#because i will dive further down into my delusion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shattered-catalyst · 3 years

Text

OCD Subtypes for the RPC

Part 1 is here

Well well well, we are back for Part 2 of the Roleplayer’s Guide to OCD.

Fellow Ocd Folks, I see you in those tags and I'm going to do my best to ensure those obsessions are represented here- BUT understand that physically it is not going to be possible to list every single one because I am one person. Regardless its incredibly brave of you all to rb and add things in the tags, I know its hard to talk about this shit and I see you. I see you.

Resultantly I typed this out and posted it in formatting to assist with accessibility in mind; if you cannot read it still ( I tried Im sorry!) i recommend the copy and paste method or getting the chrome extension bee-line reader.

There will be grammatical and spelling mistakes. Im sure spacing is odd some places, but you have to understand doing this is extremely anxiety provoking for me so Im just getting it done when I can.

Remember to use your critical thinking; not everyone has the same symptoms/compulsions/triggers and all that.

OCD is fluid. Its like liquid mercury. One day its a handful of subtypes another day its another different serving.

If you are in general squicked about certain topics even by mention read ahead with your own judgement. Remember us folks that have OCD have many disturbing and distressing experiences so if you are writing a character who has OCD and you can’t read about it just don’t give them that obsessive thought/ compulsion. Make sure writing is still a safe and enjoyable hobby for yourself first and foremost.

But ethically and morally I cannot and will not leave out the more disturbing bits. You have the ability to scroll by, I and many others do not get the chance to escape triggering content that our own mind creates.

So read ahead with your best judgement or at least skip around the squicky parts and educate yourself on what OCD is so people quite using it as a Obsessive Christmas/Corgi/Cat Disorder thing. Alright? Cool beans.

Okay so you made it passed post 1 and got under the read more. Give yourself a gold star for diving into this monster of a document.

Below is a crash course it is not meant to replace actual psychoeducation, personal research, or google. Honestly most of us do our research extensively but because OCD is treated so horribly by social media, media, and society in general.

I wasn’t sure where to throw these together because the education tools to learn fully about OCD are very specialized and thus very restricted. I found that many people DO have these experiences with OCD though so I will represent them throughout. I’ll also sprinkle some of my own experiences so you can get a good reference of a person who has the disorder and not just a randomly generated person.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

So OCD is made up of Obsessions, Trigger, Intrusive thought, Misinterpretation/feared consequence,Somatic and Psychological Anxiety, and Compulsions/Rituals.

Your character may not be able to list all of these. In fact if they aren't in ERP therapy they may not be able to puzzle these things out. But YOU as the writer should know them. Your character won’t be walking around talking to just ANYONE that they have OCD. Remember a huge aspect of OCD is it’s Shame. The disorder makes us feel intense shame regarding our intrusive thoughts, as a result OCD goes undiagnosed for years especially if it has pediatric onset.

We won’t tell anyone what we are experiencing or why we are doing x y or z. We act like nothing is wrong because to emotionally react is to admit to yourself- and therefore the world- that you have had this intrusive thought and are therefore by virtue a horrible person.[For further information I would suggest also researching PANDAS].

It may be noticeable if your character has an intrusive thought. They may wince or grimace or roll their eyes certainly, but they won’t open up to Joe at the cafe about how their brain is constantly torturing them. I apparently have a very noticeable eye twitch.

Depending on the nature of the intrusive thought it will get more or less of a reaction out of me. Its usually dependent on how distressing the intrusive thought is and/or if its a new one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You see OCD doesn’t sit still. It never looks the same. You’ll have your long haul intrusive thoughts that are with you for years but then you’ll have weird ass ones that just appear and demand their voice be heard yelling about cars hitting people or squirrels getting eaten.

Some people have similar ones! So while everyone is different there will always be someone out there with an intrusive thought similar to yours.

For instance; I bonded emotionally with a lady on reddit because we both have intrusive thoughts during storms that animals and the homeless are dying. We were both horribly relieved to find another person and also distressed that every snow or rain storm brings horrible images and whispers to your mind that while you are warm and snug in bed someone is freezing to death. And its all your fault.

Some days are better than others. As with all mental illnesses it isn’t CONSTANT ALARM BELLS. Some days it will be all alarms and other days it will be like a gentle whisper on the breeze. You can almost not notice it. Almost.

Obsessive thoughts run the gauntlet from ‘i will/could have/may/may accidentally harm etc’ something that you hold of value. This is any obsessive thought that you have: you think about repeatedly and not by choice, it is very anxiety provoking, it is unwanted, and unwelcome.

Mine run the scale from ‘squirrel will be murdered’ to ‘being responsible for harm’.

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object. In short, compulsions and rituals are not fun. they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To emphasize from post 1: magical thinking and the faulty link between thoughts and actions are hallmarks of OCD. Magical thinking can be anything from contamination to if I turn around three times or stare really hard at something the bad thing wont happen. Sounds weird and is weird and we know it is thats why its a disorder and not a delusion.

The faulty belief that thought=action is the biggest hurdle it is incredibly difficult to grasp, at least for me maybe some of you that have done further ERP can attest, that the mere concept of a thought not being the same as an action is completely and totally mind blowing.

Free will? Yeah thats terrifying. IDK about anyone else but free will is absolutely terrifying; what do you mean i could do anything i wanted?

Thats how you face OCD(WITH A TRAINED THERAPIST). You give in to ambiguity and the unknown. Its breaking that link between thought and action. Its incredibly difficult and draining. A five minute exposure leaves me in shatters for a week and two five minute ones had me ripping my nails past the nail beds with anxiety.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just a reminder: Do not have your character expose themself or expose folks with OCD to a trigger to “ help us get over with”. That is literally forcing someone with a mental illness into a break down and is not helpful. In fact its worse because a person knows about this intrusive thought and they tried to make it real. More shame and some trauma.

If you have OCD, more likely than not a family member or significant other has tried this with the purest of intentions. But it never works like that. Theres a reason that therapists get special training for this. If people want a post on ERP I can make one at some point.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually let’s drag me with the squirrel thing as the example- fellow OCD Folks get out a pen and paper and try breaking down one of yours;

Obsession:Squirrel will be murdered

Trigger: seeing a squirrel

Intrusive thought: Graphic images of a squirrel being murdered by a hawk/ impaling depending on the day

Misinterpretation/feared consequence: Squirrel will be killed and its all my fault

Somatic and Psychological Anxiety:intense anxiety, palms sweating, heart racing,

Compulsions/Rituals: Must stare at the squirrel to prevent bad things from happening,

Now imagine if that is every time you see a fucking squirrel. You have somehow become completely and totally transfixed on a squirrel and nothing is going to pull your attention away or the squirrel dies- which your mind is giving you lovely images of btw.

Cute right?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below are the subtypes with general information/example thoughts/ and how some of these have impacted me socially because apparently some people dont understand that mental illnesses impact their social lives?? yall...

Social: This can range from ‘ i am constantly thinking i did something wrong so i have to ask for reassurance that we are still friends’ to completely unrealistic worries. Maybe its an intrusive thought that ‘ your voice is annoying them’ . There’s reassurance seeking, internal and external checking.

It makes friendships extremely difficult and exhausting. You’re not trying to get to know someone with an annoying frat boy egging on anxiety in your brain. This can also manifest as having strict rules for yourself and ethical codes.

My therapist likes to say she could give us (folks with OCD) a pile of hundred dollar bills and come back and they’d all be returned. Because OCD makes you so strict and morally confined. Which ISNT fun. Like I dont get pleasure over having to memorize the entire Code of Conduct!

Social Media: Its the bane of human existence some days and a lifeline the next. But what if everytime your follower count was an odd/even number it sent you into a panic attack. What if you spent all your time with intrusive thoughts that somehow someone misinterpreted a post or that someone is going to be harmed by a post you made about tapirs.

You may be forced to block people to get your number down or keep pornbots on your blog to keep your number what you like (see there is a use for them! We sacrifice those before actual users!) You may be refreshing your page every second because ‘what if you miss a message’. It's going to look a lot like ‘check check check check reassure yourself double check your posts check check check reassure check check FALSE MEMORY check your post etc’

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Clothing/Body Image: When its not Body Dysmorphia it can be OCD. Sometimes this looks like I obsess about a body part and therefore I choose my clothes/hairstyles to hide those. Some personal examples: as a kid I was sure that mind readers exist ( THIS IS AN OCD THING TOO I was so relieved to find that out) and that if i didnt wear a particular hat they would see all these horrible thoughts and it would be revealed what an awful person I was. So I wore the same dumb ass bucket hat for a year (or more I cannot remember but it was a long ass time).

I was once so fixated on being given a compliment on my eye color that I wore sunglasses (even at night) to a summer camp. And if any of those teen girls in that cabin that stood up and mocked me in a crowded lunch hall by singing ‘i wear my sunglasses at night’ you all owe me 40$.

Even younger still I had intrusive thoughts. Like say, if anyone noticed I was female that i would be kidnapped so I chopped my hair very short. I altered my appearance to be very androgynous and even switched to walking more masculine. Because omg if your hips move someones going to kill you thats just how it works. ( It doesnt help I later figured out I was a lesbian)

Your wardrobe may be impacted by OCD and yes so can your body image.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also yes the fear of mind readers is also a thing; i always thought I was somehow faking OCD because yes that is also a…..

Faking: Do you value telling the truth? Do you detest lying ? Boy Howdy do I have some news for you. OCD is going to try and convince you that YOU LIED. Whether it was on a chastity pledge to get a free sandwich or in a conversation you just HAD. This links a lot with false memory OCD.

Another aspect is OCD makes us doubt we have OCD and tries to convince us we have any other diagnosis under the sun and we are obviously faking our OCD.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sexual Orientation OCD; It is as it is called. Sexual Orientation OCD is what happens when your brain goes ‘hold on what if you’re not this orientation what if you are THAT’. It doesn’t matter where on the LGBT umbrella you fall you will have OCD trying to convince you otherwise. From compulsive staring at members of the same/opposite gender to compulsively reassuring or checking with yourself to ensure that ‘ no no you are in fact THIS orientation.’

This can range in behavior from binge watching porn, staring compulsively to check that there is OR is NOT attraction,self checking past experiences and memories, analyzing your clothing and your lifestyle in painful and intricate methods.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

False Memory OCD; False memory OCD is basically your brain sitting you in a noir interrogation room, handcuffing you to a chair grilling you. It demands that you did *insert bad thing here*. This can range from anything from something Harm based to pretty much *anything* from other OCD subtypes. Which is quite delightful really.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensorimotor OCD; Sensorimotor OCD is obsessive body responses. These can be ‘ I have to cough really hard and really feel it right in my chest and if I can’t get it right I have to cough until I do’. This can be counting your heartbeats. Trying to check yourself that you in fact have a heart and checking and reassuring that it is still beating. It can be hyper-awareness of swallowing or even swallowing repeatedly. It is anything with selective attention; ie its an automated process but your OCD is forcing you to be aware of it.

Your OCD makes you aware of the sensation of, say, breathing, and then it convinces you that if you stop paying attention to it you will stop breathing. So now you’re horribly aware and focused solely on breathing and breathing alone. It keeps me up most nights with the pounding anxiety fueled by the pressure of ‘if you stop focusing on breathing you will stop breathing completely’ or waiting to feel that last heartbeat in your chest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Existential OCD; You ever feel existential ? Existential OCD is like having a very aggressive existential crisis that turns you into NEEDING answers IMMEDIATELY. This can look anything from hours panic scrolling the net to panic inducing anxiety because you don't know what happens after death. The thoughts are like foghorns on a misty sea.

This sounds basic and the only example i can give is as a teeny tiny 7 year old I had a panic attack in bed screaming that ‘ what if im a dinosaur and im asleep and i wake up and my whole family is GONE’.

To be fair I did like dinosaurs a lot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harm OCD; This is pretty self explanatory but I will give more details. Harm OCD is OCD demanding that you will/could/can/may have/might harmed yourself/others/any living creature and that you alone are responsible.

This means anything from getting anxious driving over crosswalks because ‘what if you dont see one and hit someone and its all your fault and you hit someone go back and make sure you havent hit anyone’ to ‘im holding a knife so im going to accidentally stab someone’ to ‘ i didnt see my cat this morning and now im at work and think she must be dead and i am responsible for her demise.’

It can be as simple as ‘if i use a pencil i will stab myself in the eye’ or as complex as ‘ i may accidentally say a slur’/ ‘ i am going to say this horrible thing out loud if i cannot control myself.’ It can also be images of terror or racist/sexist/ableist jokes in your mind that repeat like a broken record.

(Please note from section 1 that this is extremely anxiety provoking and not something you would do. OCD preys on what we respect the most.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pOCD; Tumblr listen the fuck up because I am tired of seeing people get called shit on this website for having this mental illness. People who experience pOCD are not pedophiles, they do not get any pleasure or benefit. The thoughts and images are meant to induce harm to the person experiencing them. Children are normally the trigger for this and the resulting images can be very graphic. Again you aren’t attracted to children- thoughts of them getting harmed hurt you so your OCD makes you see them.

Know this so you can advocate for folks with pOCD in real life. Remember we are here. We are suffering and we are terrified of your children.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poisoning others/or in your food; Life isn’t medieval anymore but sometimes OCD demands we have a food taster or that we obsessively worry that we may kill someone with our cooking. Personally I struggle with colorblindness so I am constantly fretful over cooking any sort of meat so it’s difficult for me to cook it.

However this also comes as; obsessive horrible thoughts of your cooking kill someone or that you have somehow/accidentally poisoned someone’s food (even if you haven’t touched it or been within a foot of it ) or that someone has poisoned YOUR food even if no one has touched it except you. You’re going to be picking apart your food or unable to eat out at all.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emotional Contamination: It’s similar to magical thinking and this terrifying prospect of mind readers. Emotional contamination can manifest as anything from intense worry over somehow gaining someone else’s negative personality traits.

Or that somehow by interacting with any role of someone horrible will make YOU somehow also responsible for the horribleness. There is usually a person or a type of person that is a trigger, but it can also be location based.

This is one subtype where magical thinking and superstition are apparent.

For instance; as a teen if a male was in my space or had physical contact;like shaking hands,giving a high five, being in my room etc. I would have to go around and physically touch all the objects that I perceive they may have also touched as a way to cancel out their presence.

This includes wiping off myself to negate even the touch of family members. It really hurts peoples feelings, my father was especially hurt by this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Physical Contamination: This goes beyond physical dirt and grime. Most of us dont have spotless homes because if you’re having a fist fight with your brain everyday cleaning falls by the wayside just like it would for anyone else. Physical contamination holds 2 things: physical contamination obsessions AND compulsive cleaning behaviors/rituals. We believe that a small amount of a contaminate can cover large surfaces.

Oh, and did I mention its not JUST dirt/germs/viruses. The list is expansive but heres a mixed bag of what they can be: sticky substances,dead animals,glitter (FUCKING GLITTER),negative words or language,colors, numbers, surfaces in general, food, people, and activities. There is also a hyper responsibility to protect yourself and others from ‘contamination’.

Strangely there is a magical separation between the contaminated world and the ‘clean’ one. Spaces designated as clean would be a bedroom/bathroom/workspace where you are most active. That space is where the compulsions and intrusive thoughts occur. Its not I MUST CLEAN EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Otherwise I would be working cleaning houses because why the hell not amiright?

A real world example from a colleague would be a young man with physical contamination OCD is struck with such intrusive thoughts about cleaning that they refuse to allow anyone in their room or any animals in their home. But they are not able to even flush the toilet, take out the trash, wash dishes, or do garbage because of their intrusive thoughts.

The most famous would be compulsive hand washing but I feel it is important to also note OTHER aspects of physical contamination because everyone sees the hand scrubbing stereotype.

Other compulsions include intricate rituals, not touching the floor (i played X-treme the floor is lava during college. I couldnt let my feet touch the floor because it was ‘dirty’),excessive showering (2-8+ hour showers guys, 8 hour showers. Thats what we’re talking about.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Relationship OCD: This comes as no surprise that yes you will have intrusive thoughts that you are somehow harming/ will harm/ may accidentally harm your significant other. Whether that be by physical or emotional means. It can look like ‘ I may have lied to her about how much I love her’, ‘ i may not actually love her and I may be leading her on’, and ‘ I must be corrupting her’. These can extend to certain physical activities with false memory OCD as a cherry on top. A great finishing garnish to leave you feeling absolutely dismayed and unable to trust your own perception.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scrupulosity: Religion! Whatever that may be! Its a thing with OCD. With Scrupulosity obsessive thoughts run all over the board from; you committed a sin and forgot about it you monster to having to pray continuously/ a certain time/ until its right. What is right?Ask OCD that’s the only person who knows.

We are fairly certain my grandfather had OCD because he went to church for every single Catholic Mass. Every single day. Every. Single. Day. That’s not a healthy amount of attendance(I'm calling you out posthumously because I care Robert!). This can also look like: praying a certain amount of times. Praying until you do it ‘right’. Confessing every single potential sin. Cataloguing and dwelling over ‘sinful’ things.

----------------------------------------------------------

Symmetry or Just Right OCD: Symmetry OCD is the runner up for ‘most likely recognized on tv shows’ award.

Symmetry OCD convinces you that if *insert thing here* isnt symmetrical or ‘just right’ (a magical position or number of objects that makes 0 logical sense) that something bad will happen.

This can range from the known; rearranging things. But it also looks like buying more objects until you reach the right amount and even throwing out objects if theres ‘too many’.

It can range from ‘the walls are percievably not straight so now i avoid that room at all costs otherwise i will be trapped traveling the edges of the wall with my eyes otherwise it will fall in and murder us ALL.’ to ‘ this historical bust is one inch off to the left and now all i see is visions of it breaking against the ground.’

So that is what I have time for. 9 pages on subtypes and basic information. If you find yourself wanting me information all of this is easily accessible online. So go, be free and dont ever compare people to Monk again. Write Batman and Scott Summers with OCD. Give us ACTUAL representation and not throw away joke lines. We are here. Our suffering isnt funny. We deserve representation too.

#OCD #writing help #OCD resources.#*drops 10 pages onto your dash* whoops

42 notes · View notes

slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years

Text

To Dance With Danger | Jurdan Whump Fic

Anon asked: “Can you write something about how Jude gets hurt somewhere and the Court of Shadows and Cardan go looking for her”

Summary: “The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.” Please forgive me.

Rating: T

CW: Mild cursing. Minor mentions of abuse (~) and vomit (*); Paragraphs containing these sensitivities have been marked with the allocated warnings. Major descriptions of pain and delusions.

Part I | Part III | AO3 | Masterlist

Part II- Follow You Down To the Red Oak Tree

She’d never considered herself stupid.

Foolish, maybe once or twice. But Jude Duarte-Greenbriar was never an idiot outright. So it came as a great shock to her when she found herself bleeding out in a cave in the middle of the Milkwood.

Wouldn’t this be a hilarious way to go? All her life, Jude had been worried about time peeling her right out of her own mortal skin. Yet here she was, dying from a paltry cut.

That last thought, she knew was stupid. This was more than a paltry cut. It throbbed like a second heartbeat and burned like her knee was a plate of scrambled eggs someone was pushing around with a fork.

A small pool of spilled blood darkened the ground near her ankles. Sometimes, her vision narrowed, blurred.

Perhaps this was one last way for the stars to taunt her. Give her everything she ever wanted and more than she could possibly hope for; a grand feast befitting of a Queen, spread out just for her; then rip her away from herself like the tablecloth in one of those mortal magic tricks.

Jude was not afraid.

When you’d lived your whole life knowing the promise of death was the single certainty of your existence, you tended to come to terms with it. So Jude did not fear dying. Only the horrible, yawning oblivion that came after.

☽☽☽☽☽

It was a quarter past one, and Cardan’s feet were flying. Out his chamber doors, down the spiral stairs, right to the little wooden door opposite the library, which he promptly began pounding on.

There was a groan within, some shuffling. Then, “It’s the middle of the day, for Mab’s sake,” a groggy voice came muffled from behind the door. “What could possibly be so—oh.”

