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#but as horrifying as it is it MAKES SENSE for her character
iridescentscarecrow · 20 hours
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while discussing csm 163, i'd mentioned how the fan's monologue revealed more about/reiterated asa & denji's character arcs. & i think that lays the groundwork for 164 very well:
the rules regarding intimacy being laid down by Nayuta (symbolic of family) during asaden's first date are really interesting. now you see nayuta (or rather, her absence) being determinant to denji's Compliance. the house & its rules are *burnt* (fire/dreams) to ruin.
within nayuta you can still locate makima's initial thesis with family as the location for control. the shattered husk of family, haunting where & how you form relationships, where you comply with state, with church, with structure.
and this quality is relevant to asa too. she specifically brings it up here, she was robbed of her family in the orphanage. family as context. asa is made uniform & outside narrative frame. her deprotagonism occurs in concert with the gendered labels she's assigned,
wherein she's pushed into the role of a Fan. even her harkening back to context is brought up in relation to denji: she knows how it feels *too*. this area of empathy is a point i'll mention later in this post, re: another Fan from part 2.
but even then: right now in the manga it seems apt then that we see asa's strain of self at its weakest. her strong individuation|aversion that marked her prior interactions are kind of bled away? we're given startlingly little writing re: her interiority, she's oddly passive.
the point of deviation here is her declaring that she hates sushi. it's unreasonable, absurd against the scene. you're reminded of the aquarium arc, where she'd said the same thing: her hating fish. her being stubborn.
this is at the same time where she hugs her knees & tells denji that making him into a weapon goes against her principles. she can't eat fish, even when cornered up & starving. neither can she make him into a weapon. or follow this script.
strangely enough, it's in the aftermath of this scene that i find asa's sense of self to appear the strongest. she's flushed and giddy with victory. she's entirely Protagonist, denji is relegated to the background.
which is why her shafting & the way this is seen alongside fanhood is extremely compelling when we consider the other character who'd brought up SUSHI: fumiko. fumiko categorises herself as the Denji Fan, at many points engineering her own exit from the narrative.
as opposed to asa who is thought of in association with the CSM almost involuntarily, tripped & restrained distinct from her selfishness. at the amusement park, fumiko attempts to relate her own family/background with denji too. it's a moment that particularly gets to me.
because denji's response to this is him trying to sort of find a commonality between their griefs, in an event where he lost his family as well. he turns to her but she's still talking about the fucking chainsaw man. not his grief.
& asa here, all of CSM's motely fanclub, wanting different things out of him, talking to him about family, like fumiko, within his home's burnt remains, one built out of the product of his Hunger for makima (quite literal) brought to culmination by cannibalism, nayuta's birth.
the home is torn down, & nayuta is gone. denji is hungry again, says kiga. he's hungry for sushi. fumiko The Fan, in her affiliation with denji, talks to him about sushi, tuning his hunger, in a manner. food underlies p2's narrative marvellously well with kiga & falling.
fire used in cooking & transforming fans into tools. & asa at many points finds this same fanhood sticking onto her, palpably gendered. her hating sushi is written as absurd instead of solemn as it was earlier. & fumiko, in her condensed fanhood *likes sushi*.
asa getting over her dislike of sushi for denji would be absolutely horrifying TBH. i don't know how else i'm meant to see it.
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invisible-pink-toast · 4 months
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thinking about how mari is obsessed with heirarchy and making sure she's near the top
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early season 1 when jackie is the captain, popular and stepping into a leader role, mari is always trying to get her attention.
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trying to be helpful and close and always backing jackie up, wanting to be her no.2 (and stepping in the second there's tension between jackie and shauna)
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but after they've been out there for a few weeks, things start to shift. there's no soccer team so jackie being captain doesn't matter. she's not stepping up as a leader because that involves living off the land and jackie has no clue what to do there. and the only popularity is within their group - and jackie not pulling her weight means she's no longer popular.
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i don't think at this point mari singles out jackie to make an enemy out of her, they still have some friendly moments. but we all know mari's favourite thing is being a hater and that just comes out. she's treating jackie like they're equals - and in this situation, they now are.
besides, someone else is starting to step up as leader
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and when tai leaves on her mission to find help, mari is in the small group that goes. it's worth mentioning that jackie also gave her support in the escape attempt. both leader-figures are in favour, so mari is too.
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but tai's stint as leader doesn't exactly go as planned...
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their group is attacked in the night when tai was supposed to be on watch. tai fell asleep, the fire went down, and "other tai" slept-walked her up a tree. and while when tai comes to she joins the fight (and kills a wolf with an axe damn), i think that would've broken mari's trust in her as a leader.
the other person who is being set up as a leader, whether she likes it or not, is lottie. before their attempt to leave the woods (after the seance / possession, when everyone is freaked by lottie and only really van is starting to believe her) mari is openly making fun of her.
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but after van is more vocal about believing in lottie, and laura lee is advocating for lottie too, there's a shift.
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it's not entirely clear whether mari just starts to believe in The Wilderness and lottie's connection to it, or she see's the others starting to believe and agrees to be in the majority. i think it's a combination of the two.
and by doomcoming, lottie is starting to stand out as a leader.
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and (especially once the shrooms and booze kicks in) mari is happy to follow along
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lottie says they should find jackie and travis, and all the girls follow her into the woods. and guess who's the first one through the door, the first one to go after jackie? mari.
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and when they find jackie and travis, they all follow lottie's lead there too - ganging up on jackie, locking her up, and that whatever-orgy-hunt thing with travis. once again, lottie is the one ordering them to go after someone, and they all willingly - eagerly - comply.
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and when they have travis on the alter, lottie in her antler queen glory, who's the one standing beside her? who's the one forcing travis' mouth open for lottie to shove the pinecone into? who's grinning like a predator while doing it?
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how even after the hunt is over and the shrooms have worn off she's still ready to antagonise jackie, who's setting herself up as an outsider
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jackie doesn't believe in the wilderness, or lottie (even after a bear bowed to her and she killed it! metal af! oh and she predicted it!), she didn't eat the stew and go on a non-consensual mindfuck journey like the rest of them. now that lottie is being put on top, and jackie has been alienated from the group, the dynamics have all changed.
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jackie orders shauna out, but she doesn't have that power anymore. and while ben and tai try to keep jackie inside, lottie tells ben to stay out of it, and mari is the one who mocks jackie - and further ostracises her from the group.
throughout s2 mari is firmly in team lottie with most of the others. always supporting lottie, going to her morning meetings, participating in the rituals, helping her when she's nearly comatose. so when the starvation and fear and determination to survive wins out, and the group decides to kill one of them in order to save the group, it's agreed it can't be lottie.
but they draw from a deck of cards. whoever gets the queen is the sacrifice. it's random, they're all equals. everyone has to draw a card.
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and given that we've seen the first card-drawing-wilderness-choosing session, and the last (so far) in 2021, and they're pretty much the same, we can assume that this is the way it's done all through the rest of those 19 months too.
sure possibly there was cheating, rigging, people trying to save themselves or who they love most. but at this point we don't know.
all we know is that next winter a girl, that is most likely either mari or gen, is hunted down in a ritualistic way before being killed, butchered and eaten.
and as far as mari's character arc goes, it makes so much sense for it to be her.
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that she's put all her effort into being in the majority, in being useful and following the leader no matter who they are, so that she can be on top.
only for it not to matter at all. because 'the wilderness chose'
it would be a cruel end for her character (for anyone but specifically) but the show is portraying just how cruel survival and the wild can be. jackie just wants to be loved. she dies alone in the snow. javi wants to help. he dies in nat's place. mari wants to be on top? she dies in a pit.
mari threw jackie aside because she no longer served a purpose for mari, and mari dies wearing jackie's necklace.
it also makes sense because of her constant antagonism of misty - because mari perceives her as being on the bottom, and as long as misty is then mari should be safe. mari is the cook, and after the shrooms incident, she refuses to let misty anywhere near the food
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and yet... after pit girl has been turned into food... it's misty that brings the plate forwards. something mari never would have let her do. they all have their roles - for instance, shauna is the butcher, and we know it was her who bled out pit girl (shauna has flashbacks to it when attacking adam). so shauna's role has stayed consistent, if mari was still in the group why would misty be the one bringing the food out? maybe because mari is the food...
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and each character has something different going on - lottie has visions, tai sleepwalks, akilah hallucinates a dead mouse as being alive, etc. well mari hears dripping. constant dripping she can't find a source for. until she sees buckets of blood oozing through the walls
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"Oh my god! Oh my god! They're dead! They're dead, they're dead, they're dead! They were! No, their blood was dripping on the floor."
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Doesn't bode well for her.
