'm on it o/
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You woke up in a better state on this day. It had been a few days since your last encounter with the two demons. You had been quite exhausted from your activities and had been lounging around Vox's bedroom, resting. You looked around the room and had no idea whether or not he had come to bed to rest or had just continued working until now.
Within minutes of you waking up, a butler walked in with a tray full of what looked like a fancy breakfast. Your stomach informed you verbally that you were hungry, starved even. You wondered how they always had such a perfect timing to bring you breakfast and remembered the cameras you had noticed in the corner of the room, it felt like Vox was monitoring you but there was nothing much you could do about it. You hadn’t even seen Vox since the last time.
After feasting you asked yourself where he might be at.
You turned on the giant TV screen in his room and saw him presenting the news, with a poorly drawn picture of something that looked like Alastor. From how he spoke at your last trio encounter you thought Vox would be all over you all day everyday but reality was, he also happened to be a busy man. That made you question what you were truly expecting out of anything that had to do with him and Alastor, you weren’t the type to beg for attention, but you usually knew how to draw it to yourself if needed. How do you do that when the two men are out of reach?
After a while you felt bored in his bed, you had grown tired of just looking at him on his TV. You were trying to think of a way to get his attention, when you heard a loud bang, making you jump and bringing your attention to the door of the bedroom which had just flung open.
‘Damn, do they ever open this door normally ?’ You thought to yourself.
A little lady walked in alone, not looking away from the phone she was texting on. She was pretty with a very nice and voluminous hairdo. Her fashion was also impeccable. You were staring as she walked in then stopped in front of the bed, still typing without acknowledging your presence. She eventually finished what she had been doing and looked up.
“Oh, so you’re the current hyper fixation?” She cockily announced before staring you down for a few seconds. “Yeah, that checks out.”
“Hi…?” You asked not knowing what her intentions were at this moment. “You are?” You inquired.
“Ah! I’m Velvette sweetheart, one of the Vees?”
“Pleasure to meet you.”
“Yeah! I just wanted to see you for myself you know? Vox can’t seem to shut up about you these days.”
“Really?” You asked poorly hiding your excitement.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” She inquired with a slight grin.
“Well, I haven’t been able to get a hold of him pretty much since I got here.”
“Oh…and that makes you…sad..?” She smirked seeing what was happening. “Sit down with me and let’s have some tea while you spill yours for me thank you.” She pointed at the table not too far and started heading there while texting again.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Damn, I still don’t understand how he bagged such a hottie.” She declared before laughing out loud.
“Well, he has his charms…” You looked aside sipping your tea slowly getting your point across.
“Oh…oh!” You both laughed.
“Still, if I can’t get a hold of him what’s the point of staying in this tower?” You questioned.
“Listen Sweetie, that prick knows you need rest and is keeping himself busy in the meantime but don’t sweat it, you will get him.”
“Yeah…” You sighed.
“You know, we have a gala tonight and I don’t know if he invited you or not but if you’re feeling well rested you should totally come.” She sipped her tea.
“That asshole, he didn’t tell me about any gala!” You exclaimed angrily.
“Oh, it’s a Gala to help post-extermination orphans but it’s pretty much a front to sell more V-tech products. “
“Sounds about right” You responded unimpressed.
“Don’t worry I got you, I’ll make sure you’re dressed for the occasion.” She smirked then winked at you. “You’ll get back at him. #Fuckhim am I right?”
“#InMoreWaysThanOne !” You added.
You smiled back and you both laughed maniacally.
You paused your laugh.
“Will Alastor be there?” You asked.
“Probably not, unless Vox invited him, which I doubt.” She chuckled.
“Aww…” You whined before resuming your maniacal laugh together.
~~~~~~~~~~
For all you know he might have tried to give you space to rest just like he might have just been too busy, but now was not the time to speculate, it was time to shine.
Velvette hadn’t been lying, you looked absolutely stunning. But then again, if you look expensive, you probably look good as hell, and Velvette being a fashion designer, she knew what she was doing.
Your hair was up in an elegant hairdo and the royal blue, diamonds studded dress fitted you like a glove, it had been sewn on you after all. You hadn’t felt this fancy since…well, the first night you had met the both of them. You were excited at the idea of spending a good evening and of course seeing Vox.
You arrived at the party with Velvette. The party was thrown at the rooftop of the Vees Tower and it was as big as you would expect. People were mingling and Velvette quickly disappeared after showing you around.
You headed for the bar and there, you met Charlie. You were surprised to see her there but then remembered the initial reason for the gala and it all made sense.
“Charlie oh my god hi!” You exclaimed excitedly.
“Y/n! Omg how are you? How is it at the Vox Tower?” She asked just as excitedly.
“It’s good! I do miss the hotel though!” You smiled.
“You are welcome to come back whenever you want!” She hugged you.
You both chatted for a bit at the bar until all the lights of the rooftop went black, then a spotlight illuminated, shining on the scene where the musicians had been, now making place for the main host, Vox.
He looked gorgeous, or was it that you had missed seeing him in real life?
He was wearing a nice tuxedo. He looked elegant and very well put together. You could tell it was his public persona but nonetheless, it did something to you.
Vox opened with his speech about how terrible the situation for the orphans of hell was then slowly and cleverly morphed it into a full-on advertisement of V-tech products. You were expecting it but still felt a little impressed.
Vox was staring at the crowd, talking confidently.
“-you can trust that none of this would have happened in the first place if everyone had been equipped with our bullet-proof V-ests and-“ He stopped for an instant while he was scanning the crowd, a dumbfounded look on his face.
You realized after a couple of seconds he had been staring straight at you. Red went to your cheeks as you made the realization he had noticed you for the first time and it had probably taken him by surprise as well. You smiled and blew a kiss at him.
He coughed and adjusted his bowtie before attempting to finish his speech.
“Hmm…where was I…haha…it is HOT in here…yeah, orphans, let’s help them, donate and invest, and most importantly, trust us!” He gave a very obviously fake smile before everyone applauded, visibly impressed by the speech anyways.
People went back to mingling and you could see Vox being swarmed by people asking him business related questions.
Charlie had gone and blended with the guests, and you were still at the bar enjoying your drink and the view when you heard a cough from behind. You turned around and met the eyes of a man you had never seen before. He looked elegant and kind of cocky.
“Hey babe, wanna grab a drink?” He asked.
You hesitantly tried thinking of ways to turn him down when you gave a quick look around and noticed Vox staring at you two, his eyes glowing red and black with anger.
A devilish idea crossed your mind at that instant. Seeing as he had basically abandoned you for days after all, he deserved a little backlash for neglecting you.
“I’d love to have a drink with you!” You smiled.
While drinking your cocktail you laughed exaggeratedly loud at whatever this man was saying and laid your hand on his chest. You weren’t checking on Vox but you had a feeling he was witnessing every minute of it.
After a little bit, you turned slightly, checking the crowd surrounding him but he was nowhere to be found.
You turned back to the man facing you only to notice Vox towering over him.
“Hey, buddy!” He said with an aggressively kind tone. “You might wanna go find yourself busy somewhere else yeah?” He smiled, slightly bent with his arms behind his back and a smile on his face.
The other man didn’t even look behind him and kept looking at you.
“Yeah…I’m already busy but thank-“
Vox grabbed him by the collar violently.
“GET FUCKING LOST.” His eyes radiating again and his voice sounded static-y. Your eyes widened at the sight of him and you felt an familiar urge to have him ravage you.
“Fuck, Mr. Vox I’m so sorry, of course I’m leaving.” Exclaimed the man before leaving running out of this situation.
“Aww no, my distraction.” You whined resting your face on your wrist as your elbow rested on the counter of the bar, witnessing him run for his life. “See you in hell!” You cheered holding your glass up in the direction the man had gone running to.
“Huh-hmm.” Vox fake-coughed.
You turned to him.
“Oh hi there, fancy seeing you here.” You smiled looking at Vox.
“Y/n, are you drunk ?” He asked.
“Nope, just bored, and lonely…” You look up at him with puppy eyes as you said that last part. “How’s your fancy gala?” You asked with a hint of bitterness in your voice.
Vox’s face stared for a second.
You felt something grab your arm and were swiftly pulled in the isolated spot between the bar and the plants behind it. It all happened so fast, next thing you knew Vox’s whole body was close to yours, his hand resting on the wall against which your back laid.
“Is someone mad they weren’t invited to the gala?” He smirked.
Hearing him tease you ticked you off.
“Actually no, my good friend Velvette invited me.” You smiled cockily.
“Of course this is Velvette’s doing…You’re supposed to be resting! If I find this cunt I swear-” He mumbled under his breath, looking away, trying to find her in the crowd.
You grabbed the edge of his face, bringing his gaze back to you.
“Hey there, don’t you think I know how to take care of myself? I’m a big girl you know.” You declared.
His screen glitched.
“You sure are.” He composed himself focusing back on you. “By the way Y/n, you look ravishing tonight…to be honest with you, you look so good I don’t think it’s fair to have you out here for everyone to enjoy.”
“Well, it’s not my fault, I’m more than well-rested and the people I craved the attention of were both nowhere to be found…” You rested your hand on his chest, slowly rubbing it. “Such a shame if you ask me…” You looked up at him knowing damn well the effect it would have on him.
“Oh….Y/n….you shouldn’t do that…” He cautioned you lightly bending over you looking like he was trying to hold himself back.
“Or what…” You slowly moved your leg from the slit of your dress, leading your knee into Vox’s crotch and ever so slowly rubbing against it. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Vox threw his head back, groaning before he slowly brought his face back to yours, levelling his eyes with yours.