The Bomb, all messy-haired, eyes squinting at the brightness of the hall, let the door creak open a fraction before realising who exactly had summoned her from sleep. She opened the door in full.

“Cardan—erm, I mean… Your Majesty,” she said, brows furrowing. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Pleasure?” Another even-more-groggy voice came from inside the room. “I’ve got a mallet hammering at my brain thanks to him. Bloody pusher. You can tell His Majesty to kindly sod off.” The Roach held a pillow over his gnarled green head and a rude finger up in the direction of the door.

“Van,” the Bomb tutted over her shoulder. She pulled her dressing gown tight around her and faced the High King again. Only then did she seem to register the look on his face.

“Liliver,” Cardan said, frantic. His mind was all static, hollow—so very full of nothing. Words felt like they came through a tangle of tree sap and brambles in his throat. “It’s Jude.”

That’s all it took.

The Court of Shadows was moving, the guard summoned. Even the Roach managed to scrape himself together. The Ghost slipped into their ranks just as they were passing through the throne room, and informed the High King he’d done a sweep of the palace, just to be sure.

“And?” Cardan demanded, pivoting on his heel to face the sharpshooter.

“She’s not here,” the Ghost said.

Cardan’s mouth set into a grim line. He gave a curt nod, but his stare lingered on the dais. Where the pair of thrones sat, a latticework of woven roots and blossoms. They seemed to be holding their breath, too.

From the back of the leftmost royal seat, a deep blue flower petal shivered. Then it was falling in listless swoops and dives, whispering across the seat of the chair.

Hurry.

“Get a carriage,” Cardan said, just loud enough to be heard. The room was silent as a snowbank. “Go.”

There was a beat. Then, the din of metal and rushing of boots and they were all moving again.

The High King and his men took to the forests, guarded with crossbows and swords that might as well be spoons for how much they would protect against the glimpses.

Cardan didn’t know why his wife had decided to catch a glimpse. He had even less of a clue as to why she thought she had to do it alone.

The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.

☽☽☽☽☽

Night was encroaching. This, Jude only knew because the game she’d invented—finding pictures in the cracks and shadows of the cave wall to beat back the tide of sleep—was becoming more and more difficult.

She shivered. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, but the fever had set in.

Jude couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a fever. It must’ve been when she was six or seven. When she was still living in the mortal world, and her mother was still alive to take care of her and getting fevers was the most of her worries.

Eva had climbed into her bed with two washcloths and snuggled up real close.

She’d sat there for hours, pressing the warm compress to Jude’s forehead when she was too cold and the cold compress to her forehead when she was too warm. Telling her stories of magical places. Feeding her saltines and seltzer.

Jude had wholly forgotten how it felt to have a fever. It was as if she was being filled to the brim with hot wax and dunked in a bucket of ice water at the same time.

She’d only recently rediscovered how it felt to be comforted. She wondered if she’d ever feel that again.

Maybe, Jude thought, she could imagine herself some comfort. She was so very good at lying, after all. Maybe she could lie to herself. Just for a little while.

She stared up at the ceiling, listening to the woeful sighs of the glimpses ebb and flow from outside the cave.

She imagined lying next to Cardan in their bed in the Royal Chambers. With nowhere to be and nothing to do, Cardan would cocoon them both in satin sheets, trace lazy shapes around her bare shoulders with the tips of his fingers. Pepper her back with nips and kisses.

He would agree to be the big spoon for once since she was the one in need of comforting.

“Jude,” he would say softly, caressing her cheek, brushing the hair away from her eyes, “You are perhaps the single most important thing in my life.”

She’d turn her head to nuzzle the crook of his neck. “And you, mine, my love,” she’d say. He smelled like fallen leaves. And burnt toast.

Jude crinkled her nose. Odd. He didn’t usually smell like burnt toast. Had they just had breakfast? She couldn’t remember….

“I don’t understand.” Cardan’s voice was dipped in worry, and he paused the soothing circles of his fingers.

“Cardan,” Jude said, rolling her eyes, “We’ve been over this. I want to be here. I want to be with you. I love you.”

Sometimes her husband just needed a little reminding. Sometimes she preferred to give him that reminder in other, much more wicked ways. Perhaps today she would give him both.

A sinful smile curled the corners of Jude’s lips. She turned around in Cardan’s arms to face him fully and was about to seal the morning off with a kiss, followed by further disreputable behaviour, when she noticed the look on his face.

It was the same one he wore when he’d looked at her from the riverbank after pushing her in a lifetime ago. The same one that had graced his face when she’d first placed that crown atop his head.

Now, in the bed they shared, Cardan looked at her with nothing but cold ire. “How could you do it?” he whispered, and Jude’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know why, but something slick like tar settled in the pit of her stomach. She wanted him to smooth the crease between her brows. To kiss her forehead and call her his darling god.

But Cardan’s face remained a glacial effigy of the man she’d come to love. With nothing but disdain, he looked down his nose at her and asked, “How could you kill him? How could you murder my brother?”

*Jude sat up straight and vomited all over the cave floor. Then, she was pulled out to sea by a riptide of sleep.

☽☽☽☽☽

The High Queen of Elfhame was spinning. Round and round, a circle of fever dreams.

It was like sitting on a merry-go-round and looking in towards the centre where all those mirrors usually hang. Watching whirling versions of things and lights and yourself pass you by in the reflective panels moving in the opposite direction.

One terrible vision after the next.

Locke’s water-logged body, blue-green and covered in seaweed, standing at the mouth of the cave. Valerian, dirt pouring from between his teeth as he smiled, walling up the entrance with stones, then filling the cave with blood. Balekin ensorceling her to kiss him, then turning into a giant moth right as her lips touched his. Cardan’s head on a pike with upturned eyes, jaw dropped as if mid-warning. A voice in her head.

Heeding requests, even my own, is the singular skill which evades her grand arsenal.

No key fits every lock.

I do not want Balekin dead.

How could you do it? How could you murder my brother?

Perhaps this is what she deserved. Perhaps she was a monster who couldn’t control herself long enough to keep from hurting those she loved, no better than Madoc. Perhaps Valerian’s curse was coming to fruition, after all.

If Jude could have laughed, she would have. But she could not. Dark waves lapped at the shores of her consciousness; and who was she to ignore the sea?

☽☽☽☽☽

Eventually, there was another voice in her head.

Shit, it said. Yes, she really was in very deep shit.

I FOUND HER, it bellowed, splintering her thoughts. She wondered if she should tell the voice to shut up. Though, it probably already knew that’s what she wanted, since it was in her head, and had probably heard her think it.

It was getting crowded in here. Her head was a swollen, throbbing balloon.

Fucking shit, the voice repeated.

Well, she thought, that was quite rude. No way to address a lady, such as herself. Whoever she was.

Something prodded her leg.

A sudden, violent wave of pain swept over her. It rose and rose and rose, but never fell. Darkness pulled her to its depths again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Can you hear me?

Stay awake. Stay. Awake.

*The voice was urgent. And constant. And very annoying. It felt like a cheese grater running down her mind. Her throat burned. Maybe the voice had run a cheese grater over that, too. Her hand slid into something wet. It smelled like sick.

Then, there was a cold compress on her forehead.

“Mom?” she croaked, her voice like cracked plaster. She lifted the heavy weight of her eyelids.

A figure was looming over her. It was too dark to see who, but her heart thrashed against her chest, all the same. This was another terrible dream. She was not sure she could take another one of those. Then again, she was in no position to fend it off if it decided to come. She was in no position to do anything, really.

“Not mom, Your Majesty,” the figure sighed, removing the compress. “You’re burning up.”

Not a compress. Hands.

“Whose Majesty?” she asked through the haze in her mind. Everything was so confusing. Everything was also spinning.

She heard rummaging. Next thing she knew, a match had been struck, and the room filled with warm light. The figure looking down at her was indeed a woman, though it was indeed not her mother.

She had familiar plumes of white hair circling her head like smoke. Full, wine-red lips pressed into a weak smile. “Hello, Jude,” the woman said.

Yes, that must be who she was. She opened her mouth to thank the beautiful woman for the reminder, but all Jude could seem to do was squint. She knew this woman from somewhere.

“I’m going to pick you up now, okay?”

Jude could not muster the wherewithal to reply. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, slid gingerly under her knees. Then, the world tilted, shifted, until she was right up against something warm and solid.

Jude looked up at the woman. “You’re ethereal,” she murmured, staring up at the soft planes of her face. Blush blossomed a stain of pink across the woman’s cheeks. “Are you god?”

The woman snorted, then. Jude didn’t understand what was so funny. It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Since she was dying, and all.

“That’s quite enough of that, Your Majesty,” the woman said. “Let’s get you home.”

Home, Jude mused. She’d thought she was home, but maybe… she was wrong? Wherever home was, it sounded nice. She should like to go there someday.

☽☽☽☽☽

She was deep inside a cave. She could see nothing, but echoes of conversation pinged off the walls.

Delirious. Didn’t know who I was.

Reckon it’s the fever?

The infection perhaps?

Could be, but you need to keep her awake.

Can I hold her? Please?

The moon was a Cheshire cat smile above her. It grinned, then shattered into one hundred panes of opaline glass—a dragonfly’s wing, splitting her knee wide open.

☽☽☽☽☽

When Jude woke again, she knew she was home.

She was being jostled around a bit, and her leg felt like someone had set it on fire, but she didn’t mind. She was wrapped in something soft. The sound of hooves on packed earth thundered in her ears.

Her name was being called.

“Jude,” someone said, over and over, a litany. A curse. “Jude, my love, you mustn’t fall asleep. You must stay awake. Can you do that for me, Jude? Please, stay with me.”

She opened her eyes. Blinked slow. The disembodied voice belonged to someone. That someone cradled her in his lap, holding her face between his hands. Everything was blurry, but she’d know those hands anywhere.

“Jude?” he whispered.

She summoned the tattered bits of her strength, lifting her hand to cover one of his. It was shaking.

“I know you,” Jude said, willing her eyes to focus. A keening sound tore from him.

Him. She knew his name. What was it? Her mind was so muddled by exhaustion and the riot of pain in her left leg, she could not remember. She was so angry at herself for not remembering.

Jude frowned. Huffed. Tried to refocus her eyes. It was the most important name, more important even than her own. She was a terrible person for forgetting it. She was pretty sure she was a terrible person anyway, but forgetting his name made her even worse.

She lifted a hand to his cheek. Her frown deepened. “Why is your face wet?”

“Because I’m very worried for my wife,” he said, in a strained sort of voice.

“You have a wife?” Envy billowed, a parachute in her chest. Which was ridiculous. She couldn’t even see this man. How could she possibly know if she was jealous?

He breathed a laugh. “Yes,” he told her, stroking her hair gently. “She is a headstrong, ornery fool who holds a vendetta against my poor nerves.”

Everything was quite difficult at the moment. All Jude could think was how beautiful this man’s voice sounded and how very badly she wanted to go back to sleep.

“Hmm.” She closed her eyes again. “She sounds awful.”

“No,” he said. “She is not.”

☽☽☽☽☽

*Watching his wife being carried off like a rag doll into the Royal Chambers, blood-spattered and covered in her own sick, Cardan Greenbriar had never felt so small.

~He felt smaller now than when Dain had tricked him, and he’d been kicked out of the palace for a murder he did not commit. Smaller now than all the times Balekin had removed his belt. Smaller now than when he was a kid crawling beneath the dining table, scrounging for scraps of food and attention.

The Bomb had explicitly forbidden Cardan from accompanying them further than the ante-chamber.

“If I’m going to heal her,” she’d said to him firmly, pausing outside the bedroom doors, “I’m going to need the utmost focus. Which will certainly not be achieved by you being in there, all blubbering and sentimental. So unless you know anything about mortal biology…”

Cardan had never in his life wished to be mortal; but suddenly, the desire to be one was visceral. He’d never wanted to lie more than he did in that moment. He tried to will the words past his lips, but they snagged in his throat.

He was unable as ever.

So he’d been kicked out of his own bedroom. Away from his own wife. Who may or may not be dying.

The matter was still inconclusive. Cardan read it on the faces of the cycle of people poking their heads out in intervals to check on him or bring him tea. Sometimes, it was the Roach. Sometimes, the Ghost. Only once was it the Bomb, who had been hard at work for endless hours, and needed a break.

Her face was just as dour as the rest.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she muttered, sliding down the wall to sit next to him on the floor just outside the bedroom doors. “If you need to talk—”

“What I need, Liliver, is for you to heal her,” Cardan snapped.

He regretted the words as soon as he’d said them. She was only trying to comfort him. She, too, had once been forced to watch as her beloved toed the line between life and death. Right now, though, the High King did not have the strength to feel sorry for anyone but himself.

The Bomb only nodded. Once, short and curt. She left him to his misery after that. Cardan supposed he’d probably have a lot of apologising to do to a lot of people by the end of this.

A while later, and rather belatedly, he realised he could very well just barge in there and demand to stay. Magical oath or not, he was still High King. They would still listen to him.

But maybe the Bomb had a point. Maybe it would only make him more anxious, to be in there; he did not want to impede on Jude’s progress. Maybe nothing was the most he could do.

All his life, he’d spent doing most every childish thing. He’d tugged on the tails of cats, threw tantrums when he didn’t get his way, threatened people when they offended him.

Now, Cardan sat there on the floor with his head in his hands, doing absolutely nothing, and felt more like a child than ever.

☽☽☽☽☽

Jude was a dragonfly hovering over water, dipping in and out of sleep. She was flying and then sinking and then flying again.

It went like this for a while.

She’d fall asleep in one place and drift to the surface of consciousness in another. Sometimes she felt no pain. Sometimes she felt a great deal of pain all at once. The latter would usually send her careening back into nothingness.

On occasion, she’d awaken just long enough to recognise the faces floating in and out of her vision. The Roach, with his scythe of a nose. The Ghost, with his sandy hair and silent demeanour. The Bomb, who Jude had a strange, vague feeling was blushing every time she looked at her. She even recognised a nurse or two.

Always, there were people. There was one face, however, that she did not see.

“Bomb,” Jude rasped, and the faerie’s eyes met hers. “If I die, would you tell him I hated him? Tell him, that’s why I did it.”

“What do you mean?” The Bomb asked. But Jude was already drifting again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Next Part

Last Part

Masterlist

AN: I am…so sorry. I’ll be the first to say, I am the absolute worst for telling you guys this was going to be a two-shot and then leaving this on such a cliffhanger and making you wait for a third part. Don’t hate me? The good news is, I have a lot of the last part written. The bad news is, the last part is what has been keeping me from updating-- writing it feels more and more like giving birth with each passing day.

So if you enjoyed this part, and would like to give me some writerly encouragement in the form of a comment/reblog/keyboard smash/message/ask, any and all of the above would basically be like giving me a dose of that sweet, sweet epidural and I would be forever grateful :’)

If you’d like to be updated on the next part of this Three-Shot (to come very soon), let me know and I’ll add you to the tag list! Back to the woods now. -em 🖤💫

Title Inspo: Follow You Down to the Red Oak Tree by James Vincent McMorrow

Tag List: @velarhysismine @the-mithridatism-of-jude-duarte @knifewifejude @clockworkgraystairs @jurdanhell @judexcardanxgreenbriar @hizqueen4life @nite0wl29 @mysweetvilllain @thesirenwashere

533 notes · View notes

offbrandtoaster · 3 years

Text

Higurashi Gou spoilers episode 17 (and Umineko spoilers, honestly just a lot of word vomit lol):

So, I don't think Rika and Satoko are the only loopers. I also think Takano is looping, OR she at least remembers what she did in the last series of loops.

Takano not specifying why she changed her mind is what makes me believe so. If she's like Keiichi and Rena, then she only has vague memories of her worst actions. She knows in another world she would carry out that plan and kill them. But I think in order for the BIG mastermind (most likely Featherine based on the opening?) to properly set up Satoko as the piece mastermind, they had to have Takano step down.

But of course, this isn't Featherine's gameboard, but Lambdadelta's. So she has specific rules she has to follow. So Takano can't simply have a change of heart, she has to achieve it on her own. By allowing Takano to remember the evils she commits, maybe it allows her to back out before she goes through with it. She realizes how horrible her actions are before she's in too deep (again, similar to Rena, Keiichi, and Shion who all dive further into their delusions because of their first murder. They're in too far and they feel they have no other recourse.)

One thing I'm not sure about, however, is Bern and Lambda's relationship. Satoko and Rika are mirroring Lambda and Bern right now, even down to the romantic subtext. This implies THIS series of loops is actually the game between Lambda and Bern. Orrrr maybe the game was never over to begin with? Rika never actually escaped, the loop where she lives until St. Lucia was part of the game, but because Lambda abandoned the board she THOUGHT she won.

Now Featherine is poking and prodding, which has started triggering the loops once more. Maybe her death in St. Lucia's was one irrelevant to the loops. And she remained dead until Featherine came in again. Regardless, I feel like this is still a part of the original series of loops. Kind of like how despite Lambda, Erika, and Battler taking over for Beatrice, it ultimately was still Beatrice's board with certain patterns and rules it had to follow, regardless of how wild everything outside of those got twisted.

Furthermore, we know Bern was Featherine's miko.

SO, Satoko fucked up bad here, and I think this will trigger Rika to pursue a higher truth, to fully win the game of Hinamizawa. Like Beatrice's game, there was always a particular truth. I think for Hinamizawa, Satoko is SORTA right about it being to "never leave Hinamizawa," but her own trauma over the events that have happened have distorted it. It's not "Never leave Hinamizawa" but "Remember the goodness of Hinamizawa." Hinamizawa is cursed with tragedy, but also some of the best times of Rika's life. But with how much she had to live through it all, she began to resent it. We see this all the time, despite how positive Rika tries to be, she's very cold, distant, and arrogant. And who can blame her?

My guess is when she went to St. Lucia's, she cut all contact with her previous life in Hinamizawa. This probably isn't so bad for Keiichi, Rena, Mion, and Shion because they would be adults living their own lives by that point.

But Satoko literally only has Rika. The small glimpse of St. Lucia we got showed Satoko with Rika there, but I wonder under what circumstances?

My guess is Satoko follows Rika without Rika's permission. Rika begins to resent Satoko, because she is a constant reminded of Hinamizawa. Perhaps Satoko's Hinamizawa Syndrome flares up (maybe they thought they found a "cure" but it only weakened the disease, maybe she stopped taking treatments, maybe her stress got so bad it just didn't matter), and she kills Rika.

So now Featherine takes advantage if this moment. She offers Satoko a deal. You can return to Hinamizawa and have your peaceful days, buuuut... and this is where I stumble again. My guess is maybe Satoko understands tragedies trigger the loops, so when when she realizes she's in a losing loop she intentionally triggers it, unlike Rika who would usually just go passive and allow it to happen relatively naturally?

Basically, I don't think Satoko is purely evil in this. She's like Rika, hurt and broken. But where Rika's hurt took the form of apathy, Satoko's is taking the form of aggression.

#higurashi #higurashi spoilers #higurashi gou #higurashi gou spoilers #lotsa word vomit #but goddamn I love this series so much

21 notes · View notes

bangtan-sonyeonddaeng · 4 years

Text

Part 4

Summary: Soulmates have different ways of being connected to one another. Sometimes it’s through being able to write on their arms and having it show up on their soulmates. For others it was having their first words spoken to one another permanently tattooed into their skin. You had a unique connection with yours, one that you really hadn’t ever heard of happening before. Whatever song was stuck in your soulmate’s head was also stuck in yours and the same was for them. When Yoongi realizes one of his songs is playing on repeat in your head, he immediately takes to writing songs to communicate with you in hopes it will finally bring you two together.

Genre: Fluff. Just pure tooth rotting, sweet fluff.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

Yoongi only slept for a few hours before he woke up and immediately started working on a new song for you. This one he wanted to make more light hearted and fun. And to do that he was going to bring up your questionable taste in music and how it was absolute torture some days listening to the songs that were stuck in your head. He laughs to himself as he writes the lyrics and picks an upbeat melody to include with it, hoping you know that this song was meant to be teasing and he wasn’t actually mad at you. As he is writing a song enters his head, letting him know that you must be awake. But he is not too thrilled with your choice this time.