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angeltannis · 10 months
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Overwatch 2 is p much a fuckup from top to bottom but I feel like the big things have overshadowed the more baffling little things, like the fact that they inexplicably retconned Widowmaker’s lore so that she WILLINGLY joined Talon and said “Oui just fuck me up”
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fictionadventurer · 1 year
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I know it's not technically a fairy tale, but do you happen to have any recs for retellings of Tam Lin?
--Siena
Unfortunately, no, since I haven't read any. However, I've heard good things about The Perilous Gard, which I believe draws from that fairy tale.
#answered asks#fairy tales#fairy tale retellings#tam lin#thewatercolours#i thought i had an answer for this#and it turns out i was thinking about my never-finished twelve dancing princesses retelling#where the soldier character was captured by the fairy king#and the eldest princess character frees him by invoking the tam lin clause#where as a member of the royal house#(the fairy king is her godfather)#she has the right to offer pardon to another member of the royal family#and the right to make someone a member of the royal family by marriage#but because he's a prisoner she'd have to prove her devotion to him by enduring the trials#so they know it's not just him trying to take advantage of her#it doesn't make a ton of sense but most of the book didn't either which is part of the reason i never finished#but anyway she agrees to the trial not knowing what it is only knowing she can't release him#and then she's horrified by him 'getting turned into' a bunch of increasingly ferocious animals#though in this universe fairy magic can't actually transform people so the magic's actually being done on her#to give extremely detailed all-five-senses hallucinations that this is what's happening#while the guy is magically silenced to stop him from breaking the illusion#and then when everything's over her soldier has no idea what she just had to endure but just knows it was traumatic#and that he had to watch her suffer it without being able to comfort her#but she wins the trial gets his freedom and everyone lives happily ever after#if i actually did anything with this story i prob wouldn't include this part because it's pretty tangential#but it's relevant to this tam lin discussion#*the fairy king is her grandfather not godfather#i'm not going back to retype all that
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jojojooo33 · 2 years
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AU where Lilith tries to fight Belos herself and gets yeeted off the bridge in The Skull down to that area. The Raven Beast comes out and saves her but they both get a good long look at all the golden guards' corpses, a horrifying revelation for both of them. Lilith was sort of told about it but it hasn't really sunk in until this point, and now she is feeling so much fucking regret. The raven beast, who is terrified of The Grand Huntsman, sees a bunch of beings that were killed by someone who is definitely working with (if not possessed by, if he's different from the Collector) said Huntsman. Raven Beast Lilith just starts going ham at Belos, smashing his staff. She probably doesn't defeat him, but she does manage to both scare the shit out of him and get away with it
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llycaons · 1 year
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in a hunger games-style scenario I think that the majority of the cql cast would immediately die because 90% of the main cast are 1. bonkers self-sacrificial for their loved ones and 2. incredibly ready to kill themselves in dramatic ways out of despair. when the dust settles jgy will walk out of it wearing a perfect customer-service smile until nhs snipes him from the shadows
#wwx HAS survived scenarios like this but if his loved ones are involved he's die for them immediately#I don't imagine lwj and wwx fighting each OTHER in that poll I think they'd both rather die#lwj would be hard to take out since he's physically indestructible and not super prone for dying for others#but he's not really got a survivalist instinct and other characters are way more clever than him#IF being able to manipulate people and events matters then nhs is going to win but wwx is also super smart#and he and lwj are op enough to just break out of the constructed setting anyway and walk out together#but that's less fun#anyone remember the crit role battle royales? those were fun#in THAT case. wwx would win due to being so so powerful AND so so smart and wily and clever and inventive#nhs and jgy don't have the physical power to defeat him#nor does anyone else#even lwj. I think#I don't mean to make light of suicide either. in canon they were dramatized and excessive in number#but they were all genuine tragedies and stemmed from legitimate distress grounded in character writing that made sense#mxy wanted revenge. wwx lost everything he loved and felt it was his fault. myu saw her husband fall and was alone#against a horde of conquerers who took her home and were going to kill her next. such a proud and imperious woman couldn't stand that#xxc realized he'd been deceived by someone he abhorred and had murdered dozens of defenseless people#wq and wn were resigned to dying together and paying back the debt they owed to wwx#qin su...okay yeah that was a bad one#but she was also horrified by the reveal about jgy and her son's death#they all made sense! even if they were extreme reactions#cql txp
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king-of-fuffies · 8 months
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why dont i have an oc i can relentlessly sexualise for no good reason and put in playboy bunny suits and shit. hellworld
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perenlop · 1 year
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oh. this is another “the villain has completely correct and good motives but goes about it in a creepy extreme way that makes them ‘just as bad’ and the heroes gotta fight to keep the status quo!” plot. cool.
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Note
11! 19! 70! :D
I'll be answering these for sae!
11. What is your character’s favorite historical or fairy tale figure?
:)
Well. At first it's Earnur, but then *gestures vaguely* all of that happens and she feels guilty abt having really admired him when he ended up becoming Mords and hurt so many people. Her second is probably Anarion* though!
19. Does your character like carrots?
Sae thinks that they're alright! She doesn't feel very strongly either way about them, though. [Carrot cake however is another completely different [and mean] ball game :)]
70. Does your character have any guarded/secret guild knowledge or family recipe?
Hm. Without going too deeply into my Gondorian-Yule/New Years HC, I feel like Sae's family makes their star-and-or-stone cakes (I keep switching them back and forth lol) a little bit sweeter than is perhaps traditional, and with more spices and the dough is a bit different. It complements the traditional icing much better this way!
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ambrosiagourmet · 3 months
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I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:
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So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.
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In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.
At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.
And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.
Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.
If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.
We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:
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So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.
Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."
So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.
However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.
Isn't that the same thing?
No, no it very much is not.
Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:
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Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.
But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.
If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.
Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.
Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.
Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.
We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.
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And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.
So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.
It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.
And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:
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Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.
And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.
We see her choose to come back to life.
And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:
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Do you want to eat more?
There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.
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When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.
But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.
And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.
It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.
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humanpurposes · 5 months
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Mine All Mine
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Michael doesn't have a lot of friends, nor does he want them. Now he thinks he might have found his perfect match, and he has no intentions of letting her slip away
Main Masterlist
Michael Gavey x unnamed female character
Warnings: 18+, smut, Michael Gavey being a little shit (affectionately), possessive behaviour (yk the drill here)
Words: 7k
A/n: This ended up leaning into more of a cuter side, I definitely wanna do something creepier with him at some point! Also available to read on AO3.
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He gets to the room early, before the tutor has even arrived. It’s his first tutorial of the year and his first ever at Oxford. He stands straight with his head up and his hands unmoving, a picture of neutrality. He has his problem sheet in his satchel and runs through the questions in his head, not because he needs to, not because he doubts himself, but simply because he can.
He doesn’t even like maths all that much, but he’s always been good at it. He had considered doing something a little less straightforward, physics or economics, but then what would be the point in getting into Oxford to be anything less than perfect?
He knows his tutor’s name from his schedule, Stephen Breyer. He arrives only a few minutes later and they go inside. The tutorial room is small, with three of the four walls covered in bookshelves. In the centre of the room there is a table, an armchair on one side and a small sofa on the other. 
Michael takes the seat closest to the door. It puts him in a slightly more direct line of sight with Stephen. It also means his tutorial partner will inevitably have to climb over his legs to sit down and the thought amuses him.
“How are you finding it so far?” Stephen asks, unpacking a thermos flask and a notebook from his bag.
“It?” Michael repeats.
Stephen pauses and looks at him, slightly bewildered. “Well, the course, the college, Oxford. All of it.”
“Right,” Michael says. He takes his time taking out a pencil and his problem sheet before placing them on the table. He sits back against the sofa and rubs his lips together in thought. 
He supposes it’s been exactly as he had expected. Lectures have been fairly straightforward, Lincoln college looks the same as it had in the prospectus, and so far, most of the people seem insufferable. So many of them have no sense of urgency, no drive to truly succeed because to them, Oxford is a rite of passage rather than an earned privilege. He’s met maybe one person he’d consider worthy of his time, and even then, Oliver Quick is only a literature student. He might as well get a degree in overthinking.
Stephen is looking at him like he is still expecting an answer. Michael stares back. He’s never been one to bother with smalltalk. 
“Alright then,” Stephen says, then nods to the empty place on the sofa. “Do you know if–”
The door opens and a girl walks in, closing it gently behind her. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, eyes flickering around the room and settling on the space beside Michael. 
He’s seen her before, in lectures, in the dining hall, walking around the college with her little group of friends. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were all Cheltenham girls by the way they talk and dress in the stupid outfits rich girls wear to make themselves seem like normal people.
He watches her as she walks towards him, the awkward little smile she gives him before she steps over his legs. 
“Sorry,” she says again, falling onto the sofa. Michael almost winces at the sudden jolt of movement and the faint scent of a sweet perfume drifting from his left. “Had some trouble finding the room.”