“Someone is eager tonight~” He teased. “Missed me?”
“Of course I did, your room might be big but if I’m alone it’s boring.” You snapped back.
“Sorry, I assumed you’d need more time to recuperate from our last session, you had practically passed out from the pleasure remember?” He smiled.
You blushed.
“Well, I guess you overestimated yourself” You replied, snarkily.
“I’m sure.” He grinned.
You slowly wrapped your arms around his neck and planted your lips against his. You gave him a slow, yet passionate kiss which he reciprocated immediately, the gentle kiss quickly turning into a heated one as you both fed off the energy of the other and couldn’t get enough. His hands travelled down your body, feeling all its shapes as your tongues melted together. You then pulled away from the kiss and he took in the sight in front of him, admiring your flushed and visibly eager figure.
He proceeded to kiss down your neck, pulling you closer and earning a soft moan from you.
You hand boldly cupped his now very hard member, making him grunt before looking at you.
“Alright we’re outta here.” He muttered and before you could react you saw him disappear into pure electricity yet somehow lift you up then move faster than you could process (or anyone else for that matter) before landing you both into the terrace that led into his office.
His office had a massive desk off which he threw everything to the floor and sat you on it. He immediately went back to kissing you more aggressively. You pulled out of the kiss panting.
“I thought you had a busy night.” You asked.
“Yeah, well they can all go fuck themselves, I’m busy now.” He pulled you closer, his crotch pressing against yours.
You moaned softly, feeling how sensitive you were.
“Oh, I like that sound.” He murmured. His hands went from your hips to your waist. He took a second to look at your whole figure.
“You look drop-dead gorgeous in this dress…” He almost salivated. He kissed you gently but you didn’t let him as you kissed back more aggressively, he noticed and immediately matched your energy. His hands went to your breasts and cupped them gently, earning another soft moan from you. It quickly changed though as you felt a jolt of electricity tease both of your breasts in a soft yet intense way, transforming your moan into a louder one. He had his way of being rough yet soft at the same time, and all of his movements were smooth, though you could feel him get eager and tense. He pulled away from you.
“Fuck, you’re so hot. I gotta pace myself.” He looked out of sorts and tried to compose himself back into his eloquent persona. “Y/n, may I offer you a deal.” He asked.
“A deal?” You panted and asked suspiciously.
“Well, more like a bet.” He noticed you looked interested and continues. “What if I broadcasted you, to that idiot radio bastard, and if you can hold it in like a good girl and not come until he gets here you get to ask whatever you want.” He smiled viciously.
“Hmm…I mean he did do the same last time so that would only be fair…” You thought. “But what’s in it for you?”
“Well, first of all, I get to tease that asshole and that in itself is a win, but if you fail and come before he joins us, WE get to do whatever we want. How does that sound? Probably pretty good, considering how cocky of a brat you are huh?”
You rolled your eyes before grabbing Vox’s jacket, pulling him closer. “Bring it on TV boy.” You arrogantly declared, smirking.
He chuckled and you noticed immediately after a little red light blinking on top of what looked like a camera in the top corner of the room, indication he was probably broadcasting everything to Alastor. His hand had moved behind your neck and he kissed you deeply as his tongue slid inside your mouth, you kissed him back with fervor as he bend over, laying you down onto the desk. He was still kissing you while his hands travelled down your body, resting on your hips before one of them moved to your crotch, softly rubbing it, making you moan.
“Damn Y/n you’re so fucking wet, I barely need to touch you.” He gloated.
Your eyes closed as you enjoyed the feeling of his dexterous fingers rub your entrance.
“Careful there, at this rate you won’t hold until I touch you raw dear.” He teased.
“I’m good V, just do your thing.” You panted.
You weren’t paying attention but it was an actual struggle for Vox to see you in that state. He eventually moved your panties to the side, exposing your dripping parts. He kneeled in front of you, spreading your lips before digging in, making you practically cry out in pleasure, realizing you were closer to the edge than you thought. Vox was savoring you, licking every nook and cranny of your pussy, his long tongue coming in very handy as he kept sending small jolts of electricity while eating you out, making the whole ordeal much harder to withstand than you thought.
“Fuck…” You moaned. “When is Al coming…” You whined, staring at the camera.
“Not before you sweetheart.” Vox declared before attacking you once again, diverting your attention back to him. He looked like he was greatly enjoying himself.
Moans were pouring out of your mouth as well as Vox’s name and you grabbed the edge of the desk, trying your best to hold it in, but you felt it inexorably get closer, that dreaded yet craved orgasm.
“Vox…I’m think I’m gonna…” You moaned.
“Come? I can tell.” He responded still eating you out yet this time pressing hard on your G-spot with his tongue and simultaneously sending a bigger jolt through his tongue, sending you fully over the edge as you gritted your teeth tightly before exploding into a moaning mess, clenching and arching your back. You finished coming and collapsed on your back.
“That’s what I’m talking about, good job Y/n that’s a hot way to lose.” Declared Vox standing back up.
“Fuck off…” You panted, upset.
You heard hands clapping coming from another corner of the room.
“Beautiful darling…” You heard. You turned your panting face to the corner of the room and noticed a shadow displaying red eyes and a wicked smile. The shadow came out of the corner, turning into none other than Alastor.
“No… you asshole, when did you get here!?” Whined Vox.
“Actually, I got here just on time to witness the absolutely delightful view of Y/n giving in to pleasure.” He replied enthusiastically making gestures before switching to a cold tone. “And don’t ever send me any of your stupid screen technology again I’ll appreciate it.” He tossed on the floor towards Vox what looked like a little drone with a broken screen as well as a broken propeller.
“Aww fuck, well that means we both lost, idiot!” Replied Vox angrily before rolling his eyes. You smiled in victory, still recovering though.
“Nonsense, how can witnessing our sweetheart reach a climax be considered anything other than a victory, plus if I followed your little bet correctly, Y/n still gets to ask whatever she wants.” He walked close to you. “I’m sure she’ll choose wisely.”
Having recovered enough to think more clearly you took a second to think of what you were gonna ask. It clicked and you sat up on the desk as the tall figures stood before you.
“Ok, so I noticed that the both of you are busy men, correct?”
They both nodded.
“However, as busy as you both might be, I do not enjoy being treated like a side piece.”
They both looked at you curiously.
“It is not okay that I basically have to beg for either of you guy’s attention, so what I’m demanding is some more quality time with the both of you, and also that you don’t just toss me around from the get go and leave me some creative freedom during sex.”
Vox looked perplexed. Alastor’s expression looked frozen for a second, he then palmed his face before opening his mouth, turning to Vox.
“Great job, blockhead. I leave her in your care for a few days and she launches a rebellion.”
“Shut it dumbass, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t neglected her for two weeks while she was with you.” Vox countered.
“Right…” Alastor looked away annoyingly.
They both looked your way and Alastor spoke.
“Can you give us a minute to discuss the terms of this agreement?” He politely asked.
“Of course.” You smiled. “You have one minute.” Your smile faded.
Alastor looked at you with his usual smile, but you could tell even though he might have been annoyed there was a form of respect shining through his eyes.
“Alright dear.” He turned to Vox. “Come on Static, let’s go.” He started walking towards the corner of the room.
“Hey, who are you calling Static, old fart?” snapped back Vox as he followed.
You rolled your eyes and waited for a minute while they quietly debated. Seeing them being force to associate never got old.
After their minute was up, they walked back to you. You were still sitting at the edge of Vox’s desk.
Vox started speaking.
“Ok Y/n, we're okay with your terms. We’ll spend more quality time with you and not just fuck you when we’re with you.”
“As hard as that would be.” Added Alastor. “Though we need you to define ‘creative freedom’ dear.” He finished.
You thought for a second.
“5 minutes of uninterrupted action from me, to the both of you.” You replied. They both looked at each other and smiled widely.
“Alright then.” He declared in a satisfied tone.
“So, it’s a deal?” They both said at the same time, hold up their hand for a handshake.
You breathed softly then shook both of their hands, a massive glowing light engulfing the room, it shined red, blue, green and more. They both looked more than happy as everything calmed down.
“Perfect.” Exclaimed Alastor. “I’m just going to need you to bend over for me for a moment.”
“Al, we literally just agreed to let me do my thing !” You retorted back.
“Oh I know, don’t worry I won’t interfere I just need to do something first, no need to be suspicious.” He said innocently.
You rolled your eyes before bending over the desk, looking back at Alastor who had just pulled out something from god knows where.
“What’s that?” You examined the red object resting on his palm, it was neither big nor small, it looked soft, cone shaped with a narrow base and what looked like a small handle.
“I’ll show you Darling.” He grinned.
He bent over your body, and you felt him slowly start the insert the object in your ass.
“A butt plug!?” You yelled.
“Are you gonna stay a good girl?” Alastor asked politely. You nodded instinctively, which made you a little mad at yourself. Though you felt caught off guard you felt more curious than anything about this. He finished pushing it all the way in and you felt stuffed in a new way, it didn’t hurt at all and after breathing in you turned back around to face them.
“Great.” You smiled. “Love making deals with you guys.”
They both stared at you.
“Better hurry dear, the clock is ticking, you’ve got 4 minutes and 48 seconds left.” Declared Alastor looking at the clock on the wall in a nonchalant tone as they both harbored a sadistic smile.
You realized the situation you were in. They both stared at you, holding their arms behind their back, waiting patiently.