“Into the unknown? Really?” He sighs but can’t hide the fond smile that spreads across his face. “I’m a little offended you aren’t listening to my song but I mean hey, to each their own.”

“Who are you talking to hyung?” Yoongi jumps and spins around in his chair to see Taehyung standing behind him.

“Tae? What are you doing?”

“I came to make sure you had actually gone to sleep but I should have known.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I slept for a solid 4 hours thank you very much.” Taehyung attempts to stifle a giggle as he is supposed to be scolding his hyung but one escapes him. “How’s the song writing going though?”

“It’s going really well. I had no trouble with this one. The songs are just coming naturally to me now.”

“That’s great. I’m sure your soulmate loves being able to hear your songs and know that you are thinking about them.”

“Always. I never stop thinking about them to be honest...” Yoongi trails off as if he is considering something.

“Is everything okay?”

“Can I talk to you about something... and don’t tell the other guys yet please?” Taehyung walks further into the studio sitting on the couch and patting the space next to him. Yoongi gets off his chair and sits next to Taehyung. “Yesterday.. I was reading the replies on my new song and this one stood out to me. I don’t know why. But I couldn’t help but feel maybe this person was my soulmate. But another part of me thinks I am just so soulmate deprived that I am trying to see them in everybody.”

“Can I see the reply?” Yoongi opens up the fake twitter he made and Taehyung bursts out laughing. “Hyung.. your twitter handle. What the hell.” Taehyung continues laughing much to Yoongi’s annoyance. “’I’m not Min Yoongi’. That’s hilarious.”

“I panicked trying to think of a quick name to talk to them okay?! Stop teasing me and give me my phone back.”

“No no! I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll stop.” Taehyung reads over the reply and furrows his brows. “I mean.. you really have no proof this person is your soulmate. Anyone could have written this comment trying to fool you.” Yoongi sighs.

“That’s what I thought. I knew I was just being crazy. But-”

“Wait a minute I’m not finished. What do you feel, Yoongi? Your gut and your heart will tell you the truth. Do you really feel that this person is your soulmate?” Yoongi pauses for a moment.. remembering the instant spark he felt when he read your reply and the sense of happiness and calm that washed over him.

“I do.”

“Then that’s all you need to know.” Taehyung hands him his phone back with a gentle smile on his face. “But maybe talk to them a little bit more before you jump into this head first. I don’t want to see you end up heartbroken if it turns out this person isn’t your soulmate.”

“That’s a good idea. Thank you, Tae.”

“Of course! Now finish up that song and go to bed!”

“Yes, sir.”

Taehyung leaves and Yoongi sits back in his chair, putting the finishing touches on his song and posting it to Twitter. He goes to your page and waits to see a reply pop up, and when he does he is not disappointed.

“I told you all of those songs you were making me listen to were torturing him! Now look what you did. There is a whole song now dedicated to my ‘colorful taste’ in music. I hate you.” You pick a pillow off the bed and throw it at your friend who is laughing hysterically.

“At least you made an impression on him! You’re welcome!”

“I am not thanking you for this.”

“Aw come on y/n. This song wasn’t meant to be mean! It’s very light hearted and fun. He’s fond of you. You can tell it in the way he raps about you. It might have annoyed him at first but now I think he kind of looks forward to it.”

“Yeah yeah. Well at least now I can have this song stuck in my head now and not the one from Frozen you were blaring this morning.”

“Hey that is a fantastic song. It’s not my fault you have no taste.” You roll your eyes and go to leave a reply underneath.

Sorry. My friend did that to torture you it wasn’t me, I swear. I’d much rather have your music stuck in my head.

You post it and get out of bed to get ready for the day when your phone goes off. You check the notifications and see a reply from the same account from yesterday.

“Huh.”

“What is it?” Your friend walks over to you to see what you’re looking at.

“This same account replied to me yesterday too..” Suddenly your friend starts laughing.

“‘Im not min yoongi’... That’s totally freaking Yoongi who does he think he’s trying to fool.”

“What are you talking about? That is not Yoongi!”

“I bet you my life savings that it is.”

“So.. $10?”

“Shut up you brat!” Your friend tosses the pillow back at you and you both start laughing. “Think about it y/n. He probably felt drawn to you too and panicked making a fake account just so he could talk to you and see if you really were his soulmate.”

“Well why hasn’t he said anything then?”

“Because he isn’t sure if it really is you. He probably is afraid of getting his heart broken if it turns out you aren’t soulmates.”

“But we are..” You say with a slight pout.

“We know that y/n. But he doesn’t. He’s taking a shot in the dark here.”

“You’re right.”

“What did he say back anyway?”

“He said ‘lol what songs have you been torturing the poor guy with that he had to write a whole song dedicated to it’.”

“Okay I think this is his way of finding out if you really are his soulmate. If you tell him all of the songs I have been playing for you then he’ll know!” You take a deep breath and reply to him.

Hollaback Girl, Most of the songs from Frozen, I think even a death metal song once.

Hahahaha poor guy. Maybe you should give him a little break? Must be hard writing lyrics and producing songs with those playing in his head.

I have been. Lately it’s been his songs stuck in my head except for the little slip up this morning.

What slip up?

My friend set into the unknown as the alarm to wake us up.

After that you don’t receive another reply, and opt to go about your day as a means of distraction.

Yoongi drops the phone onto his desk. It’s you. After all this time he finally found you. Only his soulmate would know what song they had stuck in Yoongi’s head this morning. Without even realizing it a few tears have begun rolling down his face. They’re tears of happiness, of relief. Finally fate decided to grant him this one kindness and bring you two together. He doesn’t want to just outright ask you to meet him, there is still a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that maybe this is all just some prank, or a delusion. He knows he has to find a way to slip a meeting place and time into his lyrics. And he knows exactly how he wants to do that. It is with this thought in mind that he finally drifts off to sleep.

The next morning he calls all the members and asks them to come to his studio. They are all now there sitting on the floor and couch looking at him anxiously.

“I found my soulmate.” They all audibly gasp at this except for Taehyung who already knew. Yoongi wouldn’t have opened up to him before about it if he wasn’t already certain.

“What?! Yoongi that’s great!” Hoseok exclaims while clapping his hands excitedly. “How did you find them?” Yoongi begins to explain the first interaction you two had, the feelings he felt. But then when he named the solid proof he now had everyone seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief.

“Yoongi that’s great. Really you know we are all so incredibly happy for you. When do we get to meet them?” Namjoon asks.

“See that’s the thing. I know I am probably being ridiculous for still having doubts. But before I officially meet them I want to write a song that would include a possible meeting place and time for us. I have an idea. I know it would be much easier to just fly them out here but.. I want to meet them first so I know. So I can be absolutely certain before I dive into this. It wouldn’t be the first time I thought I found my soulmate and it turned out they weren’t.” Namjoon nods in understanding.

“So what did you have in mind?”

You are just about to go to sleep when your phone notifies you that Yoongi has posted yet another song. You open it and bring up the English translation. Your friend stayed the night with you again incase they posted another song, wanting to be there for you and help you figure out the meaning behind everything. You both have it open and are reading the lyrics and you are confused.

“I don’t understand...”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s writing these lyrics as if he’s already met his soulmate. He’s talking about how their love flows freely like a river, how they met on a crisp autumn night, how they walked among the cosmos. I... I really thought he was my soulmate but I was just fooling myself.”

“Y/n come on you can’t be that dense.” You tilt your head at your friend in confusion. “He is telling you how he wants to meet you! The first day of autumn is only a few days away. He wants to meet you then.”

“Oh...”

“And the part about the river... Maybe he wants to meet you at one of the Han River Parks.”

“There’s more than one park. How the hell are we supposed to find the one he is talking about? Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Cosmos. Those are a type of flowers aren’t they? Is there a specific park that is famous for them?” Your friend quickly turns to the internet to find out.

“It looks like Guri Hangang Park is famous for the cosmos blooming in September. Many people love to go see the flowers blooming there during that time.”

“I guess we’re going to Seoul?”

“I guess so.” You take out your phone and reply under the latest song Yoongi has posted.

I’ll see you soon.

Yoongi reads the words over and over again and his heart is absolutely soaring in his chest. He finally gets to meet you. He was finally able to communicate with his soulmate through his music well enough to be able to meet you. The first day of fall is only a few days away. In just a few days he’s finally going to be able to meet you, his soulmate. The one person he was wanted to meet more than anyone in his life. He’s finally going to be able to hug you, kiss you, hold your hand, take you on dates and just be with you. He clutches a hand over his heart as he feels like it is going to beat out of his chest.

I’ll be waiting.

Taglist: @anoesjkaax @just-call-me-trash-can @thestral-balerion @xcastielbabyangelface @rukinamukami @r-e-d-i-s-h @heartblackerthancoffee @rosita7703 @jacjacwashere @purpletigertaetae @woodstockisjustlikealittlekid @supernatural-bangtanboys

(for some reason it won’t let me tag some people so if you asked to be added and you’re not on here I’m sorry :( I don’t know what’s up with tumblr.)

#Yoongi x reader #reader x yoongi #bts #min yoongi #suga #bts fanfic #yoongi fanfic #suga fanfic #bts fluff #yoongi fluff #suga fluff #bts soulmate au

215 notes · View notes

harryandmolly · 5 years

Text

Change of Pace - 14 (Summer 2019)

cowritten by @achinglyshawn

summary: Shawn and Maya meet again 10 years after life got in the way of love

warnings: language, NSFW

wc: 10.3k

------------

Maya toes her strappy shoes off the moment they’re buckled into the helicopter. Shawn grins at her. She’s hooked in next to him, but they’ve got enough leeway with their seatbelts that he can maneuver her so she’s turned towards him, legs draped across his lap.

Maya kicks one of her Louboutins away with a sneer. She loves them, but she conveniently forgets how much they hurt every time she wears them. But they’re worth it.

“So, you think I could borrow this thing in a couple of weeks? I haven’t been to Monte-Carlo in forever.”

She mimes lifting her knee to drive it into his chest with a snicker. She drops it back in his lap and snuggles into his side. She lifts a hand from her lap and smoothes it down his chest, admiring the way his heat bleeds through the expensive fabric.

“You geek. You’re not going to Monte-Carlo without me anyway,” she jabs back.

“Have you been to Monte-Carlo? I think my French is too Canadian for me to go there,” he babbles as his hands wander up and down her calves. He presses his palms to her ankles before slipping down to her feet, fingers teasing the soles delicately.

Shawn’s fingers tickle. She squirms, kicking at his hands a little, a giggle rising in her throat until he moves his hands back up toward her ankles.

“Never been. One of my coworkers spends Christmas there every year. He has a pied a terre there. We’ll go sometime,” she offers with half a smile. She’s relaxed and sleepy enough to delude herself into the delusion of being with him past September.

Maya sounds half-asleep. He likes it. He likes how cuddly she gets when she fades after dinner, likes that she seems to need to be constantly touching him. Shawn brushes another kiss to the top of her head, just because he can.

“Glad you know so many rich people whose places we can crash.”

“God, you’re so warm,” she nearly moans, closing her eyes and nuzzling her face against his chest, “I don’t know how you stand being so warm all the time but it’s very convenient for me.”

Shawn smiles as he looks down at her. “I’ve always been the furnace in my family. S’pretty convenient when some woman steals my jacket.”

Maya ignores him with a sniff and snuggles into said jacket deeper, playing with the buttons on the sleeves when Shawn grabs her a little tighter. She grins.

They jolt in their seats for a moment as the helicopter lifts off. Shawn’s fingers dig into her skin slightly as he waits for the craft to steady.

“Shit,” he breathes, laughing at himself a little. “You ever get used to that?”

“You do,” she assures, bringing her light fingers up his chest to hang on his collarbone, “I’m happy to distract you though.”

She has a warm, slightly mischievous look on her face, glances between his eyes and his lips.

Shawn is no longer concerned with the rocking tilt of the helicopter. Maya straightens up slightly, pressing herself further into him as she trails her fingers along his torso. He wets his lips, takes a breath.

“I could use a distraction, sugar,” he murmurs, his gaze falling to her plush mouth.

Maya shivers. “Sugar” is an odd pet name, it’s not one she’s heard used by anyone under the age of, say, 60. She’s sure if anyone but Shawn tried to call her that, she’d balk. But when he says it, she goes glassy-eyed and is exclusively his.

Maya watches him look at her mouth and wait for her. He wonders what she’s got up her sleeve.

She skims her fingers up his shoulder to cup his pretty cheek. She makes a low, contented humming noise and starts pressing sweet little kisses, light pecks to his mouth. Like a butterfly, as soon as she touches down at his mouth, she springs back, only to land again and do the same thing.

Her kisses are teasing. Gentle presses of her lips she barely let linger. Shawn groans softly, eyes closing as he tries in vain to kiss her back, but she never settles for long enough. He lets her tease him for a bit, but then he grows antsy, just like always.

His hand finds the back of her head, fingers slipping into her hair as he pulls her firmly against him, pressing his lips properly to hers. The hand that rests on her knee slips up her thigh, fingers teasing the hem of her dress where is lays against her skin.

Shawn breaks and drags her in for a real kiss before too long, and she’d be lying if she said that wasn’t exactly what she wanted. He gets what he wants from her, gets her arms around his shoulders and her body tightening in response to his attentions.

His hand feels big and hot on her leg. She tries not to wiggle just to get it to slip up higher to where she’s already feeling more heat.

“Can’t wait to get home, Lu,” he murmurs against her lips when he needs to take a breath. He doesn’t give her the chance to reply before he’s kissing her again, stealing the air from her lungs. His fingers flirt dangerously with the silky smooth fabric of her dress. He could easily slip his hand beneath her dress, could press his fingers to the apex of her thighs and drive her crazy. He doesn’t. He focuses on teasing her, working her up with nothing but his needy mouth.

Maya whimpers at his words, opens her mouth to respond but doesn’t have time before he’s diving back in to kiss her eagerly. She melts into him, dragging her tongue against his lower lip to seek him out, wanting to feel as close as possible as soon as possible.

When he gives her another break to breathe she doesn’t take it, fastening her lips to his jaw and groaning into his skin.

“Yeah?” she answers finally to his husky confession, “What are you gonna do, baby? What do you want when we get home?”

Her mouth has him groaning, a low sound that has his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

Her voice teases him, raspy and hot in his ear. He takes a steadying breath through his nose, licking at his lips as she keeps herself busy on his jaw.

“Want you to take off this dress for me,” he murmurs as he tugs at the hem. He slips his fingers beneath it and slides them along her thigh, her quad muscle jumping beneath his touch.

“And I want you to show me the best way to make you feel good, Lu.”

Maya nips sharply at his throat. His fingers are flirtatious, a reminder that he knows better than anyone how to make her feel good. But he’s always eager to learn more, to do exactly what she wants, even if she doesn’t know she wants it.

Maya pulls away to his lips, rewarding him with a kiss. She pulls back a little and smoothes a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the end.

“So good for me,” she praises, a little moan in her throat as she says it, “Gonna do exactly what I tell you, baby?”

His eyes fall shut when her hand tangles in his hair. She tugs. He grunts. His fingers dig into her skin.

“Shit--” he hisses, then swallows whatever else was threatening to spill at the sound of her husky voice.

“Yea--” he clears his throat, “Yeah, sweetie, fuck. You know I will.” He blinks his eyes open, wetting his lips and focusing his hazy gaze on her. He nudges his head gently into her hand, giving her a crooked, dulcet smile as he pulls his hand from beneath her dress.

Maya smiles. She knows he will. She remembers from the first time they messed around, all those many years ago on a cold night in Toronto, he put her in the driver’s seat immediately. He wanted her to direct her own pleasure and show him exactly how to please her best.

Needless to say, he learned fast. But he still wants more. She’s willing to instruct.

“Don’t I always?” he purrs, his brow quirked.

Maya grunts gently and hauls his heavy hand back up under her dress a little higher up her thigh, brows puckering slightly.

“Always,” she promises, “Keep touching me, baby.”

Maya tilts her head to take his lips back when an official-sounding voice, the pilot, chirps over the speaker that they’re landing shortly. Maya purses her lips and backs away with a sigh.

He wants to listen to her, wants to slide his hand between the soft swells of her thighs and press his fingers to her pussy beneath her panties. The pilot interrupts, pops the romantic bubble around them and pulls them back to the real world.

Maya leans away from him with a sigh, but her long legs remain draped over his lap. Shawn hums, closing his eyes and dropping his head back.

He drags his hand slowly along Maya’s shin, from her knee to her ankle, then back again, as the helicopter nears Avila. His head lulls and he looks over at her. He smiles.

“Hey,” he murmurs, giving her ankle a squeeze.

Shawn doesn’t release her. He strokes her legs like a promise for later. He gets quiet, shifting gently as they settle.

“Hi,” Maya breathes, smiling warmly, reaching out to stroke the backs of her fingers against his flushed cheek.

She gets to take him home tonight. She gets to make love to him. She gets to fall very heavily asleep next to him. She gets to wake up under his hefty arm with his breath in her hair.

“I kinda can’t believe I found you again,” she admits. She’s been thinking that lately, that somehow both of them wound up back in that place they spent one brief summer together. Neither of them knew the other would be there. But the memory of them is there.

Shawn can’t control the flush that starts in the apple of his cheeks and spreads across his entire body. He smiles a little, closes his eyes and presses his face into her gentle fingers. After a beat, he reaches for her wrist, bringing her hand to his lips.

He looks at her as he presses a kiss into her palm. He murmurs, “Of all the gin joints, baby.”

The helicopter lands with a jolt. Shawn’s fingers unconsciously tighten around Maya’s wrist, his eyes slipping shut.

“Damn,” he sighs when he feels the chopper settle. With a sheepish smile, Shawn places Maya’s hand back in her lap and begins to fumble with his seatbelt.

Maya doesn’t laugh at Shawn when he startles a little during the landing. She just lets him hold her hand until they’re firmly on the ground, holding his gaze comfortingly.

They depart the helicopter with handshakes and thank yous for the pilot. Maya, with her strappy sandals swinging from one hand and Shawn’s fingers grasped in the other, sighs contentedly on the way back to the Wrangler.

The engine of the obscenely orange Jeep roars to life along with an old 80s pop song on the radio that she doesn’t recognize. She looks over at Shawn and feels so completely, totally at home. She leans across the gearshift with her foot on the brake and kisses him, murmuring into his mouth.

He’s watching her as she starts the Wrangler. He doesn’t mean to stare; it just happens. He expects her to speed off like she always does, but instead she looks at him and for a moment, he feels like he’s been caught.

She kisses him, slow and soft and like she has to remind herself like he’s really there. Shawn knows the feeling. He hums, kisses her back with fingertips brushing her cheek.

“Let’s go home, sugar,” he croaks against her lips after a moment, nudging her nose with his. He gives her a crooked smile and drops his hand to rest over hers on the gearshift.

Maya watches his wet lips as he pulls away. They pull into that smile that she’s run into fire for. His hand is rough and heavy on hers. She hums in agreement.

The drive is mercifully short because Avila is so tiny you could fold it up and stick it in your back pocket. Her neighborhood is quiet. The loudest sound they hear when she turns off the engine is the ocean on the other side of the house lapping at the shore.

On the drive, Maya’s nerves, dulled by fine food, alcohol and soft, sweet kisses, get fired back up again. Her heart starts thrumming a little faster with every minute they draw closer to her house. The house he refers to lovingly now as “home.”

When she parks, she glances over at him and wonders if he’s feeling as keyed up as she is, if it’s as oddly automatic for him. She blinks and wets her lips, watching him carefully as she opens her car door.

Shawn slides out of the car with Maya’s heels hanging from his fingers. He goes around to her side of the Jeep, reaching over her as she hops down to close the door with a smile. He takes her hand then, pulls her knuckles to his lips for a brief moment before guiding her to the door.

He looks out at the beach while Maya flips through her keys to open the door. He tries not to let himself watch her too much. It feels indulgent, like maybe he still shouldn’t be this crazed about her. He’s older, wiser, and maybe a little jaded. But not about Maya.

Shawn hears the door click open. He turns from the horizon to see Maya disappear inside. He takes a breath, fills his chest, and follows after her.