“You’re right on time,” Stephen says, “we haven’t started yet.”
She’s better at the smalltalk than he is. She has a constant smile on her face and a bright look in her eyes, already having plenty of humorous anecdotes to share, despite the fact it’s only their second week. 
As they go through the questions on the sheet, comparing calculations and answers, Michael is horrified to find that he’s a little nervous. His throat feels dry and he can feel his heart pulsing in his chest. It’s her fault, he thinks. Everything about her is distracting, the sound of her voice, the satisfied little hum she makes when she realises she’s got another question right. Her black tights, the way her skirt rides up her thigh when she crosses her legs.
He wants to think she’s vapid, a pretty face dressed up in black boots and a denim jacket, but to his dismay, all of their answers are the same, down to every detail in their calculations.
That is until they reach the last question. It’s terribly complex and he had almost struggled with it. Almost.
He steals a quick glance at her sheet and notices their answers are different. Because she’s missed a step, he realises. He feels a smile creeping across his lips.
He proudly goes through his working out, delighted at the surprised look on her face as she goes over her own sheet.
“I got something different,” she says with a shrug.
Stephen invites her to talk through her answer. Her voice is quieter and softer than it was before, but not as defeated as he’d like.
“She has you beat there, Mr Gavey,” Stephen says.
It’s like being punched in the gut. “What?”
“Overextend yourself a little,” he explains, drawing a line through the last few calculations on his paper. “Make sure to read what the question asks of you.”
His blood is boiling and his fists are clenched. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been wrong. A dangerous impulse in the back of his mind wants to scream his throat raw and tear his paper to pieces.
Then he feels a warmth settle over his knuckles. She’s placed her hand over his.
“It’s a compliment, really,” she says to him.
He looks up at her, only more infuriated by the gentle expression on her face. But he knows better than to let anger get the better of him. It will only leave him feeling ashamed. So he forces a smile and nods. “Thank you.”
She smiles too, sweet and reassuring. 
He can’t bear the humiliation. Once they’re dismissed he packs up quickly, practically storming out of the room before she even has a chance to stand up. 
He spends the rest of the day in his dorm, looking over the same problem and pulling at his hair, because now his mistake seems glaringly obvious. How could he be so useless? So careless as to not even read the fucking question properly?
His room is on the second floor, overlooking the quad. There are always people around, walking between classes, sitting on the grass, their voices and the smell of cigarette smoke rising and drifting in through his window. He hates it. He hates the noise, the distraction.
But as he goes to close the open window he spots her. It’s only for a moment. She’s walking towards the library with her hands in the pocket of her jacket and her backpack slung over one shoulder. She’s not with any of her preppy friends, in fact she looks rather solemn. 
He feels a slight twinge of guilt in his gut. Perhaps he had been a little unfair to her in their tutorial.
He keeps noticing her, especially at meal times and during lectures. Whenever he enters a room he finds himself searching for her, and if he cannot find her, he waits for her to appear. He plays guessing games with himself, waiting to see what outfit she’ll wear, the pretty mini skirt or a pair of faded blue baggy jeans. If she’ll be with her friends or if she’ll be alone.
He never approaches her. He waits for her to look at him, and once they’ve made eye contact she’ll smile at him.
He likes watching her, and comes to the conclusion that she is charming and polite, but not overbearing, and that’s what's so intriguing about her. She knows how to talk to people, even the most insufferable of their peers, but she’s not nearly entitled enough to truly be one of them.
It’s a Friday evening the next time they actually speak. The library tends to be quieter at this time and he has a textbook to look over before his next lecture. Only, when he goes to find the book, he discovers the last copy has been checked out a matter of minutes ago. Fucking typical.
He goes to stalk out of the library, debating whether or not he can be bothered to ask Oliver if he wants to grab a drink in The King’s Arms, when he sees her.
She’s alone, with her chin in her palm, writing in a notebook as she looks at the textbook open in front of her. He’s willing to bet that’s exactly the book he needs.
He approaches her slowly, waiting for her to look up and notice him, but she seems utterly absorbed in what she’s doing. Only when he puts a hand on the back of her chair and leans over her shoulder does she react to him.
He sees her jump when he gets too close. “Jesus Christ!” she hisses, clutching her hand over her chest.
“Sorry,” he mutters, still hovering over her. “Did I frighten you?”
She hums a laugh but composes herself quite quickly. She turns her head to look at him. “I’m guessing you want the book?” she says, her breath fluttering over his cheek.
He straightens his back so he can look down at her. “Will you have it for long? Only I think I’ll get through the reading quite quickly.”
“Oh yes of course, you’re a genius, right?” she says with a grin.
Irritation scratches under the surface of his skin, hot and restless. That’s how he usually introduces himself, but it’s the truth. 
“We could just share,” she says, gesturing to the empty seat beside her, “that is, unless you don’t think I’ll be able to keep up.”
There’s something exciting about the way she holds his gaze, the hint of a smile on her lips.
She offers to go back a page so he can catch up and admittedly, he skims through, only writing down a few notes before he tells her to move on. He can find the book again if he really needs to.
He has to lean over his left arm rather significantly to read the book properly. She notices this, and pushing it closer to him, shuffling her chair over to follow. They’re close enough that he can smell her perfume again.
“None of your little friends around then?” he asks quietly, so as not to disturb the other students.
“What?”
“That group of girls,” he says, “I’ve seen you sitting with them in the dining hall.”
She brings her chin back to her palm but doesn’t look up from her notes. “They live on my floor. I don’t need to spend every waking moment with them.”
“Touchy subject?” he asks, perhaps a little too hopefully.
His heart leaps in triumph when she looks up at him. “No. I’m just not sure I’d count them as friends, necessarily.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“Not my kind of people,” she says.
“Why not?”
She frowns briefly. He thinks she might scold him for being so direct, for asking so many questions, for being too intrusive. But she doesn’t.
The textbook is forgotten. She tells him about the village where she grew up, a sad little place by the sounds of it. She spent most of her schooling surrounded by the same twenty or so kids.
“For a long time, I knew there was something people didn’t like about me,” she says. “I didn’t understand why. I was never rude or cruel, I just kept my head down and did my work. The other girls told me I was a freak, the boys used to tease me, pull my hair, tear pages out of my books. Mum said people hated me because I was clever. Dad said I should stop complaining. So I did.” 
He can’t help but draw a comparison to himself. He can feel it when he meets someone new, the inherent distrust, the sense that there is something inherently unlikeable about him. In a way he likes that people are unnerved by him because at least it’s something he can control. He has never been one for friends or common ground, a consequence of being the smartest person in every room.
He watches her intently as she tells him about a private school a few miles outside of her village, a proper posh place, Victorian buildings and sprawling estates. For her, it was her one chance of escape, and while her parents worked hard to make ends meet, the only way she was going to get in was with a scholarship. So she worked for it, got all A*s in her GCSEs, started at the posh school, and from there, set her sights on Oxford.
“You’re rather deceptive,” he says.
She smiles at him. “It’s not like I lied. Were you expecting a daddy’s money brat?”
“There’s enough of them about,” he says.
She huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes. “Fucking tell me about it.”
They start to make a habit of studying together, at first it’s by coincidence, and then she gives him her number so they can organise themselves more effectively. They meet at the library every Friday to share a textbook or go over problem sheets, in preparation for their lectures. They even start to meet before their tutorials together, to compare answers and make sure neither of them are left out. Sometimes they go for coffee after their classes, and branch off to chat about things that aren’t maths.
He tells her about the grammar school he went to, that most of the boys there were rugby playing morons. He tells her about his family, his mum, his dad, the family cat that’s been around longer than he has. He tells her about his summer, running numbers for his uncle’s accountancy firm.
She tells him about the posh school, that starting at a boarding school was like being thrown into a different universe. Sure, she had been the odd one out and got the odd “povo” comment, but it was the first place where she had felt like she didn’t have to be ashamed of her own intelligence. She learnt how to fit in, to the point where he can’t tell if she actually likes her preppy friends or if she just puts up with them for the sake of it.
He starts to wonder if he could consider her a friend. He likes that she’s smart and sharp, the slight air of competition when they compare notes or go through a problem together. He likes challenging her, making her second guess herself, watching the way she squirms and tries to hide that she’s flustered. Just once, he thinks it would be fun to one-up her, but of course, she never slips up, and she never makes a mistake.
On Halloween she mentions a party at Magdalene College being hosted by one of her old school friends. Of course he’s sceptical. Hanging around a bunch of stuck up posh kids, who no doubt will all be in slutty costumes and getting off on each other’s egos, isn’t exactly his idea of fun. Although, part of him is intrigued to see her in a different setting.
So he agrees to meet her outside her dorm at 10pm exactly. He doesn’t bother with fancy dress, opting for jeans and a black jumper so that he can just fade into the background. 
