#at least that's better than an actual wrist or shoulder injury | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thetriumphantpanda · 8 months

Text

i'll be needing stitches | din djarin

Summary | The Mandalorian has never had someone else tend to his wounds.

Pairing | Din Djarin x F!Reader

Word Count | 2.1k

Warnings | Future chapters will include smut, but this one involves mentions of injuries, a dead bounty, explicit descriptions of an untrained professional stitching someone up, blood, some explicit thoughts and some yearning.

Authors Note | My favourite tin can man is back and ready for business. I am having such a wonderful time imagining all the things Din has never experienced before and the idea that he has only ever been the one to patch himself up was more than I could cope with. As always, comments, reblogs and freaking out in my ask box are all welcome and if you enjoyed this, please consider supporting me with a donation to my Ko-Fi.

I no longer use taglists - please follow @thetriumpantpandanotifs and turn on notifications to know when I upload fics.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi

He’d been gone a few days. That was nothing new. Off hunting his next bounty, leaving you in charge of child. You didn’t mind it, once you’d gotten used to the fact that you couldn’t really reason with him, and that you’d be tired from constantly keeping an eye on him, he was actually pretty decent company.

You’re fussing with him, trying to get him to go down for some rest when the Crest doors open and there’s the sound of a body hitting the floor. That’s nothing out of the ordinary, so you don’t rush to see what’s happening. What is out of the ordinary is the sound of metal crashing to the floor right after it.

You whip around, looking at the scene before you. There’s a dead bounty on the ground, being kept company by Mando, who is crumpled on the floor in his armour, a pool of blood seeping out from underneath his left leg as he struggles to push himself up.

“Bloody hell,” you exclaim, immediately dropping all worry of the child to drop to your knees next to him, “What the hell happened?!”

He doesn’t respond, just grips at the injured leg, trying to get the bleeding to subside. His trousers are torn and there’s a nasty gash to the skin of his thigh that is about to cause a whole world of problems if you can’t fix it.

With your hand on his shoulder, placed there to let him know you’re near, you whip your head around trying to remember where he keeps the healing equipment. He’s needed it before, but only for minor injuries, and has never needed your help before, but with the way the blood is spreading across the floor, he’s going to need you now.

He feebly lifts a hand, pointing in the direction of his bunk, “Left it…. There.” He struggles to spit out.

“Okay, I’ll fetch it,” your voice is laced with panic, like if you leave him now, he’s going to pass out, or worse, “You’ve gotta promise me you’ll stay with me, okay?” There’s no response, “Mando? You hear me? No sleeping!”

He mumbles something unintelligible under his helmet but at least he’s talking. You let your hand drop, guiding him down to lie on the floor whilst you rush to his bunk, pulling at the haphazard sheets until the first aid box appears at the foot of the bed. You’re back on your knees next to him in no time, and he’s still moving about and groaning as you put your hand on his thigh to get a better look at his wound.

Your fingers tear at the edges of the material, wanting to allow him to keep his modesty but see the extent of the damage. The gash is angry, blood seeping from it with red edges. You tip the top of the box open and root through it. There’s a single bottle of bacta spray, which you pull out, give a little shake and go to take the top off, when his wide palm circles around your wrist to stop you.

“No.”

You let a frustrated growl leave your throat, “Then what, Mando?!” You exclaim, “You’re bleeding out, what am I meant to do?!”

“The thread,” He chokes out, “Just stitch it up.”

You look him straight in the visor, hoping your disapproving look is landing through his beskar. You are not a nurse, if you try and stitch him up you’re only going to make it worse.

“I’m going to make it worse like that,” You insist, “I’ve never stitched anything in my life.”

“Y-yes you have,” he squeezes your wrist, to reassure you, “Y-your tunic.”

“Mando, this is your fucking leg we’re talking about, not my clothes, it’s completely different.”

He pulls on your arm now, dragging your attention to him, craning his helmet as much as he can to look at you, “Do not waste that spray.” He demands, and even when he’s bleeding out on the floor, he commands you, knows that no matter what, he calls the shots - he lets your arm go, pushing you away gently but towards his leg.

You could argue with him that saving him from certain death is not wasting it, but the longer you bicker, the less time you have, so with shaking hands, you put the bacta spray back, and instead find the needle and surgical thread. With shaking hands, you do your best to thread the needle and tie it off at one end, before your hands are grasping at his thigh.

“This is going to suck,” You mutter, because it is, it would suck at the hands of a trained professional, so it’s definitely going to suck at the hands of someone who could barely sew their own clothes together, “I’m sorry.”

You don’t give him enough time to respond, or yourself much time to consider what you’re actually doing, you just push the needle through the skin closest to you and over to the other side, trying not to look up or focus too hard on the sounds he’s making as you drag the needle back and forward through his skin, watching as the skin closes together the further along the wound you pull. Your hands are shaking, and you’re holding your breath, but you don’t seem to be making it worse, which is something you’ll take.

You’re trying your best to concentrate on making the line of stitches as neat and tidy as you can, but all you can really focus on are the sounds that are coming from underneath that helmet of his. Low groans and grunts of pain as you work the needle through his skin, groans and grunts that you can’t help thinking about in another context, like if you weren’t currently trying to stitch him up and instead he had you pinned down and was- okay, no absolutely not.

You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of the now incredibly distracting train of thought. Sure, there have been moments when you’d thought about it, though about what kind of lover he would be, mainly only out of curiosity than your own desires. But ever since he took that damn helmet off in the rain and touched your face, you can’t help but wonder what kind of lover he’d be for you.

Whilst he’s led there on the floor, all his trust put in you to patch him up and make him better, make sure he lives, and all you can is wonder what those sounds would be like for you. What the press of his thighs would do to your own when he put himself between your body, or what this specific thigh, gripped in your hand, clenched as you push the needle through once more, would feel like between your legs. Would he guide you through it, with those big hands on your hips, or would he lean back and let you take what you needed? Would he snake that hand down the front of your trousers and help you along, or would he let you do it all yourself?

He’s agitated, and understandably so, it’s been a slow patch up, with you making sure that the scar your sutures will leave is as neat as it possibly can be. As you bend your head to look closely as you tie another knot in the end of the stitches, you realise he will have this for the rest of his life. A permanent mark on his skin, made by someone else sure, but patched up by you. The Mandalorian will always have this reminder of you etched into his skin, even if, for some reason, you cease to exist in his life. It’s primal, the way is makes you feel, that one day, if you’re gone, he’ll have to explain your existence to someone when they ask how he got that scar. You will forever be a piece of him.

He’s gone suspiciously quiet, the pain you were causing him by driving a needle through his damn skin has made way to a dull throb. You reach into the first aid box, pulling out some gauze and tissue. You use the tissue and what little disinfectant there is to clean the sutures and the blood from his skin, before haphazardly taping the gauze over it to try and keep it clean and free from infection.

He pushes himself up on his elbows once you’re done, watching as you clean away your mess. He wants to reach out to you, he wants to touch you, to anchor himself to you and never let go, to thank you, but instead he simply tries to push himself up whilst trying to keep the stitches you just put in him intact. He lets out a pained groan, you whip your head around.

“Maker, help me,” You grumble, dropping the things you were attempting to clean up to rush back to his side, “I just sewed you up and you’re trying to move on your own?” You’re trying to speak in a tone that is authoritative but it doesn’t seem to come out that way, “Can’t you just sit still for a minute?”

“Need to get us out of here,” He mumbles, taking hold of your hand that you’ve offered him, using your body to steady himself as he pulls himself up off the floor, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You ask, letting him lean on you slightly for support as he hobbled toward the ladder to the cockpit, despite him weighing considerably more than you.

He doesn’t actually respond to your question, once he’s at the cockpit ladder, he seems to not need your help anymore – struggling up the steps, grunting with each movement of his injured leg, so you let him go, turning around to finish cleaning up. As you’re cleaning the blood from the floor, you’re face-to-face with the body of the bounty he’d dropped on the floor. You’d seen him deal with these bounties more than once – normally when they’re talking back and fighting – so this will prove easier than anticipated. The bounty is slight, so dragging it into the carbonite chamber is easy enough. You flip some switches and press a few buttons and in no time the bounty is stuck there, waiting to be handed off whenever Mando gets you back to Nevarro.

It’s not until much later that he reappears. You’ve fed the child, fed yourself, left a ration pack for him, and you’re just killing time, waiting for the child to wear himself out so you can finally let the exhaustion take over your body and sleep. Mando leans himself against the wall, watching you as you fuss over the child.

“Thank you,” His modulated voice hits your ears, “I’ve never had someone to help me like that.”

You look at him – this one doesn’t surprise you, the lone warrior who hasn’t allowed anyone but you to travel with him, of course he’s only ever had himself to stitch up his wounds.

“Well, I don’t know how to drive this damn thing,” You speak, knocking your knuckles against the wall next to you, “So it was pretty important for you not to die,” you wait for him to laugh but he doesn’t, “You’re welcome,” you speak quietly then, “Sorry it was a horrible sewing job.”

He walks towards you now, visible limp but better than you imagine anyone else with a similar injury would walk, sitting down on the bench next to you. He’s so close that you can feel the heat emanating from his body. He sets a gloved hand on your own thigh, squeezing it slightly, making your pulse jump. He has to know, right? He has to know that he has this effect on you? That whenever he touches you, though that isn’t often, it makes your blood boil with want. Does he know that as your hands worked to close his wound earlier all you could think about was what his perfect, meaty thigh would feel like wedged between your own?

He doesn’t move his hand, just lets it rest there, thumb rubbing across the material of your trousers, comforting you, because he’d scared you earlier, he knows he did, and he needs you to know he’s never going to leave you, even if he’s not quite ready to verbalise that to you yet. You let your head drop to his shoulder, closing your eyes as he stays there for you, his body offering you’re the comfort you so desperately need.

“I’m always going to fix you Mando,” you speak quietly, “You’ll never have to stitch yourself up ever again.”

407 notes · View notes

prosperdemeter2 · 16 days

Text

WIP Wednesday - watermark

I had NO IDEA what to post for this pls 🙏 all I have is angst, please forgive me @wildlife4life

Eddie’s hand fumbled to the side, like Athena’s voice had knocked a thought into his head, his fingers failing to grab onto whatever he was trying to grab a hold of. He reached up, finally, like it pained him to do so and then slapped his hand clumsily against the side of Buck’s face. “Are you hurt?”

“Trauma team has been alerted.” Dispatch reassured.

“No,” Buck answered and then looked down at himself as if to verify if he actually was. “No, no, no.” He was. Athena could see it all down his arm, a piece of glass stuck into his wrist and blood trailing lazily down to pool in the fabric of his shirt. Mehta tried to yank it away from where he was pressing into Eddie’s wound like if he held on tight enough Eddie wouldn’t fade beneath his fingers. There were probably other injuries too, at least a dozen mental ones that Athena couldn’t make better, but Buck was good at ignoring his own pain in order to focus on what was in front of him. It was probably a survival instinct. Athena didn’t like to think about what it was born out of, about how much pain he must have been in throughout his life to be able to push a piece of glass stabbing through his arm to the back of his mind. “I’m f-okay. I’m okay. You just… you just have to stay with me, okay? Just… no, no, no, no, babe, no.” Eddie didn’t listen. Athena couldn’t blame him for it. The imperative, for him, would always be to make sure Buck was okay. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, the hand that was cupping Buck’s cheek falling to hit against his thigh and… “Eddie, please.” His voice broke into a wail on the way out.

Athena was never going to unhear it. If Eddie survived this and they got married one day, Buck would say Eddie, I do and she’d hear the way his voice sounded when he was begging him to stay alive instead. He was destroyed. It was worse than when Maddie had gone missing. It was worse than finding him and Christopher after the tsunami. It was worse. She wondered if he knew he was crying.

Whoever was driving, slammed onto the brakes and parked haphazardly outside of the emergency room doors and Athena was the first one out, allowing a doctor to replace her body with his, the trauma team, indeed, responding like a well oiled machine. “He’s thirty-four,” Mehta repeated, hefting him up in a team lift and placing him messily on the gurney. “Name’s Eddie Diaz.”

“We have a son.” Buck said it like it was imperative to how Eddie would be treated. Athena was pretty sure it was just how Buck always introduced him - his name’s Eddie Diaz, we have a son. “He - he’s allergic to iodine.”

“Sir, you have to let go.” A nurse ordered without a hint of sympathy in her voice and Athena almost snapped at her for it before she remembered that the woman was just doing her job. Trying to save Eddie’s life.

Athena grabbed the back of Buck’s arm and held him in place as they wheeled Eddie away, the arm that Eddie had wrapped around Buck’s leg falling lifeless to the side.

They stayed.

Mehta breathed out and doubled forward, hands on his knees and adrenaline rushing out of his body. Athena rested her shoulders against the engine and tried to calm her own rapidly beating heart. There was glass in her hair, she had a small cut from it on her cheek, Mehta had several in his palms.

Buck stood.

He didn’t move. In fact, if Athena couldn’t see the way his chest moved up and down, she would say he wasn’t breathing at all. He had Eddie’s blood on his face, smudges of it in the shape of Eddie’s fingers, the front of his shirt and pants were destroyed, and he was dripping blood at a sluggish pace onto his own shoes. Athena wished her husband was there, for Buck but mostly for herself. She didn’t know how to triage, how to take care of her own whirling thoughts and the lack of them that seemed to be filtering into Buck’s vacant expression.

A tear disrupted the space Eddie had touched against the side of Buck’s face, curled down his chin and dripped onto his shirt, leaving an oddly clean line of skin in its wake and then he was shaking himself, visibly blinking back into his body and stumbling, hard, backwards into Athena’s foot. “Sorry.” He muttered halfheartedly, reaching out to steady her and scraping the skin of her arm with the glass that was still sticking out of his. “Shit, sorry.” He let go and Athena caught him around the wrist when his knee gave out. When his legs gave out, Mehta surging forward beside her as if to hold him up. Thankfully, a nurse had already been there, meeting them with a wheelchair for him to fall back into.

“Okay.” The nurse commanded, flitting his eyes between the two of them that were still standing. “The group of you needs to get checked out. Does anyone else need a chair?”

Athena wondered if they had been prepared for Buck to collapse backwards before, or if this particular nurse had a multitude of wheelchairs that he could make appear out of thin air. It was an absurd thought, but it was one she had anyway. She needed to call Bobby. Needed to let him know that one of his own had been gravely injured, that Buck was his and Eddie was Buck’s and that made them both, tangentially, hers. Buck looked up at her, his eyes wide and blue and petrified from where she still held onto his wrist, her fingers pressing into the wet skin coated in his own blood. “Athena.” He wasn’t even thirty, yet. He was twenty-nine. Barely even old enough to be an adult. He was so young and Athena was so old and if he couldn’t have Bobby at that moment, he would very well have her.

She set her jaw in determination. “It’s going to be okay, Buck.” She promised. “I’m not going anywhere.”

#rewrite #wip wednesday #tw blood #tw shooting #watermark #911 fic #buddie fic

32 notes · View notes

thesealfriend · 2 months

Text

Invisible Aids for Invisible Disabilities

How many mobility aids are in this photo?

Most abled people will say 1 - the walking stick/cane (am aware these mean different things in different branches of English but I can't remember the specifics).

Some more astute people, especially other disabled people, will note the glove too (especially if I could take a photo showing I only have one on my stick hand) - I can use the stick comfortably enough without it, but the extra grip and padding mean it's more comfortable to use for longer, even on days when my wrist or shoulder are acting up.

But the thing in the photo (and overall) that makes the most difference to my ability to exist and move and not be in pain isn't even something obviously injury/disability-related but hidden, like knee or ankle braces under my jumpsuit - it's the boots.

I bought these things for £45 off Vinted, a fraction of their value as military surplus goretex combat boots. They're not from a shop specialising in supportive footwear, or recommended by a doctor, they're just really good boots that give me more ankle support (and thus also help my knees and hips) than any other shoes I've ever worn.