The house feels so silent. She can sort of hear the very quiet expensive central air. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears. She can hear him breathing, maybe a little faster than usual, or maybe it’s her imagination.

Maya sets her keys down on the counter, glancing over her shoulder at him. He’s watching her. He’s been watching her all night.

Maya turns, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. She reaches out with both hands, linking their fingers. She starts to walk backwards toward the steps to her bedroom.

“Come with me,” she murmurs, even though he’s already following her.

“Okay,” he says with a nod, voice raspy.

Maya turns to face the stairs, their fingers tangled behind her as she guides him to her bedroom. He keeps close, close enough to smell her shampoo and the sunscreen scented perfume on her neck.

Shawn closes the bedroom door behind him, dropping Maya’s fingers he leans against it, hands sliding into his pockets. He toes his shoes off, kicking them away as he watches her unclip her hair from across the room.

For some reason, he doesn’t know what to say. He’s nervous, suddenly, like he has to tread carefully around her. Like if he moves too quickly, he’ll spook her.

He loosens the tie around his neck, wetting his lips as he focuses on the steady cadence of his own breathing.

Maya faces away from him again and feels her skin glow as he stares at her. She lets her hair fall from its enormous clip, flinching slightly when she hears him kick his shoes away like a teenager.

She closes her eyes for a moment to center herself. When she opens them, she can see the ocean out her window.

“Shawn,” she says, firm but quiet, “Will you come undress me?”

She turns to face him, ready to help him give her what she wants.

He blinks, pulled from his reverie. She doesn’t turn to face him until a moment later, her head tipping as she gazes at him.

“Absolutely,” he breathes, voice low, choked off in the base of his throat. His feet move before he realizes, but then he’s there, looking down at her while she waits for him.

He reaches for her. His fingers brush her temple, tucking a stray curl of hair behind her ear. He smiles, then disappears behind her.

His fingers are quick on her zipper, sliding it smoothly down towards the swell of her behind. He drops the zip delicately, then presses his palm to her hip, waiting.

Shawn is gentle but quick to get her dress unzipped. She inhales when his fingers brush her bare skin just above the waistband of her lacy thong and dance away to rest on her hip.

Maya smiles, shaking her head a little. She turns, feeling the hand that was on her hip skim over to rest on the opposite side. She lifts both his hands to her arms where the straps of her dress fit snugly around her biceps.

“All the way off,” she requests. Her voice is soft and affectionate. She just wants to feel him feel her.

Shawn breathes in steadily through his nose. He feels like he’s on fire. Her eyes are wide, expecting. He feels so overwhelmingly close to her right now, with her request hanging between them.

“Of course,” he murmurs, gaze dropping to her collarbones. He curls his finger under the smooth straps of fabric that wrap around her arms. Slowly, he pulls one towards her elbow, then the other, until the bodice of the dress falls away from her chest.

Shawn’s eyes drop to her tits, but only briefly. He looks back to her arms, carefully pulling one from the strappy sleeve, then the other. The dress bunches around her hips. His hands find her waist. He pushes his fingers between her skin and the dress, tugging it away from her body.

He curls his hands around the fabric. Slowly, one knee falls to the floor, then the other. He kneels before her, watches the rise and fall in her belly as he carefully peels the expensive garment down her legs.

Maya watches him savor her, admiring each part of her as it becomes available to him. It’s not salacious or hungry, it’s closer to reverent. It makes Maya’s pulse skip a little faster. She bets he can feel it through her hot skin.

Maya’s in awe as he drops to his knees. She sucks in a breath, holding back a pathetic whimper. The fabric skims her legs as he drags it down. She anchors her hand against his shoulder as she steps out of it. When she’s shed it on the floor, she threads her hand into the curls behind his ear and strokes them.

“Will you take off my panties for me?” she breathes and it’s barely audible through the thickness in her throat.

Shawn’s eyes fall shut when her fingers tease behind his ear. His heart skips, heat flooding his cheeks. His hands find the front of her thighs, palms pressing into her quad muscles, just above her knee. He’s able to look at her after a moment, gazing up as he nods.

“Yeah, Maya.” He hears his voice in his ears, but it sounds foreign; distant. He clears his throat, drags his hands from her legs to her hips, fingers hooking in the lace he finds there.

He carefully peels the fabric away, down her legs and to her ankles. He focuses on his own hands as he goes, orienting himself to the task at hand, rather than the beautiful woman in front of him.

Once she steps out of the little thong, he lets himself look. He keeps his hands to himself, palms pressed to his knees as he sits back on his heels. His gaze starts at her toes and moves up, up, and up. She looks the same as always, but it fucks him up every time. He’s so goddamn in love with her.

He ends on her face, flushed and glowing in the moonlight. He lifts up from his heels, curling one hand around her waist.

Shawn’s eyes drag goosebumps over her body in a rough, even layer as they ascend from her toes up. She fights a shiver, curls her fingers into her palms and lets out a rough breath of air.

“God, the way you look at me…” She trails off weakly, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

He plants a hand against her body like he can’t stand not to be touching her. She understands the feeling.

Maya slowly lifts her hair off the side of her neck, tucking it over the opposite shoulder as she holds his gaze. She tilts her head and offers herself to him, throat bobbing when she swallows.

“Stand up and kiss my neck.” The words are firm, but still somehow sweet and pleading even though she knows he’ll give her everything she wants.

Shawn’s fingers press firmly into her skin momentarily, needing to ground himself before he stands up. He towers over her, has to curl his spine and hang his head to reach her neck. Not that he minds.

One hand finds the back of her skull, cupping her as he brings his lips to her soft skin. He hums against her, slowly mouthing along the column of her throat with kisses that are barely there.

He pulls away just beneath her earlobe, wets his lips, then returns to work. This time his kisses are firm, lips slightly parted as the tip of his tongue slips against her skin.

He takes a step into her, anchoring his mouth on the junction of her neck and her shoulder while pressing his hips against hers. Even though he wants to, he doesn’t let himself moan, instead holds the growing noise in his chest as he tongues her soft skin.

He takes his time working her up, going from ghosting his lips on her skin to letting her feel him all over.

Maya wraps her arms around him, planting her hands on his ass to urge him even closer. She starts to pant at the attentions of his lips. He’s gentle but purposeful.

She flutters her lashes and chokes on a breath. “And touch my nipples.”

He grunts into her neck at the words. He feels his pants tighten, his cock giving a twitch. He loves when she knows what she wants. Loves when she’s not afraid to ask for it. He can tell she’s trying to hold on to control, but each subsequent request sounds less like a command and more like a plea.

His voice is stuck in his throat, so he doesn’t reply. He simply turns her in his arms so her hands fall from his backside. With her back to his chest, his hips are firm against her ass. His needy hands soon find their way from her hips to her round tits.

Shawn’s mouth is steady on her neck, but rather than get lost in her taste, he watches as he plays with her nipples. It’s a titillating sight, his forefingers and thumbs plucking her brown, dusky peaks.

Maya’s head tips back onto Shawn’s shoulder. His perfect hands feel huge. They slide up her torso to scoop up her breasts. Her eyes close.

She breathes, “My god.”

He doesn’t pull away from her neck. He continues lavishing her skin with warm, sucking kisses just like she asked him to. His touch is light and focused on his nipples. It makes her knees weak. She reaches one hand up to cup the back of his neck for stability and wraps the other around his wrist like she wants to hold him there even though he doesn’t seem like he wants to move.

Hot, heavy breaths fan across her neck as Shawn keeps his gaze steady on his fingers. He tugs lightly, then drops one nipple so he can suck his fingers between his lips, getting the tips wet. He brings them back to her then, circling her stiff bud with torturously light pressure.

“Baby, yes, that’s perfect,” she pants, knowing he feeds off the praise. Her head is too foggy to remember that she doesn’t have another piece of instruction ready to feed him. She just sighs his name and arches her back into his hands so he can have all of her.

Maya doesn’t give him any further direction. She melts into him, purrs with adulation. He sighs softly into her skin, his cock twitching against her ass. The sound of her voice sends a shiver down his spine, all the way to his toes.

“Know what you like, sugar,” he mutters, giving each nipple another tug before he drops his lips to her collarbone and sucks. He doesn’t know what she wants next, but he does know that he could get carried away with this.

Shawn tweaks and teases her nipples until they’re flushed and swollen, matching the flush he’s left on her throat. Satisfied, he surrenders her breasts and claims her hips instead, palms pressing down as he grinds his cock into her ass.

Maya lets him wander off without her direction. He mouths at her shoulder and continues stroking, pinching, teasing her nipples until just before she’s too sensitive to take any more. He knows her body like he knows guitars.

His hands drop to her hips for leverage as he grinds needily into her backside. She grunts gently, nudged out of her trance. She hums, wriggling back against him with gently gasping breaths.

She turns, looking him up and down hungrily. She lifts onto her toes and cups his cheek just long enough to give him a quick kiss before she’s down at chest height again, running her fingers along the buttoned down collar of his shirt.

“Gonna stay nice and still for me while I take your clothes off?” she murmurs, tugging at the loose tie around his neck, lifting her eyebrows.

She decides to start pulling at the knot before he answers.

She’s already plucking at his tie before he can find his voice to answer. Shawn nods, curling his fingers into his palms to stop himself from reaching for her.

“I’ll try,” he says with a quiet smile, tilting his head as he looks down at her. “Shame to take this thing off though. Feel like I should wear it all the time now.”

His grin gets a little wider as he tips his head back, giving her a bit more room to navigate the intricate knot of his tie. He almost reaches for her again, almost curls his arm around her waist and lifts her to his chest so he can kiss the hell out of her. It’s an impulse that has his fingertips twitching.

Maya continues fiddling with the tie until it hangs loose around his neck. She stares at the triangle of throat she’s uncovered, breathing heavily for a few moments while she considers.

She looks up at him, cooing from the back of her throat when she gets an idea. She picks up his hands, limp at his sides, and scoops them under the curve of her ass. She swings her arms up around his neck with a glint in her eye.

“Maybe you should keep it on then and take me while you’re wearing it.”

Maya’s smile is sharp, playful but a little devious. She giggles, tugs at the curls on the nape of his neck.

Shawn’s fingers sink into the soft swell of her ass. He growls at her suggestion. He knew she liked him in the suit, but Jesus Christ.

His eyes flutter shut when she tugs his hair.

“Bring me to the bed, baby.”

“Fuck,” he breathes, “Okay. Whatever you want, Lu.”

He blinks down at her, eyes hazy with want as he bends his knees and slides his hands to her thighs, lifting her up so she’ll wrap herself around him.

He carries her to the bed, stops at the foot to bring his knee to the mattress. He steadies himself, then carefully lowers her down.

Maya eagerly tucks her legs around Shawn’s waist and melts into him a little when he lifts her. She’ll never get tired of this, of the way he can just scoop her up and carry her places, even if it’s only a few feet to the bed. It’s so romantic and trademark Shawn.

He lays her down gently beneath him and, like the good boy that he is, waits for further instruction. Maya’s sensitive nipples brush against the smooth fabric of his shirt. She opens her thighs for him to lie between so she can feel his weight against her, and so he can feel how ready she is for more of him.

Shawn sighs, relaxing his weight on top of her. He knows she likes it, likes to feel him heavy against her while he rocks his hips into hers.

“Gonna let you choose,” she pants in a whisper, hearing the fucked-out quality of her voice, “Do you want to taste me? Or do you want to fuck me?”

The truth is, she’s almost beyond choosing. She just wants to feel him.

Maya’s nearly panting already, her voice breathy in his ear. He groans, pressing his face into her neck as he lets one hand skim the side of her body.

He doesn’t like making this choice. He wants both, like he always does.

He guesses he could always negotiate for whichever he doesn’t choose while she’s orgasm-heavy and extra needy.

He lifts from her neck, noses at her cheek. “Let me make love to you, Lemon,” he purrs, emphasizing his words with a tempting roll of his hips.

Maya tries to keep her mouth from straight up dropping open. But she hears the strangled moaning noise she makes and knows for certain he knows how she feels about his suggestion.

She closes her eyes, nodding furiously, tugging harder at his hair, wrapping the little curls around her fingers to show her urgency.

“Yeah,” she gasps finally, like she was underwater and is coming up for air, “Yeah. I want you to. Please. That’s what I want. Make love to me, Shawn.”

Saying the words out loud is scary. She wonders if he’s going to blink, look down at her and say, “But you haven’t said you love me.” She thinks maybe he’ll get up and leave her because she’s afraid she deserves it. She hopes he stays.

She sounds desperate for it, like it’s what she’s been waiting for him to give her all along. Shawn knows it’s just in his head, knows they needed the time to reach this point.

But right now, with Maya panting beneath him, it feels like they’ve been this in sync all along, even if they didn’t know it. He flushes, presses his lips firmly to her jaw.

“S’the least I can do, sugar,” he murmurs, corner of his lips ticking up into a smile.

He pushes himself up onto a knee, his palm pressing into the mattress by her head as he trails his other hand down her body. His fingers slip between her thighs, the slide easy from her arousal. She’s always gotten herself worked up easily. The anticipation makes her drip. His cock twitches sympathetically.

He stays.

He smiles at her in the way only he ever has. He kisses her jaw and slides his hand up her leg to find all his work already done. She chuckles, dropping her arms over her head to frame her pretty hair all spread out beneath her.

“You already got me so fucking wet, Shawn,” she tells him, her voice deep and husky and a little less desperate. He makes her feel secure. He wants to give her what she wants.

He smirks, hot gaze dropping down to her thighs. He sees a glimmer of wetness, but he needs a better look. His palm cups the inside of her thigh, nudges her to spread her legs wider.

She goes easily, splays herself open like she’s never been more comfortable with him, and Shawn has to suck in a quiet breath to control himself. Her skin glistens in the moonlight, slick from her pussy.

Shawn urges her legs apart gently. She rolls her hips a little to show him how ready she is to feel him. Her toes curl against the sheets. She watches his cock shift against the straining fabric of his pants. Her head lolls back. She sighs.

He grunts, slipping his hand from her thigh so her can cup her sex. She’s wet and hot against his palm, and the sensation has his dick twitching in his tailored pants.

“Jesus, Maya,” he growls, rocking the heel of his hand against her clit. “Barely touched you and you’re this worked up? Need me that bad?”

When he drops his hand to her cunt, she grabs onto his wrist and grinds down into his stroking motion, taking what she needs. She moans, loud and whiny, because what she needs is him.

“Mmm, you know your hands on my tits drive me crazy, baby. And, god, the idea of fucking you in that suit…”

She rubs a hand over her face and gives a particularly sharp roll of her hips into his hand, hissing quietly.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

Shawn laughs, gruff and deep in his throat. He rocks his palm against her pussy once more, clicking his tongue. “No, Lemon. S’my job to make you feel good.”

Not that she won’t make him feel good. She’ll make him feel fucking incredible. But he wants her to lie back and relax, wants her to take her turn at getting spoiled.

Maya’s words die in her throat. If he wants to spoil her, she’s not very well going to stop him. She just, she already feels so spoiled just from taking him out tonight, from having him on her arm, from getting to be so close for hours.

She can’t imagine feeling more spoiled. But then again, Shawn’s always able to surprise her.

He tucks his face into her neck, nipping at her skin just above her collarbone. He moves his palm from her slick heat so he can get his fingers on her instead. Slowly, he swirls the tip of his middle finger around her entrance, before dragging it up to her twitching clit. He flicks her just as his tongue darts out to lick a hot stripe along the column of her throat.

“Wanna feel my fingers first, sugar?”

Maya drops her legs open further at the fluttering of his fingers. She swallows, trying to regain composure, but his tongue on her neck has her coming undone.

“Mhmm,” she moans, “Yeah, touch my clit.”

Maya’s practically melting into the bed as she writhes beneath his touch. Shawn lifts his head, smiles gently as he gazes down at her. Her hair makes a messy halo around her head while her back arches, her legs spreading even more as she tries to get what she wants from him.

“Like this?” he purrs in a teasing coo, carefully brushing the pad of his middle finger across her swollen bud. The pressure is barely there, just enough to have her thighs clenching and hips pressing up for more.

He gives her another pass of his finger, then lets his nail scrape over her nerves, right where she’s most sensitive. He does it once, twice, thrice, then presses his knuckle firmly down against her.

Maya’s brow wrinkles like she’s about to start scolding him for trying to tease her when she’s this far gone. But he doesn’t keep it up. He rakes his fingernail over her bare clit and it makes her twitch hard, chest rising off the bed as she reacts to the stimulus.

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck,” she growls, fingers ripping at the sheets. She settles just a little when he rocks his hard knuckle into her clit.

She opens her eyes, blinking at him desperately. “Please. Please, Shawn.”

She doesn’t even know what to ask for. She just wants him to hand it over.

Shawn loves how utterly and completely unabashed she is as she curses and begs and scrabbles at the bed sheets. His finger slides from her clit to her tight entrance, and he delicately pushes the tip inside.

“This what you want, sugar?” he murmurs, presses a series of kisses to her cheek as he sinks deeper into her pussy, curling slightly so he can drag the tip across her g-spot.

He knows she won’t put up with much teasing and quickly slides a second finger inside of her, using it to tap at her spot while the other glides back and forth.

Shawn is slow with her, not so much careful as just measured and teasing. He’s not proceeding with caution to figure out what she wants. He already knows. He just doesn’t want to give it all at once. He wants to make it last, watch her unravel.

Maya lifts her chin and whines, quiet and throaty at the slipping of his thick fingers. Her g-spot is his favorite playground. He’s experimenting with a stroking, tapping motion that has her thighs already shaking. She turns her face to the side and squeezes her legs around him.

“I know you like my cock better, hm? Want my cock, Maya? Need you to tell me.”

“You know I do,” she gasps, shaking her head, “Know I love your cock. I want it so bad. Want you to fill me. Feels so good having you inside me. Never want to let you go.”

If it’s a step too far, she doesn’t care. Not now anyway.

‘Then don’t,’ he almost chokes, but he knows that’s not really an option. He knows their summer romance has an expiration date. He knows he has to make the most of the time he actually has with her.

Instead, he drops his head and kisses her, stealing the air from her lungs. He slips out of her aching pussy and brings his slippery fingers to the zip of his pants. He fumbles, then finally gets his fly open before he flicks the button.

Maya doesn’t bother to protest when he takes his fingers back and kisses her. She knows she’s going to get something even better. She rocks her ass into the mattress just thinking about it.

Maya’s own hungry fingers trail up the firm heft of his arms until he releases her mouth. She sighs, shivering at the sound of his zipper dropping. She closes her eyes, waits for him to ease into her like she wants. She curls her fingers into his arms in anticipation.

Their lips separate with a ‘pop’, an obscene sound that gets his cock throbbing. He brings his wet fingers to her mouth, traces her full bottom lip slowly, coaxing her to open up for him.

“You wanna taste yourself? Taste so good, baby.”

His fingers are wet and smell of sex. She opens her eyes and mouth at once, accepting them with a little moan. She closes her lips around them, swirling her tongue and soaking them further. Her taste is sweet, musky and a little salty. Her eyes flutter. She sucks eagerly like she would at his cock.

“Oh, fuck,” Shawn growls as she sucks his fingers greedily. He noses at her cheek while her tongue has goosebumps prickling his skin.

Her hands drop from his arms to his legs, smoothing up the insides of his thighs. She finds his length hard and throbbing against his leg. She gives it a firm squeeze, then dips her hand inside his briefs to pull him free, squeezing her little hand around the head and massaging his slit with her thumb.

His eyes fall shut when Maya’s hand makes its way down his body. She has no trouble finding his dick, slips him from his briefs with little to no hassle.

“Jesus, Maya,” he croaks, pulling away from her cheek so he can watch her thumb tease the head of his cock. “Gonna tease me or are you gonna spread your thighs again?”

He reaches for her waist, thumb rubbing soothing circles over the jut of her hip bone as he looks at her, gaze heated.

Maya loves the way he reacts to her fervent sucking at his fingers. It’s one of the things she can do that always gets him absolutely crazy for her. It’s always been one of her favorite things to do for him.

She lets them go with a wet slide of her mouth and a hum to tickle them. She breathes hard, nodding at him, squeezing his tip again.