She appears with some of her preppy friends. They’re all in pastel dresses of differing colours, matching wings strung on their backs, glitter on their cheeks, a little pack of fairies. She’s in white mini dress that floats around her thighs as she moves, more like an angel.
She introduces him enthusiastically to the girls, already giddy from their pre-drinks, pink gin and rosé. None of them seem that interested by his presence and he grunts in response. 
She links her arm through his as they walk over the cobbles, through the maze of ancient buildings to the dorm where the party is being held. She talks about everything and nothing. She tells him who’s going to be there, who’s been uninvited but might show up just to stir shit, how many girls are going to be there and that they’re all going to be trying to get into Felix Catton’s Calvin Kleins.
“Are you going to get with anyone?” she asks.
He makes a sound of disgust.
“Come on, Michael, live a little!” 
He shakes his head. “I don’t think– I don’t know–”
She puts her hands on his shoulders and turns him to face her. “Have you kissed anyone before?”
He swallows thickly. It’s not something he’s ever been ashamed of before, now it feels like a weight crushing down on his chest. “No,” he says, simply, determined to remain indifferent.
“Get with someone tonight!” she says excitedly, “just for the fun of it, we’ll find you someone good.”
He hates the idea, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her. Perhaps it seems like fun to her, but to him it seems like an impossibility, and he thinks he’d rather have the consistency of being unwanted.
The party itself is loud and sparsely lit by neon lights. He starts off on bottles of beer to ease himself into it, but seeing everyone else is doing pills and white lines, he thinks he might need something stronger to get through the night, especially when she keeps getting distracted. The angel is quite the social butterfly and insists on saying hello to everyone, even the people she’s never met. 
He finds himself in a common room and reaches for a bottle of whisky and a cup when he spots her. She’s leaning against a wall, wings discarded on the floor beside her. A tall boy, wearing nothing but jeans, a pair of feathery costume wings and a horrible Carpe Diem tattoo on his forearm, has his hands on her waist. She’s smiling and giggling into his neck every time he goes in to kiss her. Of all the girls Felix could go after.
His skin feels tight. He fears if he keeps having to watch this little display he’ll retch his guts up, and yet he’s utterly hypnotised by it, the way she had her arms around his shoulders, the way her fingertips trace the base of his neck. And fuck, he’s never seen her look so beautiful.
He ends up downing the rest of the whisky straight from the bottle and most of the night becomes a blur after that. At some point he thinks he starts trying to talk to one of her pastel fairy friends. He doesn’t catch her name, and he wouldn’t care to remember it anyway. She plays with his glasses, tries them on and giggles hysterically. He thinks she must be completely off her face, considering the look of utter disgust she had given him at the start of the night.
Somewhere in the noise of the party she throws her arms around his neck and they sway clumsily to the overwhelming bass of the music. He thinks he feels her lips graze his cheek, his jaw, his neck, but where he can help it, he keeps his eyes on his angel. Felix has one of her legs around his waist and his hands halfway up her skirt. 
Fuck this.
He pushes the nameless girl off him and storms over to put an end to the scene before him. He grips Felix by his shoulders to pull him off her, grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the dorm. He doesn’t look back to see if Felix protests, he’ll probably find some other throat to stick his tongue down. 
She tries to shout over the music. “Where are we–”
“I’m tired,” he snaps, bringing his face in close to hers. He gets closer than he means to, pressing his nose and his forehead against hers. He’s breathing fiercely, he realises, desperate to contain the full extent of his anger, his jealousy. “I want to leave.”
She stares back at him with parted lips, and nods.
He feels better the moment they’re outside, away from the disorientation of the party. He takes deep breaths of the night air, cold and sharp in his lungs. He snatches off his glasses, runs his hands over his face and his hair to find himself drenched in sweat.
His angel tucks herself in against him, under his arm, huddling her arms around herself and shivering.
“Do you want my jumper?” he says. His voice and the words on his tongue feel strange. His limbs feel weightless as he pulls it off and helps her into it. 
“Hmm, thank you,” she says dreamily, clinging onto his arm as they stumble back to Lincoln College. He burns where she touches him, her fingertips digging into his skin. He loves it, and hates that her hands were on someone else before him.
“You were getting rather cozy with Miranda,” she says.
“Who?”
“Lilac fairy costume,” she says, playfully hitting his arm. “Did you kiss her?”
His heart sinks. He presses his lips together but she doesn’t seem to pick up on his annoyance. “No,” he says with a tight jaw.
“Oh no,” she says, looking up at him with a comically sad pout. 
“It’s not important,” he says.
“It’s your first kiss! Or should have been your first kiss. It’s important. Did you at least have a good time before you got tired?”
“No,” he says, “your friends are all imbeciles.”
They walk the rest of the way back to her dorm in silence. He makes sure she has her keys, holds her face between his hands and tells her to drink a whole glass of water before she falls asleep. 
She leans into his touch with a sleepy smile. “Yes, yes, I will,” she whines.
The sound stirs a wanting in his stomach. Suddenly his heart is beating faster than it ever has before.
“And call me if you need anything–”
“Would you want to kiss me?” she asks.
His eyes flicker down to her lips. His hands are still cupping her cheeks. “What?”
Her eyes are wide and alert. “I just mean, I could be your first kiss, if you wanted to.” She places her hands on his wrists, tracing her fingertips over his skin, along his forearms. It’s such a simple touch, and yet he can feel it driving him slowly insane. 
He imagines her hands running over the rest of his body, down his chest, his stomach, teasing over the growing hardness in his jeans.
“You’re drunk,” he whispers, terrified of how desperate his voice might sound.
She rises onto her toes, inching her face closer to his, drawing her nose over his cheek. “So?” she says, lips brushing over his skin, “I promise it’ll feel good.”
Their lips find each other in a simple movement. It’s easier than he thought it would be, following the movements of her mouth, letting his hands fall from her face and rest on her waist. He can feel her breathing, the little hums she makes as she kisses him and runs her hands through his hair.
He decides, in that moment, that she is perfect. She is bright and beautiful, passionate and kind, soft and sharp, everything he wants for himself, the only person he has ever felt a need for. That need burns through his bloodstream, goes straight to his head and makes his mind hazy. It tightens in his gut and only makes that wanting feeling in his chest feel emptier. His heart races, his trembling hands graze over the thin, silky material of her dress.
His glasses come askew. He feels her smile against his lips and it feels good. Really fucking good.
His hands clench into a firmer grip on her waist. He needs to keep her close, to touch her, feel her, know she wants this as much as he does.
Only she’s slipping away.
Her hands come away from his neck and the cold night air stings his skin in her absence. She pulls her head away, not abruptly, but that’s the pain of it. He leans forward to chase her lips but he has no choice but to let her go in the end.
She looks up at him with a vague smile. “See? It’s nice, isn’t it?”
Nice in the moment. Pure torture that he’ll have to spend the rest of the night clinging onto the memory, only able to imagine how good it felt.
After that night he cannot escape the thought of her, when he’s in his lectures, when he’s in the library, when he’s walking between classes, when he’s in the dining hall. If he’s with her he cannot help but notice every little detail about her, her clothes, her hands, the colour of her nail polish, every micro expression, every word, every laugh, every sigh.
And when he’s alone, he can’t help but picture her in that white dress, the sound of her voice, the feel of her lips. He can’t help but imagine what it would be like to run his hands over every inch of her skin and make her a breathless, whining mess. When he’s in his dorm, it’s inevitable that his hand will end up dipping into his boxers, stroking himself until he spills over his knuckles with a grunt or a whisper of her name.
He’s never known himself to be so distracted.
Worst of all is the rage that comes with the wanting. He hates walking into the lecture hall to see her chatting to someone else, seeing her with her preppy friends around the college or drinking with that old school friend in the King’s Arms. None of them deserve her. None of them. Does she even realise it? How long before she loses herself, before she decides she doesn’t need him?
He knows he’s not a sentimental person. He doesn’t have a lot of friends nor does he want them. People have come in and out of his life, but this girl is different. He feels a draw to her, a hunger that he can’t satiate with his own imagination. She is everything he wants for himself, and he has no intentions of letting her slip away.
As Michaelmas terms comes to an end, the colleges and libraries are covered with garlands and wreaths. Despite the lingering worry in the back of his mind, Michael is rather happy with his collection of outcasts, though poor Oliver Quick seems rather unhappy at being a designated Norman-No Mates. 
He finds it easier to get her attention as the term and the workload progresses. They’ve had tutorials and summative assignments, and she’s finally starting to struggle. 
And then there was the incident about the scholarship. One of the preppy friends let slip that she wasn’t paying for her tuition fees or her accommodation, likely done out of jealousy after she’d gotten close to Felix at the Halloween party. He was there for her with a perfectly good shoulder to cry on when half the girls in her dorm started teasing her for it.