Since I bought these boots, I've barely needed to use my stick, and definitely not enough for it to worsen my arm issues, which is fantastic. It's also one less thing to hold and carry (it's my mum's old NHS one which is the only one I've found that's tall enough and can be held comfortably, but unfortunately isn't collapsible) and for my ADHD ass to leave next to the checkout by accident (because I've stopped hurting in the time I've been able to stand still and stretch and thus have forgotten it exists).

It's also one less signifier to the outside world that I'm disabled. Because people that don't know me are much more likely to see me without the stick than with these days, and people who do are going to see how much less I'm using it and think I'm doing better, as opposed to feeling exactly the same but for different reasons.

My wonderful partner got me this excellent badge a few months ago and it's definitely helped when it comes to like, public transport - people will still not tend to notice it and Offer me a seat, but they'll at least see it and be polite if I either ask them for a seat or if I'm asked to move because I look young and healthy:

But it's about 2 inches across and while it's brightly coloured it's not quite the same instant and at-a-distance signifier of "hey I'm in pain/struggle with mobility" as my walking stick does, especially since I wrapped the latter in glittery UV-fluorescent caution tape (mostly for aesthetic reasons but also because I frequently take this thing clubbing/to gigs and I don't want it to be a tripping hazard). For a while, I was using the stick on everything but my best days, now I'm only using it on my worst (or when I'm expecting a flare) and the badge has actually become necessary to point out "hey I'm still sore" instead of just a nice additional note.

I don't actually know where I was going with this, it's just interesting to think about how by making things easier for myself on one axis, I'm shooting myself in the foot (heh) on another. And maybe useful to remind other disabled folk that whatever you use to make life easier, whether it's a product designed for accessibility (mobility aids, grips for tools, orthotics and braces etc) or just a really good pair of boots and a comfy glove, that is something that's necessary for you to live your best life and you should never feel bad for requiring access to it. 💜

#disability #you can tell the weather's better cause I've got the mental space to write Actual Blog Posts lmao #id in alt text 💜

50 notes · View notes

mega-ringsandthings-world · 5 months

Note

I know we’ve talked about this via messages, but I wanted to ask again about health issues (mental aside) they’ll have to deal with from being tortured for two and a half years straight.

Not just that, but also the scars they accumulate—do those cause issues? Is part of their bedtime routine putting on scar cream so the skin can move less stiffly through out that day? Is it a ritual every night that they try to perform without fail? Does Mihawk let Shanks get his back? Does Shanks let Mihawk treat his Haki burns?

Are some of their joints messed up from being dislocated so many times? Do they hate cold weather and winter islands most of all? Can they feel an oncoming storm or the weather patterns just from the aches in old broken bones?

Are some days so bad for Mihawk's hands, which are scarred and broken to hell and back, that his fingers just shake all day? Does Shanks get crippling migraines from all the times he was punched in the head?

Do they take medication? For the pain or for their mental illnesses? Now I’m just imagining them dragging themselves miserably to Drum Island for a checkup to make sure nothing’s going to kill them physically or have long-term effects from their captivity, and Dr. Kureha just taking one look at these two miserable kids absolutely riddled with PTSD and going, "Okay, whack that shit out," and prescribing them Lexapro.

Not to mention the stress probably rewired their brains, and the brain damage from getting beaten around so many times. What about their immune systems? High stress and lack of proper nutrition can mess that up forever. Oh, and weight gain is going to be different as well as bone density and muscle loss. They are going to be a mess.

There's also the grief that comes with the loss of bodily autonomy in this way. They had a bright future and young, healthy bodies that have been traumatized. Now, not only will they live with the mental scarring but also the physical scarring that will affect them in fights, breathing, or just being for the rest of their lives. Think of Mihawk just staring at himself in the mirror, grieving the health he had before, how he's scared he’ll never be the world's greatest swordsman, that they taken that away from him like so much else. Think of Shanks crying over the thought he might not get to explore the world because of his migraines.

But at least they have each other! Hopefully, they also learn to lean on each other when shit gets bad and take up accommodations for their issue. I don't know; Mihawk is headstrong but more about efficiency, and if wearing a brace or taking a certain med means he'd be at his peak, then I can see this Mihawk swallowing his pride and doing it. Shanks, on the other hand... I don't know, maybe?

Ooh, more logistics. Bodily logistics, that it. The severest issues come from the initial healing process, like the scar on Mihawk's leg which keeps him bedridden for months. When they heal, it falls to the people who are treating them to maintain continuing treatment for the scars that are left, because they won't be in a fit state to do that at first. But yeah, they get into a routine of care for themselves as they get better mentally, Mihawk especially. And while he wouldn't let Shanks near the scars on his back for quite a while, he'd insist on treating Shanks. The Haki burns are going to be something he's guilty about, naturally. Hm, Shanks' left arm was fractured at the elbow and the burns on Mihawk's knuckles would have damaged the tendons there, and they both have dislocated a shoulder/wrist/rib/knee numerous times. Cold weather/pressure drops/high humidity all exacerbate injuries, so yeah, they'd avoid all of those if it could be helped. Shanks spends a lot of time slumming on beaches for that very reason. Mihawk would probably like cold better than he does heat, so his preferred basking spot is Kuraigana, which was picked for its atmosphere. Yes to them sensing storms. Shanks in particular actually finds that useful. So, dislocated wrists, damage to the nerves/tendons from the burns on Mihawk's knuckles would cause tremors even if his hands were never broken outright, and those mixed with stress/anxiety/sleep depravation can get nasty. Shanks develops migraines due to the head trauma, that come in varying levels of severity. Suffice to say, there's days when neither of them are in any state to do any daily tasks, or much of anything. (they still push themselves to, though) Pain meds, mostly, Mihawk self-medicates on Haki, Shanks alcohol. Sedatives in the early days, when they need to be calmed down. They do get taken to Drum Island at some point, and they'll get a cocktail that takes them off the edge. More on that later. (Kureha would have stock of Lexapro somewhere lol) Speaking of which, they might need short-term anxiety medication and help mitigating (they won't go away) the stress responses they've developed. They amount of head trauma would probably mean permanent damage in real life, but memory issues here, probably. They're kept marginally well-fed, seeing as how they need to be kept alive, and they get enough that their growth isn't stunted to the extreme, but it's not the nutrition that's up to par for two-young men. They'll grow up leaner, having to work to put on muscle definition. Their on and off EDs don't help, and neither does getting sick more frequently until their immune systems regain full health. It looks hopeless to them at the very start of their recovery. Looking into the mirror at every flaw and bleeding wound, feeling utterly weak in every cell, it'll be hard for them to imagine returning to even a shadow of their former selves, let alone advancing past that. Which brings it's own mental issues, of course. And the horror of having to be so weak in front of each other. Which makes them reluctant to have a hand on each other's recovery, at least up until the need to be with each other takes over. After a while Mihawk treats the accommodations he needs as just another thing he needs to do to stay on top, like exercising, doing sword drills, sparring. In canon Mihawk obviously takes care of himself and it's the same here (mostly). He adds it (braces, pain meds, exercises) into his meticulous routine and that's that. Shanks, on the other hand, tends to lean more towards curing the issue than preventing the issue, he'll wait until something can't be ignored to do something about it, out of his own pride. And then it's fuck it we ball and washing down pain meds with liquor, which always gets Mihawk pissed at him.

#one piece #op #opla #dracule mihawk #akagami no shanks #hawkeye mihawk #red haired shanks #mihawk one piece #shanks one piece #mishanks #mihawk x shanks #op marines #loguetown au

13 notes · View notes

shywhumpauthor · 11 months

Text

The Merry Whump of May—Day Thirteen

“You've made your bed now bleed in it.”

Sander | Found | Safe Place

Merry Whump of May Masterlist

Cw: abuse/torture, dubcon touching, pet whump, restraint mentions, collars, kidnapping, injuries, belting

Whumpee couldn’t help but shudder under the touch, fingers dragging across their scalp, idly fooling with their outgrown locks.

If Whumper had noticed, there was no tell, just a small hum as they flipped through the movie options on the TV across the room. They leaned back relaxed against the couch, one leg crossed over the other, a blanket tossed over their lap. Whumpee knelt on the floor, the soft carpet pressing into their knees where their shorts didn’t cover, ankles aching from where their feet were tucked underneath them, but they didn’t dare move. They knew better than that.

The hand in their hair wasn’t exactly gentle, but it was comforting, a steady motion combating the twisting anxiety in their stomach. Slowly, they couldn’t help it, the soothing touch guiding their head to lean against Whumper’s knee.

“There you go, pet,” Whumper murmured, fingers brushing back hair from Whumpee’s face, tucking the strands that fell away from their eyes. “Just relax, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Like crap. Whumpee’s gaze fell to the ground, no longer caring enough to watch as Whumper selected a movie and pressed play. The bruises across their wrists, the raised welts on their back from where Whumper’s belt had struck not half an hour ago.

They supposed they had earned that, though. Whumper had warned them at least a dozen times that they wouldn’t tolerate backtalk, and Whumpee had never really listened. Tested the limits, stuck their hand in the water just to tempt the shark.

Whumper had never been particularly aggressive, nor cruel. Actually, they had been pretty fair, Whumpee had to admit. Besides the whole hiring someone to kidnap them, locking them in a basement for weeks until they “learned to behave”, buckled a collar around their neck and secured it in place with a padlock, they were fine really. Of course, it took Whumpee a while to earn their privileges, such as fresh clothes, shower liberties, upstairs access, good food, but when they did—given they didn’t do anything stupid to revoke them—Whumper was always fair with them.

Today was no different. Whumper dealt rewards where they were due, as well as consequences. But still, it hurt.

“Oh my sweet thing,” Whumper murmured softly, setting the remote aside, their other hand moving to brush over Whumpee’s cheek, wiping away the tears as they fell to the soft fabric of Whumper’s pants. “There’s no need to cry. You’re alright.”

The hand in their hair fell down, slipping to lightly rub their back. The pain was stinging, but then it soothed into an aching relief, like the feeling after pressing deep against a bruise. After a moment, they felt a knot in between their shoulder blades slide, the heel of Whumper’s palm slowly easing the pressure until it dissipated completely.

“Here, here, come on up,” Whumper spoke quietly, shifting their position and guiding Whumpee until they lay on the couch, halfway across Whumper’s lap, their back positioned towards them.

“Come on love, make yourself comfortable,” Whumper sighed, gently massaging away at the tension in Whumpee’s muscles until they settled. “Just rest for now, enjoy the movie, okay? You were so good, let me take care of you now…”

——————————————————

@themerrywhumpofmay

I’m not going to finish this challenge in time, but I’ll try to carry it out across June maybe

31 notes · View notes

triplesilverstar · 7 months

Text

Time for a bit of drop in

Rating: PG

Pairing: Vash X F!Reader

CW: Shooting, tied up, no sense of direction, knocked out, mentions of rape, Injuries

Word count: 2252

A/N: Chapter 2 of Bounty hunting 101: You should be good at this

The day after when you were finally back in a town, most of the townsfolk were actively trying to avoid you and for good reason. You’d been nothing but a scowling mess, asking around town if anyone had seen that blond idiot, at least those that didn’t seem to flee in terror after looking at your face. After a few hours you realized he must have gone in a different direction and started hatching your plan. Sure you were bad at directions, but for enough cash? People are willing to be a compass from town to town. Now four months later you knew you had him. The problem was, after two days of sitting just outside town, your guide dismissed to head back to their own home. The blond haired idiot had yet to leave the boundaries.

It’s not like you can get lost heading into town on your toma, making sure you’re more aware of your surroundings trying to stay out of sight so you can get as best of a drop on Vash as you can. Bird secured at the edge of town, tied up and gear secured you start following the back alley ways and get lucky. He’s playing with some kids near the town square. Not that you hadn’t believed your guide when you sent them into town to confirm that Vash was here. But now having that firm confirmation with your own two eyes, you grin, tapping your headset to raise the ambiendent noise level to listen in.

A quick glance around and you can see a partially boarded up set of stairs, nimbly climbing up the side of the building and laying flat on your stomach to watch him. Waiting for a moment since as brazen as you are, you won’t risk innocent bystanders. Taking a shot here in town will bring in the townsfolk and when the connection is made who it is, all hell will break loose. Just before noon, your chance comes when the kids state they’re heading home for lunch and Vash heads into the alley beneath you. Sure later in the day would have been better but you’ll take this seeing as the alley is largely blocked off from the town square.

Rolling over the edge directly above him you drop. Right knee landing directly between his shoulder blades sending him to the ground, using your entire body weight to drive him into the ground. “Gawh”

Keeping your weight centered on his back, crouched atop of him with your hands pining his shoulders under you and left foot firmly planted. “My, my, how nice to see you again Stampede.”

“Wish I could say the same” tumbles from his mouth firmly pressed against the dirt. “That kind of hurts you know. It’s rude to just drop in on people”

“Just like it’s rude to knock people out and leave them tied up” he’s shifting beneath you and you can see him trying to use his hips to try and buck you off.

“I was kind of hoping you’d forget about that.” Not in this lifetime. “Sorry though. I can’t lay around here all day. I have somewhere to be” you’re expecting him to try and roll you off him. You aren’t expecting him to be as strong as he is actually, the coat doing a good job hiding just how muscular he is. As he bucks you off to the side though you are ready, rolling with the momentum and using a hand to push yourself upwards.

The look on his face is bland, half his expression hidden beneath his sunglasses and you throw your first punch, forcing him to dodge watching him slide to the right to avoid your fist from hitting his solar plexus. “Come on now. Can’t we just talk this out, friend?”

“Nope” you press forward, keeping him between you and the building, so if he runs you can head right after him. Throwing a second punch aiming for his throat this time, surprised when your fist is stopped, long fingers wrapping around your wrist freezing you in place. “Seems you’re a bit stronger than I thought.”

“I would really prefer not to fight” a nervous smile is dancing across his face, like he’s trying to play up being defenseless. Trying to send him you sweetest look, at least you hope it comes across as sweet, watching his smile drop. You throw your entire body weight backwards, taking him with you since he chooses to not release your wrist. As you fall you throw your legs up, wrapping them around his waist and twisting your hips, giving you the momentum to throw him under as you land.

“Well so far this seems pretty one sided, Stampede.” With your hips locked around his you smirk leaning back to grab the rope tucked up under your jacket and start to secure him. “This time, I’ll tie off that hand of yours with your arm, since I'm pretty sure that was the only thing you could use last time.”

“What can I say. I’m more of a lover than a fighter” At that his face goes somber and you slow down your actions, wary of him trying something again. “I am sorry for hitting you.”

“And what about the rest?” Keeping one eye on him as you continue to wrap the rope around him, tying knots as you go in hopes that he can’t wiggle out of them. Happy with your work you roll, allowing you to unwrap your legs from around him and stand pulling him with you.

“I felt bad about it. You’re the nicest bounty hunter I've ever met.” You snort at that, starting to lead him towards the sheriff's office, approaching the large building from the alley. This time, you’ll hand him off to go in a lock up instead of trying to bring him to one of the major cities yourself.

“Gee, what nice words to say to the woman that has you tied up. Trick me once Stampede…” you words fall away as a truck comes streaming into town, right towards the two of you, throwing grenades from the windows once they hit the square. Why would bandits be heading towards the sheriff's office?

“You really do have a bad sense of direction ya know that?” He deadpans pulling you from your musings, diving to the side with Vash as the truck rams the doors. In the dirt beneath you, you hear him groan “this is the town bank.” Well fuck. Before you can get your wits about you, a pair of hands grabs you and your prize, pulling you inside the building.

You’re quickly tossed from one pair of hands to another, and another, one of them making sure to get a little handsy. “Woo-eeh! What do we ave ‘ere?” the smell of rotten teeth and cigarettes invades your senses, making you want to gag. “Looks like a girly wantin ta play bounty hunta!” Oh you could do without the terrible accent. Taking a look at the bandit you scowl, you don’t recognize him which means he’s either small time or a first timer.

“Hey boss!” Another voice is calling out beside you “looks like this little missy has caught herself a bounty. Looks like that poster for that 6 million double dollar guy!” Who you assume to be the boss walks closer, looking at you then Vash.