“You know how bad I want you, honey,” she replies, voice smooth and hot like she’s trying to melt him. She spreads her legs slowly, pulling them off the sides of his waist, leveling him with her gaze.

“Wanna show me how much you love me?”

It’s a challenge and dare. It drives Shawn crazy. She wants him to love her. He thinks could get addicted to the feeling.

He looks from her wet fingers to her dark, focused eyes.

“Don’t I always?” he breathes, then catches her lips in a kiss as he knocks her fingers away from his dick.

His palm finds her slick thigh, presses down to keep her spread open as he shifts over her. He licks into her mouth just as he lowers his hips and sinks the head of his cock into her tight pussy.

Shawn doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t hesitate, he doesn’t show any hurt in his eyes if he feels it. He just kisses her hard and sets about doing what she asked.

Maya lets him move her hand and pin her to the bed, slowly letting the tip of his dick spread her swollen lips and enter her. She keens, swiping her tongue against his lower lip and pushing inside without waiting. She wraps her arms around his neck.

When she really can’t breathe, she tilts her head to the side and sighs, inhaling at his collarbone, basking in the smell and feel of him.

“Yeah,” she purrs, “More, Shawn.”

He all but falls into her. He’s barely inside her as she’s kissing him back like she’s about to come. He bites at her lip, though more to get a hold of himself than to calm her.

His forehead drops to her temple when she turns from their kiss to gasp for a breath. He groans, fingers curling into her flushed thigh as she asks for more.

“Maybe—“ he pants, smirking into her cheek, “Maybe if you ask nicely.”

He hates denying her, but he loves the payoff when he doesn’t give into her right away. It’s always sweeter when they’re able to control themselves. Shawn steels himself to stay strong, even as his cock twitches in the tight clench of her heat.

They both feel like they’re holding on by a thread. Maya grips Shawn’s neck like her life depends on it. Shawn sinks his teeth into her lip like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered.

His words manage to ground her though. She groans, knowing she has to make a choice. She could beg for him like he clearly wants. She could try to egg it out of him, massaging his cock with her hot walls until he snaps, or she could be a brat and pout about it.

Her head swims with memories of all the times she’s taken all the paths before her at different opportunities with him. All she knows is she wants to be sure that there are even more awaiting her when they finish here tonight.

Maya turns her face back, nose bumping his as he stays close to her. She sucks his lower lip into her mouth, lifting a hand to secure against his chest. She lifts her hips and rocks into him only suggestively, not enough to be greedy.

She releases his swollen lip with a pop and a little kitten lick.

She doesn’t answer at first, just pulls his lip into her mouth for a searing kiss. He growls, lets her lick and suck at him until he’s swollen and dizzy.

She pulls away just as he starts to kiss back, reminding him that there’s more important business to attend to.

“You know you’re the best I’ve ever had?” she says earnestly, digging her fingertips into the wrinkled fabric of his shirt just over his heartbeat, “Please, baby. Please give me more. I need you.”

“Shit, Maya,” he murmurs at the compliment, glancing down at the fingers scrabbling at his shirt. He reaches for her wrist, pulls her arm over her head to pin her to the bed as she begs for him.

“I need you, too, sugar,” he purrs, nudging her nose with his as he finally complies with her wishes and sinks his cock deeper into her cunt, until he’s buried to the hilt.

Shawn gives them both what they want. His strong fingers pin her little wrist to the bed above her head and he shakes her whole body with his low gravelly voice when he slides into her fully.

Maya sighs, the pressure he fills her with releasing her breath, releasing any tension in her body. She takes him easily, scoops a leg up to hitch over his hip slightly, hugging him in.

“Perfect,” she coos, like she doesn’t need any more. Like even if he just stays here all night with her, hard cock buried as deep as anyone’s ever gone, she’ll be perfectly content.

“You like filling me up? You like feeling how well I take your perfect cock? How I beg for it?”

Maya always gets wordy when he gives her what she wants. She knows he likes the fucked-out quality of her voice when she mews for him like that. He nips at her lip in response, then drags his mouth along her jaw until he reaches her ear. He licks slowly at the shell as his hips start to grind into hers, his cock stretching her.

Maya feels the way her body soaks his with every slow, grinding rock of his hips. She takes them eagerly, rolling back at him to make the stretch even greater, even sweeter. His tongue on her ear has her gasping and slipping her fingers up to massage his scalp.

“You know I do,” he murmurs, fingers tightening around her wrist, “You know I think you’re fucking perfect.”

She can’t see his face when he calls her perfect. She rasps from deep in her chest, it’s a wet scratching sound that sounds like the beginning of tears. She slams her eyes shut and lets him tilt his hips to crack her open with pleasure.

Shawn digs his knee into the bed, pressing his thigh into the back of Maya’s where it’s hooked around his waist. He gets a better angle this way, able to graze her g-spot with the tip of his dick through each slow grind of his hips. He grunts softly in her ear as the sensation of her slick walls clenching around him, stretching and squeezing simultaneously.

“Right there, right there, right there,” she chants, even though he knows. She knows he knows. Even if he didn’t have the extensive experience with her body, the way it hugs around him now would tell him.

“Fuck, May--” he chokes, burying his nose in her hair, “So good for me, baby. Always feel so fucking good.”

He snuggles into her hair. She continues stroking his scalp. She turns her head to kiss his cheek.

“Love being good for you. Always want to be good for you.”

The garbled moan she lets out at his admission catches him off guard, has him groaning into her cheek as he fucks her a little harder, a little faster. His hand falls from her wrist so he can grip her ass to pull her tighter into his rocking hips.

“Always are, baby, always so damn good. So-- so-- shit-- No one like you, Lu, no one.”

He’s babbling into her ear, panting desperately as she soaks his cock. His fingers dig into her ass, getting more leverage for his increasing speed. He drops his head to look down between them, watching the way her pussy stretches around him. She’s fucking soaking him, probably ruining the stupidly expensive pants he can’t believe he’s still wearing, and it’s drives him kind of crazy.

With Maya’s newly freed hand, she wraps it under his arm to grip his back and let him have her. He snaps his hips harder and faster and it only makes her wetter. The way her body responds to him is unbelievable.

He’s probably leaving bruises in her ass. She doesn’t mind. She’s already marked him up just about everywhere from all the passionate sex they’ve been having over the last few weeks. A few more marks doesn’t make any difference.

He laughs gruffly into her collarbone, still focused on the way she’s dripping all over both of them. “M’gonna have to take these pants to the dry cleaner cause of you, sugar.”

Maya laughs back, a choked sound broken up by his rough thrusts. She tugs at his hair playfully.

“Totally worth it though,” she pants, “Being with you like this… it’s so hot.”

She punctuates her thought with a rough squeeze of his cock and a smirk.

He beams down at her, lips quirked slightly. She then catches him off guard, his eyes shutting when she tightens around his dick.

“Super fuckin’ hot,” he growls, hand slipping from her ass to grip the back of her thigh, pushing it up towards her chest so he can hook her calf over his shoulder. He presses his other hand into the mattress, just beside her head, fingers tangled in her hair where it’s splayed across the sheets.

He pushes himself up onto his knees, tilting his hips to get a better angle on her g-spot. He groans when she twitches, knowing he’s found the right one.

Maya watches him lift her leg over his shoulder and shift accordingly, but her eyes fall shut when he strokes back into her.

“Oh god, Shawn,” she cries, her voice breaking into a wail.

He’s jerking into her g-spot with every thrust. Her pussy is squelching. As much as she’d love to hold on, she can’t make it much longer. She tries to ground herself, focusing in on the way his curls feel in her fingers, on the rough brush of his clothes against her skin, on the brightness of his eyes while he watches her. It only gets her that much closer.

Shawn turns to press a kiss to Maya’s ankle, fingers gliding along the front of her thigh. He snaps his hips a little faster, breathing heavily into to the soft skin of her calf.

Her breath quivers at the touch of his lips to her ankle. She whimpers gently and surrenders to the feeling.

“Baby,” she pleads, “Gonna come. I’m gonna come. Tell-- tell me you love me. Please.”

Shawn is powerless. His heart lurches into his throat, stomach twisting, cock throbbing. He’s so utterly fucked for her. He knows she’s close to coming, only ever is this mushy when she’s about to come but he doesn’t care. He’ll give her anything she wants.

He collapses back down onto his forearm, her leg slipping from his shoulder and into the crook of his elbow as he presses his forehead to hers.

“M’so in love with you, Lu, fuck--” he grunts, eyes slipping shut for a moment, “You--” he opens his eyes, nudging her nose with his, “You know that.”

He kisses her then, his hips stilling with his cock buried deep inside of her pussy as his hand falls to the apex of her thighs, fingers seeking out her clit.

She can think later about how unfair it was to ask of him since they both knew she wasn’t going to say it back. She can think later about the almost hopeless way he murmurs it to her, like he knows it’ll hurt but he’ll do it anyway for her. She can’t think now.

Shawn kisses her, hot but somehow still soft. Maybe she just imagines it. But it feels like he’s telling her again silently, showing her.

“C’mon,” he growls, snapping his hips once. His fingers quickly circle her clit. “Come for me, Maya.”

Her back arches as soon as his fingers slip down her stomach. It takes only a few small flicks at her swollen bud to kickstart her orgasm, radiating out from her center as she moans once, loud and long, pressing up into him, head falling back.

It takes all of his willpower, and then some, not to come when she does, to keep fucking her through it. He plays with her clit as her back bows and her pussy spasms around his cock. He groans into her neck as her head falls back, hips stuttering as the control he’s been clinging to slips through his fingers.

It takes her longer than usual to come down. Her body pulses distractingly with aftershocks. When she can focus her eyes, they lift to him. She lifts her weak hands and cups his face.

He pulls away from her neck to watch her come down, forcing himself to slow his hips. She whines, whimpers softly and it takes a moment longer than he’s expecting. His eyes fall shut when her small palm presses into his cheek.

“Felt so good. Wanna come, baby? Please come for me.”

“Yeah—“ he pants, nodding almost frantically, “wanna— fuck, I’m gonna come for you, Lu.”

He emphasizes his words with a snap of his hips, his head returning to the crook of her neck. He picks up an almost desperate pace, quick and shallow in her still twitching pussy.

Maya holds on, stroking his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs as his hips pick up pace again. He strokes hard but not quite as deep. She can feel her muscles still fluttering for him like her body wants more.

She hums, tucks her little fingers around Shawn’s neck and lifts her head to nibble on his earlobe as his thrusting goes erratic.

“It’s ok, baby,” she tells him as he rattles toward orgasm, “Let go for me. Come inside me. I wanna feel you everywhere. Be good for me.”

She always says the magic fucking words. He huffs, sinks his cock all the way inside of her as he chases his orgasm. Her breath on his ear has him throbbing. His hips flick and then still, a low, prolonged groan rumbling his chest as he finally comes.

“Oh, fuck--” he growls, latching onto her jaw while his cock jerks, his knees slipping back until he’s collapsed on top of her.

He’s tense for a moment, then his entire body relaxes. A coil of heat releases in his stomach and radiates through each one of his frenzied nerves as he pants heavily into Maya’s sweet neck.

He comes so perfectly for her every time.

She lets her body relax so he can come hard for her, nipping at her jaw and panting as he comes down. She pets his hair softly, murmuring under her breath. When he goes slack on top of her, she grunts and smiles. She likes that she can make him feel so good that he has to collapse into her.

“Sugar, my god,” he all but moans, finally finding the strength to push himself up, flopping onto his back beside her. “You’re so fucking hot.”

He rolls away when he realizes he’s crushing her. She tries not to pout. Instead she grins and lifts her arms over her head, sliding her sore thighs shut and twirling hair around her finger.

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” she teases.

Shawn spends a lot of time thinking Maya is trying to kill him. This is another one of those times. She’s wiggly next to him, her legs drawing together as her arms raise, fingers curling in her hair. If he weren’t so fucking exhausted from just coming, his cock would definitely be intrigued by the sight.

Shawn rolls his eyes, chuckling slightly as he looks away from her.

“Yeah, well, I only have really hot girlfriends at the moment, so. I have to say it to all of you.”

Shawn glances back at her, brows quirked. He didn’t know what to say, just then. He’d been thinking, only the girls who beg me to love them but won’t tell me if they love me back, but it was a little on the nose. And a little mean.

He thinks joking was the right way to go. He can’t hold anything against her, anyway. It was his choice to reveal so much of himself so quickly, to fall back into their romance like he’s still twenty years old. Still a kid. It’s better that Maya’s more guarded with it.

One of them has to be the adult.

Maya narrows her eyes and rolls onto her side, tracing a teasing hand down the center of his abdomen, teasing his tired cock. She lifts an eyebrow.

“I bet your other hot girlfriends don’t make you come that good.”

Shawn hisses when she grazes his dick, eyes falling shut.

“They don’t,” he says with a shake of his head, voice scratchy from shouting for her like a dying whale. At least that’s what it felt like.

He knows better than to poke at her competitive instincts and expect to come out of it without blushing for her. She releases his cock with a giggle and scoots over to crawl half on top of him, draping herself in his heavy limbs and closing her eyes.

She yawns gently and realizes when her eyes slide shut that he’s completely worn her out. She’s full of alcohol, fancy food and dopamine.

She pulls her hand away and he releases and gruff sigh, blinking his eyes open as she crawls on top of his, nuzzling into his chest.

“You think if you have an orgasm immediately before you go to sleep you wake up without a hangover?”

“I think aspirin is probably a good complement to the orgasm. But the orgasm definitely doesn’t hurt.”

He closes his eyes again, settling into the pillows as he curls an arm around her. He hums.

He gives her what she wants, just like always. She hums in response and lets him curl around her, accepting her warmth against him.

“‘M too tired for aspirin so I’ll take my chances with the orgasm.”

They’re quiet for a minute, settling in for the night. She smiles when she thinks of their evening, considering that they just popped out to Malibu for a few hours and came back like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

“What do you want to do tomorrow, Lemon?”

She runs a warm hand up and down his side. “Can we go to the art store in the morning? After breakfast obviously. And then maybe movies. It’s supposed to rain in the morning so I won’t drag you to the beach. And I have that giant TV downstairs that I haven’t used yet and I have HBO. So.”

She’s definitely falling asleep quickly. He’s warm and soft but firm and bone-stillingly comforting.

“So,” he murmurs, smiling into the top of her head. He presses a kiss to her hair. “Sounds like the perfect day, I think.”

He can tell Maya’s on the verge of sleep, but he’s got a fancy suit he needs to take off. He squeezes her hip, then wiggles away from her slightly.

“Gotta change, Lu,” he murmurs, slipping out of her bed with a kiss to her cheek. He disappears into her bathroom to undress.

By the time Shawn’s back in the bedroom, Maya’s out like a light. The window by the bed is cracked and letting in a pleasantly sea-salted breeze. The sheets rest around her hips from where she wriggled under them. The room is quiet.

She shifts gently when Shawn shuffles in next to her. His arm is heavy around her waist. She breathes softly through her nose. It’s perfect.

Maya wakes up with a start suddenly somewhere around 4am. She’s sure she was dreaming but as soon as she’s awake she forgets what she was dreaming about.

She blinks. She and Shawn are in nearly the same position. He’s fast asleep, his nose buried in her hair, inhaling long and slow behind her. She reaches down and links her fingers with his.

She remembers her dream now.

It’s foggy. It’s hot. It’s last night, Shawn holding himself over her, stroking his cock into her so that every breath of hers comes out as a pant. She feels undone, desperate. She wants to hear it again. She knows it’ll make her come as soon as he says it. She’s greedy for it, hungry for it.

I’m so in love with you, Lu.

Her stomach lurches. How could she do that? How, even in the haze of sex, could she beg him to remind her how much he loves her? How could she expect that of him when she’s held back so much?

Maya rolls over carefully and quietly. He stays mercifully asleep. There was a time when she would’ve run from this and self-flagellated for months or years. She might’ve kept this shame and hurt splattered across her skin like an invisible tattoo. But when she looks at him now, perfect with sleep, she thinks maybe they both deserve better.

She’s going to tell him. Today.

She closes her eyes.

----------

Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @mendesoft @singanddreamanyway @alone-in-madness @abigfatmess @shawnitsmutual @awkwardfangirl2014 @september-lace @sinplisticshawn @rollingxstone @yslsaint @randi-eve @fallmoreinlove @heyits-claire @itrocksmysocks @parkerspicedlatte @simpledomain @abeautiful-and-cloudy-day @thecurlsofgod @magcon7280 @bensbuttercup @shawnsmusical @paigeasourous @tell-me-when-ur-ready @softmendesss @searchingunderthestars @buggy-blogs @mendesficsxbombay @desire-to-live @jillian-nd @shawnwyr @curlsofshawn @graysonmendes @tnhmblive @meltingicequeen

#Shawn Mendes Imagine #shawn mendes #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes fan fic #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fan fiction #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fiction #shawn mendes series #shawn mendes smut #shawn mendes au #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes drabble #shawn mendes one shot #shawn peter raul mendes

111 notes · View notes

the-mountainsflame · 4 years

Text

Celia

((Meanwhile: Izola and a couple Roegadyn run across another foe.

Features characters belonging to @semper-miles, namely Izola (kinda lol) and Celia, as well as a brief bit of Blue from @gold-eyes-vengeful-heart (which is mine).

General content warning for violent combat content and Celia being a bloodthirsty asshat. And the very last section (the all-italics one) has a whOANELLY content warning for parental abuse of the physical and emotional sort, because Merceus is a dick to his (adult) kids--please heed that if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing!))

===

Thorn huffed as she padded in Long Shot’s wake, slipping on downpour-slicked rock. “Where are we goin’?”

No answer. Again. Not even a hand-sign, which--not that Thorn was bragging to herself or anything--she could more than read, even in the deluge-dimmed lighting.

“No, really, s’ stormin’ an’ I don’t know what y’r haulin’ me out for!” Not that she didn’t respect the older Roegadyn enough to just go with it, but still, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t complain mightily about it in the meantime. The hood of her cloak threatened to get blown back, and she reached up with one hand to keep it in place. Her axe bounced heavily on her back where she had it strapped, and it was taking every onze of effort she could give as a Warrior-in-training to keep up with Shot’s longer strides. That was, until they suddenly stopped altogether as Shot crested a large rocky hill--one of many that dotted Gyr Abania. Thorn wasn’t far behind. “Wha--?”

But Shot suddenly grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her down behind an outcrop, and before Thorn could see anything, she heard it instead.

Metal against metal. Weapons clashing, but with a distinct ringing to them that sounded more Garlean than Eorzean.

“Is that all you got?”

That was most definitely not any of theirs. In fact, it sounded as if the brash, harsh voice was coming from behind a helmet than anything else. Thorn couldn’t help but hiss a question. “Is that--?”

The little Warrior was going to get them spotted, and so Shot reached over with a heavily-gloved hand to shush her. Another quick peek over the rock verified what she had been afraid of; the Izola dragon-woman had taken too long on patrol not just because of some minor distraction, but because she had found one of them. Or maybe the other way around, but the distinction didn’t matter--what mattered was that the most-likely-a-Silentius was brawling with Izola and it seemed like Izola was losing.

“Come on, savage! What’s the matter?”

Shot was already stringing up her longbow, bending it in a great arc with little more than a quiet hiss of air from between clenched teeth, accentuated with a raspy sound. (The problem with having had her throat cut in an effort to kill her; she never could make sound properly again.)

(She had been a singer, once. She had been peaceful, once. She had used a bow only for hunting, once.)

(Once. And this brat Izola was fighting was behind it.)

“Uh, Shot?” Thorn hissed practically in her ear. “Y’ can’t be serious.”

“Can you only fight Garleans who don’t fight back, savage?”

“Y’ can’t be thinkin’ about shooting an arrow at Garlean armor.”

“Your friend took my sister from me and killed the other--it’s the least I can do to kill you!”

“No matter how much y’ shoot y’r just gonna piss ‘er off, an’ my teach doesn’ think a single Warrior’s gonna do much against it either!”