He tells her that she doesn’t have time to get distracted with parties or friends who won’t help her succeed. 
He’s sitting at a table in the library, ready for one of their Friday evening study dates. She’s late but soon hurries in, pulling off the thick red scarf she has wrapped around her neck and shrugging off her denim jacket.
He has the textbook open at the right page and places a Crunchie in front of her when she sits down.
“Did you know there was a college Christmas party tonight?” Michael asks as she takes down her notes. “We’re NFI, apparently. Not fucking invited.” He’d checked his pigeonhole, and Oliver’s for good measure. 
In the corner of his eye, he sees her look up from her notebook. 
“As if we’d actually want to hang out with those vapid cunts,” he says, laughing to himself. He turns his head to check if she’s laughing too.
She doesn’t look very amused. “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me,” she says.
He pauses, hovering his pencil over his worksheet. “You got an invitation?” he says quietly.
“Yeah,” she says, “I was chatting with some of the literature guys the other day, you know Farleigh Start–”
“What the fuck were you talking to him for?” He asks in a voice like ice.
She stares at him with wide, almost accusing eyes. “What, am I not allowed to talk to anyone besides you?”
“They’re not worth your time so stop acting like a fucking bootlicker” he hisses. “They’re all self-obsessed and cruel, and I don’t know why you’re so desperate for their approval.”
“Desperate,” she echoes.
The silence of the library is screaming at him. He has an awful feeling in his stomach, like he’s done something wrong, like he’s pushed a little too far.
It’s Halloween all over again. He can feel her slipping away, and he can’t reach out for her, can’t hold onto her and make her stay where he wants her. He curls his fists as he feels his body start to tremble.
“I guess I won’t waste any more of your precious time then,” she says sharply as she starts to pack up her things.
“No,” Michael utters. He reaches his hand up as if to stop her but she stands up, out of his reach. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She throws on her jacket, wraps her scarf around her neck and turns around, glaring down at him with sad, glassy eyes. “I need to get ready,” she says. “Enjoy the rest of your night.” Then she sweeps out of the hall with a cold rush of air and a slam of the doors.
Michael groans and lets his head fall into his hands. How had he managed to fuck up that badly? 
He can’t think about the problems on the sheet in front of him, or think about the reading from the textbook. All he can picture is her in some skimpy dress, letting some sick trust fund baby put his hands all over her. It makes him want to tear his hair out. 
He stays there until the evening has turned to night, until any other stragglers have left the library, to attend this stupid Christmas party or to make their own fun.
He can’t understand why she keeps trying to befriend the people who would abandon her the moment they got bored of her, the very same people who shamed her for her scholarship. 
He’d never leave her, never let her feel anything less than worshipped.
When he finally packs up his bag he finds himself walking to her dorm. A few girls are leaving as he arrives at the building and he easily slips in while they’re busy chatting. He knows which floor she’s on, and then all he has to do is find her name on one of the doors… and there it is, under the number 205. Perfect.
He glances up and down the hall. It’s deathly quiet. He wonders how many students have already cleared out of their rooms, how many will be at this party, at the pub with their friends.
He can hear music on the other side of the door, a voice singing softly to a song he doesn’t know.
He brings his knuckles up and taps four times against the wood.
She seems happy when she opens the door, but her face falls when she realises it’s him.
He buries his hands in his pockets, keeps his chin down as he looks up at her. “I need to talk to you,” he says.
She sighs and purses her lips, but steps aside enough for him to come into her room. 
It’s not as neat as he imagined, but it’s cosy. There are photos and posters all over the walls, clothes strewn everywhere, an opened makeup bag on the floor by the mirror, pieces of paper and used mugs on the desk. His eyes are drawn to her bed, to the colourful comforter tossed carelessly over the duvet and the pile of mismatched pillows. It smells like her perfume, and something else that is distinctly her.
A red dress hangs on the front of her wardrobe, her outfit for the party, he guesses. For now she’s dressed in her favourite pair of baggy jeans and a tank top, her hair slightly damp and her skin dewy.
She sits on the edge of her bed with her legs crossed. She doesn’t prompt him, but he knows what she wants to hear.
He stands in front of her, his knees almost touching the bed. He tries not to look at the cut of her tank top, the way it clings to her torso and teases the swell of her breasts.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “You were right, I was being unfair.”
She looks up at him, furrowing her brows and catching her lip between her teeth, like she always does when she’s thinking. It makes his stomach drop. 
“You can be cruel too, you know that?” she says, “and so full of yourself, but you hold it against everyone else you meet.”
“But I’d never lie to you,” he says, “and I’ve never pretended to be someone I’m not.”
She keeps frowning. “Neither have I.”
He hums a laugh. He can’t help but reach for her, taking her chin between his fingers. She doesn’t flinch away, doesn’t question it when he gently strokes his index finger over her cheek. “Silly girl,” he says, “you care too much about what people think of you. You’re smarter than that, but you’re happy to hide it.”
Her breath hitches as tilts her head further back and lets his thumb drag over her lower lip.
“Michael,” she utters, pressing her palms against his chest, but not enough to push him away. Her hands grip at the collar of his jumper and she nudges her nose against his.
He doesn’t know where the sudden recklessness comes from. Perhaps it’s in the way she said his name, the way her eyes are gazing up at him, but every part of him feels hollow. 
He leans in closer. “Why bother? Why do you want to dumb yourself down when I could just fuck you stupid?” 
She leans in to kiss him and he indulges her, letting his hand settle against her cheek as they clash together in a mess of lips and tongues. It’s more frantic than the night of the Halloween party, wetter, clumsier.
She comes up onto her knees, snaking one of her hands down to the hem of his jumper.
“Have you fucked a girl before, Gavey?” she says between their kisses. He can feel her smiling.
“No,” he says, practically tearing his jumper and his shirt off, “but I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“Anyone in particular?” she says, palming over the bulge in his jeans.
“Who do you fucking think?”
His hands are on the buttons of her jeans, ripping them open, dragging them down her legs before she’s on her knees again. He slips his hand between her legs, against her clothed centre and she ruts against him like a bitch in heat.
With his other hand he grabs at her waist, impatiently pulling her tank top over her head to reveal a lacy black bra underneath. He can’t stop himself, planting firm, desperate kisses over the flesh of her chest as he undoes the clasp.
He tosses her bra aside and takes one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking and circling his tongue over the sensitive bud. He loves how she whines for him, how she runs her fingers through his hair and pulls when it feels good.
And then her phone rings.
She sighs in frustration before she shoves Michael away and crawls over to the table by her bed. 
Michael groans at the loss, wanting nothing more than to grab her and pull her back across the bed. “Who is it?” he asks, adjusting his glasses.
“Could be Farleigh, or one of the girls, I said I’d meet them before the party–”
That’s all he needs to hear. In an instant he’s on top of her, pinning her wrist to the mattress so she can’t reach her phone, legs on either side of her body as he presses her down.
She writhes underneath him, unintentionally grinding her rear into his crotch. She tries to turn her head over her shoulder, but it’s hard when she’s caged in underneath him. “Michael! What the fuck are you–”
“When are you going to get it into that pretty little head that you don’t need them?” he says, letting his lips brush against the shell of her ear. He feels her shudder, feels her heartbeat racing against his chest.
“I know I don’t need them,” she says.
“Hmm,” he says, leaning back to undo his jeans enough to free his hard and eager cock. I’m not convinced.”
He takes his time pulling her panties down her legs, kneads at her thighs and her ass, pulls her hips up and parts her legs so he can get a look at her slick, glistening cunt. He’s almost fascinated by it, drawing his thumb through her folds, noticing how she reacts to his touch, the sounds she makes, the way she fists the bedsheets when he gets close to her clit, but just enough to keep her on edge.
“I could be so good to you,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to her shoulder, “so fucking good, so why do you act like you don’t need me?”
“I do,” she breathes, interrupting herself with a light moan when he presses firmly against her clit. “I do need you.”
“There you go, you’re starting to get it,” he coos, circling over her most sensitive spot with the pads of his fingers. He may not have the practice but he has the knowledge, and he needs this to feel good for her.
She responds beautifully, sighing and rocking her hips against him, and she just melts when he presses the tip of his cock against her entrance.
He has to push harder than he expects, pausing when she gives a little yelp of what sounds like pain, but she assures him she’s fine.
He grabs her hip for leverage, hissing through his teeth as he pushes in deeper. She’s so tight, so wet, so warm.
“You can move,” she says, letting her head fall against her arm. “Please, I need it.”
He starts slowly, focuses on the drag of his cock through her, the way she stretches around him, but he can’t hold back for long. Once he finds a rhythm he gets a little more reckless, snapping his hips against her rear, keeping his harsh grasp on her flesh as he fucks her into the mattress.