“No way this pussy whipped guy is the legendary gunman. But this girl? Boys we got us the ‘Ghost Sniper’ could sell her off to a few people to have some fun with.” Great. Human Trafficking. Just what you wanted to deal with today. You can see the clerk behind the desk, near the vault the bandits are setting up explosives to try and force it open. These four idiots have to be small time. They’re not doing a very good job of things other than making a mess, but hey that’s all good news for you in the end.

Watching as they throw Vash into a corner, between two shattered windows, you need to keep an eye on him, he’s more then slippery as you’d already learned. They way they handle him has you even more suspect of them being small time, they didn’t even check to see if he had a weapon. Correction. A fifth bandit is making his way down the stairs, with a small fat man in a suit. He must be the bank owner, and his suit is drenched which you can understand. “Open up the vault!” The bandit that lead him down the stairs has the owner up against the vault, gun to the back of his head.

“Why set up the explosives if you’re going to make the owner try and open it?” you keep your voice flat, eyes narrowed. Four of these bandits have revolvers, one of them a rifle and you can already see the bolt isn’t far enough forward to fire. You can see the leader scowling at you, simply raising an eyebrow in return. Angry bandits, tend to be dumb bandits. The bank owner is pushed to the floor, told to stay where he is.

“What makes you think you can talk to us like that girly? Don’t you know who we are?” You snort, making sure it’s loud enough to echo around the room and draw all of their attention.

“Nope.” You feel a barrel jammed into your side, against your jacket, right next to one of the reinforced sections. If he fires the bullet isn’t going far, but damn you’ll have one hell of a bruise. “I do find it interesting that you know who I am though.”

“Most robbers have heard of the bounty hunter who caught Gasback” from the corner of you eye you see Vash sit up more, like he’s reassessing you. Catching that man had been a fluke, but hey, you’d brought him in alive.

“Well, guess that says who’s the bigger badass then doesn’t it?” One of them is pretty ballsy, firing and it zooms by your head, landing near Vash who moves and lets out a squeak. That bullet should have hit him, instead it hit just air. You think. “Wow, shooting and missing on purpose, am I supposed to be impressed?” The other four are all bunched together now, the lead bandit watching you like you’re up to something.

“Turn around missy” keeping your face neutral you turn, facing the bandit with the pistol that had been pressed to your side. Now you’re looking it, pointed right in your center of mass, between your breasts. “Hate to put a hole in something so mouth watern” gross. He’s eyeing you up now like he’s trying to figure out if you’ll fight too hard if he tries to get a feel in.

As his free hand reaches for you, your body reacts on instinct, grabbing his wrist and snapping, hearing him howl. “You fucking bitch!” The hand holding his pistol isn’t steady, as you watch, he goes to pull the trigger, and you move again. Quick enough that you doubt anyone saw the movement, fire lacing up your hand, but the pistol doesn’t fire, the hammer unable to connect and send the firing pin forward. The meat between your thumb and index finger wedged between them.

“Now that hurts you bastard” you hiss through gritted teeth. Watching the fear ascend his face, glancing between your face and hand gripping his pistol. Your palm wrapped around the chamber grip tight enough to stop that from spinning even if he tried.

“You, you shouldn’t be this c-” your free hand flies, and you hear the crunch of the cartilage of his nose as it cracks under your fist, the bandit dropping grabbing his nose with his uninjured hand as blood streams from it. Keeping the pistol in your hand you turn, making eye contact with the lead bandit as you snap it open, rounds flying upward that you catch with what should be your injured hand.

“Anyone else wanna try?” You hear a single shot fire, the light fixture above them falling and drawing your attention to the corner where Vash should be tied up. All you see flapping through the blasted out window is the edge of his coat, before you can rush after him the bank owner is scrambling towards you with tears streaming down his face.

“Thank you miss! Thank you so much!” He’s blubbering all over you, his hands grasping the bottom of your jacket. Fuck, Vash is getting away from you again, at least this time you have a consolidation prize and another wound to your pride, looking at the remaining four bandits trapped beneath in different states of consciousness but not a single one dead. No bump on the back of your head from his damn prosthetic either.

When the sheriff shows up no one makes mention of the man in the red coat, but you notice examining the rope you’d secured him in was frayed. So that bullet had made contact, he was far more slippery than you thought he was. At the end of the day you walk away with a fifth of the bounty these attempted robbers had been worth. The rest left for the town to have the square and surrounding buildings fixed up. Scowling into the setting sun, if you want to catch Vash the Stampede you need to get back into fighting shape.

This is going to suck.

#trigun #vash the stampede x reader #vash the stampede #trigun stampede #twink writes #Bullets Bandits Ghosts & Typhoons #enimes to lovers

17 notes · View notes

lucalicatteart · 1 year

Text

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 13: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should just start crying whilst being robbed in the abandoned barn ...

(----- tw for mild violence (he gets into sort of a fight) until after the next orange text section in parentheses -----)

Not sure what else to even do, The Adventurer simply collapses into a ball on the floor and starts sobbing, screaming, and rolling about. The hooded figure pauses in confusion at first, but.. apparently is not very sympathetic to his plight.

They rush over, grappling with him as he cries, fighting to pry the backpack out of his hands. The Adventurer continues screeching frantically, and during some of his flailing accidentally swings his arm up, elbowing the hooded figure in the face. They let out an exasperated sigh, knocking him against the wall then firmly yanking him up by the hair, securing their arm around his throat to restrain him as they grab for the backpack. He kicks a few times, struggling, clawing at the hooded figure's arms, but just isn't strong enough to free himself.. There's a thwack and a sudden sharpness in the side of his head, the backpack pulling away from his shoulders, cold ground, and then… nothing at all..…

(------------------- mild violence tw over -----------------) ...............

The Adventurer slowly opens his eyes to a quiet foggy morning.. Tiny particles in the dusty barn air gently flutter to and fro, dancing around in the streams of early sunlight trickling through the slight crack of the front doors. With a groan, he rolls over, suddenly feeling every ache in his body. His head, his wrist, his leg injury from crashing the raft.. He spends a while just laying on his back, watching the dust and gazing hopelessly at the moldy boards of the roof, mustering the strength to sit upright… What can he even do next? He's failed.. His first EVER actual quest of his adventuring career, and he can't even keep a stupid egg safe for more than a few days! What type of adventurer is that?? Maybe he should just give up.. Go back home and do nothing with his life, just as he was meant to... He sighs, turning back onto his side and curling into a ball to sulk even more dramatically. The cat trots over to him to interrupt his swirling thoughts, pawing at his face, then directing him towards a small stack of hay in the corner where... there it is! His backpack!! He scrambles over, immediately digging through to check for his belongings.. To his surprise, everything it still in it's place. His food, his money, all of the cool shiny rocks he's collected so far.. And tucked away in the very bottom, the Mysterious Egg box remains, completely undamaged.. somehow with the egg still inside! And... a note? He shakily unfolds a crisp sheet of pale yellow paper dotted with a few scribbly letters: "I took care of her for you. Be more careful next time. Just get where you have to go."

Well...... He supposes that if there's apparently going to be weirdos following him around anyway, maybe he's lucky at least one of them seems nice. Better than trying to ROB him, at least.. Even if it is a bit creepy. He realizes now that his injuries have been bandaged as well, and that when he woke up, he was wrapped in a blanket, and.. where is the hooded figure? What does the stranger mean that they "took care" of her?? He turns to the cat for answers, as if they'd be able to clear up his confusions, but they simply make a "mrrp!" noise and stare blankly in response. Figuring that it's all far too much to think about first thing in the morning (especially with the headache that he has), he just decides to be thankful he at least still has the egg, and thus can continue on his grand adventure!! He will NOT let himself fail again! Sore and limping but full of renewed motivation, he leaps up (at least as best he can) and continues back onto the road. After walking only a few hours, he comes to a clearing at the top of a large hill, overlooking the next stop on his journey (then double checks the map just to make sure it actually IS the next stop). This is a much bigger area than the previous villages he's been to, possibly large enough to even count as a small city. With a wider variation of shops and attractions available to him than usual, he wonders if he should just take a break and relax the rest of the day.

He's too tired to walk much today anyway, soo.. maybe it'd be good for him to spend some time in a safe public space, doing something to help take his mind off of this morning's drama… But, what should he do?

Additional Information

the adventurer's current main quest: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has

#paventure posting #poll #polls #choose your own adventure #ERM.. okay I didn't mean to take a 2 week break from doing these. I just got really really busy with Life Things #had various appointments in a row and stuff to sort out. I kept thinking like 'oh I need to get back to that!' and then would be doing #other stuff all day and then at the end of the day just realize that I.. hadn't.. BUT i AM DOING IT NOW!!#I think it's more effective if it's at least once every 1-3 days so that people don't forget the entire story before the next one is out lo #*lol.. but.. alas #Sorry I had to have something bad happen to him. I know I could have made it silly instead like the hooded figure was just like #secretly very sensitive and thinking 'AWW sowwy ur crying #do you want a donut? :(' or something but.. I had to be realistic lol #If some obviously threatening person is coming after you because they want to steal and extremely valuable item from you #for their boss or to sell themselves or whatever. you being vulnerable is just going to give them a chance to take it from you #there are very few instances where realistically that WOULDN'T happen. gbhjb..#Also note: I did not make up the mysterious person who ''saves'' him as a cop out from giving him actual consequences t #o his actions or something. I know it's convenient - but it does make sense. There have always been multiple people following him ever #since he was at the Inn. Even though the Inkeeper tried to hide it very fast and keep hush hush about it. there were people there #who were alerted to the fact that he has the egg. Mostly two specifically. One of them has always been more benevolent because #they have a different end goal. Which is like.. not extremely benevolent actually ghhjbhbj.. but it makes sense for them to act #benevolent at the moment because they have an interest in seeing that the egg is taken to it's ''proper place''.#The two people following him were not directly connected or working for the same people or anything. But the one who just helped him #obviously was very aware of the other. and the other didn't know about the helpful one. ANYWAY #A stumbling block in the beginning of his grand adventuring journey. hopefully things go better for him from here lol #His injuries are pretty minor but he still feels bad since he's not used to fighting. I think he deserves a relax day #he was already 5 seconds away from crying at any given time. now on top of that he's got bruises and a sprained wrist and a headache #and he's not used to having ever been injured or ''fought'' anyone before so he WILL be being very dramatic about it in his head and #finding every possible chance to mention to anyone who will listen about how he was so so brave and got in such a wild fight #and also feels so so bad and please tell him everything will be okay and oh he is so so so injured *big wet seal eyes*#he IS going to feel sorry for himself for weeks gghbjhb..

16 notes · View notes

biboybuckley · 2 years

Note

"There's no world or universe in which I wouldn't love you" + buddie

this was supposed to be fluffy i don’t know what happened.

Eddie- he’s doing better, he really is. Buck is- he’s so, so proud of him, and it’s been incredible, actually, to see Eddie heal. It’s probably been the most incredible gift of his life, being able to be a part of it. The funny thing is- he has Frank, really, to thank for it. Without him, Eddie probably never would have told Buck he was in love with him, and Buck never would have had the electric realization of Oh fuck, I’ve been in love with Eddie Diaz for years, this is not what platonic feels like, and they may never have gotten to where they are now.

Which is- it’s amazing. Most of the time.

Most of the time, it’s all soft kisses, and lazy mornings with Chris, and affectionate teasing from their team. It’s kind of- it’s kinda perfect, most of the time. The sort of happiness that Buck never thought he’d be able to experience, the sort of love he still hasn’t totally convinced himself he deserves.

Most of the time, they’re great. But then- then there’s nights like this.

Buck wakes up falling. He hits the ground with a thunk and blankets still tangled around his legs. His shoulder takes the brunt of the impact and he lets out a quiet shout as it makes contact with the hardwood.

“What the-?” He pushes himself up on his hands, kicking away the sheets and getting his feet underneath him, still disoriented. Bringing his hand up to rub his shoulder, he rises onto his knees. And- his heart plummets. “Eddie.”

Eddie is thrashing on the bed, small, distressed sounds falling from his lips and his hands fisted, gripping the sheets tightly. Buck scrabbles back onto the bed, rushing to reach Eddie. A fist flies at him when his hand lands on Eddie’s arm, and he barely dodges the blow, catching his boyfriend’s wrist. His own heart is racing, but Eddie’s pulse, thrumming under his skin, is at least twice as fast.

“Eddie,” Buck tries, squeezing his wrist as tears prick his eyes. “Baby, c’mon I’m right here.” Eddie’s knee catches Buck in the ribs and he hisses, but doesn’t budge, his other hand skating over Eddie’s body, searching for any sort of physical injury. But it’s not that simple- Buck knows that. This is something deeper, something Buck can’t soothe with his fingertips or ease with a kiss.

Eddie lets out a strangled sound, his cheeks wet with tears and his breathing ragged. This doesn’t happen a lot- and less lately than ever before. Buck knows this beast, he can name the monster seizing his boyfriend. But naming it and fixing it are two different things. This… this isn’t something Buck can fix, not really.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, his heart breaking, “please, please wake up.” He shifts, pressing himself against Eddie tightly, still holding one wrist and bringing his other hand up to cradle Eddie’s cheek, brushing tears away with his thumb. “I’m right here, come back to me.”

“Buck,” Eddie whines, his face scrunched up in pain.

“I’m right here,” Buck swears, bringing Eddie’s hand to cover his heart, linking their fingers and taking deep breaths, “just open your eyes, please.” Something like a whimper comes from the back of Eddie’s throat and his nails dig into the skin of Buck’s chest. Buck holds the side of Eddie’s head, burying his fingers in the short hairs and pulling Eddie closer, pressing his lips to the beauty mark under his eye.

“You’re okay,” he whispers into Eddie’s skin, “We’re okay, you’re safe with me.”

“Evan.” His name is a gasp on Eddie’s lips, something akin to a prayer, reverent. “You- God, you-”

“I’m fine,” Buck promises, gripping Eddie tightly and pressing his forehead into his boyfriend’s temple. “I’m fine, baby.”

“You weren’t,” Eddie gasps through his tears. “You- I couldn’t-”

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. It was just a dream.”

“Fuck,” Eddie cries, the hand not on Buck’s heart coming to grip Buck’s wrist. Buck feels him shaking his head. “I’m so- god, I’m so fucked up, I’m sorry, I-”

“Eddie,” Buck shushes him gently, stroking his thumb over Eddie’s cheek and squeezing their joined hands. “I’m here, Eddie. I’m fine, we’re safe. And you- god, you’re incredible, baby. You’re- there is nothing wrong or broken or fucked up about you. You’re in pain, Eddie, you’re hurt. But in no way are you, my beautiful, incredible, boyfriend fucked up.”

A choked sob shakes Eddie’s chest and Buck presses himself impossibly closer, his lips ghosting over Eddie’s skin. “You’re so strong.” A kiss to Eddie’s temple. “And incredible.” Lips brushing across his beauty mark. “And an amazing father.” Ghosting over his cheekbone. “And the love of my life.” The corner of his mouth.

Eddie turns his face so their noses brush together, their lips centimeters away when Eddie finally meets Buck’s gaze, beautiful brown eyes swimming with tears and rimmed red. His words ghost over Buck’s lips when he whispers, “You deserve to love someone whole.”

“You are whole,” Buck says instantly, fiercely. “You are everything I could ever wish for and more. And even if you weren’t, there is nothing that could ever stop me from loving you. There is no part of you I couldn’t love. There is no world or universe in which I wouldn’t love you. My love for you doesn’t have conditions, Eddie. I am irrevocably, unchangeably, unwaveringly in love with you.”

Eddie’s eyes flick between Buck’s, searching for any sign that this is a lie- that it’s something said in pity, or in a desperate attempt to placate Eddie. Buck doesn’t flinch.

“I love you on purpose, Eddie Diaz.”

“What,” Eddie whispers, tilting his forehead to touch Buck’s, “did I ever possibly do to deserve you?”