A loud yelp of pain from Izola, and any thoughts of listening flew right out of Shot’s head. Not that she didn’t agree with Thorn--in fact, she agreed a lot, that she wasn’t really in a position to do anything, magicked arrows or no magicked arrows. She had heard first-hand from the first Swarstral hunters that the pair of sisters had ambushed, that most magic just bounced off of them like it was nothing. But...

Was she just going to sit here and watch someone die again?

(old memories of smoke and fire and the taste of blood and the scent of the charring meat of her village-mates nagged at the back of her mind)

She stood, at that, and took in the situation in a single cold glance over her lower face half-mask. Izola, bleeding furiously from her side; the too-familiar Garlean, standing over her with one fin-bladed arm raised for the kill.

(White, she reflected idly, was a terrible choice for armor color in a place like this.)

It made her snappy shot at her arm all too easy, even at this great a distance. The arrow shattered on the metal, yes, but it succeeded in throwing Celia off-balance, and she had to move one foot awfully fast to keep from getting bowled over.

“Shot!” The little Warrior was standing next to her, now, and rain hissed into steam on what little of her skin was exposed as she drew her axe. “Shot, come on, y’r just gonna get ki--”

But Shot cut her off with a quick signing, right before she reached for an arrow. [Go. I’ll hold her off.]

And yet, the stubborn Roegadyn’s voice rose practically an octave in disbelief as she responded. “Like hells am I doing that!”

Shot glared sideways at her for the insubordination, but she definitely had Celia’s attention now and she cracked off another shot at her helmet. Another arrow shattered, the armor barely dented, but the concussive force couldn’t be pleasant, and that was all Shot could count on at the moment.

“Oh Eorzean~” Celia raised her voice enough to be heard over the whipping wind and rain. “That was really stupid.”

Another shot from Shot, but one that was deflected by Celia’s arm this time.

“And you brought a little friend, too. I’ll be sure to carve her up into fish-bait before finally letting you die.”

Shot signed again, rather agitatedly. [Thorn, you’ll get killed. Leave.]

“Not while you’re here!” Now the rain was turning to steam entirely around Thorn, as the flames of a Warrior rose around her. “Y’r a Swarstral an’ so’m I! We don’t run away an’ leave another hunter to some monster like that!”

Celia was advancing slowly, almost sauntering. A coeurl, savoring the stalking hunt of what seemed to be easy, defenseless prey.

“I can’t believe that we got such easy payback for Ari. One of that monster’s friends and some of her hunters, too.”

But Shot coldly stared her down as she nocked and drew an arrow back as calmly as if she was simply target shooting--not like she was trying to fire in a storm on an enemy that just didn’t seem to be feeling much from her attacks. Do you even remember me, she wanted to ask, and would have if she could have. Do you remember what you did, or was it just another working day for you?

A faint glint in Celia’s side caught her attention, though. Bits of a spear-tip had clearly broken off in the armor, but it had broken it, too. Just barely.

A quick tweak of her aim, and Shot fired. This time, the arrow didn’t shatter but stuck, even if Celia whipped one arm down to snap it off.

“Yes, yes, keep shooting. I always liked watching them struggle in vain to hurt me. Even your dragoon couldn’t do anything to me, with a dragon!” Celia spread her arms, still advancing with all the implacability of a landslide. “What do you think you’re gonna manage?”

Another arrow slithered from her quiver as she drew it, and this time Shot poured what little magic she had into it, wind and levin swirling around its broad-bladed tip as she nocked it to her bow and drew again, further and further back.

“I’ll keep plucking off all of you savages that keep feeding Angerona’s delusions and bring her back to Father, where she belongs!”

With one more heave that strained every muscle in her torso, Shot drew her bow back to its full intense draw, and it took just a moment to readjust her aim and fire, the arrow thundering across the distance and cleaving the air with ease with the wind magic surrounding it, despite the storm’s best work to throw it off-course. And when it struck the armor, it not only stuck and drove itself a good few ilms into whatever was beneath it, but the levin lurking around the head burst across flesh and armor alike, zapping frenetically and driving the Garlean to her knees with a terrible shriek of pain, her helmet retracting and falling as she did, shorted from the assault.

Good, was the only word Shot could think when she saw and heard it. Suffer.

And yet, even then, Celia managed to struggle to her feet, and though she didn’t bother to remove the arrow, she still staggered towards them--something out of a nightmare, from her spasming muscles to the face contorted in a rictus grin of hate. “Oh, I’m g-gonna be drinking f-from your skull f-for that, savage.”

The levin-strike was wearing off already, and Shot didn’t think she had enough aether left for another. Her next two shots were quickly deflected with Celia’s arms, too, and the Garlean’s pace was slowly increasing as the lightning receded. Yet the terrible grin on her foe’s face remained, and Celia drew her arm back as she approached as if to slash--

Something was behind Shot. She heard it crunching.

Shot was quick to dive sideways out of the way and so was Thorn, though whether she heard it or was just following the older hunter wasn’t immediately obvious. Celia just cackled as if she hadn’t heard and darted over to follow them, but then entire yalms of space lit up in the shape of a machine--

Not just a machine.

The color drained from Celia’s face as Blue stared down at her, his armor glowing and his jaws slightly opening in a deep, rumbling growl that was more felt than heard.

“No...no, you get away from me--”

Anything further she had to say was drowned out by Blue’s roar, though, and as his jaws dripped glowing energy, Celia barely had any warning to get out of the way before a beam obliterated where she had been standing, carving a hole multiple fulms deep.

“No!” She moved with all the speed of a fleeing hawk, and Blue cracked off one, two, three shots after her before she disappeared past a ridge--and even that ridge swiftly had a hole ripped into it by another laser-like blast.

But Shot was already moving, now that her foe had been thoroughly driven back into a retreat. She dived down the slope, the fastest way down there, and rubble and scree battered her as she alternately rolled and ran. Izola was very much unconscious now, and without thinking twice, Shot picked her up and started to walk. She would get her help...and then try and track down where that monster Garlean went.

They weren’t going to let her escape for long.

A sharp crack of the back of a hand on flesh rang out harshly in the small metal room, and Celia was sent staggering back a good half her height, holding her hand to the side of her face, which was already turning a bruised red from Merceus’ slap. And yet, his voice hadn’t raised a fraction and his breathing remained steady and easy.

“You disobeyed my orders, Celia.” She twitched as he raised his hand again, but this time he just massaged it lightly with the other. “Thick-skulled as always.”

“Sorry, sir!” She quickly snapped to attention just like she had been trained to almost all her life. “I disobeyed you, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”

“It had best not.” He didn’t need to make any threats with his children, now. “You were just supposed to find them and report back so we could attack them together. Not hare off on your own to get ambushed.” A stern voice, condescendingly slow-paced as if explaining to a child or a fool. “But don’t get too comfortable yet; I have another mission for you. And you won’t be doing it alone this time.”

Another armored figure loomed up from the shadows behind him, its movements jerky and erratic. And the second that Celia recognized her dead sister’s armor, her eyes widened and she froze.

“Ariadne wasn’t done with her mission, either. And even death can’t get you out of carrying out my orders. Now listen closely; I will not tolerate any further mistakes from either of you.”

#; writing #semper-miles #abuse tw #because merceus is being merceus fucking /again/

3 notes · View notes

beneaththetangles · 4 years

Text

10 Year Retrospective, Month #5: Throwback to May 2014

As we celebrate our tenth anniversary on Beneath the Tangles, we want to take some time each month to look into the past, not only to commemorate our ten years, but also to see where we were and how far we’ve come as a site and collectively as anime fans. For most months this year, we’ll do that by looking back at a particular year and at the month corresponding to that year. For instance, we started this off by looking at January 2010. Today we throw back to May 2014.

TOP OF THE CHARTS: MAY 21, 2014

We’ll dive into anime a bit, but I want to us to look at what else was happening at this time in 2014. Here are the most popular songs, movies, and series on this day or during this week six years ago.

Top Selling Album: Frozen, Soundtrack Number One Song: “All of Me,” John Legend Top Movie: Godzilla ($93.2 mil) Most Watched TV Show: The Big Bang Theory

CURRENT EVENTS: MAY 2014

youtube

Here’s what was happening in the world eight years ago this month…

Demonstrations are held across the world for the recovery of 280 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

More than 2,000 are killed in a mudslide in Afghanistan.

Fighting escalates and a presidential election is held in Ukraine.

Narendra Modi becomes the 15th prime minister of India.

“Gangnam Style” reaches 2 billion views on YouTube.

POPULAR ANIME in 2014

Six years. It seems that this might be the line of demarcation, the divide between “old anime” and “anime the younger generation still watches and appreciates.” At least that’s the sense I get from endless hours posting and looking through social media. Series that should have slid further into oblivion remain in vogue, like Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, Ao Haru Ride, Noragami, Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions, No Game No Life, and Parasyte. As I get older, it’s hard to really keep track of the differences between years, but I feel like it’s practically twice as likely that someone in their teens to early twenties will have seen one of these series than a random one from a year or two before.

The year also provided some of biggest hits of recent years, like Free (the last series that was an Internet sensation before it aired?), Seven Deadly Sins, Your Lie in April (recently covered by the TangleCast), Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Haikyuu!! (which by the way narrowly defeated Violet Evergarden in our Caitin Glass Review and Watch poll). Some of the most well-reviewed (or at least well-covered) shows of the year also included Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, Yona of the Dawn, Terror in Resonance, and Shirobako (the next series our podcast is covering—a little info drop for those who are reading!). These series stand out so well to me because I was knee deep in Tumblr at the time, the so many fans were clamoring about them. It really made these series stand out, whether or not they truly deserved the attention.

WHAT WE WERE BLOGGING

At the end of our last article in this series, I hinted at how I would leave the blog. But although burnout was coming, I wasn’t there yet, and most probably because 2014 was a really good year for Beneath the Tangles, especially the first half. During that time, leading into the summer, Beneath the Tangles was exactly how I hoped it would be. I slowed down my output because our writers were doing so much. It really felt like a partnership, a group of about eight of us who were writing regularly, including Lynna who started to do some episodic posting; Kaze, whose pieces were always far different from anyone else’s; Goldy, who was so skilled with her words and knee deep in convention and Christian otaku life; Hansha, who covered a variety of series but espoused the grace that could be found especially in shoujo shows; Zeroe4, who became a Swiss army knife of sorts for the blog until he departed for greener pastures; Emma, who came on as our webmaster but also helped out with social media and writing, too; and Japes, whose Anime Today column was as a strong any we’ve ever had on the blog. Speaking of Japes, it was in 2015 that he started The Tangles podcast, which he would later retool as the TangleCast—unfortunately, those early recordings have become lost.

It’s strange for me to see what I wrote during that year. I’ve written so many posts now that I’ve forgotten, maybe, what a majority of them were about. It’s weird to see my spending so much time writing about series that I was meh about, like Golden Time or Nisekoi or Blue Spring Ride, the last of which I mused for almost every episode during season one. Looking back, doing episodic looks was a bad idea, one that helped speed along my burn out. In fact, browsing through those posts is like taking a mile high view at my blogging life. Ah…I see what was happening there! It’s too bad that I couldn’t or refused to take that kind of look at the time. Writing about each episode of Terror in Resonance was fun, but it was also challenging and, again, not the best idea.

Taking this viewpoint also helps me see how I was trying to spread my wings. An article I sold to Christianity Today was posted on our site that year. I haven’t revealed that name before, but I worked closely with one of their editors at the time who encouraged me greatly with an article that would be almost an introduction to anime for that site’s audiences. It was accepted, I was paid, and then I waited. When it wasn’t published, I checked back and found that my editor had left; the new one wasn’t as interested in anime and rejected the article. I proposed another one about Miyazaki, also rejected, and also later posted on this site. The weird timing on the first one was especially painful to me, as I thought that would help launch Beneath the Tangles to a higher plane among Christian readers. It was hard to absorb having gotten my work where I wanted it, and then seeing it fall away.

A lot of times, life can be see as these series of “what might have beens.” In retrospect, I wouldn’t have been ready for the attention that posting on Christianity Today might have brought, nor was I strong enough of a writer to continue to put out work equivalent to that I prepared for the magazine. God, after all, does seem to know best.

I hope enjoyed this look into the recent past, both on a bigger, societal level and at Beneath the Tangles. We’ll keep up this throughout 2020. Read the other posts in this yearlong series.

#Anime #20 20 in 2020 #10 Year Retrospective #2014 #Beneath the Tangles #Flashback Friday #Articles #Author: TWWK

4 notes · View notes

walls-dmc5 · 5 years

Text

Walls - 3rd chapter “Failure”

Words: 6,4k

Warnings: slight angst, canon-typical violence

Hope you enjoy! 🌹

Cara felt as if she literally stepped into hell once she passed the roots that originally protected the tree from being entered.

Everything seemed as if she just walked into an entirely different world. A world full of darkness and evil.

The expanse of this tree was huge. The roots spread from the ground and created an almost hilly ground. There was an almost red hue over everything, there was even red mist in the air. Cara was afraid of the fact, but it was almost a certainty that it was blood.

The smell of blood and death hung heavy in the air accompanied by the sounds of gunfire and faint shockwaves of energy being released from what could only be described as a giant bud at the far end of the inside of the tree. There was something like a room encased by giant petals out of blood and demonic roots. There was obviously a battle going on in there.

So inside of there is the source of this tree, Cara furrowed her brows at the scenery. From the point where she was standing and considering how much the inside looked like a maze it could take some few minutes to maybe even a few hours to get to that place where the battle was taking place depending on the number of obstacles they would face on the way there.

“What am I doing wasting my time here?! He’s got this.” The young man in front of her said.

Does he though? Cara thought. There must’ve been a reason for V coming out of this tree again only to come back with this guy now. Then the bird said that they needed to hurry…

What’s going on?

“You should not underestimate this demon.”

Cara almost flinched when she heard V’s deep voice behind her and she looked at him as he passed her slowly and stood next to the young man. The blue bird flew next to him.

“After all, it was he who took your right arm. It gained a great deal of power from it.”

Cara looked with furrowed brows at the stump of the young man’s right arm. A demon… took his arm? What did a demon want with a human’s arm? Even more so, how was a demon supposed to gain power from it? Cara was confused but a thought sneaked into her head that she was probably missing the bigger picture again. She was not a part of this team… that became clear much earlier and now it was thrown at her yet again.

V turned around to the both of them and Cara’s eyes were drawn to the black smoke that started to swirl around his feet just like before. Clouds of black smoke and shadows engulfed his feet, a constant movement, itching to move forward and to carry the man with him.

“I’m leaving. I suggest you do not fall behind.”

And then the smoke carried him forward. Cara’s eyes followed how the man didn’t move a muscle as the shadows slid him over the ground, completely unmoved by the rough texture of the ground, ignoring the roots and blood around him; just gliding forward further into the depths of the tree just as if he went down a slide. It… looked like fun.

Cara shook her head slightly, but the thought didn’t really leave her.

“Yeah. Okay, V, you’re an interesting guy but you’re right,” the young man said still directed at V although the tattooed man was long out of sight. He reached for his right shoulder and Cara caught a look of anger and determination on the man’s face.

“I’ve got a score to settle with that son of a bitch.”

Cara didn’t say a word, but her curiosity swelled to unbearable limits inside her. There was so much that she wanted to know, so many questions that left her mind searching frantically for clues and answers she couldn’t find on her own.

“Who are you anyway?”

Cara’s eyebrows rose as she looked at the man not expecting him to suddenly talk to her. No accusing tone in his voice she noticed, just a curiosity masked by the anger and determination burning in his blue eyes.

“Cara. I’m… here to correct a mistake.”

The man nodded once. Slowly. A look of suspicion in his eyes but what else could she tell him right now?! They didn’t have the time and she wasn’t lying either.

“Nero,” he said, not asking her anything more. Instead he nodded towards the direction V went. Cara nodded in agreement.

“So, do you know this guy?” Nero asked her while they were running through the hellish landscape of the tree, climbing up some roots to get to a higher level. Cara was impressed how he handled that with only one arm, especially since he seemed to have lost it only recently.

“No. Actually I don’t know any of them. Met them a few hours ago.”

The look Nero threw at her was something between disbelief and confusion, but he didn’t comment on it. Cara found it actually a bit amusing because he looked like he was asking himself how he got caught up in all of this. Though she didn’t blame him one bit.

Cara tried to take in as much of her surroundings as possible while running. But the scenery did not change. The same roots, the same vines, blood streams and vessels. The only thing that she noticed was that some of the walls of the tree seemed to be much thinner than others. At least the way the blood was much more visible flowing through them was an indication for that.

They stopped in their tracks when they saw a bunch of demons bent over a pool of blood on the ground. It didn’t take long for the insect-like creatures to notice their new company. They let out a screech as they gestured with their arms ready to attack them.

Cara gritted her teeth, grabbing her Kama from the sheath at her hips but Nero beat her to it. He grabbed the sword on his back, an angry spark in his eyes before he lunged at the demons and before Cara had even time to process what was happening his blade already sliced through the first demon.

“I can take you with no arm!” he exclaimed swinging the heavy looking sword around as if it weighed nothing, slicing through flesh and bones of the demons who had absolutely nothing to oppose the attacks. Cara stared with lips slightly parted, eyes wide as the demons fell within seconds and shortly after the battle started a delusive silence settled over the battlefield again.

“Sorry, maybe I’ll leave some for you next time,” Nero grinned at her for a moment and she almost let out a huff. Curious guy for sure and words like this were a pretty huge contrast to the anger she saw in his eyes earlier. Still… she was grateful he didn’t outright ignore her. They didn’t know each other and this was not the time and place to make someone’s acquaintance.

“Let’s just go,” there was a small smile on her face as she started running further ahead.

They were approaching their destination faster than she expected. The sounds of the battle raging within that bud-like location grew louder with every meter they got closer and the shockwaves passing through the tree seemed to be far less faint than before.

Again, they reached a wider area that was full of demons. Though this time the minor demons from earlier were accompanied by a bunch of flying ones. They still belonged to the same type of demons as Cara noticed. Their anatomy was obviously similar as were the sounds they made.

Though flying demons were always a bit more difficult for Cara to handle. She couldn’t fly obviously. So she had to come up with a strategy to get them down to her level, which was not that hard but it required a bit more thinking.

“Try to keep up,” Nero said next to her before he dived into battle. But not alone this time. She finally had a chance to help making all of this right again. She would not let other people do all the fighting for her now.

Cara grabbed her weapon and followed Nero.

The Empusa demons fell easily enough. While one direct hit could kill Cara they just weren’t very agile or fast. Unlike her. The demons swung their insect-like limbs at her and yet she easily avoided the attacks. She rolled to the side, bent her body backwards, twisted her body around, until she found an opening and swung her weapon at the demonic insect.

She got lost in the battle, focusing entirely on the enemies that came after her, not paying any attention to Nero, even blending out the sounds of his weapons or the taunts he threw at the demons.

She had to focus on herself and her opponents especially when she was faced with those flying demons who stayed annoyingly out of reach for her. She had to come up with something.

Cara let her eyes wander over her surroundings once more, never letting the demon out of her field of vision, looking for something in the environment she could use to her advantage.

The shot that sounded tore right through the demon’s wings.

Cara was caught a bit off guard and she looked at Nero who was standing a few feet away from her, a few demons still behind him.

“Looked like you could use a hand.” His sassy grin spread from one ear to the next and yet his brows were still furrowed, whatever goal he personally had to do here – Cara assumed it had something to do with his arm – it was still on the forefront of his mind.

His determination was admirable.

Not to mention his sense of humor given his circumstances.

She allowed a smile of her own to appear on her face, not denying how uplifting this little scene was. No matter how gruesome their surroundings were and how terrible the situation was, it managed to relieve some of the burden on her shoulders.

The demon was no match for her without its wings and she ended its pitiful existence quickly.

The rest of the demons were killed within a matter of seconds. A few wipes of Nero’s sword and the deceptive silence settled over the battlefield once more. For a short moment at least because they both already saw more minor demons spawning in the distance.

Nero and Cara both looked up though as they heard the flapping of bird’s wings. V’s blue bird appeared in the air and hovered over the both of them. V entered the battlefield from another pathway, coming to a halt with still quite a distance between them. Cara watched how he leaned on his cane and still wondered if he actually needed that for walking.