Her moans are heavenly and obscene. She’s given up struggling but she’s trying to look at him, trying to touch him but she can’t. She calls his name and it sounds so pathetic but so endearing.
He chuckles lowly to himself. “Silly little slut, didn’t know what she was missing, did she?”
“No,” she whines. He can feel her clenching around him and he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to last. “Fuck, Michael, it feels so good…”
He pulls out of her, only to turn her back and slam back in. Suddenly she’s all over him, running her hands down his torso, wrapping her arms around his neck. She has her face buried into the crook of his neck, grazing her lips, tongue and teeth over his skin. 
It feels good to have her close, but he’s still not entirely satisfied. 
He pulls away to hold her down again, one hand on her throat, the other on her stomach. “Mine.” he huffs as he picks up the pace of his thrusts. “All mine. Fucking say it.”
She places her hands over his, urging him to hold her tighter, press harder. “Yours,” she utters, “all yours.”
“Good fucking girl,” he groans, and feels her respond to his voice, cunt fluttering, back arching, another whine sounding in her throat— maybe she likes that. “My clever little girl.”
He feels her come undone around him, back arching as he lets out a breathless moan, practically squeezing him to his own release.
He pulls out and with a few strokes of his hand, paints her belly and her thighs with his spend.
She’s trembling, smiling, reaching out to touch him again, grabbing at his wrists and pulling herself up. She guides him to lay back in the bed and straddles him, tracing her finger over his lips, his jaw, along his nose to push his glasses up for him. He can hardly see through them, the lenses fogged up and smeared with sweat.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” she says.
“Yeah,” he breathes, pawing at her hips, watching his cum as it drips down her body. He can feel a sense of pride swelling in his chest, the arousal in his gut starting to tighten again.
He gasps when she drags her wet cunt over his already hardening cock. “You.. want to go again?”
She tilts her head, looking down at him with that familiar excited look in her eyes as her mouth spreads into an eager grin. “You’re adorable,” she says, tracing her fingertips over his chest, down the lines of his abs, to the trail of thin hair on his navel.
She leans down, reaching between them to take his cock in her hand, moving with agonisingly slow strokes. When he tries to protest she silences him with little more than a peck on his lips, before she trails down to his throat. “I stand by what I said, Gavey, and you’re not leaving this bed until we’ve taken that ego of yours down a notch.”
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pseudowho · 2 months
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Calamus et Gladius
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(help me find the Higuruma artist in the banner, for crediting and thanks/permission!)
Stolen from a foreign army to participate in the Culling Game, speaking little to no Japanese with just a rifle for self-defence, the reader partakes in a bittersweet dance of death and love, with Higuruma Hiromi.
Warnings: 18+, MDNI, enemies to lovers, murder, use of firearms, the desperate smut of two traumatised people who fall hopelessly in love.
This is long, but I make no apologies, because the payoff is worth it.
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You were used to violence. You were used to senseless bloodshed. Used to rains of bullets, flinging shrapnel, your ears ringing with explosions and screams.
Yet, it was your own screams that rang through you, as an enormous gavel split the earth where you had just stood.
Your entire unit was dead, almost fifty men and women lured into Tokyo Colony One, and you scrabbled back on grazed hands, kicking feet, as this ink-haired monster stepped slowly through the rubble and gore, black eyes fixed on you with the rage and fervour of a justified killer.
He appeared to hesitate only briefly as your face crumpled up at him in tearful rage and despair, desperation. You did not move to grab the rifle on your back; a threat of retaliation would be your downfall.
Despite being the only one of your unit who had had something new, something alien awakened within them, you had developed no fantastical technique. You had no mystical weapon. You had no roiling blue flames engulfing your fists. You had only the ability to sense others like you, and the horrifying stop-motion beasts that now sullied your sight. It was enough, at least, to hide.
"Please-- please--" you begged, the last attempt of a cornered woman. Your back pressed against the wall, the wide street around you a no-man's land of rubble, overturned cars and bloody splatters. The man's hand tightened on his gavel, his other raising to swipe flicks of black fringe off his forehead. He frowned, stopping. You noticed his distinctive hooked nose, crinkling in disgust.
"English," he offered, thickly accented, neither a question or a statement. You gulped, nodding with urgency, any dialogue an opportunity to re-establish his humanity.
"Innocent," you insisted, hands raised in front of you, disarming, "I'm innocent." That word, the man seemed to recognise, and he blew air through his nose, snorting in mirth.
"Innocent?" He asked, sarcastic.
He knelt down in front of you, his eyes still offering no mercy, but he spoke to you so conversationally. He reached one long finger out, tapping the rifle on your back, coming back round to stroke you teasingly along the side of your cheek, holding it so tenderly. His words washed over you, meaningless, until you caught one you could understand as he stood up.
"...sorry." His arm raised, the head of the gavel blocking out the sun, and you took your chance.
Your hand darted, and you flung a handful of brick dust into his eyes as he spat, staggered, cursing. You brought the butt of your rifle round to slam into the side of his head, and although he barely faltered, you ran for your life, darting down alleys, your heart bursting in your ears.
You heard no footsteps chasing you. He could have...but he didn't.
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Just one easy kill.
The others had all gone down so hard, Hiromi thought, stepping into his swing, barely missing the foreign woman, the gavel making a buckled crater in the tarmac instead. Hiromi tsked, annoyed, kissing his teeth. Watching her squirm on the floor to save her life, a worm from a bird, Hiromi's gut churned-- ugly.
Murder was so easy. The power to beat scum at their own game was intoxicating. Hiromi stepped after her, so far removed from his old self. His usual self? He wasn't sure.
His keen eyes built the woman's character, hawkish and unforgiving. Young...naive. Soldier...killer. No Japanese...lazy. Pleading...pathetic. Not fighting...coward. By the time she began to beg Hiromi, she was already barely human in his eyes. Swiping his hair upwards, and tightening his grip for the deathblow, he spat, "English."
She caught his eye, and Hiromi felt the barest seed of guilt in the back of his mind, an itch he could not scratch. She had nodded at him, tears brimming in her eyes, hands raised in placation.
"Innocent," the woman had insisted, "...innocent." Bile rose in Hiromi's throat at the familiar word, and the audacity she had to use it for herself, as if she wasn't rolling in the same pigshit as the rest of them. Hiromi's lip curled, smirking as he rubbed his nose with the side of one long finger.
"Innocent?" He stabbed. Hiromi knelt, talking at you as if you understood.
"What's that? You're the good guy, are you?" He mocked, reaching out to tap the rifle on your back, feeling you flinch beneath him, "Is it this, that makes you innocent, hmm?" He brought his hand to your cheek, stroking it with the blade of his finger, swiping away the tears that had cut a track through the dust and grime, "Or this pretty face, hmmm? Are those big, teary eyes what make you innocent? Don't make me laugh. You're scum, just like the rest of us. And natural law is at play here." He cupped your cheek once, squeezing it with the barest of sincerities in his apology as he stood.
"Sorry," Hiromi offered, lifting his gavel and feeling power churn through him, just and righteous as your executioner.
Hiromi cursed as he felt a spray of grit flung into his face, immediately disarmed by the sordid pain of sand in his eyes, further disorientated by the ear-ringing slam of something into the side of his head. He staggered, faltering.
"Oooh, you piece of shit," Hiromi cooed, vicious, spitting with venom, vision completely obscured as he tried in vain to clear his eyes. He felt you disappear, and he leaned against the wall, laughing despite himself at having been bested. He smiled, the barest tinge of admiration for your tenacity threading through him.
"Alright," Hiromi sniffed, rubbing his nose again as his vision began to clear, "catch you later, I suppose."
Hiromi tried to forget you. He tried to forget his humanity, but each life he took made him sicker, infected by this game.
Every time he closed his eyes, to sleep in some strange home-less, love-less bed, your eyes met his, impeaching him.
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Resources soon ran thin, for one who held no territory. You had your army pack, and rationed out your meagre foodstuffs, always hungry, always on-edge. You had never fought alone, in war.
You had managed to develop quite the skill at hiding, and concealed yourself, cloaked in plain sight, from even the most powerful of those left in the game. Every day that the stragglers were picked off, the stakes ran higher. Every explosive battle you ran from, dodging the falling debris thrown by titans, you felt your inherent value as an easy kill increasing.
You thought of the hook-nosed man who had let you go. Despite his willingness to kill you, you craved human contact, and found warmth in the memory of the heat of his gaze, his hand on your face, desperately trying to translate the words he had spoken to you as he caressed your cheek.
One dewy dawn, you had taken position on a sheltered rooftop, giving you equal measures concealment and oversight. With your rifle drawn, flat on your belly, you felt the ebbs and wanes of a familiar power draw closer. Curiously, it made your belly clench, eager to see the man who could have chased you, but didn't. You were itching to know why. Itching to behold him again.