Buck smiles softly, his thumb tracing patterns in Eddie’s cheek and fingers squeezing Eddie’s where their hands lay against Buck’s heart. “Exist. And love me back. That’s all I ever need you to do.”

“Seems doable,” Eddie jokes, though his voice is thick with tears and his eyes glisten.

“Then we’re going to be just fine,” Buck answers, gently pressing his lips against Eddie’s.

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers against his boyfriend's lips, pressed together from forehead to chest to hip to thigh to knee to ankle. “Yeah, maybe we are.”

#evan buck buckely #eddie diaz #tals answers #911 on fox #buck and eddie #buddie #buddie911 #tals writes #anonynous #anon prompt #buddie fic #911 fic #writing asks

83 notes · View notes

ehlnofay · 2 years

Text

Summerfest Day 1 - BEES

“Before you ask,” Arabella says, “I didn’t burn them again.”

They are sitting on the edge of the Cistern pool, Arabella trailing her bare feet in the water, her rings spilling out of her pockets, her bare hands in Sapphire’s lap. Sapphire picks one of them up by the wrist, regarding it with the expression one might give a rotting fish in the gutter, and says, “Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t,” Arabella insists. “This is an injury of a completely unrelated nature.”

Sapphire touches one of her swollen fingers. “I mean, if you’re finding new ways to be stupid and hurt yourself – that might actually be worse, right?”

“Hush. Don’t make fun of me, I’m wounded.”

Sapphire raises an eyebrow. Arabella smiles, bright and careless as the sun.

“If you didn’t set yourself on fire,” Sapphire asks, turning her attention back to the inflammation at Arabella’s knuckles, “then what did you do?”

Arabella curls her fingers up around Sapphire’s thumb (it does hurt a little, but not enough to deter her) and says, with all the honey-sweet sincerity she can muster, “All I did wrong was want something to eat.”

She stares, making the most earnest face she can (if she opened her eyes any wider, they’d probably fall out of their sockets), and Sapphire stares back, unblinking and unimpressed. Arabella drops her hands again.

“You know how I like sweet things,” she begins.

Sapphire continues to look unimpressed. “I do.”

“Technically – and you know how I adore technicalities – honey is Pact. It’s the only sweetener that is.”

Sapphire is inspecting her palms again. Arabella has already seen the pattern of welts and swelling (all on top of the skin that’s already tight and dry from the old burns – it’s really something, in its way) so she doesn’t bother to look, electing instead to lay her head on Sapphire’s shoulder.

“Strictly speaking – if we’re talking the spirit of the law – I haven’t eaten sanctioned honey in years.”

“I hate where this is going,” Sapphire observes.

“You can already tell? I was trying to build up tension, Sapphire! I thought I was a better narrator than this!”

“I’ve seen bee stings before. I get the gist.”

Pouting, Arabella shifts away, but Sapphire puts an arm around her shoulders, holding her in place. “Wait,” she says, her voice almost serious enough for Arabella to think she isn’t teasing, “you have to at least tell me if I’m right! Did you see a wild beehive and try to break it open on a whim?”

“You don’t just break it open, Sapphire –”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know how bees work!”

Arabella cackles, then. “Neither do I, evidently. Honeyhunting was not a skill I ever thought to learn. Now some poor colony is smashed for nothing.”

Sapphire pokes her in the cheek. “So you did just break it open.”

“The audacity,” Arabella says, “to mock me, here, in my own home, while I am wounded –”

“I also live here,” Sapphire reminds her.

Arabella is giggling.

“So you did something stupid, on impulse, and it bit you in the ass. Knowing you –”

“You can’t say that it tracks with past behaviour, because ordinarily my impulses go very well.”

Sapphire rolls her eyes. “Was it worth it?”

Arabella goes quiet, momentarily, dropping her bee-stung hands into her lap. She ponders the question. Weighs up the still-throbbing pain in her skin against the merits. Thinks, blank-faced, about wild bees and wild honey and sticky fingers and sweet lips.

“I think it would have been,” Arabella says eventually, slowly, “if I’d got the honey.”

#so.#I feel like this one is a nice light-hearted one to start with #this is the first time I've posted any of this writing online and the anxiety eats me alive so I will say nothing else #oc tag #arabella #my writing #skyrim #tesfest22 #fay writes

59 notes · View notes

levmada · 2 years

Text

Canal pt.2: Second Thoughts

work summary » You think the greatest feat of your career is upon you when a mythical creature is stolen from the sea and thrust into your life—then, stubbornly, into your heart.

You both learn there is more to each other than circumstances, and appearances, let on—until an accident threatens to tear you apart. Soon, both of your fates depend on defending everything you’ve worked to build, or setting him free.

ch.summary: You and Levi come to an understanding, and so do you and Hange—but trouble waits on the horizon.

content/warnings: FUN BANTER, Levi-typical violence (mostly threats), minor injuries, Mikasa is scary, Hange is the best, a confrontation, kinda fluffy

wc: 8.1k

a/n: happy may 34th you guys! haha got this done right at the end of the month what can i say.

so, now that there will be 5 parts to this, i’m in it for the long haul lmao, but i’m having a lot of fun (mostly making levi the cutest asshole ever).

previous part・work masterpost・next part

He, your catch, wasn’t the misanthrope like you were fooled into thinking. After less than a week (which was still long enough to leave you anxious), he spoke—as it turned out—putting an end to his silent treatment. It was never inability.

The reason you were staying late wasn’t unusual. Even if you weren’t inclined to mend some minor scrapes due to today’s tests, you didn’t have anywhere else you wanted to be more.

“Is that better?” you asked him, setting what remains of thick gauze and tape on your tray to the side of your rolling stool.

His muscles were so apparent that so much as rolling his shoulders back made them ripple beneath his skin. You were graced with a small grunt of approval. As much as he distrusted anyone and everyone (including you) touching him, seaweed helped.

It turned out to be his favorite snack, actually.

In particular, seaweed dried and sliced into strands. A small collection remained protectively clutched under his chin and away from you, as if to say, You’re never getting these back.

His extreme suspicion had officially became likable. Even if, by some vicious act of god, you ran out, he would mope rather than resent you. Either way, you had always been told that your best quality is patience.

You wheeled around to his other side and asked for his other wrist, which was bruised. On cue his stash switched sides, but then, refusing to look at you, he did as you asked, flopping his tail mindlessly.

What he did next stole most of your attention away from rubbing the salve in. Using his other hand, he plucked a brittle piece off his chest and doused it in the saltwater before bringing it to his mouth. Even once it was gone, he inspected the bandage hugging his wrist scrupulously. Over and over again he stirred it around, frowning at how it refused to waste away.

Even though you were confident he wouldn’t answer, you asked, “Do you prefer natural seaweed? If so… lots of it gets caught in nets, and it’s usually tossed back. I can get you some of that, too.”

From the very word ‘net’ his icy eyes had been locked on you. You stared back blandly. This was the first time you had brought up this subject so casually, but purposefully. Another one of your best qualities was persistence.

You pulled away and went on confidently, keeping eye contact. “Are you more angry because of what happened?—Or because you’re forced to be here?” And when his lips only set into a straight line, “No one’s gonna force these answers out of you. In the end they don’t matter the most to me.”

A raised brow.

“I wanna get to know you. That’s the least anyone else has asked of you, right?”

He made a slight chittering noise, understanding. Finally, that harsh wrinkle between his brow evened out a little. It comforted you that he obviously understood, that none of this was going to end up a waste of time, that this was progress. However he felt, or was capable of feeling, it was changing.

Then he sighed sharply through his nose, and your chest rose. “...Ask.”

“A-Ask?” you stammered, unblinking. You felt as shocked as if a houseplant had just spoken to you.

He looked away. “Ask a different question. If you can avoid tortures, you can avoid topics.”

Even after all that time imagining his voice, the rough, low drawl of it sparked bright delight in you, even though he didn’t speak perfectly. You were powerless to stop a smile, almost a smirk, from rising to your cheeks.

You would note, later, that his English was limited in general. As far as where he had learned it, or just how long he had lived in order to get the opportunity, his answers were short and blunt: “Just like how any idiot does it,”; “Long enough to know this much.”

Erwin was ecstatic, in his own way. If he was a different man, you would never have become a researcher here in the first place. You had known intelligence waited behind your catch’s eyes, and what a thrill it was to be proven right.

Next came, “Where is this?”, “How long?”, and, more solemnly, “Why?” Why was he here?—and not poached for that matter?

If he had some whiff of a sense of guilt, that would be extraordinary alone—but he also knew justice. Five “of you things” versus two whom he had lost. It would be easier, he told you, on everyone’s conscience if someone just dissected him already. If that was the plan.

He had been the root of many of your sleepless nights as of late, to say the least. The genuine sheen of grief, like a film over his eyes stuck stubbornly behind your own.

You treated him the same as you always had—while giving your subordinates no room for misunderstanding the threat if they didn’t do the same—but the caveat to hearing his voice was a filthier mouth than the meanest sailor you had ever had the displeasure of meeting. It didn’t matter whether his tail waved under the water when he was pleased: he told you to dip your fucking hands in some lava, and maybe then they would have the slightest chance of not freezing him; that your needles are piece of shit swords and your colleagues wouldn’t know a clean white bandage from their assholes.

That last one… pulled a snort from you. Regardless, the first word he learned must’ve been ‘shit’.

You hated to call your catch a little charming, but he was charming, and you couldn’t get enough of him.

Those times your sarcasm completely flew over his head were the best. Even if he didn’t talk back, because he was far from ever chatty in the first place, he was so human; his grey eyes would stare at you from even across the room, expression sour and thoroughly unimpressed.

A night or two later came his name.

But it didn’t start off amazing—far from it. Near midnight on Saturday, you’d received an urgent phone call from Erwin about a situation with the skeleton crew that worked on the weekends. Somebody had been treating your catch the way they were stupid to, and that someone recieved a bruised lung as a result of, what you were told, a whipping from his tail.

When he had refused to cooperate, they had attempted anesthesia—against your specific procedure. As a result, he lashed out.

On official terms, you didn’t cast judgment. On unofficial ones, if they hadn't of quit, you would have dismissed them.

Of course you shut off whatever sappy Hallmark movie you had on and headed over to the lab. Cold antiseptic welcomed you as soon as the door slid shut behind you.

Even sooner his head popped up in the tank, its eyeglass shape too tight to accommodate his body. That was procedure, but the sight of him trying his damndest to lean up and into the glass with his wrists pinned down slapped you with second thoughts.

The first thing you did was step to the console and adjust it for him, unlocking his restraints while you were at it. He was hurt: lip swollen nearly to the point of being busted, and bruises around his elbows that looked like a pen that had been pressed against a page for too long.

You recognized immediately, this was where they had tried to extract a tooth, and these places were where they had tried to draw blood, but either he had been too tense, or he had been dehydrated—both fixable problems.

Rolled up to his side in your stool, you went about your magic quickly and with perfect efficiency thanks to years of experience.

But silently, you fumed.

If he was anything but bitter, he didn’t show it. “Hey. Why weren’t you there? You’re always there. Where’d you go?”

Somehow, simple questions made it so hard to answer.

You shook your head. He knew you weren’t there two days out of the week, but he’d never had a procedure done while you were off. After almost a month, too.

“I’m going to speak to them on Monday,” you droned, automatically shoving down your anger. “Two days from now. You deserve better than this.”

“Tch.” He swatted your hand away from his face and swiped the disinfectant wipe for himself, soon cringing at the sting.

You stared at your palm where it once was, lost.

“You fool. It doesn’t matter.”

In your third eye, you pictured mashing all of your red feelings into a balloon, and letting the air out of it through a measured, slow breath. “Why do you think that?”

“‘cause they’re fucking animals.”

Eyes full of storms, he folds the now-light pink wipe neatly before placing it in your outstretched palm.

You couldn’t imagine how he must have felt while you were bursting at the seams by how incompetent everyone was with him. They didn’t understand. He was more than some animal—even a legendary one.

“They’re scared of you,” you reasoned. You still wanted for him to see both sides. “Wouldn’t you be, if you were in their position…?”

No answer.

“Give me your arm.”

He swatted you off again and heaved himself up into a proper sit, knuckling the glass edge of the chamber until they became properly white, like paper. First he glared down at his bandaged wrist with disdain, then you. You were so close you could see his nostrils flaring.

You clutched your lanyard. At any time you could have called security, but you refused to show how intimated you were. Even the edges of his flower-like ears had flared outward, making them look bigger.

“We… were… scared,” he spat, words so short and so sharp they landed like three quick punches. His eyes were daggers; it was easy for them to cut right through you.

“I wasn’t there,” you replied under your breath, almost a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“But it’s good for you, right?” he growled. “You have your puppet for your shitty trophies, right?”

You pursed your lips. “Yes, but you’re not my puppet. The last thing I want to do to get them is scare you. Quite the opposite.”

He inched forward even more. The look on his face reminded you of a snake. “And what will you do if I decide not?” he questioned, voice low. “What would you do if I cut your throat open? What would you do if I chose to starve myself until you freed me, or finally got rid of me?”

He tapped the side of the tank with his fine talons. Intimidation tactics, and they were working.

A good way to flush any feeling away is to push it somewhere else. You squeezed your hands into tight fists over your legs, shoving the fear somewhere it would never be found.

“Then… that’s what would happen. Believe it or not, I have limited control of what you do or don’t do.” Your nails pricedk your palms, leaving an electric sting. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“You don’t look scared. Unlucky for you…” he scrunched his nose, “…I smell it all over you.”

Your heart jumped to your throat.

His nose scrunched even more. “Don’t freak out. It’s smart to be. The thing only you seem to get is that we’re equals.”

It went without saying, you had a hard time believing that, but now for different reasons. “How?”

The obvious didn’t seem to bother him. “I could kill you, you could kill me. You be decent to me, I be decent to you.”

Another slow breath. “I understand.”

And you did, but you didn’t doubt his powerlessness, even then. He couldn’t just stroll out the front door, but he had more than enough power on his side to take action in different ways.

Silence. He retreated back towards the tank’s edge, eyeing you.

“And you have,” he added. “You probably tell whoever bosses you around about me no matter what. Not a fucking pearl or anything, but decent.”

His observation threw you off once again. There you still sat, like a statue, processing. “I—That I lied to you.”

“You’re only human.”

You shut your mouth, defeated. Somehow, you didn’t feel like jumping for joy at his casual reaction to your deceit.

Instead of battling this exchange even longer, you asked for his arm again—and next you’d take a look at his tale, far below his hip. You noticed him bracing it earlier.

With a small chirp—surprised that you had noticed?—he blinked at you mildly and drifted back.

But, while you took his muscular arm, he scooped up a handful of water. Thanks to his webbed fingers, it was a good amount which he dumped over his head, then scrubbed his face with, gills contracting.

You watched, then choked in surprise as drops flicked in your direction. Somehow he got your eye, which you scrubbed now, wincing from the salty sting.

With your forearm still held protectively covering your eyes, you gawked. “What did I do now?”

His lips smacked. “Your face was all red,” he explained. “We’re being decent for each other, remember? So… my name’s Levi.”

“His name is Levi!” you exclaimed, almost an actual shout. It had Hange laughing out loud, but in a total role reversal, they darted their head around to make sure of no prying ears.

For the past five years, after Dad passed away but before you started your careers, you and Hange (and on rare occasions, Erwin) had had an arrangement. It started no more innocently than tormenting yourselves by grabbing lunch at a “floating restaurant” that had just opened up at the time. It had advertised elegant fine dining on a steel barge that sailed off the coast all day, with the exception of stops at the marina at lunch and dinner to pick up “passengers”.

You thought the many chandeliers would rock, that their famous anti-seafood cuisine (their selling point) would spell the end of what charm the place had. Hange had also insisted, like a mantra, that their infamous sea-sickness would be activated by the time you got your drinks.

These days, on the last Friday of every month, you’d been having these dinners. Needless to say, you both couldn’t have been more wrong—even though staying consistent for all that time wasn’t realistic, especially for the past couple months.