You quickly dropped to your knees in front of them and swiftly unzipped the fly of their pants. Both of their shaft slid right out of their pants, holding arrogantly in front of you. You looked up for an instant and noticed they were both looking composed yet eagerly awaiting your next move.
You grabbed the both of them by the base as started by licking Alastor’s tip while stroking Vox. You did the same to Vox after tasting Alastor and gradually took more of their member in your mouth. You wrapped your tongue around them and made sure you went all the way to the base.
A quick glance at the clock indicated half of your time had gone already. You then looked up and realized the both of them displayed flushed expressions. Seeing them like that made you feel so aroused you could feel yourself dripping. They were both dead focused on you. You continued and licked Vox’s member from the base to the tip before taking him all the way to the base and down your throat, earning a slight moan from the man, you then pulled out and did the same to Alastor’s cock, hearing him pant as he felt swallowed all the way down. You savored the both of them like lollipops, enjoying yourself so much you failed to pace yourself, resulting in you heavy panting in between each movement and if you were sucking one, you were stroking the other.
Pulling out of Alastor, you stroked the both of them, catching your breath. You resumed a little more aggressively, taking Vox in and sucking firmly on his tip and shaft while wrapping your tongue around him.
“F-Fuck.” You heard him murmur. You looked up at him and noticed how he was visibly struggling to keep it together.
You moved to Alastor, focusing on his tip as well and sucking well with your tongue guiding you. You looked up at him and caught his smile wavering.
The clock now indicated less than a minute left, so you gave it your all. You took them both in your mouth simultaneously, sucking hard and making them both lean closer, closing in on you as they broke their composure and each laid a hand on the edge of the desk behind you, panting heavily. You felt them both get bigger and tensing up. You knew they were close, seeing as they couldn’t stand without assistance. You also knew they were actively trying not to come. But as much as they felt like they were in control most of the time, you knew you got whatever you wanted out of them and decided to remind them just that. You pulled them both out of your mouth, stroking them at a rapid pace and looked up at them, slightly out of breath, with a pleading look on your face.
“Are you not gonna let me have your delicious cum?” You said softly opening your mouth, your tongue lightly sticking out.
These words were enough to make them both lose the little bit of control they were clinging onto, exploding simultaneously and spurting most of their cum in your mouth. You kept stroking them until they finished coming and swallowed all that had landed in your mouth, you even scooped the tiny amount that had landed on your cleavage and licked it eagerly.
You noticed the panting fading away and looked up. It’s like they had both snapped back into reality, Vox looked satisfied yet still eager and Alastor’s expression was a mix of satisfaction and something that looked like frustration.
“Fuck Y/n, you got game!” Vox exclaimed.
You smiled.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself thoroughly my dear.” Voiced Alastor, looking like he had lost a bet, smiling through obvious bitterness.
“Probably not as much as you did.” You shot back, still smiling from the corner of your mouth.
“This is why I hate giving control to brats…” He rolled his eyes. “Maybe it’s time we remind her who’s in charge here?” The radio demon declared smiling devilishly.
“Great idea.” Added Vox.
Before you could move they both grabbed you, lifting you effortlessly back on your feet.  Alastor ripped your dress off you in one movement before pulling you against him, his face dangerously close to yours.
“I think we’ve respected our part of the deal, now it’s your turn, so you’re going to behave and let us ravage you?” He smiled.
You nodded, dropping your bratty act as you craved them both.
He patted your head. “Good girl.”
 He then turned you around and swiftly pushed you over to Vox who caught you before grabbing your chin and giving you a deep kiss that felt like a reward. He then lifted you up, and, while still kissing you he moved towards a large leather couch on the side of the room. He then laid more comfortably on his back while settling you on top of him.
He kissed you deeply and you felt him rip your panties.
You pulled away, panting.
“You guys are gonna have to start buying me new ones.” You teased.
“If I had it my way you wouldn’t ever need any.” He teased.
You decided to move your hips, grinding against him and when he felt it, he grinned widely, feeling how drenched you were.
“If you’re gonna be so greedy and impatient…” He spoke softly.
You hadn’t noticed him positioning himself at your entrance, but you felt him suddenly pushing himself into you, filling you in a way you had missed. You both groaned in satisfaction.
After a moment you were done adjusting and noticed he wasn’t moving. He was just looking at you, smiling, his hands resting on your ass, holding it tightly.
“Aren’t you gonna move?” You asked curiously.
“Not yet Sweetheart.” He replied teasingly and you felt him spread your ass cheeks.
“What an impatient little mix.” You heard whispered right by your ear, taking you by surprise. It was Alastor, settled right behind you. “Well, if you wanna be ravage that much, I guess we’ll have to oblige.” He continued before you felt him suddenly rip the plug out of your ass, making you scream, you were surprised it didn’t hurt but the surprise itself had definitely caught you off guard. "I think you're ready for me darling." He finished.
You then felt what you could only assume to be Alastor’s tip press against your rear end, making you yelp.
“Now, now relax dear…” He whispered softly as he filled you more and you did your best, feeling him stuff you to your limit.
You had never been fuller but oddly enough that uncomfortable feeling faded quickly and was replaced by pleasure as you felt new erogenous zones getting teased.
They both slowly started to thrust and those feelings of pleasure were suddenly multiplied by a hundred. Soon enough, moans were pouring out of your mouth uncontrollably and even more so as they both picked up the pace.
Vox’s hands were resting on your waist and Alastor’s were on your ass, holding it tightly as he moved smoothly.
“I have to admit…” The radio demon declared in his usual composed manner, though you could tell some pants were breaking through his speech. “…She is louder than she looks when her mouth isn’t full.”
“I’m not about to complain.” Added Vox as he tossed your bra aside before cupping your breast and teasing your nipples, making your moans even louder.
Having so many spots teased at the same time was not something you were familiar with and they both felt you tighten as you gave in to pleasure.
“Oh, you’re gonna come already?” Smirked Vox pinching your nipples while thrusting hard.
“Yes…let us hear it.” Continued Alastor.
Before long, you were coming hard, making it almost uncomfortably tight for them both and you heard them groan as you cried out in pleasure.
“Shit…” Vox cursed, his face twisting in overwhelming pleasure, though he looked like he had managed to keep it together.
“Are you as weak as our friend when it comes to pleasure?” Teased Alastor. “You look like you’re struggling~” He added. That made Vox visibly angry.
“Shut the fuck up!” He yelled with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m fine! She just gets really tight when she comes that’s all.”
“That she does.” He acknowledged.
You emerged from your orgasm, thinking clearly again and they picked up their thrusting right where they had left it. The pleasure immediately started to build back up.
“You guys…” You cried out.
“What, are you going to come again?” Taunted Alastor.
“Already? You literally just came!” Laughed Vox obnoxiously.
Your face went bright red. You decided to try your best to not give them this satisfaction.
You grabbed tightly onto Vox’s shirt and did your best to focus and not let the pleasure control you. Alastor immediately noticed.
“Oh my…looks like she’s actually trying to hold it in!” He exclaimed in a sarcastically impressed tone.
“Cute…” Replied Vox enthusiastically. “Useless…but cute.” He smiled wickedly while starting to thrust faster.
Alastor did the same and before long you felt that edge get closer than you were comfortable with.
“Come on now dear…you know it’s rude to make people wait.” The red demon spoke gently into your ear, his voice sending chills up your spine and making you involuntarily moan louder.
“You know you want to.” Added Vox as he teased your breasts with some electricity, playing with your now rock-hard nipples.
Alastor spanked your ass as he kept thrusting.
“And rude people get disciplined.” Added Alastor.
You tightened around them and he spanked you again, this time harder.
Each time pushed you closer towards the climax, and you were now desperately whimpering in pleasure.
“Please…” You pleaded.
“No no sweetheart~, you know what we want.” Responded Alastor before spanking your again, making you yelp.
“Fuck, how tight are you gonna get?” Blurted Vox, seemingly reaching his limit as well.
“God, I’m gonna come…” You cried out.
Vox’s face got closer to yours. “Wrong name Y/n.” He started fucking you harder, aggressively thrusting into you.
Alastor grabbed your hair, pulling your face close to his. “Now darling be sure to keep his name out of this room.” He declared before kissing you aggressively as they both relentlessly pounded into you.
You wanted to apologize but didn’t have time. You grabbed Vox’s shirt tightly with one hand, and Alastor’s hand laying on your waist with the other as you felt yourself lose control and a huge wave washed over you, making you climax somehow even harder, your walls tightening again around them and earning a groan from both men as you felt them release deep inside of you as they kept fucking you, filling you to the brim.
As you cooled down you collapsed fully onto Vox as they both pulled out, cum dripping from both of your holes. They didn’t waste time to clean you up and Vox carried you back to his bedroom after Alastor had covered you with his shirt.
~~~~~~~~~~
You woke up the next morning, not having realized you had passed out once again. You smelled Alastor’s scent and thought he was nearby but quickly realized it was coming from his shirt that you were wearing.
The situation felt familiar, except they weren’t in the bedroom having tea, you were alone. It felt strange because the bed looked messier than it would if only one person had slept in it, plus you weren’t a restless sleeper. You stood, taking a moment to acknowledge how sore everything felt yet again.
“Maybe I did need more rest than I thought.” You spoke to yourself, walking towards the terrace, wrapping yourself into Alastor’s shirt. You opened the curtain and noticed the two recognizable figures sitting at a long table filled with breakfast items. You walked out to join them.
“Well, hello my dear Y/n!” Exclaimed Vox noticing you as you arrived. “Did you get enough rest this time? We can’t keep having you pass out like that each time.” He chuckled, drinking coffee from his mug.