“Hey, thought you took off.” Nero called over to him.

“Do you not understand? We cannot hope to do this without you,” V replied, his words bordering on chastising and yet, Cara could not see anything past the movements of his head. It felt like the need and want to express himself but whatever barriers he created around him did not allow a look past some physical superficial gestures.

“That’s all right, superstar, go on with your bad self. Go ahead, we got this,” the bird said to Nero. The demon surely had an interesting attitude given how V refused to let anyone or anything get past his walls.

Nero didn’t say anything, he just looked at the bird, grabbed his sword that rested on his shoulders and started to go, not paying the new spawning demons any mind.

Cara didn’t move.

She wanted to. She really did. She wanted to follow him and face the threat herself, wanted to see who or what was truly behind this catastrophe.

But she didn’t.

She had to face that she was no match for whatever caused all of this. She could take on minor demons, even stronger ones, but she couldn’t fight, not to mention beat such a creature that posed a threat to this world.

She knew this, and still it was a bitter thought because she desperately wanted to set this right herself again. But… there was nothing she could do.

Cara exhaled heavily through her nose, closed her eyes and focused on her breathing for a moment until she could feel that her focus returned to herself, that her mind was back in the here and now, so she could concentrate on the demons spawning around her again.

“So, princess, you better stay back and let the experts handle this.”

Cara stared at the bird with furrowed brows, lips parted, the remark already tingling on her tongue but then she decided against it. No use starting an argument with a demonic bird. Especially not in this situation.

“Pretty sure I can handle this just fine,” she said instead and if he could have the bird would’ve huffed at her response.

“You better not turn into a damsel in distress then,” the demon snickered as it flew closer to V, who threw his cane up a bit to catch it in the middle just like she has seen him do before.

Wisps of smoke started to twirl on the ground before the man, the same way they engulfed his feet before. This time, though, they rose from the ground in shiny black clouds and fog, twirling and blowing, rising up and then they formed something. Cara watched in astonishment as the shadows and smoke slowly took the shape of a four-legged animal. The black panther roared as soon as it had formed, the last wisps of smoke fading into the heavy air around them.

Cara stared in absolute amazement at the creature. Did the bird appear the same way? How did they appear in the first place?

She looked at V who had his eyes fixed on the demons approaching them. Cara wasn’t sure, given how there was quite a bit of distance between them and how there was still this blood red fog around them, but she could’ve sworn that some of the tattoos on his arm vanished.

And then she realized that she would get to see how the tattooed man fought against demons. It seemed these two animal-like demons were his in some way and they probably did the fighting too. But what would V do? His lean figure, the cane he had… it didn’t seem like he was a fighter.

Sadly, she couldn’t pay a lot of attention to what the man was doing as she had to focus on killing the demons that attacked her herself.

She dug the blade of her Kama into the head of a demon, twisting it inside the skull, internally cringing at the disgusting sound it made as blood spilled from the wound when she heard a roar behind her.

Cara visibly flinched, the hairs on the back of her hair standing on edge immediately as she felt something behind her and she spun around.

She only caught a glimpse of the demon behind her.

But she barely registered the whirl of black directly in front of her, knocking the demon onto the ground before it could reach her, before it could dig its raised limbs and claws into her skin.

Cara watched with a racing heart and a sudden shaking of her hands as the panther dug his claws into the demon until it started glowing in a very faint purple light.

She heard the sound of a gust of wind and out of thin air V was in front of her, stabbing the demon with the cane and kicking the demon’s lifeless body away.

He looked at her, strands of his black hair falling into his face, his mouth a straight line, two deep eyes finding her own, but she could not identify anything that lay within those green orbs.

“Thank you,” she said genuinely. V just saved her life, no denying that, and the confirmation how easy it was to end a life was once more thrown at her. One moment of inattention, one moment of not paying too much attention to the surroundings. Cara’s heart was racing and not from the effort and the heat of the battle. She just made a mistake. A mistake that shouldn’t have happened to her. And she would be dead now if it weren’t for the demonic cat and the man.

He merely nodded once, just a slight tilt of his chin, but a sign of acknowledging her words. Despite him shielding himself from her and probably other people, at least he did not let others die if it could be avoided.

The wave of demons was finished off quickly afterwards. But the next one was already approaching. Cara shook her arms, relaxing the muscles and making sure she could still fight without problems. She was completely alright though.

V’s gaze however was fixed on the path where Nero left them. She couldn’t see his expression, but he didn’t pay attention to the demons spawning once more behind him. The black panther walked around him, close enough to brush along the man’s clothes and hands, growling softly. Cara wondered if he understood what the demon said, if there was any meaning at all. The blue bird was the only one who watched the new demons. Cara looked at the man, and after a moment she thought she understood what was going on.

“Just go. I can handle these by myself,” she called over to him.

The tattooed man looked over to her, his expression again completely unreadable.

“Haha, you?! You were almost turned into shashlik just now!” the blue bird mocked her. Cara glared at him.

“Well you better hope that’ll still happen or else I’ll turn you into chicken soup later!”

Last time she ignored the bird’s comment and while remarks like this were not her strongest point she would not let a bird – demon or not – mock her skills. She worked hard for those. And while this previous mistake was not supposed to happen, that was not a reason to mock her abilities altogether.

The bird made a grumpy sound but didn’t say anything more. Instead he flew back to V.

“I leave these to you then,” the tattooed man said, his deep voice carried through the air like the fog around them. Again, it sent shivers down her spine. There was something so definitive about the way he talked. It played right into the walls that surrounded his entire being; kept anyone from looking past them, didn’t allow anyone to even hear anything behind those barriers.

She simply nodded but she couldn’t help but think that there was an urgency in his movements when he started walking away, as if he would break out into a run any second but didn’t want her to see that.

Was she missing something? Was he worried about something?

She had no time to think about him, though, as a new wave of demons approached her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

V couldn’t deny the dread that settled deep within his bones, wrapping around his nerves like barbwire and making his skin crawl. Shadow had retreated reluctantly into her tattoos, she would never go against her summoner’s wishes, but he felt her concern. A faint purr, only noticeable by him, hidden deep within the markings on his body.

He passed the distance to the heart of the battle, the source of the evil, the origin of the dread and horror he was facing, leaving the woman behind to clear their path for whatever ending this hellish situation would bring them.

Do not forget your mission, his own mind reminded him.

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t fail here.

But when he arrived and his gaze fell upon the entity placed onto the throne of bones and blood, roots binding it to its place, there was absolutely nothing that could have prepared the summoner for the severity of their situation. Hopelessness crushed over him as he had to witness how their only chances of ending this calamity were overpowered, beaten on the ground; helpless, powerless, not standing a chance.

V felt the familiar surge of despair creeping up from deep within his chest, grabbing a hold of his ribcage, attempting to crush it under the weight of not knowing what to do. He couldn’t help, he couldn’t fight the demon, he was nothing but a burden to the bloodline of Sparda, nothing but a fragile human with some minor demonic power binding his life to another demon, forced to obey…

Words escaped him, thoughts numbed by the helplessness he was facing.

“This is it, this is the end! It’s all over!”

V barely comprehended Griffon’s words. He barely understood just how real their worst nightmare and the end of their world suddenly has become.

He just stared with parted lips and wide eyes as the entity raised its arm, channeling and focusing pure demonic energy in its palm, aiming it at the young man he brought with him. Their last chance if Dante couldn’t beat him. And he was struggling to stand on his own feet, powerless, beaten…

A shot reverberated through the heavy air and V’s eyes fell onto Dante standing again with his two guns in his hands; exhausted, breathing heavily, but still standing. He was still standing. Not beaten, not beaten yet. Maybe there was still hope. Maybe they could still win.

Maybe… they had to.

“Round two." He said and V couldn’t avoid it, couldn’t stop himself from accepting that small flicker of hope that not all was lost yet. The half-demon transformed into his devil form, the pure demonic energy he released still completely overshadowed by the power of the demonic entity resting on its throne, barely moving, barely even reacting.

He watched with open mouth and wide eyes as Dante attacked it again, charging straight at the demon and colliding with a barrier entirely created and upheld by the entity’s raised hand.

V felt the demonic power in every fiber of his being as these two powers clashed. Such a dense and dark energy that sent shockwave after shockwave through their surroundings, threatening to come tumbling down around them and yet V couldn’t help the new feeling of despair as he had to realize that Dante’s last resort, his most powerful state of being was not even enough to breach the demon’s shields.

But we have to win. We can’t let him destroy it all. I need to…

“V, get Nero out of here! This was a bad move!” he heard Dante scream and V looked between him and Nero. Nero, the boy was their last chance. Maybe… maybe they could find a way. They had to.

“I can still fight.” Nero grumbled under his breath, forcing himself to stand up and barely succeeding.

“Nero, go! You’re just deadweight.” Dante yelled again before he was forced to turn his attention back to the entity who still hasn’t made another move than to raise its arm.

V put his hand on Nero’s shoulder to pull him back but the young man pushed him off.

“Back off!” he yelled, his voice full of anger.

Debris fell from the above them, the sheer demonic energies of the two beings fighting even destroying the area of the Qliphoth around them. V stumbled back, the ground shaking under the force of the tree collapsing partly around them.

He got up quickly, he needed to prevent Nero from running back into battle, the anger and hurt over Dante’s words making him too reckless to truly realize what was at stake. V tried to force his own thoughts of despair and hopelessness into silence, tried to stop his limbs from shaking under the weight of the severity, tried to stop the darkness from weighing too heavily on his nerves and mind to do what he had to do. To make sure Nero would survive, to make sure there was a chance remaining to end this nightmare, for him to succeed in his mission, to fulfill his purpose.

“Come on,” he said and tried to drag the younger man away from the scene.

“Let go!”

“We must leave here. He is far stronger than we ever could’ve imagined,” V said through gritted teeth, his words strained through the effort it took to drag the younger but much stronger man away. Nero screamed in anger and pushed V off again, making an attempt to climb over the still collapsing roots of the tree.

“That bastard called me deadweight! I didn’t come all this way for nothing!”

There was hurt in his voice. Anger and hurt and grief over potentially having to witness how Dante lost combining into a recklessness that clouded the young hunter’s mind. And while V knew how such an emotional baggage could weigh on one’s mind, how much it could shroud one’s judgement and composure, it didn’t do them any good now. They needed to get away, to safe their one and only chance, no matter how frail and slim it may have been, to end this.

V used his cane, putting it one Nero’s chest as an extension of his arm and pushed the man away from his futile attempt to dive back into a hopeless battle.

V breathed heavily under the effort of pushing the hunter away, and he forcefully used his cane to keep him pinned to a wall of demonic roots behind him.

“Stop hitting yourself, and think of ways to get stronger and actually help,” he almost made it sound like a demand. He breathed heavily, tried to calm his own racing heart, tried to keep his composure and tried to find a way out of this situation in his empty and by darkness covered mind.

“If Dante loses…” He paused as once more the harsh reality they were facing now came crashing down on him. Nero looked at him, eyes shimmering with too many emotions to distinguish them anymore.

“You are all that can defeat Urizen,” he continued, looking to the side where he could still faintly hear the sounds of the battle, although the sight was now completely blocked by the fallen tree parts. There was a darkness in his own green eyes now. A darkness that grew out of the deeply rooted hatred for demons within him, fueled by how dangerous this demon actually was and the newly awakening determination to not let him win, to not let the human world end like this and to succeed in his mission because he knew – no matter what a success would imply – that the consequences could and never would be as severe as they were now.

He released his hold on Nero as the young man calmed down a little, though V did not avert his eyes from where Urizen was.

“Is that what you call him?” Nero asked, his voice hoarse.

“Yes. Urizen, the demon king…” V’s gaze fell onto Nero and the stump at his right arm, “That’s the name of the demon that took your arm.”

There was no lie in his words, but it also wasn’t the truth. But there was no way and need to tell the young hunter the truth about Urizen and his core right now. It would hinder him. It would make his mind and heart falter, and they needed him to beat and end this. Somehow.

“Come on. We need to go,” V said, one last time looking to where Urizen was before turning around and starting to run. Nero luckily followed him albeit begrudgingly.

They had to find a way out of the tree. Quick. They couldn’t take the entire way they took on the way here. He felt Shadow in her respective tattoos, urging him to use her powers, let her carry him, and of course she was right, but he could not leave Nero behind. And while he knew just how powerful Shadow was, he had no intention of letting Nero cling to him so he could utilize this ability as well.

Besides, they had another person with them. The woman stood with their back to them, a demon vanishing in front of her as they reached the area where V fought earlier. V did not know who she was, and he did not trust her. However, she has proven herself to be quite helpful and capable, there were no more demons around right now, so they could focus entirely on getting out of this hellish environment. V would not sacrifice someone that helped them and was beneficial to their cause.

“What happened?” she was confused but V made no attempt at stopping his movements. Nero grunted next to him. The woman followed them.

“We need to leave. And find an exit fast.” V replied while running. He didn’t look at her, he could only imagine her confusion, but he had no intention nor the time to explain the situation. The ground was still shaking below them, the walls were still rattling. The battle was not over yet.

They ran along the pathways within the tree as fast as they could, but V could not see a way to exit the tree. V tried to ignore the nervous shivers running along his nerves. At this rate they would need to leave the same way they came and pray that they could make it in time.

“Wait!” V did not stop running, they couldn’t afford it but he turned his gaze to the woman who was looking ahead and pointing at the outer wall of the Qliphoth.

“Can we somehow dig through the walls of the tree? With our weapons? The roots are much thinner over there. We should be able to break through it.”

V did stop this time. So did Nero. They both followed the woman’s outstretched hand to where she was pointing. V did not see really see that much of a difference to that part of the tree compared to anywhere else. Nothing aside from that the bloodstream inside the roots and vessels seemed to be brighter, more visible.

But they had nothing to lose.

And they were running out of time.

Nero made yet again a grunting sound, but his hand went to the handle of his sword and he moved forward.

“Wait. You would take too long this way.” V said. Nero looked at him with still too many emotions in his eyes but he didn’t say a word. V himself couldn’t cut through the roots of the tree. Griffon and Shadow could but they would need time to do so. However, these two were not his only summons.

He disliked relying on that entity. Disliked the demonic energy that cursed through his body then, making every nerve and muscle shiver with the tension of having this power putting strain on his frail human body. This demon was his last resort but also his most powerful tool and weapon.

V snapped his fingers.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dante felt the effort and the tension of keeping the pressure of the attack up in every part of his body. Even in this form, even if his body was nothing more than humanoid, the true human hidden deep within, leaving nothing but pure demonic energy coursing through his system.

And yet, all this strength did absolutely nothing against him.

He put his all into this last attack, this last shot, this last resort he still had to beat him.

He has never been in such a situation, has never faced such an opponent. Although this one was a familiar opponent. More or less.

The punch against Rebellion by the demon’s fist came so fast that Dante could not react.

He felt the power and energy pushing against him, felt it breaching every shield he had, every mean of defense; cracking and breaking like glass.

It overpowered him.

Dante could only feel himself getting pushed back, felt the strain and pain erupting in his body, something he has never felt before, felt how all the strength and energy left him as if it has never been there in the first place.

He was forced out of his Devil Trigger.

He fell back, unable to fight back.

He did not hear or see Rebellion shattering, but he felt it reverberating in his very soul, felt as if a part of him was dragged out of him, taking a part of his soul and spirit with it. This weapon, this gift, this part of him, breaking and shattering with just a punch, just vanishing, leaving him defenseless and unable to fight back anymore.

The last thing Dante saw, when he forced his aching eyes open, was the glowing green eyes of him.

And then Dante’s body collided harshly and painfully with the ground.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He felt the familiar surge of energy spreading through his body, setting his nerves on edge, felt the ink on his skin fade into particles and wisps of smoke, felt the energy surrounding him, felt his hair waving and changing colors from the pure demonic power that left and surrounded his body.

It only took a mere moment until the released energy took shape.

The giant demon created out of pure demonic energy and solid mass appeared above them through a portal that allowed the demon to leave the confines of V’s markings and enter this realm. He saw Nero and the woman next to him flinching back in surprise, maybe even fear, the woman taking a much bigger step back than the demon hunter.

V used the magic of the darkness, of Shadow’s powers to climb onto Nightmare’s back, piercing his cane into the solid mass of the being that didn’t notice such a minor touch.

Nero now below him stuck close to the demon, unworried now, too occupied in his mind to actually care as he probably figured out V’s next step already. The summoner looked over his shoulder at the woman. Her eyes were switching between him and Nightmare, trying to comprehend what was happening, what the demon was, what he was. If the situation hadn’t been as hopeless and severe as it was it probably would’ve made him smile.

“We need to move,” he said and made a gesture at her pointing to Nightmare’s back. She hesitated, but she understood what he wanted. And she also seemed to understand that they did not have time for hesitation and pauses. She managed to climb up Nightmare’s back quicker and easier than he expected. She clung to the dips and little crevices along its body and V deemed that it had to be good enough for this.

They couldn’t wait for her to get a comfortable stance and grasp on the demon. They needed to get out of here.

Now.

Vs command to Nightmare was easily conveyed through his mind. As the demon lacked sentience to the most part it blindly did what V commanded it to do.

Luckily the wall was truly easy to breach at this point. The woman was right. Nightmare tore through the blood and roots easily and they jumped through the opening into the outside world again.

The impact on the ground was a bit rough, even with the giant demon, but V straightened up almost instantly, and jumped down over Nightmare’s shoulder, finally feeling solid normal ground underneath his feet again as he let Nightmare retreat. The energy it took him to uphold the summon was too much, too straining to keep the demon around for longer than absolutely necessary. The woman made a surprised sound as the demon underneath her started to vanish in a mass of liquid energy and demonic ink.

There were people around.

Lots of civilians that didn’t understand what was happening. But V couldn’t find it in him to look even one of them in the eye. He knew what would eventually happen here and he was more than aware of the fact that he couldn’t save them all. There was no way to keep the city from its imminent doom because of their failure now, because they failed to defeat the demonic entity and their last hope barely made it out of there alive.

“What happened to Dante?” V heard the man, Morrison, ask.

“Where is Dante?” he asked once more when Nero didn’t answer him.

“He’s buying time but… it doesn’t look good,” V replied being confronted with how helpless this entire situation was once more.

And then there was a rumble wandering through the air, a shaking of the ground. When V looked back up the Qliphoth the ground tore open. Spiky, tentacle-like roots emerging from the ground, the tree itself now defending and attacking the people caused by the raging destruction it was facing inside. People started screaming and running in sheer panic as the roots came swinging down, stabbing the people as if they were nothing but paper, sucking their blood as sacrifice for the Qliphoth to heal its damaged part and to make it grow even more.

So it has begun…

“This can’t be happening… Dante lost?” Morrison said more to himself than to anyone else. V didn’t say anything. There was nothing for him to say. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dante was supposed to win against Urizen, was supposed to end this threat and clear the path for V to get the fruit, to fulfill his side of the contract for which he only had time as long as the Qliphoth was still standing-

V reacted fast, putting his cane in front of Nero’s chest as the demon hunter tried to engage in battle again. The woman seemed to have wanted to do the same thing but stopped when V held Nero back.

“Forget it, there’s nothing we can do… We must go,” he said, his voice hoarse, strained with his own inability to do anything about the situation. If they cut down these roots, new ones would emerge. At this point fighting was futile. And they were all exhausted and weakened, especially Nero. They needed to retreat. Needed to leave and hope and try to think of a plan. Anything to maybe give them another chance, a glimmer of hope that they could stop the world’s ending from happening.