They made their voice low and leaned in real close, wide-eyed. “Really? How did you come up with that?”

Immediately, your excitement died. “I didn’t. He spoke, Hans. He said so.”

Maybe it was understandable. You hadn’t confided in another living soul about Levi except (as your position demanded) Erwin. You chose to believe it was because Levi was a secret, classified, private case, even though you always shared your work with Hange.

They arched an inquisitive brow. “Oh? Huh!” A wide grin spread across their cheeks. “Heck, I thought that was possible, but I couldn’t be sure since I didn’t know he was a talker in the first place…

“Levi is quite the fitting name, too. Meaning the joining between the sea and people? Ha!”

Their frenzy reignited, they launched back in their seat, causing the table—and your soups—to wobble.

Your lips quirked. You had thought the same thing.

“I wonder if his parents gave him that name—it originates from one of the first twelve tribes of Israel, of course, the Levites, so could his species have been around that long? Or—Or maybe it’s a cultural name from observing humans, so—”

Patiently, you listened to them ramble on. In no time at all you found yourselves in a full-on academic discussion, the kind that put time in slow motion so it felt like you could go on talking forever.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had had this much fun with Hange. What happened changed a lot of things.

Too many.

Then, moments you found more personal, like the intravenous procedures. Levi hated needles. At the first sight of one he would hiss and knock it out of whoever’s hand if he could.

For most people, one of his deadly glares alone was enough to strike fear. Anesthesia, they had insisted. Nothing couldn’t be done without anesthesia, but you refused.

You figured it out eventually (better late than never) that Levi tolerated you enough to use “that dirty fucking weapon” on him, not that he spoke to anyone but you.

Maybe it wasn’t because of distrust of them, rather speech was a show of trust in of itself.

Things like that became routine, which flattered you, but made you guilty at the same time. You would never be actual friends.

Near the end of the evening, you both got personal personal. By this time moonlight glistened off the water past the luxurious, gold-paneled windows.

“Ya know, thinking about it—” Hange leaned forward and shoved their glasses back on their face, “—the last time we had this much fun was when… what? When Mike named those seals after everyone in security? Remember how he made us write essays on which ones fit who?”

You rolled your eyes. “Uh-huh. The vocal one still—”

“—the one that honked like a broken car alarm, you mean—”

“—fit Eren the best!” you laughed, feeling ten stories high.

“Okay okay,” they acquiesced, “I’m just saying I missed those times. Even though… it’s kinda my fault, I think.”

You crashed back down. You two never brought up the time Hange had came onto you—let alone that you turned them down. It might as well have never happened.

What you wanted to say was that it had hardly affected you at all (maybe you didn’t even know what ‘it’ was), but Dad’s houseboat, where it had happened, has been collecting barnacles since then. Hange liked it there, so that was the only reason you still went to spend time there. Otherwise it just hurt too much.

Guilt ran up and bit you then… twinged by resentment. Nothing would have changed had they just—read your signals and kept it to themself.

Then again, late night drinks together and cuddling on your couch when the AC breaks every winter might have left them mixed.

Impulsively you looked away. “I know, but. I think the fact that things are the way they are, um, is a testament.”

You could see, vividly, them smirk under their hand. “You mean we’re best friends.”

“Ha.” You nibbled at your lip, laughing at yourself. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Even dessert, by then, was over. You wished you had something to do besides pick at your napkin and look out the window, like a stumped philosopher.

“Really, I’m sorry,” you felt the need to say. “That I gave off—I don’t know. Wrong signals?”

“Hey,” Hange chastised. “I had no concrete evidence. That usually makes for a really shitty conclusion.” They smiled a little. “Don’t be sorry, okay?”

Meaningfully, you did the same. “Okay. I like putting up with you, though.”

It felt like a weight, one you quit noticing after a time, had crumbled off your shoulders, and god, it felt good. For months, you had worried endlessly that their unreciprocated feelings would end up driving a wrench completely between you.

It felt even better, for once, to have been proven wrong.

“And I’m okay having it no other way,” they snorted.

A week to the day you first heard Levi talk at all—him mourning his friends, you speculated—it was a freezing night; one where the chill not only clawed you, but seized your bones. Frost clung to the grass, it felt like you had left your hands in a freezer for too long.

It was so cold that you tasked Nifa with laying tarps over every tank, even the warm-blooded animals. The radiators were working at full capacity, and a little more.

You slipped out your pocketwatch—another long-ago gift from Dad, besides your earrings—and got to thinking. It was past midnight. Your last task, and the one you couldn’t say if you dreaded or looked forward to the most, was checking on Levi.

The clack of your shoes, then sealed double doors. These were technically the dam between Sector 3 and its more classified area. Between it sat the canal.

The same chores: scanning your ID card (with a photo of you that you did your best not to think about) and tapping in your PIN number, which lifted the iron bar across the doors.

You entered.

You stopped dead. “Eren?”

Looking completely blank, he opened his mouth to speak, and then, shied against the wall came Levi’s snakelike hiss. Following Eren’s flashlight with your eyes, you sucked in a breath.

“Doctor,” Eren tried again. “I found it here just like this. It escaped its tank somehow, and I need you to tell me—”

“Get that light out of his fucking eyes,” you shot back, and pivoted back to shove the lever to the floodlights on. Levi’s wince worsened into a cringe, even after Eren sighed sharply and clicked his flashlight off.

“He, huh?”

You ignored him and tried to ask just what had happened, but the sudden light startled Levi—enough for him to curl with the wall even more.

Eren visibly tensed and stepped back. As his hand shot behind his back, covering his belt, your jaw tightened. “That won’t be necessary.”

Eren didn’t take his eyes off him. “...If you say so.” He left his gun alone. “But look, the only reason I stood here in the dark for the past thirty minutes—”

You gawked. “Thirty? Why didn’t you—”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone!” Eren shouted back. “So I waited!”

By his head, Levi’s fins flared. He recoiled, as if making his best effort to phase through the cement. His face was pale, even his lips were a little blue, and true to Eren’s word, it had been long enough for Levi’s dark hair to completely dry.

You wouldn’t see until later the red rings around his wrists, which he had gotten from fighting through his restraints, like he’d been trapped in a pair of barbed wire handcuffs.

A bitter kind of concern fell over you. Eren meant your work phone, which you were forced to turn off after work hours were over—which they were.

“Eren,” you said tonelessly, “Thank you for waiting. But you’re leaving now.”

He glared at Levi, but it was definitely meant for you. “And why the hell should I? You know how he got here. You know what he’s capable of. Now he’s a security risk—”

Levi would be pissed that you said this. “I know, but you’re scaring him. I can handle him just fine.”

Eren stared: at you, then at Levi. Levi’s tail flopped the floor like a pissed-off cat, and even Eren wasn’t impervious to the growling noise growing deep in his throat.

What Eren was worried about—even more than Levi getting out—was you yourself. He told you that he couldn’t, not while keeping a clean conscience.

So, you made a deal with him: “Look, go to your station in 3. Watch the cameras. If something happens, call whoever you want. Even Mikasa.” It was Mikasa’s job to shoot on sight. “But when this is taken care of, which it will be, I need you to bend the rules a little.”

A small huff. “Erase the evidence, you mean.”

“Yup.”

Eren asked what exactly you planned to do. In truth you didn’t know. First you had to figure out what made Levi put himself through all that hell to get out in the first place.

So, you mustered your guts, and actually lied. “The—The pool.”

Eren gave you a look.

From so long raised up on his haunches, Levi’s arms had begun the smallest tremble. It looked like he was about to be sick.

“Please,” you begged Eren’s stony face. “I can do it.”

He compromised. “I’m bringing Mikasa along with me… You’re lucky she can keep a secret. But, anyway—” he began to retreat, “—you’re welcome. Just be careful and everything.”

And she absolutely would; there was nothing Mikasa wouldn’t do for Eren.

Finally, mercifully, once Eren had passed out of the canal, you took a second look to make sure the door was shut (despite the enormous clanging it made when it locked).

You were alone with him.

“You’re lucky I didn’t want to deal with the justice,” Levi hissed under his breath. He didn’t sound as threatening as his words. “You should’ve hearded what shit spewed from his shit mouth.”

“Why?” you asked, unmoving. “Levi, I know you’re smarter than to do this.”

How had he even made it out of the room, down two halls, and all the way through the end of the canal? Levi was much stronger, or reckless, than you even gave him credit for.

His tail, iridescent in this light, moved sluggishly to slide across the floor in efforts to turn himself around. Wordlessly, you followed the few steps worth the distance he was able to drag himself.

His scales. From up close you noticed their dry, almost cracked appearance, like wet paper left to bake in the sun. Muck stained him, but especially his brilliant tail, and the soft muscles on his belly.

Brow pinched, you crouched down to his eye level and masked any condescending expressions. Weakly, he glared.

“I lied for you,” you stated. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you, but I still don’t plan to… torture you, or to get anyone else to.”

“Not even that soldier?” he drawled.

You decided not to correct him, and simply nodded. “You were desperate, right? Why?”

Finally, he settled down on his crossed arms, breathing like it took quite a bit of effort to. “I need water to live in, don’t get me wrong, but not arctic. And not in the shallows,” he added bitterly.

“The heater,” you murmured, mostly to yourself. It must’ve fried after being turned up all the way when Levi’s needs by himself pushed it quite a bit. He was no orca like that tank was meant for.

He went even more limp, staring at the concrete wall away from you. All you could see was the back of his head, where his undercut laid over it like a blanket. It gave you an uneasy feeling, seeing his hair dry.

“Swim,” he muttered, in that same mournful tone he used for his friends. “Swim. Swim.”

You stayed where you were. He really did intend to drag himself around until he found what he was looking for, or didn’t.

Obviously he didn’t know about the pool—he had meant to find you. Where had he thought you disappeared to every night, and two days out of the week? You had never considered it.

During one of his pauses, you said his name.

He stopped. “...This is humiliating. Just get your soldier.”

“No.”

“Why.”

“Because… I’m selfish,” you explained. “Because if someone more important found out about this, what happened to you wouldn’t be up to me anymore.”

Honesty—the more brutal the better—was what Levi responded to the best, as long as actions weren’t an option.

He glared at the filthy floor. “Not your pet.”

“I know. You’re so much more than that.”

The words sat in the air as his brow scrunched. Was he blushing? Whatever you planned on saying next dissolved in your mind.

“What about the eyes on the walls?” he asked, after forever.

“Huh?”

“Those.” With one hand still bracing himself up, he leans up and points to one of the dark globes on the wall: the cameras.

He looked at you, waiting intently. “You talked about erasing. How do you erase a memory?”

Was his hope more sad, or his ignorance more endearing?

You frowned deeply.

Your explanation of cameras bored him by the end, but at least this secret staying secret satisfied him enough.

It was time to move. Levi managed to drag himself as far as the mouth of the tunnel; he even flopped the rubbery flaps aside by himself while you practically played hopscotch in order not to step on him.

This deep in your sector, no front desk was necessary: just a white, intricate system of labs, halls, and exhibits.

Levi’s route was obvious. Long, watery streaks on the speckled linoleum told the whole story, and they ended far inside the canal. Old blood, too—chalky and severely diluted by water—stained the floor in places.

You needed to fix that.

“Are you sure you don’t want to be carried?”

He scoffed sharply and rolled onto his back with a big flop. “Fuck off.”

Grimacing, you let the flaps fall back, then stepped around him.

As you retrieved the hose from the far wall—this area didn’t get cleaned nearly enough anyway—Levi craned his neck like a curious cat and tensed to attention.

“Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen,” you began. “I have all the authority in the world to let you into the pool, but there’ll be worse questions if there aren’t… guarantees. Luckily, we have solutions.”

He scowled. “Where do you expect me to go?”

As you unfurled the hose, “You’re not only clever, but extremely strong. Figure it out.”

He huffed, puffing out his chest. Apparently he was proud of that.

“What do you think?” you asked.

“Why ask? The pool, obviously. It’s the only vaguely tolerable choice.”

His audacity made you want to roll your eyes and laugh at the same time. Brave of him to assume you didn’t have a limit to how much you would put up with, but to be fair, it was quite a lot.

It wasn’t guaranteed a different supervisor would share your morals either way, certainly not Mike. Who would speak to him cordially instead of in a language of violence?—Who would he do the same for?

Water spurted from the hose, then washed across the floor in one long rope. While you marked the path, you washed down the blood on the way for it to leave through the drain in the floor.

He would need to be treated, too.

Levi’s room was a wreck. He was smart enough to file a talon below where he almost always laid to unscrew the top, so now it idled halfway popped open. He was fearless enough to yank, yank and yank until his restraints were left as mangled-looking bracelets.

At least there was a drain in the floor for the spilled water.

“What’s taking you so long?” Levi bitched from the doorway. Rubber hose in hand, a constant spray showered his face, and over his shoulder like a makeshift shower.

“Scrutinizing an exploration of an audit.”

A mishmash of words that didn’t really mean anything, but sounded just good enough for him to say nothing in reply.

With a small sigh, you dipped your finger in what remained of the water inside the tank, then pulled it back with a huff. It was freezing. No wonder.

With disinfectant wipes, gauze and antibiotic cream, you kneeled down and took care of him. Before you had to ask, he stuck out his wrists for you.

Your lips quirked a little.

The “pool” had a system built in that rolled artificial waves over the water—like the ones at water parks, only no shallow end. It stretched deep enough for your ears to pop, full of water salty enough to sting your eyes. No one ever dove in without proper equipment.

The auditorium itself which contained it stretched about the length of a football field. As the double doors crawled open with the press of a button, water from your hose spilled inside.

The wave of salty, humid air that hit you always felt like coming home, in a way, even though it was only an artificial beach at best.

Your voice echoed as you pointed in the right direction for him to go, only for a thick splash to cut you off.

“Crap,” you muttered, cranking off the hose and letting it clatter in your hurry to the pool’s edge.

A laugh was punched from your chest. He needed no time to adjust—in fact Levi was a bullet under the water, in all shades of blue. If it weren’t for his black mop of hair, he’d be near-impossible to spot. As he darted this way and that, the push from his tail wobbled the water even on the surface.

You crouched, squinting. I was wrong, you thought. The risk would have been worth seeing his powerful tail in action, slicing through the water so effortlessly.

After it seemed he had gotten some of his newfound freedom out of his system—avoiding the glass containers sealed to the wall underwater—he went about mapping the water out.

All four sides, pawing at the walls.

Just before he became little more than a dark spot underneath, you spotted him thrusting his arms out in some kind of barrel roll, causing a baby whirlpool to erupt through the water.

“Jesus,” you chuckled, stood, and left him to have his fun while you walked in search of a tank that was in use.

The wave pool was used for rehabilitation of the injured sea animals, and more often than that, to get those born in captivity accustomed before they were released back into open water.

However, Levi was not injured, and his release…

You buried this thought as you stepped into the darkened backrooms to change.

You traded your day outfit—except for your earrings—out for a sticky one-piece spandex suit and bright yellow flippers.

This was a wise decision, you decided. If Levi was more comfortable, you wouldn’t have to feel as guilty about working with him, and you could have this study finished up within the next several months, with your head held high.

Dad would have agreed. He had been a kind man, and he would have encouraged you. He would have been proud.

That, you didn’t have to convince yourself of. If you closed your eyes and really focused, you could have heard him say so.

Levi was right within eyesight when you came out. Near the pool’s edge he floated on his back, arms crossed and eyes gently closed. The sight had your feet faltering for just a moment, transfixed.

Unfortunately, the spell broke as soon as it took over you. His eyes snapped open with a chirp, and he turned his head, his hair like tendrils idling around his head.

His curiosity turned suspicious. “Funny outfit. You swim in that?”

You hummed an affirm, plopping down for your fake fins to wade in the water. It was so warm it felt almost tropical.

He frowned. “You people have a lotta different outfits.”

Levi’s encounters with humans were sparse at best. Like trees and bushes, he had told you that coexistence was normal unless someone got in the way of another, or got some use out of the other.

You had been practically vibrating at the reveal. “Wow—so, are any of the stories about merpeople true? Some have to be hoaxes.”