“Indeed, it is problematic, I can’t make a habit of watching you all night in case something happens.” Added Alastor sipping from a tea cup not far from Vox.
You sat at the table.
“You guys stayed with me while I slept?” You inquired as a butler served some orange juice in front of you.
“Well I kinda had to, I mean you were in my bed after all…he stuck around cause he’s a freak.” Said Vox. “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t look out after my guests, but don’t worry, we got some rest as well, you weren’t easy yesterday.” He added.
“Ah yes, I would appreciate if you didn’t make me share a bed with that specimen again in the future thank you.” Declared Alastor nonchalantly as Vox glared at him.
“I literally told you to leave.” Vox shot back.
“And leave her in your care? No thank you we saw what happened after she stayed with you last time, she’s never been this defiant before.” He argued back.
You laughed. “I’m just getting comfortable that’s all.” You expressed casually.
“Oh dear…” Alastor rolled his eyes. “But I have to admit I do like a good challenge.”
“Anyways Y/n,” Interrupted Vox. “We were discussing the deal we made yesterday, about that quality time, will you be rested enough to go out tonight?” He asked politely.
“Sure!” You responded enthusiastically; your mouth stuffed with a croissant.
“Good.” He smiled, before taking a sip.
“Perfect then.” Continued Alastor, sipping as well.
“I have to admit.” You continued. “I’m surprised you both accepted that deal.”
“Well, as irritating as this guy gets, it’ll be worth it if you’re in the picture.” Replied Vox calmly.
“And I’m sure you’ll come to your senses soon enough and ditch this guy so don’t worry your sweet little mind about it.” Added Alastor.
“Fuck you.” Snapped back Vox.
You laughed and continued your breakfast, satisfied with how things ended up turning out.
To be continued...
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I love writing those two, I feel like this time I focused more on y/n and her dynamic with them but I'll be sure to write more exchanges between them next time. This whole series started because I was obsessed with 'Stayed Gone' so it makes sense i guess? Anyways I hope you enjoyed and thank you if you've read this far. Shlonguru out! o/
PS : I know Alastor is Aroace and I hope no one takes offense to my work. I genuinely take pleasure in writing smuts and I've been loving his personality that's all.
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romana-after-dark · 6 months
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Dead Dove December
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Hello everyone! This December I’m hosting an event for the Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal fandom that I’m calling, Dead Dove December! From 12/01/2023 - 12/31/2023 I’m encouraging others to create something that expresses their deepest and (most importantly) darkest desires. I will be reblogging all pieces of art or fanfiction, and will post a masterlist in January. 
Details below the cut…
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What is Dead Dove Do Not Eat?
Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, or DDDNE has its origins in one of my comfort shows!
The phrase comes from a meme referencing the 2003 Arrested Development episode "Top Banana", in which Michael Bluth opens a paper bag labeled "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" and, upon discovering that there is a dead dove inside the bag, says, deadpan, "I don't know what I expected." - fanlore.org
In short, what you see in the tags is what you should expect to see in the fic. This can apply for any type of fic, including the fluffy ones, but it’s usually associated with darker themes. That being said, this is your warning that this is a DARK THEMED EVENT. If you aren’t comfortable with darker topics like non-con, excessive violence, blood/gore, death, toxic relationships, 18+ age gaps, and more, then I encourage you not to participate in this event.
How to Participate
For the month of December, post your Dead Dove fanfiction or fan art on your blog. Use the tag #deaddovedecemeber2023 and tag me. You can also send a link via ask or DM if you like! I will not be posting anything for you, just reblogging and linking. At the end of December I will post a masterlist with links to everyone’s works! Side Note - Since Tumblr doesn’t really allow for NSFW art, you can post your work on Twitter or any other site that allows it and just send me that link so I can add it to the masterlist.
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Rules
You MUST be 18+ to participate. I will be checking your blog/social media to be sure. Please make sure your age is easy to find. If I find that you’re a minor or if your age isn’t readily present I will be blocking you and you will be unable to participate. You can just add that you are over 18 if you don’t want your age out on the internet. As the creator and promotor of this event, I need to know I’m not interacting with minors given the nature of this event.
The work MUST be dark in some way. There’s no limit to how dark your work needs to be or can be, but it needs to contain some sort of dark theme in order to qualify. If non con isn’t your thing, dub con via stockholm syndrome or brainwash can let you write a more comfortable scene while still remaining dark. Fics and art do not necessarily need to be NSFW.
Do NOT post anything before 12/01/2023. I will not count submissions prior to that date or after 12/31/2023. Masterlsit will be posted in January.
Your work MUST contain the proper tags. I won’t police how detailed your tags should be, but, for instance, if your work contains non-con, and you didn’t tag non-con then your work will not qualify. Please be inclusive in your writing where you can.
You may submit no more than two (2) pieces. This can include a fanfic and fanart, two fanfics or two fanarts. This is to allow someone to write a piece and make a work of art to accompany it.
I’m not going to yuck someone’s yum, but there are some things I’m just personally not comfortable with and since I’ll be reading/viewing all of these, I have a few things not allowed in the event. The list of what’s NOT allowed is shorter than the list of what IS allowed so here’s a list of the things that will NOT be tolerated in this event:
No underage/aged up minor content - To clarify, this includes things popular ships like - TLOU 1 or Show Ellie x Joel or Miguel O’Hara X Gwen Stacy. No "ageing up" minors for the purpose of a fic.
No Bestiality - To clarify, monsterfucking does NOT count as bestiality (at least to me). For example, werewolves, venom, Khonshu, e.t.c. are all allowed.
No incest - To clarify, step-sibling/step-parent relationships are permitted as long as everyone is 18+. Selfcest relationships are also allowed (like Moon Knight or Miguel with his alternate self, e.t.c.).
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If you’re unsure if something is allowed or not, you can send me a DM or an ask for clarification prior to posting.
You can use any prompts you want or none, you aren’t tied to any one idea but here are some to get the ideas flowing if you need them!
Also, you can absolutely use a fic to inspire your art, or art to inspire a fic! Your inspiration piece, whether yours or someone else’s does not have to be from December, but you MUST obtain permission from the original creator before I promote your work. Most creators are happy when their work inspires others, and all my fics are open to being used for inspiration, but please reach out to the creator first.
I’m very excited! I’ve never done anything like this before so things may be updated as I go so bear with me! Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!
Dividers and header made by the amazing @melodygatesauthor
Please consider reblogging to spread the word!
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booksandabeer · 10 months
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Stucky, Fandom Longevity, and "Primacy Bias"
There’s this post that's been floating around the past few days about how the Stucky fandom in its heyday produced fic and art masterpieces like they were all collectively possessed by an unprecedented spirit of creative insanity. It’s a good, fun post and I agree with the person who wrote it. (not rb'ing because I didn't want to hijack their post with something that's only tangentially related).
It was indeed a magical time and the creative output in both quantity and quality in the two-year period following the release of CA:TWS is—with perhaps a few exceptions—unmatched by anything that I’ve seen before and since. However, going through the notes on that post, I noticed something that left me a little irritated and quite frankly sad since it is in congruence with, and to a certain extent the confirmation of something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
For one thing, there are so many people in the notes expressing sentiments along the lines of “it was such a wonderful time; I wish I could go back; I miss these fics; I want to read these fics again,” etc., etc., you get it. And it feels a little silly pointing this out, but…you can just do that? Almost all of these fics are still right there, waiting for you to be (re)read. Yes, a lot of people left the fandom after The Great Devastation of 2019, but their stories didn’t just disappear. It's not like there is now a big, black hole where the Steve/Bucky tag used to be on AO3. So, if you miss these fics and you want to revisit them—just do it. Chances are the authors will be delighted that people are still finding and enjoying their stories all these years later. And—since apparently this needs saying, too, judging from the notes on that post: A lot of people seem to be very concerned with losing ‘coolness points’ for openly admitting that they still miss the ship and often feel tempted to dip their toes back into the Stucky pool. I don’t know how to tell you this, but if someone tries to shame you for simply enjoying or missing something, they are an asshole. Not to mention that all this is happening on tumble.com—'coolness' doesn't exactly live here. And that is a good thing, to be clear. Fandom is not about being cool. It’s about being as enthusiastic, as silly, as absolutely fucking unhinged about the things you love as you want to be. So, stop caring what other people think and enjoy yourself.
The other thing is that there seems to be a pretty widespread misconception that the Stucky fandom hasn’t produced any good fanworks after 2016.
First, that is patently and demonstrably untrue. There is so much incredibly good fanfiction and fanart still out there. Not as much as back in the day, sure, but it still exists. And more is being posted every day! Even some of the OG Big Names are still around. One of the most beloved Stucky series that started all the way back in 2014 was updated as recently as December of last year. The artist, who I believe the op is referring to as creating ‘baroque’ paintings, posted their latest Stucky art not even two months ago.
Second, I find this “primacy bias” more than just a little insulting to the many hardworking and incredibly talented people who are still putting their blood, sweat, and tears into creating for this community. And it’s one thing if people who have long left the fandom believe or say something like this, but it’s frankly irritating when I see people who are still very much active—and therefore definitely should know better—feed into that same false myth. Yes, it sucks that the Stucky ship isn’t as big as it used to be, but that doesn't mean there isn't any 'fresh talent' to be found anymore. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t still celebrate and recommend older works—I do it all the time! And it sure as hell doesn't mean everyone has to reblog absolutely everything all the time, either. Your blog, your rules.