Your heart leapt as he stepped into the street, at least four stories below you. Even from this distance, you could see the intensity of his furrowed brow, the noble bearing of his shoulders beneath a great black overcoat. His tie hung, dishevelled, loose-knotted. He was hunting.
He paused, tiptoed on a breath...before rolling, gracefully dodging as a knife of Cursed energy ricocheted through the street, splitting it. You gasped, your eye moving away from your rifle lens, watching in awe as he took to battle with another man. While he seemed to hold his own, he appeared distracted, and was buffeted, winded by an almighty hit, knocked onto his back, elbows on the ground.
A strange panic overtook you as your hook-nosed man's assailant bore down on him, power surging, preparing to murder--
-- a gunshot. A brittle, echoing bang. The assailant's head snapped forwards, and he fell, killed instantly, face first on the ground in front of your hook-nosed man.
He panted, his face sprayed with blood. With a few owlish blinks, his eyes tracked upwards. You held your breath, adrenaline coursing through you. As the man stood, eyes fixed on you (in rage? murderous intent? thanks?), you jolted to life and took aim on him.
He did not raise his hands. There was no standoff, as he made no move to save his own life. In the moment that he accepted his death for the attempt he had made on yours, something in you both softened, seeing each other as you saw no others. A gentle impasse. The intimacy of differentiation.
It took everything you had in you to break eye contact, and run.
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Hiromi mulled beneath the shaky warning of your rifle.
You were afraid, he thought as he gazed up at you, so sickeningly grateful for having been chosen by you. The mist of his opponent's blood drifting through the sunrise, picked Hiromi out as somehow preferable, in your mind.
And, why should you not be afraid? He saw you beneath him, again, your eyes soft and begging him for mercy. You had been defenceless and entirely in his palm. He had been relieved, he recalled, that he could kill someone easily. The begging made you passive. Hiromi could have vomitted, sickened by himself.
He stood, arms raised slightly to his sides, his profile illuminated by sweet morning sun, waiting for death to take his hand.
Hiromi felt embraced by your eyes. Wanted. Some companionship, in death...until you refused him his end. The red string between you both seemed to snap as you broke eye contact and ran.
Alone, as the sun broke above the skyline, Hiromi whispered; "Thank you."
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There was no way out. Starving and desperate, days had passed since you had saved your hook-nosed man, and you had crept through haunted streets to a convenience store, unusually well-stocked with food and drink.
You bit your tongue for your own stupidity at having walked into such an obvious trap. No amount of being able to hide one's Cursed energy could compensate for being seen walking into the shop. Crouching now, behind shelves of ramen, tears trembled on your lashes, an aching lump in your throat.
You heard a mocking voice, cooing at you, laughing at you, and you blushed with indignant tearful injustice, not needing language to know when you were being assaulted for your sex. You were afraid of death. You were more afraid of being used beforehand.
With nowhere to hide, and no grit to throw, you tipped your head back and thought of those black embering eyes, holding you in his gaze.
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"Are you hungry?" The voice chirped, teasing, mean, "Come out, baby. I've got something here in my pocket you can taste." A filthy laugh. Slow, easy footsteps. Willing to rape you before he killed you. Hiromi felt himself burn with fury, ready to wring this man's neck with his own two hands.
Hiromi walked the streets easily, now. His power had come on in leaps and bounds, and he both trusted in his own abilities, and feared nothing of death. Not since you had held his life in your hands, and thrown it straight back in his face.
He was a disordered eater at the best of times, but, a sudden faintness from hunger sent him seeking food. Hiromi knew some dirty little spider had built a web at an abandoned store, and did not fear a man who sought to ensnare the desperate.
Let him try me, thought Hiromi as he approached, lit by the sickly orange glow of streetlights, and see where it gets him.
Just a few steps from the entrance, Hiromi paused mid-step, his heart hiccuping in his chest. It was you. Inside the store, your Cursed energy faltering and so overwhelmed by that of the spider. Hiromi's lips parted, to call for you, a hand in the dark. He stopped, gritting his teeth. No-- this would not do, he thought, as he began a hunt of his own.
The spider was so obviously distracted by excitement, thrilled to find a woman in his dirty little trap. He had found you, by the time Hiromi reached you, in time to see you flung, body smashing against the counter, curling and coughing. Hiromi stepped behind the spider, seething, overburdened with terrible strength.
You had looked up in time to see your hook-nosed man wind an arm round your assailant's neck, throttling him, dragging him backwards out of the store. The hook-nosed man's face was twisted, ugly with rage...and for what? For you?
If your Cursed-energy had been no match for that of your assailant, his was dwarfed by that of your rescuer. Still coughing, doubled over on your hands and knees, you crawled to the entrance, watching the streetlights flicker above your hook-nosed man as he choked the life out of your assailant, merciless in his conviction.
You knelt there, drinking in his profile, in that sickly orange glow. His sharply squared jaw. His black overcoat, shrouding him like Death itself. Panting and cursing as his arms shook, your assailant fighting weakly beneath him. Choking the life out of a man, a murder most intimate. For you. Killing, with his bare hands-- for you.
Time hung in suspended animation in these small hours. Your rescuer sighed, the tension releasing from his shoulders as he knelt back on his haunches. He appeared devoid of guilt, at having carried out his sentencing. Slowly, as if fearful of what he would see in your eyes, he turned to you, kneeling in the doorway of the shop.
Your eyes met. You studied each other in silence. He had a way of making you transparent. You had a way of making him exposed. His panting slowed, palms flush to his thighs, offering you a cautious smile, as your eyes glimmered in the dark.
"English," he spoke, by way of greeting.
"Nose," you returned. He frowned, uncertain.
"N..?"
You reached up to stroke your nose, and repeated, with a smile; "Nose."
His hand reached up to mirror yours, realising, and he burst into laughter, rich and genuine. You blushed, burying your face in your hands as he continued to laugh. He wiped his eyes, fingering the hook in his nose again, looking at you with those deep embering eyes that wholly undressed you.
"Nose," he repeated, chuckling, "Subarashī." Your bit your lip in mirth, looking anywhere but at him as he tried to catch your eye again, mischief twinkling in his.
Hiromi stood, stretching his shoulders back with a husky groan, tipping his neck from side to side. He stepped over to you, and you felt, ridiculously, so teenagerish as the odd duality of your hook-nosed man made your belly twist. You saw a long-fingered hand enter your line of sight. You looked at it questioningly. The fingers wiggled in invitation.
With a shaking hand, you took his. He pulled you up and smiled at you, swinging your hand briefly in his before releasing it, waiting for you to step into the shop before he followed. You browsed for food, as if Saturday-Night-Snack-Hunting as a couple, in safe silence.
Shivering as the adrenaline wore off, your stomach clenched with terrified nausea to hear explosions, shouts, drawing ever nearer in the street outside. Your hook-nosed man looked up, hangdog eyes wide, flicking from you, to the street, and back again. He gritted his teeth, bundling packets of food into the pockets of his overcoat.
You found yourself manhandled, his heavy coat suddenly on you. Your rescuer's hands moved deftly, smoothing the coat across your shoulders, searching for words, irritated by his intelligence in one language and his stupidity in another.
"Cold-- hungry-- go," Hiromi pressed in broken English, spinning you as you protested, urging you through the back door. You turned in the doorway, your eyes begging him to...what? To go with you? There was no time, no time--
Hiromi materialised his gavel, and crouched, snarling at you: "GO!" He roared, steeped in regret as you sprinted away, guarding your life like a child.
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Your hook-nosed man began to leave you breadcrumbs; tickets to safe havens, food, shelter, beds. You felt the vestiges of his Cursed-energy wherever you followed his trail, haunted by the path of devastation he left to build you sanctuaries.
Your dialogue budded, and combined with his notes and signs, you began to learn more about him. His notes, secreted away in scrawled English, street signs flipped to point in alternate directions, and crude maps drawn on dust-caked windows, all added colour and life to him.
Hiromi took a little joy, his cold heart popping to life, at the little hearts you drew in the dust; signs of acknowledgement, a tiny thrill.
You found yourself drawn to a bookstore, and scoured the shelves, looking for a particular something, a matching pair. You found hints of him in the pockets of the hook-nosed man's overcoat; a business card, in Japanese. A handkerchief, curiously embroidered with two gold initials-- H.H. A set of housekeys with a key-finder fob. A pair of chewed pens. You still thought of him as "Nose".
Hiromi still thought of you as "English", as he caught himself differentiating you from the others. Still steeped in this depression, this black-dog-misery and ugliness, he saw you, a light in the dark, who hid yourself to protect yourself as well as others, from needless violence.
They were all ugly...except, perhaps, for you.
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You sighed as you slipped into the hot bath, water up to your chin in the great, deep basin of this luxury hotel. You were impressed there was still a hot water supply, and you felt a gleeful coil of naughtiness, knowing you would never usually be able to afford to stay in such opulence, all marble tiles and gold taps.