“Most,” he had corrected you. “We don’t… assemble. Hiding is a skill.”

You chuckled as he meandered close, but froze as he grabbed up one of your flippers—with such a strength you lurched a little.

He made another face. “These are pelican feet.”

“L-Levi—” You felt the echo of his grip on your actual foot.

“Did you kill a pelican to get this?” he asked.

“Of course not!” You yanked your flipper free before brushing him aside and dropping in. It was kind of silly in retrospect to assume that being in close quarters in his own home meant that he would leave you alone.

He snorted. “Pity.”

With a laugh of your own, you snatched your snorkel and fixed it over your face, buckling it behind your head.

This only seemed to trouble him more. What you had on wasn’t a ‘bubble helmet’, rather it was a ‘mouth straw’ with ‘fat glasses’.

“It—” You struggled to tug out the rubber mouthpiece. “It lets me breathe underwater.”

You learned quickly that Levi had no sense of boundaries. His tail working to keep him afloat, idling so close by your legs, was enough to draw shivers up and down your spine.

You batted his finger from your ‘glasses’. “C’mon,” you sighed, exasperated. “Hands to yourself.”

He blinked, a little doe-eyed, and brought his hand up to his face, stretching his webbed fingers. “Be more specific.”

“I’m weird about—” Rephrase. “—I don’t like to be touched by people I don’t know.”

His brow furrowed. “I’m not a person.”

“I—I know that,” you stammered. “It’s just a manner of speech.”

Before he could rebuke you further, you stuck your mouthpiece back in and launched off the concrete edge.

You could only flee for so long, though, before he smoothly caught up beside you, arms outstretched in a V.

Communication was useless for you, but not him—all he had to contend with were the bubbles.

“You and your damn manners,” he retorted, bubbles wobbling up from his mouth.

You about choked, eyes scrunching. With a shake of your head, you made out the cube—two Levi’s tall and two wide—through the salty water, your vision like a sanded window.

Obediently he followed right behind you, and watched while you worked to open the hatch.

His genuine fascination with people, combined with his extreme wariness, touched you. You hoped he felt the same—that maybe humans could be terribly cruel, but also the exact opposite.

With your fins planted sideways on the wall, you pulled and pulled until your muscles winced.

Seeing this, Levi’s lithe fingers reluctantly hooked onto the long handle beside your own. With a strong pull, thick muscles flexing, the door’s whine echoed through the water. Water rushed in immediately, and before you could suck in another hard breath, it was full.

You nodded, hoping to thank him. These tanks were taken from the water biweekly to be cleaned, no matter how long one had gone unused. You preferred a clean space.

The look on his face was unreadable. Fins flaring, he edged around the door to peer inside.

You didn’t rush him; despite this container being exceptionally better than the one before it, that didn’t change the fact that they were both cages.

His eyes were hard, even tortured.

Brow pinched, your hand stuttered to your ear, desperate to make him feel better after tonight.

Nanaba did suggest that he might like trinkets.

You didn’t even think before doing it, nor did you think before tapping him on the shoulder—an odd thing to do in itself.

In lieu of speech, you shook the dangly earring and tilted your head a tad.

His lips parted, then closed. He turned skeptical. “What’s the catch?”

A beat passed before you could bring yourself to shake your head. They were a gift, a gift from Dad nonetheless. The smallest harm coming to them opened a sharp pit in your stomach.

Reluctantly, you let go for it to pass between his fingers, like a special treasure—which it was.

“You’re letting me borrow it,” he sounded out.

Nod.

You saw something in his expression break a little. No reply. It even seemed like the exchange was over before he told you, “Thanks.”

You were glad you couldn’t speak.

More bubbles floated up from his mouth, something like a huff, and then he wandered in.

Shutting the door back felt more damning than it was in actuality. Turning the lock felt like cracking glass inside your chest.

In the future, you would need scuba gear to communicate with him. For now it only got as good as a double thumbs-up, hoping he’d understand and praying it wouldn’t somehow offend him.

“What do you think?” he retorted through the glass. It was even harder to make his voice out now. “But, it’ll do fine.”

Days followed weeks followed a few months after the incident, and true to Eren’s word, your (and Levi’s) secret was safe.

You worked with Levi on a daily basis exclusively since your colleagues’ opinion of him never seemed to change, and by extension Levi’s distrust of them.

No one outside Sector 3 had met Levi—however there had been whispers that he existed—but you mentioned Hange to him, how they were a little like you, just with a little extra… pizazz.

He didn’t believe you, nor did he understand what ‘pizazz’ meant no matter how you tried to explain it.

On the nights you ended up working late, which these days was often—who was going to miss you at your lonely condo, anyway?—you sometimes brought him a trinket: a magnifying glass, coins of various ages, buttons, balls of aluminum foil… even a rubber toy duck, which he genuinely never got tired of. His favorite thing to do with it (which unnerved you) was dive to the very bottom of the pool with it and follow it as it wobbled back to the surface.

During the day, Levi always left his container one way or another, and returned to it at night. It was the ‘least shitty’ case scenario, he had told you, making you snort and return to whatever you had been doing.

More than information, more than knowledge, you chatted about (what amounted to) nothing, and you actually found yourself enjoying it.

There were more personal questions whose answers were silence, but you didn’t let those deter you. Most times he scrounged some kind of reply in his limited English.

“Why were you and your—” you had stalled; pack would have been the wrong word, “—friends hunting near the boats?”

Levi had fallen quiet for a long stretch. In reality, they hadn’t been hunting, and in fact, he said, the truth would have been so pathetic that he had assumed you wouldn’t believe him.

“We were doing nothing when your friends striked at us,” he had huffed, his talons working at a plush ball with his elbows braced on the linoleum.

Cross-legged, you had sat right in front, writing all this down. Struck, you peered over your clipboard at him.

“Isabel wanted to swim, just to swim,” he had gone on quietly. “Then they saw us, and you know what happened after that. And they think I’m scary.”

You reflected on this exchange now as the clacks of your shoes echoed throughout Hange’s laboratory. Beakers littered the place, and even more files, but you always found a good-enough place to sit.

Those days ago, you had caught one of those rare glimpses of the viciousness that Levi was capable of. At night, he still sometimes mourned.

“I understand, Lev’,” you had whispered then. It was little consolation, you knew; you hadn’t been the one who threw the spears, who broke flesh, nor did you shoot tranquilizers that pierced Levi’s beaming scales.

He had closed the ball in his palm and hissed, voice breaking. “You don’t. And if you’re a lucky person, you will never.”

You canceled on Hange last Friday for your monthly dinner on the barge. No one understood, or would if you explained it—that was the only conclusion you could come to. He was far too different from them.

The work day had just ended. In the middle of the room, Hange in their long coat peered into a microscope. You had brought one of Levi’s scales to examine since it was their speciality, and they had gotten in the habit of asking about Levi all the time. If you hadn’t trusted them as much as you did, it never would’ve crossed your mind to do this.

You sighed to yourself, slow and soft. Did he think of you like you thought of him? He was so special.

“You’re a different species to them,” he had told you once. Despite him informing you that plucking off a scale perfectly resembled doing the same to a piece of hair, you had left no stone unturned, and smoothed salve into the baby blue spot where it once was. Rich, glimmering blues surrounded it at all sides.

“Levi,” you had sighed. “I assure you, I’m human.”

Warbling low in his throat, he had leaned up from the table. That procedure had required the exam room.

He had reached then, curious, and poked the top of your hand. The whole time you had held your breath. You didn’t know why, just that that moment felt as significant as the world stopping its eternal spin.

When you barely reacted but to meet his icy grey gaze, he lightly stroked your hand, frowning. Then he wrapped his hand around your wrist in a loose fist.

“No,” he had said. “Your hands don’t hurt others. You’re better than them.”

“Hey.” Hange whirled around and planted their hands on their hips. “You okay? You’ve been quiet.”

They weren’t wrong. You sent them a sidelong glance. “I’m not any quieter than usual, though.” You bit the inside of your cheek. “Right…?”

“Hmm…”

“So,” you cleared your throat. “Find anything interesting?”

They weren’t impressed by your attempt to shift the topic. Sometimes it was a point of pride for them and a comfort to you that they could see through you. Tonight, it was inconvenient.

They let it go. “Well, if you must know…”

You joined them at the table, elbows braced to take a good look at the scale by itself. Levi was anything but plain, and this one glittery blue scale was no exception.

Even though it was scab-like in appearance and texture, Hange explained reverently, it was tough—tough, as in made of stronger stuff than shark’s teeth.

“Wow,” you whispered.

They grew more animated the more they spoke—what a revolutionary specimen Levi was! If only they could be handed something so extraordinary, and how were you feeling? They had never forgotten how important finally proving your father right had been. He had been close, hadn’t he?

While they rambled, you smiled down at the scale, listening avidly.

“I told him about you,” you mentioned offhandedly.

They practically jumped. “What!? Ooo, could I take a look at him, you think?”

“Hm…”

They planted their palms flat on the metal table. “Fuck, please! Please! I mean, as long as he doesn’t—” they draw a line across their neck, “—ya know.”

You gaped, hurt. “He wouldn’t!”

“So you tamed him, then?”

That hurt too, for different reasons. You rolled your eyes. “He possesses far too many human traits for that. The worst thing about him is that he’s a little odd.

“And there’s only two ways to tame human beings.” With a huff, you turned to lean back against the table, two fingers held up in a peace sign. “Manipulation, and-or violence.”

They clicked their tongue. “Could I see your reports… do you think?”

Reluctantly, “Hange…”

It wasn’t just that it wasn’t their jurisdiction, but it felt like a personal intrusion, somehow. This was your passion, the culmination of all of Dad’s work.

Maybe they could take a look over a few things, you both compromised, the more lighter information.

“Okay, say I believe you for a sec, based solely on the fact that you’re my best friend and not on evidence,” they began conversationally. “Animals share all sorts of traits with people: being tough, meanness, some intelligence, care for its own kind—”

“That’s what I’m saying,” you argued. “He’s far more intelligent. He can reason, he has morals and a sense of justice, he gets playful, he cusses all the time just because it bothers me—but we talk, and he gets angry and sad and, and he…” You threw up your hands, imploring them. “Hange.”

They watched you pensively, uncharacteristically serious. “…Are you in love with the merman?”

You blanched. All the blood in your veins ran to your face, you could feel it, and a little breathlessly you heard yourself laugh.

“I’m sorry…” you simpered. “What?”

Hange pinned their lips between their teeth. “Um.”

This choking silence soon dissolved. They snorted first, a fist slapped over their mouth, and you covered your face. Hysterical laughter flooded the quiet.

All you could do was shake your head rapidly. You probably looked insane. Hange could not have possibly worded that any worse.

The glaring overhead lights blurred when you finally uncovered your face, smearing tears of laughter from your eyes.

“Okay,” they resolved, panting a little. “Forget about that for a second.”

You shook your head some more. It was a mystery where you lost your morals, exactly. One day, your most exciting chore of the day had been stripping off hours-worth of sweat along with your rubber gloves. Next thing you knew, you had wandered into a pet store one day for anything that jingled or shine. Preferably both.

“Human, huh,” Hange sighed, a little sober again. “That might put a wrench in things. Does Erwin know?”

You’d been shaking your head for so long the room listed a little. “N-No. I haven’t discussed my opinions with him, I mean.”

Inexplicably, an image came to your mind’s eye of the kind of security that barred the canal, and Levi, from any and every threat at all. No one had true access to him except you.

You worried, still.

As you thought, Hange once again suggested they take a peek at your work, just for now.

I’m such a control freak, you told yourself. I’m such a freak.

The last time you let someone stick their nose in your research, they quit, to make a long story short. And this was Levi. You didn’t even know what they meant to do, besides search for reasons to believe you.

“Sounds harmless,” you muttered.

“It is.”

You jerked a little to feel them place a hand on your shoulder, the pasty floor tiles staring back at you instead of them. They pulled away.

Silence. You sniffed. “Hans. I don’t even know…”

“Hey.”

A cool palm patted your cheek, pulling your attention. Behind their glasses, their eyes were calm.

“Give me a place to start,” they reasoned. “I’m on your side with this. Maybe we can learn a little more together than you could by yourself. Whaddya think?”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Levi being more than anyone could have imagined was a wrench in your research—and what about after that? What if?

A harmless look.

“Okay,” you resolved with a sigh. “Okay.”

| levi masterlist | main masterlist |

#captain levi x you #levi x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi x mc #levi ackermann x reader #mermay #levi x you #aot levi #g.scribe #canal #levi ackerman x reader

61 notes · View notes

stormy-seasons · 2 years

Text

Pet-verse! This one’s going to be long. Part 13.1

to glance at Guizhong to know that she shares the sentiment, that her brows are furrowed against a headache, her eyes sharp upon the scene before them. Xiao is.... Well. Even small blessings should be appreciated – they are not permanently injured in any way. Even if they are... clearly not well at the moment, in their heart and mind. Morax is unnervingly still and quiet beneath him, but Azhdaha isn’t getting off him anytime soon either. “Guizhong? How is Xiao?”

Guizhong glances up from where she is tending to them. “They could be worse. They were affected by the pollen as well, but to a lesser degree. It appears to have... enhanced their learned tendency to submit to those they view as having rightful authority over them. Most of the injuries are minor, and will heal in short order. The bite will not – that will have to be handled with care. But the ... shock of this event, and of the pollen’s effects wearing off has them in protective withdrawal.”

Morax flinches beneath Azhdaha’s feet. Guizhong picks Xiao up in her arms. “I will bring them to the healers immediately. Are you able to handle the yakshas as well as Morax? I will speak to the adepti once Xiao is in the care of the healers.”

“Yes.” Azhdaha answers, looking down in puzzlement. Why is Morax flinching so hard? “Guizhong, is Morax completely clear of the pollen?”

Guizhong gestures at one of the adepti healers who’d charged in behind them in the wake of their bringing down Morax’s wards, turning immediately to leave. The healer approaches, laying gentle fingers against one of Morax’s stone-pinned wrists. Azhdaha waits with as much patience as he can muster for the examination to be completed. “Well?”

“Completely clear, Lord Azhdaha.” the healer confirms, his voice even and calm. “Though... under the circumstances, perhaps we should remove from this place. And have it thoroughly cleaned, or perhaps torn down.”

“A good suggestion.” Bosacius, hovering near the hole in the wall where they had torn through Morax’s wards, his own voice subtly bitter. “Let us leave this place, and... and speak of what should be done next somewhere less.... Unpleasant.”

Azhdaha heaves Morax’s bulk upon his shoulder, and walks out of the ruined meeting hall. “Let’s go.”

Behind him, as the yaksha and adepti file out in obedience to his order, Azhdaha seals up the meeting hall. They’ll.... They’ll deal with it later.

For lack of better ideas, they take them to separate areas. Guizhong has Xiao in the infirmary, and is managing the civic side of things. Azhdaha takes Morax a little deeper into the mountains, and handles the military. Thankfully Bosacius and the yakshas, at least, don’t seem to be blaming Morax for what has happened. If Azhdaha also had to attempt to prevent Morax’s elite fighting yakshas from leaving or attempting to kill him, damn the consequences from Celestia, he would go to war in his own name and tear Rukkhadevata into pieces in the dust.

“We were there, too.” the electro yaksha says with haunted eyes. “We failed to act in time to prevent the incident, too. Xiao actually managed to disperse most of it before the... pollen affected us very much. And when that... that servant of Rukkhadevata confessed what the ... the plant had been meant to do...– I thought that by the time anyone managed to get in, at... at the most all that would be left of Xiao would be... be scraps of blood and flesh. Or a body, suffering so much that it would need to be put out of its pain.”

He shakes himself, as though to shake off the thought. “What actually happened... it isn’t good for either of them, but the failures of many to stop events before they occurred... Why would I blame Morax or Xiao for what happened?”