But maybe we should put a little more focus on the good things, on the creators and the community we have now, especially if we want that community to still exist in another ten years. I mean, imagine you’re a person who’s just gotten into the fandom (because yes, there are indeed still new people discovering Stucky all the time) and one of the first things you’re being told is “eh, nice that you're here, but you’re about 7 years late; the big party is already over.” Does that seem like a fun space to hang out in to you?
So. Let’s all—and I do not exclude myself from this because God knows, I love to complain—spend a little less time mourning the ‘good old days’ that are never coming back anyway, and instead focus our attention on enjoying and appreciating both the incredible treasure chest of an archive we have AND the wealth of high-quality art and fic that is still being created by this wonderful community every single day. With this in mind:
🥳🎊Happy Stucky Week 2023!!! 🎊🥳
*I want to make it very clear that this is a general thing that’s been on my mind lately and that I’m trying to work through here—probably not very coherently. I'm not trying to tell anybody 'how to do fandom' and I’m most definitely not vagueposting about any particular incident, person, or group in this fandom. This isn’t a callout post. It’s an I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this and I don’t know what else do with them post.
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ikimaru · 6 months
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Know of any good chiscara fanfics? Your beautiful art of them has made me want to read some but I’m relatively new to the Genshin Impact fandom and I don’t think that it’s a particularly popular ship?
ohh I need to read more of them so I don't have much rn!
Dinner and Diatribes (u might have seen this one already, modern au roommates with streamer Childe)
Any Way the Wind Blows (this is a canonverse reunion fic)
(I was gonna add more but they're.. very E so I'm not sure if I should put them here 💀)
and it's more of a niche ship by genshin standards haha there's a good amount of content in terms of fanart tho but it's mostly on twt
and happy you like my art of them, I want to post more soon! 💕
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dpxdcdisneyau · 1 year
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DPxDC Disney AU Week
One Week. 10 prompts.
Hello! I’m Dis aka @disillusioneddanny and with the help of two of the wonderful mods from the Batpham server—Gil and Kate, I would like to announce the summer writing event DPxDC Disney AU week!!!
WHEN?
August 21-25
HOW?
Each day has its own pair of prompts set in popular Disney themes. You can do something using both prompts, or just one! It’s completely up to you as long as it’s Disney themed!
---
Rules
Tag everything properly so people can avoid or search for your content. Content that is not properly tagged with Triggers or Content Warning will not be reblogged or accepted into the collection
You can create anything! One shots, fanart, anything you can think of that fits the prompt, you can create! If you really hate yourself like Dis, you can do multi chapter fics for each one if you so choose! Ship fics and gen fics are welcome! (Also DW I called myself out when I wrote this lol-Dis)
You can post things for a prompt later in the week, but not before.
You can participate in just one day or the entire week if you want!
No sign ups required, just tag your fics properly so that we can showcase them!
You can @ this blog so I can see it and reblog!
FAQ
What kind of fics are allowed?
Ship fics, family fics, platonic ships are all welcome. Everything MUST be properly tagged.
I have an idea for a Dreamworks au can I do that?
Yes! It’s only called Disney AU week because it sounds good! If you’ve got ideas from Dreamworks, Pixar, or even Studio Ghibli they are more than welcome to be a part of the event!
I can’t do the entire week but I want to do certain days, is that okay?
Absolutely! Make sure to post it the day of or after, don’t post it before the day arrives!
If you have any other questions feel free to send an ask!
Can i do just DP or just DC instead of DPxDC?
absolutely! This may be an event for the DPxDC server but that doesn't mean you have to do DPxDC! If you're more comfortable writing DP content--go for it! Same for DC content! Please still tag the works! We would love to see what you come up with!
Tags
#DPxDCDisneyAU2023
ALWAYS: #dpxdc (no spaces)
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https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dpxdcdisneyauweek
Misc Information
BatPham (or DPxDC) ship spreadsheet! To check the name of a ship if you’re writing a ship fic
Prompts
Day 1. resurrection/death
Day 2. monster/damsel in distress
Day 3. Ohana (found family) /loss
Day 4. power of love/ revenge curse
Day 5. childhood/adulthood
Special thanks to:
@lapetitechatonne For making the graphic with the prompts
@duskyashe For the banner
@bucketorandomness For the profile picture
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msmargaretmurry · 6 months
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thanks I will be thinking about this forever now too! we need the fic, becky
hello friend, i come belatedly answering this ask with a less belated but still slightly belated little birthday gift. hope you enjoy ❤
inspired by this fantastic fanart and, obviously, set in the haw universe. explicit/nsfw.
Lying on Matthew’s hotel bed, still buzzing off the adrenaline of winning a hockey game in front of 55,000 people, Leon grins up at the ceiling.
“I’m waiting,” he calls.
“You can wait,” Matthew says from behind the closed door of the bathroom. “I’m pissed at you, remember?”
“Be pissed at me out here,” Leon says, bouncing his heels on the mattress.
To be fair, Leon would also be pissed if he lost in front of 55,000 people, especially if all of those people loved booing him as much as the Oilers faithful love booing Matthew. He’d be pissed even if he had scored a pretty goal. Pretty sexy goal. Winning affords Leon the generosity to really appreciate a sexy goal. 
“Come on, I’m getting lonely out here,” he says smugly.
The door finally opens. Leon sits up. Matthew steps out in his overalls and cowboy boots. Big white cowboy hat on his head. Big scowl on his face.
Leon smirks. “Hot.”
“Shut up,” Matthew says, like this isn’t his own fault. If he hadn’t sent Leon a picture of himself in the overalls getup before the game, Leon wouldn’t have had to text him, After I win youre wearing that for me later, and Matthew wouldn’t have texted back, Yeah ok IF you win. And Leon did win.
It’s early enough in the season that Matthew still has faint tan lines around his neck and upper arms. Leon wants to trace them with his tongue. He wants to sink his teeth into them and see if the marks turn different shades of red on the tan skin and the pale skin. At some point surely he’s going to stop feeling so crazy any time he looks at Matthew, but for now, especially now, with the win, the adrenaline, the animal part of his brain surges up every time. Mine.
“Okay, so,” Matthew says, awkwardly adjusting a denim strap over his shoulder. “You want a picture or what?”
“Not yet.” Leon slides to his feet to cross the room to him. Matthew makes a face, like he thinks Leon is going to make fun of him, but honestly it’s Matthew who should be making fun of Leon for being so into the stupid little outfit.
It’s not really the outfit, specifically. It’s Matthew’s shoulders on display, broad and strong. His sharp collarbones and the perfect, tempting dip of his throat. The hint of the hair on his chest peeking out of the top of the overalls bib and the knowledge of how it feels against Leon’s lips.
Leon tugs him in by the front of his overalls and kisses him, long and deep. Mine.
There's a bite to the way Matthew kisses Leon back. He’s not wound up way too tight like he would get after losses last season, but there’s still a tension there. A challenge. He’d been nervous, Leon knows — god knows Leon had been nervous, too — about how things would go when the new season started. The summer had been so good, even if their time together was far too short, an entire world away from their real lives. The preseason had been good, a meaningless win apiece and every possible stolen second of time together. But now the games matter again, and that C is still so heavy on Matthew’s chest. The points tonight were the same as the points in any other game, but the stage was so much bigger than usual.
But after the game, Matthew had texted first. And here they are.
“You played good,” Leon murmurs. He slides his hands up the edges of the overall bib, along the straps over Matthew’s chest, down again to where it scoops in at his sides, his fingertips barely tracing over the bare skin underneath. Matthew scoffs; playing well is cold comfort in a loss. It’s important for him to hear it anyway. Leon pulls him in by the fabric again, relishes the easy way Matthew’s mouth opens to his. He kisses Matthew until Matthew groans into it, the sound vibrating down Leon’s spine.
Leon maneuvers them until Matthew’s back is against a wall. It knocks the cowboy hat askew, and the stupid thing keeps bumping Leon’s head when they kiss, so he takes it off Matthew’s head and tosses it onto the bed. 
“Hey, it’s not a look without the hat,” Matthew says. Leon cares more about his kissed-red mouth than the complaint. Matthew shaved before the game, theoretically for the look, but even money says it was also in anticipation of how sensitive his freshly clean-shaven skin is to the bristle of Leon’s beard.
“Trust me, it’s still a look,” Leon says, sliding a hand into Matthew’s hair. So easy to tangle his fingers in the curls, like they were made for him to hold onto. It’s warm in the hotel, but he swears he can taste the cold air of Commonwealth Stadium on Matthew’s cheek as he drags a bristly kiss across it. Matthew’s jaw, his ear, his temple. Matthew squirms, laughs hoarsely, hooks his fingers into the waistband of Leon’s joggers and pulls him in so their bodies are flush together. Matthew pressed to the wall, Leon pressed to Matthew. Leon only has maybe half an inch and a few pounds on him, and yet somehow it feels easy to box him in like this when they’re alone, when he’s so willing to let Leon take the lead. Not like when they’re on the ice, when he’s throwing elbows, poking stick-butts into ribs, finding and getting on every last nerve. But Leon loves him out there, too. The fight out there makes the easy in here that much more worth it.
“I missed you,” Matthew sighs. His eyes are closed, head tilted back from the tug of Leon’s hand in his hair. Leon lets his fingers fall free to cup Matthew’s face instead, tilting his chin into another kiss. Softer, slower. He finds one of the buckles on the front of the overalls and works it open one-handed. The strap falls away; the bib would fall half-open if it weren’t held up by the way they’re pressed together. “Should have made you wear your stupid jumpsuit.”
“Mmm, shouldn’t have lost, then.” The jumpsuits were fun, but, in Leon’s opinion, would put way too much work between his skin and Matthew’s. Not like the overalls, serving Matthew up like a buffet.