Nero pushed his cane away forcefully, making V almost stumble. But then the young hunter turned around and left the scenery; angry, wounded, grieving, desperate. V turned around as well and tried to ignore the horrific sound of the people screaming and being murdered behind him. The young woman following just like the man Morrison did…

#dmc5 #devil may cry 5 #v #dante #nero #griffon #cara #my oc #fanfiction #walls #3rd chapter #failure #my fic #I'll post the remaining two tomorrow #then I'm all caught up here

14 notes · View notes

chimchimsauce · 6 years

Text

Det Cep Xenu (1)

Det Cep Xenu: noun// fiction// A fictional or otherwise illogical phenomenon that occurs in reality

Soulmate AU

Chapter One

The last time Jimin checked, his closet did not look like this. He is fairly certain - at least 99.9% - that his closet contains his and Hobi's clothes, not a bedroom. Especially not a bedroom he’s never been in before. The idol stands in the messy room, confusion furthered by the pure exhaustion weighing heavily on his bones. There had been several interviews today, as well as filming for a Run episode to be released in the coming months for ARMY, He had had fun - he always did - but it was past two AM and all he wants to do is change out of his uncomfortable clothes into soft pajamas.

He isn’t even going to shower even though he knew he would regret it in the morning.

But instead, he finds himself in a messy bedroom, clothes strewn all over the floor. Upon closer inspection, he could tell the articles belong to a girl. He even spots a bra or two laying around, some panties thrown in a pile in the corner.

“What type of dream is this?” He asks himself aloud, convinced he had passed out in the closet and is having some sort of wack dream because of it.

He still feels exhausted.

At the sound of his voice, a lump buried under the sloppy covers groans and shifts, before setting down again.

Jimin sighs, figuring that this was some sort of Oz type dream, where he had to ask the “Characters” here questions or something in order to make his way out of here. He’d had those types of quest-based dreams before but they usually took place in large castles or scary woods, never in bedrooms in desperate need of cleaning.

Deciding to just go with the flow, Jimin practically drags himself over to the bed pressed flush against the cream wall, careful to avoid stepping on anything and - is that old dinner? The idol’s nose wrinkles in disgust.

His dreams are going downhill.

Arriving at the bed, Jimin has to crawl on it, avoiding a couple pair of scissors, a backpack with binders and papers spilling out of it and a pair of dirty sneakers. The room even smelled slightly.

Disgruntled, the tired man pokes the lump harshly, only for it to groan and readjust once more. He then shoves it, putting in as much force as he can in his exhausted state. The lump goes flying over the edge of the crowded mattress and lands with a dull thud on the floor.

“Gosh, I’m up! I'm up! Geez, Mom! You didn’t have to kick me off of the bed!” The lump complains loudly in English before shedding its polka-dotted comforter shell and revealing an exhausted-looking teenage girl.

A foreigner wearing sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt with a cat riding a rainbow through space while playing the electric guitar on it. She rubs her eyes and yawns as she stands, blinking a few times before opening her eyes completely.

For a moment the two of them simply stare at each other, heavy silence blanketing the room.

“What type of Guardian are you?” Jimin asks, confusion lacing his voice.

She blinks once.

“Jimin?”

“You know my name?” He asks.

The girl blinks at Jimin, clearly not understanding a word he’s saying.

Jimin sighs heavily.

“Why would I have a dream like this? The Guardian doesn't even speak Korean,”

She rubs her eyes again before muttering something under her breath (Y/N, you’re having delusions. Go back to sleep.) and wrapping herself up in the covers and climbing onto the trash heap of a bed.

Jimin is half tempted to lay down there with her, he’s so tired.

After all, it’s only a dream.

But he cannot force himself to slide under the covers with her, no matter how tired he is. The place is so disgusting and -

Jimin’s eyes widen in realization. Maybe this is his quest. Clean this pigsty and he’ll pacify the Guardian enough to either get his next quest or a clue or something.

Extremely reluctantly, the idol starts to clean the room, throwing trash in the garbage can and the clothes in the overflowing hamper. He then begins putting things back where they belong - or at least where he thinks they belong - and tidying things here and there. Straightening the sloppy books on the shelf even going so far as to organize them alphabetically (he knows that much, at least).

An hour or two later, Jimin is certain he’s going to pass out. But at least he’s completed his mission.

Or not. The lump hasn’t moved one fucking centimeter since he began. He decides then and there to thoroughly give up, cracking under his exhaustion and crawling into the now made bed (he had to move Lump girl around a few times to get it that way) and closing his eyes, falling asleep instantly.

When he wakes up next, it is to the worried faces of his members. Jimin sits up with a groan, rubbing at a sore spot on his neck and flinching at the pain that shoots up throughout his nerves,

“Where were you, Jiminie?” Hobi asks, concern evident in his tone.

It takes the man a moment to process the question.

“What?” He asks, voice hoarse and painful.

A glass of water is shoved his way by the maknae, the boy looking thoroughly upset.

“We couldn’t find you, Jimin. You said you were going to change clothes ad go to bed, but when Namjoon wet to check on you because you were taking so long, you weren’t there. We tore the house apart, but we couldn’t find you. And you left your phone in the kitchen. Where did you go? And then just as we were about to call the managers, we find you passed out on the closet floor. What happened?” Hoseok asks, eyes wide.

Jimin’s head was swimming and he had to hold out his hand, signaling for his concerned brothers to be silent for a bit.

After a minute or two of heavy silence, Jimin’s thoughts are clear enough to answer.

“I - I don’t know. I was just super tired,” The boy says, darting his tongue out over his chapped lips, “I think I just passed out from exhaustion,”

Namjoon frowns, a small crease forming between his brows.

“You need to take better care of yourself, Jiminie,” The leader says, rubbing Jimin’s head affectionately.

Jimin nods.

“I’m sorry for inconveniencing you all,” He says.

The members disregard his apology.

“Just sleep, okay? We have a couple of hours before we have to head into BigHit. Take something and have a nap. We don’t want you passing out again,” Seokjin inputs.

Jimin nods and makes his way to the bathroom to take some medicine under six pair of watchful eyes before diving into his covers, once again falling into deep slumber, his strange dream disappearing from his mind.

When Y/N wakes up, her bedroom is completely spotless. The mess her room had turned into under the stress and exhaustion of school was gone. She blinks a few times to make sure her eyes aren’t tricking her.

They aren’t.

Her room was completely straightened. Even her laundry was clean and folded, put away in the proper spot.

Her mom must have gotten sick of the mess and decided to handle it all on her own.

Y/N doesn’t have time to question it, however, as she realizes with a start that she’s late. Terribly, tremendously late to her part-time job at the local coffee shop.

Cursing loudly, Y/N rushes through her routine, hastily throwing on her uniform and pulling her hair into a sloppy ponytail. She checks the time once more as she tosses her purse into the passenger seat of her car.

2:23 PM. Her shift started at twelve.

After receiving a scolding so bad she nearly burst into tears and being told she had to work an extra shift the next day to make up for her mistakes, Y/N falls into the usual pace of the quaint coffee shop, filling orders and bussing tables. Her shift ends at five and she heads back home to do some studying for a test scheduled for the next Tuesday.

By then, her Mom is home, tapping away at a computer on the living room couch. Y/N heads over to kiss her Mother’s cheek.

“Thank you for straightening up my room, Momma. I really appreciate it,”

Her Mother frowns slightly.

“What are you talking about, Y/N? Your room was clean when I got back from work this morning,”

Her mother is a nurse who works at the local hospital, working graveyard shifts and running two and fro, exhausting herself.

Y/N’s eyebrows draw in together in confusion.

“I didn’t clean it,” She says, voice laced with concern.

“Well, who else did? It’s only the two of us here. You’ve been so tired lately, you probably straightened up late last night and just don’t remember it,”

Y/N sighs, remembering how difficult school has been lately. It seems she has a new test or project every week.

“Yeah, that’s probably what happened,” She says, rubbing her temples slightly, “Anyway, I’m going to study. Call me if you need anything,”

Her Mother nods, clicking once more on her laptop, paying bills. Y/N heads up into her room, tossing her purse on the bed and pulling out her notes, diving into studying, the strange dream she had last night not even crossing her mind.

Chapter Two

#networkbangtan #bts #bts x reader #reader insert #soulmate au #bts soulmate au #bts fluff #bts fic #bts angst #jimin fic #jimin angst #jimin fluff #jimin soulmate au

265 notes · View notes

the-ash0 · 5 years

Text

surviving paradise ch 26 - loss

Lekus was dead.

They stood outside Frieza’s on-world throne room, the giant doors slammed on them after the shortest debriefing ever, and it just would not stick. His head throbbed with the attempt to find the logic in a timeline of completely unrelated events.

Lekus was dead. What had just happened?

The Saiyans had returned a day late. Just a day, but one day should have been enough for another epic prose session detailing their failure. Not to mention that Vegeta had expected another public debasement, another one of Zarbon’s great tales. He had also expected Frieza to reiterate its proposal where the tyrant implied that Vegeta was not cut out for command. That he shouldn’t bother with any delusions about being self-reliant; he should just sit at Frieza’s side from now on and wait on the Icejin’s orders before he acted.

He had been ready to accept the offer.

But none of that occurred. Frieza had given Zarbon one warning to ‘keep it short’, then still cut him off after less than a minute, dismissing his elite with a: “so, the mission was a success. Great” Next, the Icejin turned to the Saiyans and addressed the whole group in another out of character act. ”You’re all on stand-by until further notice. Well done.”

It wasn’t fucking well done. Vegeta was infinitely aware of that; aware that he’d finally and irrevocably messed up. Frieza should have sensed that. The lizard should have been well aware that any advantage the Prince had gained last time could have been taken back with interest in that very moment. Yet Frieza had acted distracted and absent-minded. So, apparently, any game they had been playing was already over.

Why had Frieza lost interest? Vegeta was nearly sure he could have just ordered his squad to turn around and go back after one look at that planet and their defences. That he could have reported to Frieza the job was impossible and he needed to send the Ginyus or something, and he’d still have gotten the same glowing review. Hell, in its present state of mind, Vegeta could have taken the squad on an intergalactic pleasure-cruise and the tyrant would still have complimented him on a good job and sent them on their way.

It didn’t make sense. Frieza was nothing if not perfect: immaculate, obsessed with cleanliness and time-tables, and devoted to micromanagement. For the lizard to just drop his modus operandi was unsettling. And Lekus? Lekus was dead, and it didn't even seem to matter.

Nobody gave a fuck. Not Frieza, not his Saiyans... No one. Couldn't they see? Couldn’t anyone see? Granted, Vegeta supposed he should not have expected the lizard emperor to care. But his own men, he had at least expected to be somewhat upset. Instead, they stood around outside the doors, clapping each other on the back in congratulations. An odd relief was expressed on their faces, any tension long gone. All his Saiyans, except for Raditz, who was still in the tanks because his wounds had worsened on the return trip despite cryo sleep. And Lekus...

Lekus was fucking dead, and Vegeta had just gotten congratulated on a job well done.

“A celebration is in order!” Jack roared, as coarse and boisterous as ever.

Nappa guffawed right back. “Let’s get shit-faced drunk!”

Even Nion, who believed himself to be the voice of reason, laughed. “Drinking is called for.” He paused, then looked the prince's way with uncertainty. “Will you toast with us? In memory of Lekus?”

Why were they happy? Vegeta snarled, countering his own pounding head. “In Lekus’ memory? You fucks crazy?”

“My prince, please relax. We did well. We received a good review and some down time, finally. And he earned it for us, together with your outstanding tactics, of course. We should celebrate!”

Vegeta wasn’t really sure why that set him off. Nion was not smart enough for this level of sarcasm. Still, a ‘job well done’ was a bald-faced lie, and it lit the Prince’s face bring red as he screamed. “Fuck that dumb fuck for getting himself killed. And fuck you all!”

With a punch to Nion’s gut, Vegeta shoved the elder out of the way then growled a warning at the others. They stepped back, cowed. Still, the Saiyan teen felt suffocated. Smothered, like he was drowning. Outside; that’s what he needed. With an angry tread he took the fastest way out one of the ornate balconies, then pushed off and flew up into the white clouds overhead.

The air was frigid cold on his face, whipping in his ears so loud it hurt. But the cold, wet air calmed the rage and numbed his pounding head. After a little while, it felt good to just dive down and wind through the white-topped jagged peaks that covered most of the planet’s surface. Vegeta was not one to notice beauty, and he hated this planet too much to consider such a possibility. But the action was mildly entertaining, perhaps even enjoyable when done at a speed that made the curves a challenge.

When the novelty had worn off, Vegeta returned to the heights above the clouds, watching his long shadow in front of him in quiet contemplation. A prince should practice cold logic, even if his gut felt like it was on fire. Vegeta felt like that a lot lately, and he hoped it was an age thing. He was royalty, and only lower classes were supposed to be susceptible to bloodlust bad enough that they could not see past their own rage.

And looking at it now with a literal cooler head, he wondered why he had been angry at all. Vegeta had planned to downplay the loss. But he had been so sure he would have been called out on Lekus’ death, that when it did not happen it caught him off guard. In fact, Vegeta though he would have preferred it if someone had blamed him. It would have made it easier to brush off.

Yes; brushing it off had been what he had intended to do. Act casually. Drinking with the men would have been perfect for that. It's what commanders did. Probably. He’d just been blindsided by these fool reactions. And Frieza’s. Which worried him to his core.. But. No, he should have accepted the offer to go drinking.

It would not do to turn around and find his squad though. If Vegeta showed up now, someone might think he was apologizing for his earlier behavior. But he couldn’t keep flying like this indefinitely either. At the rate he was burning through his ki, even a Saiyan could not keep the cold at bay for much longer. The small sun was already half-hidden behind the jagged peaks, so it would be dark soon and colder still. Besides, he had worked up quite an appetite. After getting his bearings, Vegeta grudgingly opted to go back to Frieza’s ship and get a filling meal.

On return, he checked the med-bay first to find Raditz still immersed in healing liquids. At least the third-class was going to live. Not that he cared; at least not enough to have his mood lifted. Vegeta trekked to the mess hall next, thankful that most staff had disembarked. He was in no mood to talk to anyone.

Sadly, there was still a short line at the feeding station. Five men out of the six in the room stood waiting, and the line did not move. At all. After a minute, Vegeta shoved past the waiting men until he found the culprit: a tall, thin green alien that moved slowly and deliberately, collecting his slob with agonizing slowness. Like an old man, although Vegeta doubted the creature could be much older than himself. Vegeta growled at him, but when the man turned, recognition fluttered inside the Saiyan’s mind.

The feeling, it turned out, was mutual. The creature froze, and the closer Vegeta studied it, the more disgusted he felt. It was too thin and had grown up weak. Then the man started to shake as well. This was not an unusual reaction to the Prince of Saiyans from a civilian but for a soldier… it was just odd.

“Don't I know you?” Vegeta pondered.

The green man’s face contorted, either in rage or fear. Or both. “You...” it hissed. Then it seemed to lock up and as it looked down at its ugly, crooked fingers.

What a mess of a man. How could Frieza allow something like that to work for it? Vegeta mused, and yet. He knew this creature… well, it didn't really matter. Food, now that was important.

“What the hell is the hold up?” he inquired.

The look of shock that came over the man’s face sparked another memory. Of someone younger, a lot healthier looking, and... Yes, this was the boy... The one that could... cook … right? Vegeta certainly didn't remember him being this ugly and crooked, or this weird in the head.

A purple face pushed the tall green thing to the side, and this one Vegeta definitely recognised: Cui. “Can't even remember his name, can you, Vegeta? This is Cordwell. You’ve caused him a lot of suffering, you know?”

If Cui had meant to talk for the gaunt thing, he met some opposition from the creature in question. The thing called Cordwell leaned over Cui’s shoulder, and pushed round fish-like eyes close to Vegeta’s face as it spat out: “It’s all your fault!”

Vegeta returned the challenge with another snarl. How dare he speak that way? Lekus... No. And now this creep? No. he was not responsible. “You might want to be more specific. You upset I didn't kill your mom before she had you or something?”

Cordwell made an attempt to climb over Cui, long limbs reached out and twisted fingers grabbed for the prince. “You put me up to it. Put us up to it.”

It foamed at the mouth now, and the spectacle was disgusting enough to make Vegeta rethink fighting the creature. Maybe he’d eradicate it from a distance, but he didn't want to catch whatever madness held the lanky alien. Its words made little sense, and despite any real belief that this thing was capable of intelligent conversation, Vegeta heard himself ask: “What?”

“We tried to run,” Cordwell panted, having made a path over and past Cui, who now tried to restrain him from behind. The squid didn’t have enough footing, and so the green mess inched closer to Vegeta. “You told us we’d die if we didn't. That we should take the pods. But we were caught.”

Confused, Vegeta fixed Cui with a questioning glare. But he was met with such a hostile look that he had to ask: “What nonsense is this freak talking about, squid?”

Cui tisked at him, then violently wrestled the much larger alien back. “You gonna deny this now, monkey? Everyone knows your father was a traitor. But you had to go on and pull us down with you, didnt you?”

“What are you talking about?” Vegeta inquired, disgusted.

The foaming, sick thing accused with a voice that jumped another octave: “When your stupid old man got himself killed. You told us they’d come for us too. That we’d be killed. That we should run. But we only ever got the pods to lift off before we were retrieved. And we ran, so we were guilty. I’m... I’m all that’s left. We... we... we should never have listened to you. You killed them.”

That didn't make sense. Vegeta had not known about his father’s coupe until after it had happened. He’d not had the chance to tell anyone anything, with Frieza smacking him around. And even if he had... What the man claimed was impossible. No one could get a pod to take off without clearance.

Nothing the boy said made any sense. None of whatever was supposed to have happened to those boys was his fault... and Lekus...? That wasn’t his fault either. Vegeta stared down at the tray in his hands, red pushing up and around his vision. The tray shook as his hands threatened to bend it, until found the perfect place to bury it: right in that lying green slime’s lying face. The Saiyan didn’t pause before he socked Cui in his tentacled mouth. Vegeta turned again to charge a blast at Cordwell, but the thing was already swinging its own tray at Vegeta. It contacted with a smack to the side of his skull, but the Saiyan took it with a grin, just so he could fire off the ki he held.

It was not rage that overtook him, rather something empty and uncaring. Vegeta swung punches without even blocking, and when he felt Cui rain blows on his back he took the punches to his kidneys and spine as well. He was probably smiling, perhaps even laughing. Vegeta’s fists throbbed with every impact, and he clung to that feeling regardless of any other body parts screaming that he was taking actual damage.

Vegeta didn’t give a fuck anymore, he just methodically punched the tall green creature to the beat of some alarm that had gone off and now blared across the mess hall. He turned to exchange fists with Cui again, only slightly hampered by the green beanstalk that now tried to restrain him. Vegeta swung out his elbows left and right, not even caring what he hit. This bought him a few seconds, which he used to turn his assault back to Cui, until something dropped on his head hard enough to daze him.

It must have been Cordwell, dropping something hard on him. But it was impossible to tell, because his head was ringing. It didn't matter though. With a shake of the head, Vegeta waited for his vision to clear enough so he could pummel the first shape he made out. He’d drink it up, all of it, drink it up and spit it out tenfold. And it was working. Cui and Cordwell were so confused and rattled by Prince’s willingness to take anything they dished out that they guarded more than attacked.

With one last hard hook, Vegeta pushed Cui back far enough to make another one-eighty turn and lounge at Cordwell. But the creature had already backpedaled at least six paces and then dropped to his knees, eyes wide as he looked off to Vegeta’s left and cowered. It was not as the Saiyan had it pissing its pants though.

“Dodoria.” It shuddered, like that monster was something worse than the Prince. Vegeta was less impressed. He just turned to face this new threat, and charged up another blast.

The pink brute reached out a large fist and engulfed Vegeta’s entire arm, blast and all. “Making trouble, little Prince? And while our master is getting ready for his guests no less? Bad timing.”

What guests?

“Fuck you,” he raged and tried to pull his arm free, unwilling to extinguish the shot, even when he started to smell cooked flesh. That ki was intended for Dodoria’s face, to wipe that ugly smile off it. Vegeta bared his teeth.

Dodoria blinked, then smiled a toothy smile. “Oh yeah. I think you need a little time to cool off, don’t you?”

“Fuck. You.” It burned, and it occurred to Vegeta that his hand would sear off before he even pierced Dodoria’s thick skin. Logic. He was going to think, not act like some blood-raged… The ki went out.

“I’m guessing that’s Saiyan for yes.”

read the rest on https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338988/chapters/35590152 or ff.net

#surviving paradise #vegeta #fanfic #dbz #dragonball

1 note · View note