Azhdaha pauses. Glances into the distance, where Morax is coiled tightly upon himself. He would be retreating deep underground, if Azhdaha would let him, deeper than anyone other than perhaps Azhdaha might be able to find him. There was one who didn’t agree that fault, if any, laid on the one who had initiated the offensive action.... “Marshal. Has there been any offensive action, whether on the border with Sumeru or any others?”

“No, but...”

The discussions and giving of orders takes longer than Azhdaha would like. He sends a pulse of Geo through the ground to Morax every now and then, a gentle reminder of his presence. Finally, when the yakshas are willing to leave and tend to their orders, Azhdaha turns, and climbs up the mountain to Morax’s coiled presence. “Bosacius – the yakshas in general, really – isn’t angry.”

Silence. Azhdaha sighs. “Morax.”

“... they should be. They should be turning away from me, taking Xiao away, leaving. I am not fit to command them, not fit to receive their fealty –” Azhdaha swipes his tail into Morax’s face. “It is unlike you to wallow in guilt, Morax.”

“Am I wallowing?” his friend asks very dryly. “I wasn’t compelled. It was only... only a disinhibitor, only a substance that encouraged aggression and dominance. I wasn’t compelled. I could have... I could have –”

“Morax.” Azhdaha snarls. His friend won't look at him as he says, "You know that is true-"

"I know no such thing."

Azhdaha has to stop and calm himself before he gives into Morax’s blatant provocation and actually harms him. Ugh, he’d have preferred the sulking, at least that was more easily handled. At least the yakshas had the distraction of border patrol, especially on the border with Rukkhadevata, to distract them. Now, how to distract this very upset dragon until rationality could return...

Guizhong hopes Azhdaha is having an easier time of it with Morax. The immediate actions – reinforcement of borders, calling up of armies, calming and preparation of the populace... all those actions that the both of them knew well – those had been enacted without much fuss. And, as Guizhong herself had ascertained, Xiao was not in... great physical danger – it wasn’t long before the healers cleared them for visitors, and light physical activity.

The healers probably had not intended for Xiao to be... attempting this kind of activity.

Guizhong doesn’t dare look away, even as Xiao trembles, caught between continuing their action and obeying her first instruction to cease. She doesn’t even know where they’d found a whip. She ... is mostly certain she doesn’t want to know why they are, they were, attempting to use it upon themselves. And not... not even upon their own back, which in most non-avian beings, would be a reasonably safe place for a beating. (And relatively safe, still, if an avian adepti were in a form where their wings were not manifest.)

“Xiao,” she says again, voice as firm and unyielding as stone, “give me the whip.”

Xiao hesitates. Almost strikes themselves with the whip again. Guizhong acts with swift accuracy, and seizes the whip from them. Xiao folds themselves to the ground immediately, face pressed to the floor. They shouldn’t do that, Guizhong thinks distantly. No healing in Teyvat is so efficient, so effective, as to completely efface every pain and ache from a patient that had been so intimately hurt. Not that... that pain would stop Xiao, would it.

In moments, the whip is dust in her hand, and then the dust is blown out of the window. Guizhong steps nearer to Xiao, her heart aching at how they press themselves even more lowly to the floor, grinding their face into the dust and dirt that inevitably accumulated in even the most well-kept room. If she could, in this moment, Guizhong would be gentle, very gentle with Xiao. But in this moment? It is abundantly clear that Xiao will hear no gentleness. That they believe they deserve no gentleness.

Her heart is Geo, is adamant, is stone. If Xiao requires Guizhong, or anyone else who speaks to them in this moment to be unyielding, she will be so. She does not ask, when her hand grasps their head by the hair, and pulls them upright. Slow enough to be gentle, to not cause unnecessary pain, but the action in itself... hopefully fierce enough to ease Xiao’s... need to hurt, for a time. Xiao does not fight her grip at all, obediently following the tug of her hand in their hair back to the bed. When Guizhong lets go of them, they thud limply back into the soft pillows, before bringing both wrists together and offering them to her.

It is not ideal for what Guizhong wishes to do, but if Xiao is asking this fervently to be bound, to have some degree of responsibility taken from them... dust wraps around their wrists, tugs their arms over their head and pulls their wrists gently towards the headboard. Guizhong watches Xiao closely. Ah. A minute degree of relaxation. Better than nothing. She seats herself by the side of the bed, hands folded decorously in her lap, and pretends to pay Xiao no attention for a few more moments. They do not so much as fidget, every line of them carefully relaxed and limp in submission to her will.

“Do you know why you are here?” Guizhong asks, tone calm and steady as stone. Xiao blinks once. Their hands twitch faintly, but they do not struggle against the grip of Guizhong’s power. “This one was... injured?”

“You were injured, yes.” Guizhong affirms. “Do you remember how?”

Xiao blinks again. Their reply is slower, this time, more hesitant. “There was... there was a... a meeting... a delegation, in the hall, to meet Lord Morax.”

“And then?”

“They... they were... there was something... something suspicious about them. This one did not sound the alert in time –”

“Stop.” Guizhong orders immediately. Xiao’s mouth snaps shut. “To hear Bosacius and the others tell the tale, your swift reaction meant that no one else except Morax, and to a certain extent you, were greatly affected by that dangerous plant. You were one of the first to notice that something was not right. No one had reasonable cause to expect treachery, given that Rukkhadevata has previously been content to maintain de facto peaceful relations, and respected our border claims. Try again, Xiao.”

“... this one noticed the... the possible danger. This one called the wind to blow the pollen away when the plant b... burst into bloom. T... the wind came... but...”

“But?” Guizhong prompts. Xiao ... works their mouth for a long moment, as though searching for the right words that would please Guizhong. She waits patiently. Words are hard enough for Xiao under the best of circumstances, let alone now. “The... the plant’s... blooming... caught this one... caught everyone by... by surprise. Lord Morax b... breathed in... much of it... before this one could... could clean the air.”

In reward, Guizhong strokes Xiao’s face gently. “That was a very good attempt at describing the actions that occurred, Xiao. I would like you to continue to report this way.”

Instinctively, they rub their face against her hand, as though they were a fledgling chick or young cub yearning for comfort. Guizhong strokes their face again, before ordering, “Please continue your report, Xiao.”

“Then... then this one gathered the pollen from the air, and Bonanus helped by keeping it wet and not... not liable to... to float away. We.... we threw it outside the ... the hall’s windows, and Indarias burned it away to nothing. Then... then this one was... was seized from behind. Then...” Xiao seems to run out of words. Guizhong lets them be. Quietly, as though she was talking to herself, she says, “... I wonder that you do not seem upset with Morax, or with Rukkhadevata, as one was the means by which you were hurt, and the other the cause of your hurt.”

For the first time, Xiao wrenches their body against the grip of Guizhong’s power. She tightens her hold on them, watching dispassionately. Xiao does not stop attempting to break loose for several moments. Guizhong sighs softly. “You are not getting loose until I choose to let you go, Xiao. Please consider my statement.”

“I... I... it is this one’s fault! This one failed in their duty of vigilance and protection! Lord Morax is blameless! Any... any hurt or pain that... that this one suffered is merely the natural consequence of failing in this one’s duty!”

“So it is all your fault?” Guizhong asks with calm she does not feel. “There is no blame to be accrued to the one who sent the dangerous gift to cause harm?”

Xiao shudders. “... that... they... they are... the...”

“They are the actual cause of the trouble, are they not, Xiao?” Guizhong asks firmly. Xiao shudders again, and repeats haltingly after her, “The... the one who... who... ordered the dangerous gift sent to cause harm is... is the cause of the... trouble.”

“And you are not at fault, Xiao.”

“And... and this one... this one is... not to blame themselves...” Xiao’s voice trails off, and they turn their face away from Guizhong, hiding in the crook of their arm. She lets them hide. Even if it were only for her sake, it is still something, that Xiao is... trying not to give into the urge to hold themselves at fault for the imbroglio. “I know that was a very difficult thing that I asked of you, Xiao. I deeply appreciate your obedience and sincere effort to please me.”

Xiao doesn’t move. Guizhong hadn’t expected them to. As heavily as the misplaced guilt lies upon their shoulders, any praise or compliment, however well deserved, would just feel like salt in their wounds. “Would you like me to free your hands now, Xiao, or would you prefer to stay like this for a time?”

“... if this one asks to be freed, will the Lady allow this one to discipline themselves?” Xiao whispers softly. Guizhong’s tone is iron and adamant. “No. If you feel you must make some kind of amends, you must wait until the healers have cleared you for light duty – not light physical activity, light duty, Xiao. And I will be the one to assign penance, and you will do no more and no less than I assign.”

“.... Yes, my lady.”

Guizhong cards her fingers through their feathery hair for a moment, thinking. “There are matters I must attend to, preparations in case we are to go to war. The Cloud Retainer and her students will be watching over your health – Bosacius and the others are needed on the battlefield. You will stay here, and recover, and obey the healers when they give instructions for your health, within reason. Is that understood, Xiao?”

“Yes, lady. This one will obey.” Xiao’s voice is even smaller and more humble than before. It hurts to hear. Guizhong stands from their bed. “I have prepared a pot of herbal tea for you. It has pain relieving properties. You will partake of it whenever you feel sufficient pain as to impair your movements, or otherwise once every two hours. This is an order.”

“....this one does not need–”

Guizhong turns to stare at Xiao for a long moment. The little yaksha turns their head away from her gaze, lifting their chin to expose their throat in submission. “.... this one will do as the lady commands.”

Satisfied, Guizhong leaves Xiao’s room in the infirmary. There is much work to be done. The dust restraints fall from Xiao’s arms and wrists as she departs.

Briefly, Azhdaha contemplates the use of force. Combat, battle, these are languages of the body that Morax and he have become very proficient with and practice often with these days. But right now... wouldn’t that just feed into their unnecessary guilt? Perhaps... words first. “Come with me, Morax.”

His friend, his partner, his dear one, follows without question. Without curiosity. Wrong, it's all wrong – a Morax that is not constantly curious about the world is not right. But Azhdaha needs solace and calm, himself, or he will not be able to untangle Morax. And he needs to.

There is a cave, an accessible, open-to-the-surface cave, beneath the Cloud Retainer’s mountain. That is a possibility. But with potential war.... He brings Morax to Tianheng instead. There is a different cave there, cool and damp enough to form Noctilucous Jade. Easy enough for any adepti or yaksha to reach as long as they do not hide their presences or the cave’s entrances. Even a human messenger might be able to find them, if told exactly where to go and if sufficiently capable in climbing. It will... do.

“.... why are we here, Azhdaha?” Morax eventually asks, slumped against the cave wall. “I doubt you are about to put me down – and if you were, this close to so many fragile human lives is not a good location.’

“I’m not, no.” Azhdaha affirms, stretching into partly human shape. He pokes Morax with a foot. “Change your own form too.”

Quietly, Morax does so. Azhdaha retrieves a pot of osmanthus wine, and pours a full cup for Morax. “Here. Drink up. A single cup won’t harm you, or even do more than flavour your mouth with something different. I need to say some things, and you need to listen.”

Morax obliges him, and Azhdaha draws a long, slow breath. He has to say this right, and words... words are not his preferred way to say such things. Unlike Morax. “You know this was an attack against you. The yakshas have proof – the remains of the plant, and the information discovered in the interrogation of those delegation members that survived the plant’s explosive blooming. Even now, Bosacius and the yakshas are reinforcing the border. Already, troops move on the border with Sumeru, in the deserts beyond the chasm. The nomad tribes enter our borders, begging for sanctuary from the few human towns near the Chasm, or from my vishaps and your adepti. The plant that precipitated your loss of control was a ‘gift’ from Rukkhadevata, and made with malicious intent – Bosacius was informed that the pollen is known – is intended to – heighten urges of violence, to seek dominance, to make you angry and lose control. Therefore, your following actions are not your fault.”

“They were my urges –”

“Were they?” Azhdaha asks with a raised eyebrow. His arms flex slowly as he folds them to glare at Morax. “Were they truly? So you intended to abuse Xiao, and hurt them, and perhaps kill and eat them, or lay claim on them without allowing them any opinion in the matter, from the very beginning? Even when you found them in the ruins of their unlamented deceased god’s palace, quite literally helplessly bound, abused, and prey for anyone’s taking?”

“NO! Azhdaha, how dare –” Morax snarls, his power ringing out around him. Azhdaha smiles at him with a baring of teeth. “See. That is what I mean. Look how offended you are at the very notion. How ready you are to attack even me in defence of Xiao. This care, this concern, this desire for their wellbeing – this is your true intention and desire.”

“But I –”

“And before you tell me, O Morax, that mere pollen from a mere plant cannot affect you that strongly – one, we both recall certain incidents with certain plants strongly influenced by the leylines. Two, from all accounts Rukkhadevata’s power is strongly rooted in Dendro – and with malice aforethought, surely they increased the potency and danger of what they instructed their servants to bring into your presence.”

Morax subsides against the cave wall. Azhdaha lets him think about that for a moment. “In my opinion, Morax, the one at fault, chiefly at fault, is Rukkhadevata, for attacking you. The uncharitable would not blame you for your ‘urges’ either, as you were clearly influenced by something beyond your control. They might, at a stretch, blame Xiao for not being able to defend you adequately –”

“Absolute nonsense.” Morax snarls. “Xiao was the first to react – was the fastest to react! If anything, if I had reacted as quickly as them, I would be able to contain the pollen within my shields –”

He falls silent. Azhdaha lets Morax think about it. Eventually, Morax pours himself more wine, swigging it with hardly any attention to its taste, and says, “But... justice is still due to Xiao.”

“You do not know your Xiao very well,” Azhdaha remarks dryly, “If you think that they will ever agree to harm you. Especially in a situation where they undoubtedly blame themselves. But in concept, I agree with you. They have suffered for your sake, in your service. Recompense is due. But before that... justice is due to them, to be taken from the true perpetrator.”

“... I agree.” Morax shakes his head heavily. “I agree. Thank you for... for preventing me from wallowing when there is work to be done. I fear you may have to remind me more than once of this, to my shame. In the interim... there is a fight to be had. Isn’t there, Azhdaha.”

... Morax was agreeing too easily. But Azhdaha doesn’t have the time to really work with him until they fully untangle things. He – all of them – will have to settle for ‘functional enough to fight’, for now. He makes a note of it to discuss with Guizhong, in any case. Perhaps she would have insight on alternate approaches.

Lady Guizhong is as busy as she said she would be. Xiao is... largely left to themselves, and to the care of the healers and the Cloud Retainer’s more advanced students. The Cloud Retainer herself is often busy, called into consultation and meeting after meeting with Lady Guizhong. Xiao... has nothing to do except the various exercises the healers assign to help their recovery – and keep them busy. ... they don’t feel busy enough.

The infirmary is quiet – most of those who might regularly end up in it due to this or that training incident and accident are... away. At the borders, at the slowly simmering conflict that is almost beginning to boil over into war. It is... no, they are... useless. No use in combat – no, that was wrong. What had Indarias said? Not ready to be in combat. It could... it could fight, it could do that – but just being able to fight isn’t good enough. It had – they had – thought they could keep watch, could defend, and then... then they had failed when it was a true threat. They do not mention that thought to anyone. Lady Guizhong had disapproved firmly. Had ... had claimed the exact opposite. The... the partner and friend of their lord could not be mistaken. The mistake was in themselves, that was all.

But its boredom and ennui must be embarrassingly clear, because when the Cloud Retainer makes a visit to update certain recommendations for treatment with the healers, she cocks her head at them, and then snaps to the student accompanying her, “Find a chess board. Weiqi or similar. And a selection of... ah, of the latest treatises this immortal was perusing. Bring those items here.”

Xiao stifles the flicker of curiosity that attempts to well up in it. The Cloud Retainer is their... their ranking superior? Was she? She was somewhere above them in the hierarchy of the adepti that served Morax, of that Xiao was certain. They should obey her, anyway, as long as her instructions did not go against anything that Morax or his partners, or Bosacius and the other yakshas, had already ordered them to do. They lower their eyes to the floor, and wait for the Cloud Retainer to make her intentions known.