“God, you’re insufferable,” Matthew says, but turns his head to give Leon access as he moves his mouth to Matthew’s neck. 
He thumbs open one, two buttons at Matthew’s hip and snakes his hand into the overalls, expecting to find underwear to deal with and instead finding nothing. Just his palm sliding over Matthew’s happy trail, finding Matthew’s erection pressed against the inside of the denim. It’s wet at the tip, hot and hard in Leon’s hand. Matthew makes a guttural noise when Leon touches him that sounds like how the primal urge in Leon feels. Mine.
“Yeah?” he breathes against the hinge of Matthew’s jaw, against the thrum of Matthew’s pulse. “You want this?”
“Obviously.” The word catches in Matthew’s throat as his hips hitch into Leon’s hand. “Please.”
Leon strokes him slow and steady. No need to rush. It would be better with some spit or lube, but he doesn’t want to pull away long enough to make that happen. And besides, he likes really being able to feel Matthew’s cock in his hand: the soft, soft skin, the warm pulse of blood, delicate contours of the head and the wetness in the slit as precome beads out. Matthew moans, quietly and then less quietly, but he doesn’t try to take more than Leon gives him. Leon loves when he’s like this, trusting, taking so beautifully. It’s greedy of him, maybe, but he loves the time it gives him with Matthew’s body. Like now, scraping teeth down his neck, tasting the sharp ridge of his clavicle. Following the constellation of moles across his throat, biting into the flexing muscle of his shoulder and getting a perfect sweet groan in response. His own dick twitches at the sound, but they can deal with that soon enough.
When Matthew’s breaths start coming hard through his nose, Leon speeds his hand up, just a little. Sometimes he might not, to drag it out as long as possible, but there’s so much more he wants to do tonight. Matthew pants, and Leon sucks kisses into his chest, drags his tongue along the edge of the denim strap that’s still attached over his left shoulder. There’s a buckle on it, a tang of metal. He gets his free hand under the back of the overalls, splayed between Matthew’s shoulder blades, holding him up when his knees start to buckle.
“Come on,” Leon urges with his mouth on Matthew’s neck. “Come on, let me feel you.”
“Oh, fuck,” Matthew says, “oh, fuck, fuck,” and comes in Leon’s hand, all over the inside of the overalls. Leon strokes him through it until he shudders, oversensitive, then pulls his hand out to wipe it on the front of the bib. 
“Fuck,” Matthew breathes again. He nudges his chin against Leon’s head, seeking a kiss that of course Leon gives him. A brief, wanting, bite of a kiss that says that as soon as Matthew catches his breath, he’s got plenty more in him. Good, because Leon’s so turned on he feels a little unsteady. They can take a minute, though. Gives him a chance to admire his handiwork. Matthew’s throat and chest are a mottled patchwork of pink beard burn and deep red hickeys. Teeth marks in his shoulder that’ll be purpling by morning. He doesn’t own a single shirt that’ll hide all of it.
Usually Leon would be more careful. But it’s a special occasion.
“God,” Matthew says. He’s caught Leon looking, and is now walking careful fingers over the tender marks. “How bad did you fuck me up?”
“Pretty bad. Only a little sorry, though.”
Matthew huffs a laugh, his head lolling back against the wall. Between the hickeys, the half-undone overalls, the dark patch at his crotch and the come smeared down his front, he’s an image that’s going to be burned into Leon’s brain for a long time. He looks at Leon through lidded eyes, his smile warm and lazy. “Only a little forgiven, then.”
“I can make it up to you,” Leon says, tugging him in by the unbuttoned hip of the overalls. Matthew hums into the kiss.
“Take me to bed and I’ll forgive you right now,” he says.
“Tough but fair.” Leon grins. “I want my picture first though.”
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anonymous-dentist · 2 months
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hi!!! been wanting to make some Breaking Dawn fanart for a while but wasn't sure of how I'd draw spiderbit since they usually look a bit different from canon in fics (like changes in hairstyle, clothes or scars)
can you give a lil description of how you imagine them?
thx!!
Okay so I’m really not picky with what you guys draw because I’m just happy to see it!!!
But here’s what’s importantish ig
Cellbit has long-ish hair and facial hair. He looks tired and always wears his jacket. Design of that is up to you. He also has his backpack with him, and he has scars.
Also? I think he has his ears pierced, up to you if you give him any earrings, but he used to have just simple black studs in
He is shorter than Roier by a few inches, and that difference is exaggerated by how much Cellbit slumps when standing
Roier is tall and muscular and he is hairy because werewolf. He’s also emo, complete with eyeliner and everything. If it matters, he has a big scar across his chest and his back from the Knife
But really, do what you want!!! I don’t really have canon appearances set beyond what’s described in the fic itself
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igotanidea · 2 years
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Just an apple... <?> - a Sandman fanfiction
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I dedicate this to @wickedly-grim who inspired the story by this post:
Can anyone do a fic or a fanart of a clueless reader tossing/handing Morpheus an apple and then Dream automatically thinking they are engaged now so he’s way more touchy and friendly with them (due to the fact that he thinks they are in a relationship now). All while the reader has no clue about anything, and is wondering why (maybe her boss) the scary king of nightmares is being kind and touchy with her?
If anyone doesn’t know, giving an apple to someone is basically a marriage proposal in Greece.
JUST AN APPLE
Ok. Let’s make thing crystal clear. Being human is hard. Being human who’s familiar with some supernatural power beings (yes, I mean the Endless) is ten times harder. Imagine riding the biggest rollercoaster in the theme park. And then add to it riding it after eating a really big dinner. It’s the greatest recipe for catastrophe. Or at least gastric catarrh. I mean, if you think about it – these being are eternal. They existed long before human race and will be around after any other living thing become extinct. They are powerful, knowledgeable, teasing and have undeniable effect on the human world. But then, it seems like it works the other way round too. No matter how smart the Endless may be one second, they are completely oblivious to customs and habits of people. And that can sometimes lead to some unexpected situations. Serious situations.
I’ve been around the Endless for quite a while now. No matter how crazy that may sound my best friend of them was actually Death herself. From the outside we must have seemed like an unusual besties but it worked quite well. I was rather quiet and observant with a bit of a snarky and sarcastic attitude while she was more of a motherly approach and love-for-live vibes. I suppose I was just telling myself we were complementary to one another. Then one day I get to meet her brother, Dream. Oh, god, what a meeting that was. At the time being I had a job as a waitress and their appearance out of nowhere almost caused me to drop the tray with the dishes.  
-What are u doing here? – I hissed as I spotted not one, but two of the Endless just casually sitting at the table.
-Just having fun, y/n – Death flashed me one of her widest smile.
-Fun? – I raised my eyebrow – you surely do, but your friend here seems like he is about to get crucified.
-He’s not my friend, he’s my brother Don’t mind his broody attitude, he’s going through a lot of things.
-Ok, well, ok. Nice to meet you….? What was your name again? Or more like what do you represent.
-I’m Dream of the Endless.
-His true name is Morpheus – his sister added – you can call him that.
-Under no circumstances ….
-Pleasure, Morpheus– I nodded and reached my hand towards him. For a second he was eyeing it with no intention of shaking so I just put it away awkwardly – right, is there anything I can get you two? We got delicious peas soup as a main course today.
-What is the purpose ….. – Dream started, lips pouted, still grumpy, but Death cut him off.
-We’d like that very much, thank you, y/n – she smiled again. As I left them to collect the order I was able to hear muted conversation.
-Behave Dream, be nice. She’s my friend and a really nice person to be honest. Besides, you are supposed to taste a bit of humanity to understand it better, so stop brooding.
-I am not brooding.
-Oh, come on, brother, you are scaring everyone here. Look around – she waved her hand and as a matter of fact all of the guest in the restaurant seemed a bit intimidated by Dream’s presence.
-They should be scared. I am the one who can give them nightmares after all. And trust me, some of them truly deserve them.
-Dream! – Death clipped him round the ear gently and got a sad and confused look in return – just observe. See how they enjoy their time together, please, for God’s sake just try to do the same.
-Here’s your soup. Enjoy it – I smiled returning and serving them their dishes.
-Thank you, y/n. This looks delicious. Dream? Is there something you’d like to say to our friend.
-She’s not … - he started but a cold glare from his sister made him change the sentence – thank you, I guess.
That was a year ago. Even since I was trying my best to warm Dream up to human race and show him that we are actually not that bad. Not of my own volition, but only because Death asked me too. She was worried about her sibling becoming some sort of eremite, detached from everyone and everything, denying any positive feelings that came his way. I couldn’t say no to her. So, I was balancing my job, crumbles of my social life and a relation with some certain Endless. If you can call it like that.
-Why are you always like that? – I asked him  one day while we were walking in the park.
-Like what?
-Distant. Cold. Black – I hesitated pointing towards his coat.
-Why should I be anything else?
-Because you are dream. Aren’t they supposed to be more vibrant? Emotional? Lively? What’s with the sad attire?
-I’d rather not speak about it.
-Of course not – I sighed. – But fine, let’s not talk. How about we get some ice cream instead.
-Ice cream? – he was dumbfounded
-Yes. Come on – I grabbed his hand and draw him towards the ice cream stall. I only stopped when I reached it, and then noticed the inexplicable expression on his face.
-Dream? Are you all right?
-You touched my hand.
-I guess I did….?
-Why?
-Why? – I repeated not quite understanding what he meant by that – Oh, you’re seriously asking me that. Well, I suppose I was just trying to … make you move?
-And taking my hand was necessary for that?
-I… - God, he was really hard to be around sometimes. – I guess not. I’m sorry.
-Don’t ever do this again. It’s courtesy enough that I tolerate you and your presence.
-I’m sorry? – his simple sentence stroke a nerve in me. – tolerate my presence? Believe me if it wasn’t for the promise I made to Death….. – I shook my head – unbelievable – it’s not like I kissed you or something – Dream eyed me when I said that – whatever. Can we just get those damn ice cream and move on with our lives?
-I would accept that offer.
So, yeah, it was that kind of relation. We would meet every week to introduce Dream to every other human attraction. Sometimes it was something simple, like hiking sometimes something more complex (in Dream’s own words) like a visit to the cinema (which only happened once as we were kicked out of the movie theater). However, he was still pretty hesitant when it came to forming a bond. I felt him warm up a little but it was taking him literal ages. After all, what is time if you are an eternal being? Sometimes, if she was not busy, Death would join us. And since she was a foodie those meetings usually took places in my restaurant. Ironically, the place where me and Morpheus met.
-What can I get you today, my friends? – I asked and pretended like I didn’t notice Dream shudder at the words
-Surprise us, y/n. I’d like something new. And Dream will take the same thing as I.
-I am fully capable of deciding for myself.
-So what can I get you then, Dream? – I turned towards him
-I… I will get whatever my sister gets- he looked down almost shyly.
-Delightful. I got something special coming for you two right away.
If only I knew what kind of situation I would get myself involved in… I suspected nothing when I gave the Endless apple dessert. It was a hollowed-out fruit filled with creamy and a bit sour stuffing.
-Bon appetite – I obliviously smiled but it quickly faded away as I saw Dream’s face. – Is something wrong?
Death was quick to catch up on the situation but obviously she said nothing just sitting there trying to suppress her laugh.  
-Is that really what you’re giving me?
-Yeah, you said you wanted whatever your sister takes. Don’t you like it? I can take it back if…
-No. Thank you. I understand the message.
-What message? – I was confused beyond recognition but decided to let it go since it was Dream. – You know what, I don’t want to know. Enjoy your meal.
-Did she really just… ? – Morpheus asked his sister when the girl was out of sight.
-I know nothing. I do not interfere in your affairs dear brother. You go and figure this out on yourself – she answered with her mouth full with the dessert.
To say the next couple of day were crazy would be a serious understatement. Dream, who was unapproachable for the past year suddenly became more touchy. Wherever we were going he found every possible excuse to brush his hand against mine or stand closer than usual or even trying to grab my waist when we were walking. Not that I was complaining but that was highly confusing. One day when we were sitting on the bench he awkwardly moved so our thighs were touching and that was the breaking point.
-What the hell, Dream? – I jumped from the bench – what do you think you’re doing?
-I don’t understand what you mean, y/n.
-You’ve been acting bizzare for the last week. All that touchy-feely? All the affection? This is not you. I would risk saying you’re making fun out of me, but again… it’s you, so what is this about?
-Is this not how I should behave?
-Should behave?  Why?
-We are betrothed now, so the situation would require a bit of closeness.
-Come again? We are what?
-Betrothed.
-Where on Earth did you get that idea?!
-From you.
-Dream, I swear to God, elaborate on your sentences or I’m going to explode – I was rubbing my forehead in pure frustration.
-You gave me an apple and I accepted.
-I gave you…. Oh my god, do not tell me I got myself in some sort of Persephone situation here.
-In Greece giving one an apple means a proposal.
-IT MAY HAVE SUCH MEANING IN SOME ANCIENT TIMES! – I yelled but quickly calmed myself after receiving some damning look from the pedestrians. – Damn it, Dream. I don’t know what century you’re living in, but I;m definitely a XXI century girl. No fruit, vegetable or plant means engagement here. Do you understand me?
-But…
-Do. You Understand. Me? – I grabbed his coat and looked him straight into the eyes. – Do you?
-I do. Now, you might want to let go of my cloak – here it is again.
-Great.  I missed your warning tone. We are not and will never be engaged. Betrothed, if you like. But I got to admit that was a great development. Last Monday you wouldn’t even say we were friends and now this. However irrational it seems, I’m proud of you, Morpheus. You are growing.
-Maybe you are the reason of it – he smirked and for the first time it actually made me blush. Perhaps there was something new coming for this relation after all.
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jiveyuncle · 6 months
Note
Hi omg!!!!! I just saw the book you posted for TNAHP and I am dying! It looks GLORIOUS!!!!! Turned out so beautiful binded like that! And the art is absolutely stunning, may I ask what company printed it? Like what shop did you use? I’ve wanted to print certain stories just for myself so badly over the years but there are so many places and I can’t decide and this is exactly what I’ve been looking for!!!!! 😍😍😍 thank you so much for sharing!
Hi, anon! Thank you! 💕 I was so happy getting to hold it and put it up on my shelf! Look!!! 😭💕
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I want to preface everything I’m about to say with this: if you use a third party service to print any material (fics, art, art in fics, etc.) please, please, please reach out to the author/artist and get permission to use the service before printing! It doesn’t matter if someone else already has permission, make sure *you* have permission. Also consider if the art in the fic belongs to someone other than the writer (like if the work was a collaborative piece or if it features fanart of the fic) and get permission from them, too! You may have to wait for a response, or you may never get one (in which case, don’t print without permission), but it really is worth it to make sure the authors/artists feel comfortable and confident that they keep control over their own work.
This is the first service I’ve used, and I have no experience binding, so I’m just sharing what I did and what I noticed with my untrained eye.
First, the service I used is Barnes and Noble Press. Here’s a link:
You can make books publicly for sale or books strictly private for personal use. If printing fanfic, be certain that you are creating a “personal” print. It will appear like this in your projects section (note the “PERSONAL” banner above the cover art):
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As you can see - the price is pretty decent as far as books go! After tax, shipping, and handling costs, this book turned out to be $21.82.
You can choose how you want to customize the materials your book is made up of. Different materials cost different amounts (i.e. printing color pages inside is going to increase your price a lot). If you don’t know where to start, here’s the preference settings I selected for my copy:
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Now, understand that they are not editing your book for you - you’re still going to have to do all the formatting and arranging in a document yourself and designing your own cover (so be prepared to still spend a lot of time on this project). They simply print and physically put all the pieces together for you.
Lastly, I want to address quality. While this is far better quality than I could manage on my own, it’s still not 100% up to quality of most books I can purchase in a store. For comparison, I’ll show a couple side-by-side images of the fic print next to my favorite published book, The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.
Dust jacket: Feels great! Literally no complaints.
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The hard cover: A bit cheaper feeling. Definitely noticeable difference with a printed visual texture instead of real texture. The printed texture creased and wore away to reveal the white beneath. It’s visible here after just a few openings of the book. Also, unfortunately, you cannot customize the hardcover under the dust jacket, so no spine labels and you’re stuck with this color blue:
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Finally, my biggest concern, the binding of the pages: looks a lot more like a paperback that had its cover glued onto a hardcover than an actual standard hardcover. Again, I’m no expert and idk if that’s normal, what anything is called, or how this affects the lifespan of the book, but you can even see where the spine kinda hovers away from the hardcover casing and how that compares to the The Raven Boys.
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Anyway, the service isn’t perfect, no, but it works for what I wanted, looks nice, is user friendly, and allows me to hold a fic I otherwise never would have had the opportunity to. I appreciate it for that.
Hope this was helpful! Print responsibly 😊
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flightfoot · 3 months
Note
hello! i dunno if you were accepting fanfic recs asks but - might you have any fanfic recs about chat noir angst with the rest of the superhero team?
Yeah sure! I'm not entirely sure what you mean about having the rest of the superhero team, but I'm assuming it involves them having at least some sort of role in the story? Anyway I'll do the best I can.
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Dr. Walker & Kitty Hyde series by @pearl484-blog
Summary of the first fic, Rain Falls, Everybody Lies:
Chat Noir loves the rain. He loves the danger. He loves the excitement, and he especially loves how much Catwalker hates it. 
Jekyll and Hyde AU
Adrien AUGreste Entry 3: Rain
So like the summary says, and the title indicates, this series is inspired by the popular conception of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - not how the book actually goes, but how it’s portrayed in popular media, with Jekyll splitting himself in two, with a “good” side and a “bad” side. 
During Kuro Neko, instead of just changing his appearance through changing his mindset, Adrien took more extreme measures, sealing off his “undesirable” characteristics, his anger and sadness and all his sharp edges, into the ring so he could assume a more placid, genial persona that’d be more accepted - Cat Walker. 
But Chat Noir’s still there, taking over whenever Adrien gets too testy, and desperately trying not to be pressed out of existence entirely. With embodying Adrien’s sealed anger and snappishness and rebelliousness, he’s not too kind to the other heroes - he already felt looked down upon and ignored before this, and seeing them accept Cat Walker while he’s fighting for his life doesn’t endear them to him either.
The series isn’t unfair to them - this isn’t a case where one party is entirely in the wrong and another’s entirely in the right. Marinette, Zoe, Nino, and all the others - they did wonder about what was going on with Chat, but he wasn’t in a position where he could see it, and he did have legitimate questions about how much Ladybug would budge on things, if he’d told her what he was going through. It’s a series that emphasizes characters hurting and lashing out in some terrible ways, but that hurt still being respected, and working things out, trying to get everything to a better place.