“Do you play?” the crane adeptus says after her student has placed the requested items in the room and left. Do they play? Xiao has seen the others take out similar games, if games were what these things are. Had seen them do, play, with these tools. Even been invited to try now and then.

But they had not known the rules, nor how to ask to be taught the rules, the... the ways to play the games. Had not dared to ask. Were these... games... that interesting, that the Cloud Retainer would make do with its poor company just to play them? Slowly, Xiao replies, “This one does not ... know how to play the game, nor its rules, honoured Cloud Retainer.”

For a moment, it seems as though the crane adeptus will chide them. Xiao shrinks into itself a little. What it... what had they said wrongly? Why would the others not... teach it the right thing to say, if its words were wrong?

The Cloud Retainer sighs. Mutters to herself, “Well, it’s not as though Guizhong didn’t warn me....”

Warn her? Warn her of what? Had Xiao said or done something that Lady Guizhong disapproved of? Daringly, they ask, “Has this one offended? Pray educate this one on their faults, so they may remedy it.”

The Cloud Retainer clicks her tongue. “It is not your fault. You’re already working very hard to remedy the unintentional issue, even though of all the people involved you are also arguably the one with the fewest clues as to what is going on. Your effort is commendable, under the circumstances.”

More quietly, as though she wished Xiao not to hear, she murmurs, “And those rock-headed yakshas didn’t quite realise that you would need socialisation explained to you either...”

Xiao has no idea what to make of any of that. The Cloud Retainer shakes her head, and says, “Now, ignorance can be remedied. If you are willing, let me teach you how to play.”

They play for hours. The game is, in the end, less... complicated than Xiao had thought. “This one saw... saw Bosacius play this game, but not as a game. While discussing... discussing military matters that are none of this one’s purview with the others. And sometimes with Lord Morax. Is this a... a game to teach war, or strategy?”

The Cloud Retainer nods approvingly. “It is. Many of the strategists like to use versions of this to help plan or practice certain ideas. But it is also enjoyed by the common folk – most often the literati or military clans, who value the use of it in sharpening their mind and in entertainment. But most importantly, at present, do you enjoy this?”

Xiao shrugs. It was... fine. The Cloud Retainer fortunately doesn’t seem offended by their taciturn reply. “Very well. I must leave soon, but you may keep the game board and pieces. Ah, the books are loaned to you for your amusement and edification. Do not damage them. One of my students will refresh the selection next week.”

Bosacius did not need Azhdaha’s worry to know that not all is well with Morax. That is painfully obvious, to those who knew Morax. The unusual ferocity in battle, the... literal obliteration of enemy encampments with meteors torn from the firmament... the haste. He finds a moment, when the army is camped and resting, to catch Azhdaha and ask, “What’s the matter with him? This is... not like Morax.”

“Guilt.” Azhdaha answers succinctly. “Like with your Xiao.”

“.... Wonderful.” Bosacius snarls. “And unlike with Xiao, we cannot bar him from the battlefield until he’s thinking more clearly.”

“That would not be very helpful in this situation anyway, even without the need for military action. He... needs to feel as though he is doing something that would help the situation.”

Bosacius considers that for a while. “I will speak to the strategists. Perhaps we can work out something that has him and you both on the field, in the same location. Just in case.”

“That would be appreciated, Marshal Tengshe.”

The precautions are proven necessary in the next battle. It is... bloody. They have fought a good way into the deserts beyond the chasm, and into the clinging, choking, rainforests nurtured by Rukkhadevata’s power. A dangerous place to fight indeed. Or, well, it would be, except that Morax is petrifying anything that even looks at him wrong, that doesn’t belong to him. And unlike his usual preferences, he strikes down those with the sense to flee, too. The plants and fungi all around them writhe in fury, attempting to strike them down, to poison them, to overgrow them – they are frozen into stone, ground into dust, in mere moments. Bosacius has never seen Morax lose his... temper... like this. And if Azhdaha’s soft, constant swearing is anything to go by... it has been a very long time since he has seen Morax like this.

“Morax.” He snaps, stomping up to Morax and crushing the latest petrified remains underfoot, “Is this conquest or destruction?”

“Destruction.” Morax answers him, tone perfectly calm and even. “I do not wish any of this... person’s... works to remain after him.”

That.... that is completely understandable, and also... Bosacius knows he is not alone in feeling a shiver of fear snake down his spine. This is... rather more destruction than Morax has cared to wreak in centuries. Azhdaha shakes his head, growling. “Is this, then, the gift of penance you wish to give Xiao? The utter destruction of the one who dared to create a situation where they could be harmed? The utter destruction of all life that does not belong to you here, just because it was nurtured into existence by one whose wisdom approaches foolishness? The creation of a wasteland that will have to be repeatedly purified, repeatedly pacified until at last –”

Laughter interrupts him, strange and wild. “So my gambit has worked surprisingly well, and all... all that was needed was the sacrifice of a few sages, and a very special plant-child or three –”

The meteor rain falls without even a hint of ritual invocation, sparing none who are not shielded hastily by Azhdaha and Morax himself. Bosacius has a sinking feeling that they’re all about to witness how Morax killed his way into a position of strength great enough that someone like Azhdaha would bow to him.

The.... the rival god – Rukkhadevata, it must be them – pants in surprise from the bottom of a crater. “This is not the path of wisdom – is not Morax famed for wisdom and contracts and negotiation – wait, NO –”

Pillars of stone – no, pillars of Geo – spring up around the circumference of the crater, advancing inwards in a pattern which, if grossly simplified, faintly resembles the patterns the yakshas use for sealing beings or creatures too dangerous to kill, for the moment. Morax ignores Rukkhadevata’s desperate, angry screaming, bending down to touch the dusty ground. Bosacius sees his lips move, whispering something. Then, from beneath the earth, something tears, no, grows upward. Roots, or shoots, Bosacius thinks. Pale, gleaming like moon-silver, caging Rukkhadevata’s form and growing upwards – a tree. Why is there a tree – why is it... reinforcing the seal? Morax lays a single hand against the shimmering barrier of the seal. “You dreamt a strong dream to see my rage, Rukkhadevata. Does the fruit of your dream not please you? And now, return your wisdom to its source, and dream the dreams of the Irminsul for them.”

Morax turns and walks away. Around him – around them – the wracked ruins of the once living rainforest shudder and creak in their petrified shapes. Beneath his feet, in his footsteps, the ground fills with rich, fertile soil. The... tree’s... roots reach for it, and it grows massively as they quietly retreat in Morax’s wake. Shading their path, and somehow...

“My lord,” Bosacius asks with great care, “What... will happen to this place now?”

Morax shrugs. “If the Irminsul wishes it, in time the rainforest will regenerate. The little Dendro spirits fled in our wake – they will return when the desert has life again. Perhaps, in time, there will even be another god of Dendro that draws strength from the life of this land. But for now? For now let the land lie fallow, let the thinking beings that can move on their own move on, or pay court to the Irminsul for mercy. I have no mercy left for them.”

#pet-verse #pet #my fic #genshin impact fic

1 note · View note

rileyglas · 22 days

Text

The List ~Pt. 3 - Chance~

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) x Reader

Summary: As you adjust to life in the hotel, you start to form bonds with other guests and offer your help when needed. However, things take a turn when you faint and wake up in the room of the one person you hoped to avoid.

Themes: The usual angst, mystery (Alastor), sassiness, Val is mentioned, Angel gets hurt (sorry), cursing, fluff, eventual smut (the next part is a SPICY one sinners), actual plot, slow burn, and of course 18+, this is the last shorter chapter, I'll start feeding you more!

1.7k Words

Part One Part Two Part Three (You're on it!) Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven

**sentences in italics are internal thoughts of the reader

Over the next few weeks you seem to adjust well to the hotel. You try to help Nifty with at least one meal a day, give advice to Charlie on different ‘redemption exercises’, and have even helped an eggboy or two not get scrambled. Alastor seemed to keep his distance which was much appreciated (especially after hearing the stories and history of the “Radio Demon”). You do what you can to fill the void you feel from not being able to help to your full potential. Of course, there really hasn’t been a need for your expertise. But as they say, ask and you shall receive.

Angel was coming in from yet another brutal shift with Val. He was usually quick to dismiss the bruising around his wrists and face. “Comes with the job babe!” He’d say through a toothy smile. “I didn’t do a good job if I don’t come home with some battle scars!” You’d share a look with Husk, silently agreeing how fucked up this was, but Angel always changed the subject to avoid any pity or awkwardness.

This time was different. It was later than usual. Everyone but you and Husk had long since made their way to bed. Angel walked in staggering and not in the ‘oh he was out with Cherri’ way. He was barely able to make it to the couch before collapsing to his hands and knees. His breathing shallow and raspy – you could hear the blood gurgling in his lungs as he struggled with each breath. This was the worst Val had done yet. That motherfucker is going to kill him one day if he keeps this up – Overlord or not, he’s going to pay. You take a mental note to make a visit to Val, but right now, Angel needed help.

Carefully you try to lift him onto the couch. Angel hisses from the sudden movement. Damnit this is bad. I need a few seconds without any eyes around. “Husk, be a dear and run up to my room please. I have some medical supplies by my bed.”

“No need, I have some stuff behind the ba----” he stops when he sees the glare you’re shooting over your shoulder. “Ah alright fine, I’ll be right back.” he grumbled as he made his way up the stairs. That was the great thing about Husk - he wasn’t one to ask too many questions.

Finally alone you lay Angel back on the couch. “Hey Angel? Babe? I need you to look at me. I know it hurts and it’s hard to breathe but I have a trick that’ll help relieve some of the pressure. Trust me?” He places one of his hands on your shoulder as confirmation, unable to get enough air to speak. Time to work my magic.

Kneeling by the couch, you gently place your hands on his ribs and stomach while leaning your head over his chest, “Alright babe I need you to take a deep breath and close your eyes. This won’t feel great.” You wince as the words leave your mouth. For this to work you’d have to cause him some discomfort otherwise some more complication questions might arise. R̷̢͙̃ǘ̷̮͔͠l̵̰̝̆ḛ̷̀͊ ̵͕̍#̵̜̌2̷̼́̅ Never tell a soul what (or how much) power you have.

“Ok eyes closed and breathe in 3……2…..1….” I’m sorry Angel, you deserve so much better than this. In one motion you shove into his ribs sending him writhing in pain while you place a soft kiss on his chest. The internal injuries made it easy to hide the pink glow that usually came from the wound, however the pain…yeah that shit still felt like torture. During your time training with Carmilla you learned the graver the injury, the more agonizing it was for you. After a few intense moments of pain, you pull away and sit back on your legs, trying to hide the lingering sting you felt in your lungs.

Angel groaned as he opened his eyes, finally able to take a proper breath. “Uhhhgg—what the fuuuuuuuuuuck was that?”

“Just some tricks I had to learn living in the city. You know how rough it gets out there. Glad you’re already feeling better.” You peck Angel’s cheek, feeling a soft twinge on your lips. The last bit of bruising on his face fades without him even realizing it. “Thanks toots. I don’t know how you did it, but I owe ya one.”

On queue Husk turns down the stairs with your medical kit. His face twists in a mix of relief and shock watching Angel up moving as if he wasn’t just on the verge of death five minutes earlier. He chuckles making his way back behind the bar. “Damn you’ve got quite the touch I see.” You tense at his choice of words. Fuck fuck fuck…calm down, he didn’t see anything. “Remind me to keep you on speed dial. Satan knows this one is bound to need you around again!” Husk points to Angel who by now has taken his usual place at the bar. “Oh shut up pussycat – the only thing I need right now is a few shots to forget this day ever happened! Let’s go! Booze me up Mr. Bartender!”

Deciding you have had enough excitement for the night, you say good evening to the guys and drag yourself through the quiet halls. Cursing the aftershock your body was going to endure after having to heal such extensive damage. It wasn’t horrible, more annoying like a bad hangover or flu, but the joy and warmth you felt from being able to help always made the pain more than worth it. You were just a few doors away from your room when your vision blurred. Why is the hall spinning? I don’t remember drinking. Oh fuck ----

Soft music fills your ears as you regain some form of consciousness. A familiar smell floods your senses causing your eyes to shoot open. Looking around you realize you’re in Alastor’s room. Not that you’d been here before, but between the bayou to your left and the freshly laundered red suits hanging by the door - it was obvious. Plus, his smell filled the room. You’d only dreamt of that smell and his warmth at least twice a week since first meeting the demon, much to your frustration.

Sharp static and ringing fill your ears as you sit up. Is this going to happen every time with this guy? Alastor appears in his chair by the bayou, chest puffed out and legs crossed. “Finally awake I see. I was just leaving my radio tower for the evening when you were coming down the hall. Quite a spectacle watching you try to walk straight. Drink too much with our good pal Husker?”

There he goes again trying to drill his eyes into your soul. You’ve seen him interact with the others. His eyes never had the same intensity as they did with you. Lie lie lie. “Yeah, you know how hard him and Angel go some nights. Guess I shouldn’t try to keep up next time.” You try to laugh it off hoping the answer was sufficient enough for him to drop the subject.

It wasn’t.

“Hmmm that’s funny. I didn’t smell a bit of alcohol when I picked you up off that floor.” Shit. “I don’t expect you to tell me everything dear however blatantly lying to me will get you on a side you don’t want to be on.” The static in his voice was piercing. You stared at him in silence. Work brain work, please give me anything. Rule #4 Never let your w̸͉̐e̵͓͐a̷̘͆k̴̭̏ñ̶͔e̶̢͒s̵̩̉ś̵͈è̸̮š̶͚ ̴̣̏s̴̖̈́h̷̲͐o̶̳͗w̷̱̾. Your lack of response apparently told him everything he needed in the moment. Standing up now, he begins to mindfully take off his jacket, unbutton his vest, and push up his sleeves.

This is it. This I how I die. And all because ---- oh fucking hell --- how did he get even more attractive? Is he doing this on purpose? Wow I’ve really got to get my priorities straight.

You can feel your heart pounding into your throat in anticipation as he sits in front of you on the bed. He slowly removes his gloves and tosses them to the side table.

“Let’s try this again…“

He reaches for your hands making you jerk slightly but he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. You feel him pull you and as if under a spell, you follow mindlessly until you’re resting on your knees. He brings your inner wrist to his lips, gently peppering kisses between his words.

“What could possibly... “ kiss

“cause someone to drop as if… “ kiss

“the very life was sucked out of them?” kiss

An unfamiliar heat rips through your body, settling in your stomach and a little lower if you were being honest. You’ve never allowed anyone to be this intimate with you. Rule #3 N̴e̵v̴e̶r̵ ̷b̶r̷i̶n̸g̷ ̷a̸n̵y̷one too close.

“I – I – don’t..I didn’t – just tired.“ you give up on trying to form a coherent answer. What is he trying to get out of this? Alastor rests your hands on his cheeks. A deep sigh leaving his lips when he feels your warmth. You didn’t dare move, realizing you were just as touch starved as the demon in front of you.

Your mind is at full blown war. Torn between the desire to lean into this precarious high and absolute rage that he was trying to get into your head.

“I need to know so I can help you, my dear. I want to protect you.” His voice was clear but low. It lacked any trace of his usual radio effect. It’s as if he was dropping every façade. Speaking to you not as the Radio Demon but as just Alastor. “You and I could do great things [Y/N]. Trust me. Let me show you.”

What is he doing? I have worked relentlessly to be one of the strongest, most elusive demons in Hell. I fear no one. I need NO ONE. Yet here I am completely unravelling…

….to the Radio Demon.

Rule #̴̤͌1̴̢͝ ̶̘̽N̵̹̐e̴̯̋v̷̳̈́e̸̯̎r̵̠̕ ̸͈̊t̵̼͑ŗ̷̃u̴͔̓s̷̢̑t̴̪̓ ̵͎̊a̴̺͛n̶̛̳o̴̺͆t̴̤̿h̶̗̿e̴̞̋ȓ̸͜ Overlord.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor the radio demon #alastor x reader #fanfic #x reader #angel dust #hazbin hotel husk #reader insert #fem reader #slow burn #alastor smut

114 notes · View notes