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drowning (in plain sight) by @buggachat
Everybody had expected Monarch's defeat to be a moment of triumph. Nobody had expected Gabriel Agreste, unmasked and mind frayed from continual abuse of the miraculous, crying out to all who would listen and making Paris certain of one thing:
His son, Adrien Agreste, is one of his sentimonsters.
And now he's missing.
Nobody can find him— not even the superheroes, and not even his closest friends. But Marinette, Nino, and Alya aren't ones to give up so easily. They'll find him, no matter what it takes.
(But, geez, would it kill Chat Noir to lend a hand?)
I’m sure everyone saw this one coming. If there’s one thing buggachat’s good at, storywise, it’s capturing raw, tumultuous emotions, frantic breakdowns as the characters desperately try to navigate bad situations. This was a real treat to read, as I’m betting most people reading this will agree, given just how popular the fic has been. It also has a ton of fanart, both by buggachat and by random fans, if you go looking for it (there’s a drowning in plain sight tag which I’d advise perusing). 
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one does not love breathing by @wackus-bonkus-maximus
All of Paris watched as Hawkmoth murdered Chat Noir, taking the Black Cat Miraculous for himself. Ladybug swears revenge, but her enemy—and every miraculous in his possession—disappear without a trace.
Six years later, a new team of villains launches an attack for the last remaining Miraculous: Volpina, armed with new powers; Queen Bee, with questionable loyalty; Argos, the new holder of the Peacock Miraculous; and Cat Walker, who Ladybug hates the most.
Takes place after S4 - Strike Back.
This is a simply phenomenal fic. You get to explore a lot of different perspectives, like Felix, Kagami, Marinette, and Adrien’s, just to name a few, and see their different thought processes and plans and priorities, and how it can cause their plans to collide with each other, even when they all ultimately are aiming for a good outcome for everyone. The characters are pretty complex and can mess up at times, even when they’re doing things (or not doing things, looking at you Luka) with the best of intentions. It was a joy to read and a real nail-biter the whole time, I actually wrote a fic for it halfway through just to resolve some of the tension for myself, One Does Not Love Shadows.
It also features the version of Luka I’ve connected best with to date, as he feels like Luka, but also is a lot more fleshed out, and can make some major errors while simply trying to avoid missteps. It’s helped me get a better handle on a character who I’ve generally had a lot of problems with really understanding.
It is an M-rated fic, though I think Wackus is being overly cautious on that front. There’s no sexual content and I wouldn’t put the violence or gore above a T-rating, so I wouldn’t let the rating scare you off.
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Chat Walker’s Trial by @pearl484-blog
Instead of Catwalker showing up to serve as her new Chat Noir, Ladybug is stunned to find that Chat Noir has returned to her, having “improved” himself by repressing his emotions, memories, and willfulness. Deciding that this will not stand, she organizes her teammates to convince Chat Noir that giving those traits up and becoming the perfect partner was not the right move, but how can she argue against perfection?
Adrien Augreste 2022 entry for the day 23-24 prompt: Swap
This is a really intriguing fic. Instead of becoming Cat Walker in Kuro Neko, Adrien instead runs across a mage who helpfully provides some spells to make him into the “perfect” partner for Ladybug, magically suppressing his emotions and urge to rebel, as well as his memories of being Chat Noir, in order to make sure he doesn’t love her anymore. Ladybug, naturally, is distraught about this, but since Chat did all of this of his own free will, she needs to actually persuade him it was a bad move, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s exquisitely painful at times with the amount of self-hatred Chat has for his previous self, and how the Miracuteam is divided on how bad these changes actually are, since he does seem more focused now - though the holdouts are a lot less on board when they think of someone who’s closer to them going through this process.
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I hope that these scratch your itch!
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extrakuli · 2 years
Text
trapped
scaramouche x reader | kazuha x reader | xiao x reader
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A/N. this randomly came to me when i was scrolling threw twt, based off a kazuscara fanart- Also holy shit i’m back sorry for like the year of me ghosting this account 💀
.trapped In a small space with them
.afab reader(?) mentions of “boobs”, very sexual. Perv!xiao, very ooc xiao in this fics, implied taller!reader for scaramouche’s part.
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scaramouche.
> You aren’t ..exactly sure ..how you got In to this- predicament,,
> You and Scaramouche were just scouting out the area, But I guess neither of you notices the obvious leaf trap.
> And it was to late when you guys tried to walk over it and fell in to a Very, very, very small hole.
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“Can you Move over?”
“You know, dear, that would be super easy if i had any room to move over to.”
You can hear a scoff come from him in the dark. You were currently trying to figure out how to get out of the situation you were in. Your husband keeps wiggling, some how thinking it might get him out.
Now sense it’s pitch black, You can’t exactly see the predicament Scaramouche has gotten himself in. His hands are on the wall against your back, his leg in between yours, And His face is pressed right against your breasts. You don’t mind the position he’s gotten himself in- In fact you think it’s funny, take it as payback for moving too much.
On the other hand- Scaramouche is beet red, and very embarrassed. But he’s stuck, and can’t do anything unless you move.
you can hear a low grunt come from him, and then you hear him clear his throat. “Hey.”
you smirk- not that he can see it. “Hi..”
You hear him shuffle a little and adjust his position before he speaks up again. “Can you, like, shuffle your position, a bit?” You sigh and try and shift your position- but in the worst way possible. You lean over him and push him so he’s the one leaning against the wall, and your breasts are pushed up against his face. “Is this better?” you ask.
Well, This isn’t exactly what he wanted, and he’s not complaining- well he is but only because he’s frustratedly flustered. He can’t even reply with your breasts in his face. His legs feel like jelly, his hands are shaking and his face is beat red.
You’re like this for another hour or so, before you hear commotion from above. Scaramouche tries to shuffle out of this embarrassing situation, but instead accidentally tickles you which results in you giggling. “You fool, stop squirming! here, I’ll move” You lean your back against the wall so he can finally breathe. He huffs and looks up to see Tartaglia- Never in his life has he thought he’d be grateful to see the 11nth harbinger.
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Kazuha.
> You were so careful that this wouldn’t happen.
> You we’re trapped in a small storage closet with kazuha, after beidou asked you to fetch something from the closet. It locks from the outside.
> A crew member just so happened to accidentally shove kazuha- who was holding the door open- in to the closet with you.
> And here you are, Anxious, embarrassed, flustered, frustrated. All in a small closet with kazuha, your crush .
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You’re breathing heavily, your chest rising up and down repeatedly. “We need to get out of here, god I can’t let anyone catch me like this-“ you breathe out in stuttered breathes.
“You should calm down, stressing won’t help the situation.” Kazuha says, trying to help you calm down. But it’s no use when he doesn’t know your embarrassingly huge crush you have on him. “Breathe in and breathe out, take a moment to calm down.” He says, and you slow down and listen.
Breathe In, and Breathe out. Breathe In, and Breathe- Suddenly your jerked forward with kazuha’s back hitting the door and him cushioning your fall. The ship must have taken a huge wave. But that only made the situation worse.
The lights dimmed out, but you can still see. You frantically look around and you look down at kazuha who’s squished between your breasts.
Ok. Panic Mode now.
You urgently try and Shuffle out of this embarrassing position. At the failed attempt, you curse under your breathe. “God dammit.” You then result in leaning more in to kazuha- much to your dismay. You try and jam the door open but it’s no use. Your breathes are staggered and your panicking.
Kazuha takes your hips and rubs circles on them trying to calm you down. Which did the exact opposite. Your heart is racing but atleast it stops your movements. He shuffles a bit so he can speak. “y/n. please, calm down. We’ll just have to wait till someone opens the door.” you try and choke out a response but with how his hands are on your hips, his face pushed up against your chest, and his calming words. Your at a loss.
about 10 minutes of silence goes by. When finally kazuha speaks up. “Are you ok?” he breathes out, and you nod. “mhm..yeah, I’m ok..are you?” He stops his movements for a second, before continuing and humming, sending vibrations threw your chest. “I’m perfectly content.” You can just feel him smirk.
You shuffle your feet for a second, you thought now would be a great time to confess your feelings. as you open your mouth, the door clicks and opens. Leading you both falling down with you on top of him, the whole crew staring at you and your face the color of a tomato.
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Xiao.
> You we’re exploring abandoned ruins and buildings with xiao
> You came across a coffin-shaped box and was looking inside
> until xiao bumped in to you (totally on accident..) and you guys fell in to the coffin
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Xiao was underneath you while you were on top.
You were pretty calm, not thinking about anything else other then getting out. You tried to nudge the coffin cover open but you couldn’t from the angle you were at.
You Huff, and whisper in his ear, “hey, xiao, try and nudging the cover off.” your breath fawns his neck and his breath hitches, But he reaches around your body to try and push the cover off. He attempted, but it was a weak attempt- he did that on purpose. Thankfully you couldn’t tell, you figured it was the position you two were in that made it difficult.
You didn’t know what to do, But your arms were getting tired from supporting your body weight, and you didn’t think anyone would come across the ruins anytime soon. You slowly begin to lean your body weight on xiao’s, your breasts Pushed up near his face, your heavy breathing, and your leg between his.
you’re about to relax fully before you feel his hands creep up the back of your thighs and on to your butt. You freeze and your breath hitches. What is he doing? does he think your asleep? You can feel him lean in to your breasts. Wait. Is he sniffing you?? you’re too scared to do or say anything. He rubs his hands up and down your butt and thighs, while nuzzling between your breasts.
His hands seem to be wandering under your clothes, but before his hands can get too far the cover snatches open and you look up to find Hu tao smirking down at you, you’re never gonna live this one down.
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10:41 am 7/26/2022
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