Fighting for survival did not negate the fundamental craving for little joys, and you took advantage of the selection of complimentary soaps, scouring yourself free of grime with happy hums. You sang to yourself, quiet in the evening hush, just you and your languid splishing--
-- oh. A cautious approach. A familiar power. You clasped the lip of the bath, sinking your body under the water.
"...hello? Nose?" You called out. You heard the click of a lock, quick feet stepping in, locking the door behind him. A single held breath.
"...English?"
You blushed, pressing your lips to your knuckles, white from how tightly you gripped the bath. Hiromi's cheeks prickled faintly, hearing soft splashes from the bathroom, seeing your clothes discarded over the bed, your rifle leaning against it. You cleared your throat, wanting to talk, not knowing where to start.
"Mhm." Hiromi smiled at your little squeak, sitting with a groan and creaking knees, his back against the wall beside the bathroom door. Separated by this thin wall, he reached a hand around the doorway behind him. You giggled to see his long fingered hand offer you a jaunty wave.
"Konbanwa, English," he offered. He jolted to feel your little hand, warm and wet, squeeze his. His thumb grazed over your knuckles, smooth, examining, probing in a way that made your belly tight. You reluctantly released his fingers, humming in thought as you reached out of the bath into your backpack, searching for something.
Momentarily, Hiromi felt something gently tap the side of his head around the bathroom door, and he giggled, a noise which made you paddle your feet in delight. He reached up, taking a Japanese-English dictionary and phrasebook from your hand.
"Ahhhhh!" Hiromi hummed, genuinely thrilled, "Yoi aidea." He skimmed through the book, hunting again, and you paused, listening.
"Good idea!" He stated, confident, and he squirmed to hear you laugh at his janky pronunciation. Hiromi wanted so dearly to see you, to know you were uninjured, and instead scoured his little book again.
"Hurt?" He asked you. You softened, responding automatically.
"Ah...no, I'm...hmm," you flipped through your own book, "...uhm...daijōbu desu?"
Hiromi hummed, satisfied. You talked this way, for some time, gently brushing the outskirts of each others' language and personality. Hiromi corrected you. You corrected him. The bath grew cold. The light began to die behind the windows, casting you both in deep shadow and amber glow.
At some point, in the conversation, your hands had trailed together again. Hiromi now leaned sideways against the wall, his cheek pressed against it, eyes closed as his fingertips grazed the inside of your wrist.
You lay in the bath, shivering, feeling your heartbeat between your legs from such an innocent, intimate touch-- except, it did not feel innocent in intent. Perhaps, that was what made you squirm.
"Stay safe," Hiromi whispered to you, his fingers drawing circles on your palm, his next word crumpling your face with barely restrained tears, "Afraid."
Hiromi bit his lip in anguish, eyes squeezed shut to see you in his mind's eye, so desperately touch-starved as you pressed a kiss to his palm. He felt your lips remain, nose ghosting against his pulse. He imagined those lips on his own, and he was filled with an anxious need to taste you, to lift you from the bath, wrap you up in the bed and his arms, safe.
Fully distracted by thoughts of you and your sweet cries beneath his body, Hiromi almost missed you holding out your book to him, pressed open at the start-- and a name, your name, written neatly on the page. You offered this, all the while wanting to step to him from the bath, and offer him the feel of those clever fingers, examining the rest of your body.
"Oh..." Hiromi whispered, reverent, squeezing your hand as he swiped his thumb over the faint imprint of your written name, repeating it aloud slowly. Hearing him speak your name, almost had you climbing out of the bath and into his lap. You closed your eyes, imagining him crying it out as he peaked, buried deeply inside you. You burned with the urgent need to know him.
Just a few seconds later, Hiromi's hand reached round the corner, offering his own book back to you, with his own name written in your own alphabet, jolted and square.
"Higuruma...Hiromi?" He hummed, happily.
"Hiromi," you repeated, and he hummed again, delighted by your name on his lips. You tucked your dictionary away, thrilled, reaching for a towel.
"It suits you. I love it." Hiromi understood just one word you had uttered, and it sent joy creeping down his spine. He pressed his forehead against the wall.
Pull yourself together, Hiromi, he thought, it's just loneliness and desperation. Nothing else. No amount of logic and self-chastisement stopped his mouth from moving independently of his mind, as he flicked through your dictionary, imbued with your name.
"Bed. Stay. Please." Silence. Hiromi pressed the corner of the dictionary to his head, cursing himself under his breath. Idiot, pathetic little moron, stupid--
"Yes."
Hiromi's stomach swooped, missing a step, hearing you climb out of the bath. You steeled yourself, blushing furiously, to wrap a towel around yourself and pad out to the bedroom. Hiromi turned his back to you, but not before seeing the graceful curve of your leg, the wet cleavage of your breasts, the towel barely skimming the tops of your thighs. He breathed slowly, clawing back his self-control as you dressed behind him.
A long, slow whistle, belonging to neither of you, broke the silence, and your blood ran with ice water.
Voices spoke, Hiromi spitting threats, in this language that still gatekept against your understanding.
You jacked sideways, still topless, seizing your rifle as Hiromi demolished the doorway with a single wide swing of his gavel. You heard laughter from the corridor, and you hurriedly pulled your top and Hiromi's overcoat on, fixing your rifle on your shoulder to take aim.
Hiromi backed up to you, wrapping one arm behind himself and around you, fingers splayed against the small of your back. You understood none of the venom spat between Hiromi and this hidden assailant.
Your nerves on a knife-edge, you sensed movement behind the shattered brickwork of the doorway, and fired, a deafening blow in this enclosed space. A spray of blood and an enraged shout through the drifting plaster-cloud saw you hit your mark, and Hiromi exclaimed, shocked and delighted, squeezing your waist.
"I've seen better shots than that from her, bastard" Hiromi warned, "and if you think she's easy prey, you've got both of us to take down."
"Hiromi," you gasped, hyperventilating, "Hiromi-- Hiromi--"
Silence through the room; Hiromi's ears rang. He pocketed your dictionary, and grasped your cheeks, eyes fixed to yours and wordlessly reassuring you as he turned you towards him from the doorway. You felt your heart bounding in your chest, hands loosening on your rifle as you drank him in, breathed the same air, panting, together--
--it was all too fast. Hiromi's eyes fixing behind you. His panicked shout. Being thrown sideways onto the bed, a glassy smash, a scream that may have been your own--
Hiromi and your hunter plummeted in an outward spray of glass, two inky blots fading into the night.
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You had searched so desperately. Nothing could assure you Hiromi was still alive. There were no breadcrumbs left in the dust; nil but blood, and so much of it, beneath the shattered hotel window, so many stories up.
You had run your hands through it, clotted with the rubble, needing to feel him within the grisly spill-- alas. Too many residuals passed over this land. Too many battles fought, too many lives spent and saved, for clairvoyance to be what repaired your fractured heart.
You steeled yourself. Adversity goaded you to try harder. To do better. You took to the hunt yourself. You amassed points from potshots, hidden in curious places to execute nasty little opportunists who sought dominion over the weak.
While you had had no experience of the Kogane-- the odd, winged shikigami which acted as an interface between the players and the game-- in your passive state, they now became regular visitors, updating you of your points total. You had assumed they could not speak your language-- you were wrong.
Witnessing, from afar, one day, another player asking Kogane a question, your stomach rolled with nausea and hope as you called the black-tailed beast to you.
"Kogane?" The creature appeared with a pop. Your mouth opened, and closed, faltering over your words.
"Kogane, is-- is Hiromi Higuruma a player in the game?"
Silence-- and an answer; "Higuruma Hiromi is a player in the game--"
All of the air left your lungs in an enormous gasp, a heaving cry of relief as you doubled over, your hands cupped over your mouth and nose, tears streaming down around your fingers, before the Kogane had even finished giving its report.
"Thank you-- th--thank you, Kogane," you sobbed, blinded by your own tears. This tiny demon, to whom manners meant nothing, hung impassively. It disappeared with a pop as you spun away, cloaked with conviction.
You turned on a pinhead, cocking your rifle ready, and stalked off through the ruins; all of your steeling wisped away like ashes, your heart on the battlefield, knowing your vulnerability was out there, alive.
You decided now, with a smile at the thought of those beetle-black eyes, to hunt not for business, but for pleasure.
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Hiromi felt the damp all the way to his bones, in these heavy, wet clothes, made heavier still by the excruciating weight of his crimes. The theatre door swung closed behind him, and he leaned his back against the wall, crouching, the palms of his heels pressing so hard into his eyes that he was blinded by lights.
He had fallen beyond salvation, and it gnawed at the rotten wood of him, eating him alive. Feeling his brain judder, his tie too tight, the walls too close, the silence too deafening, Hiromi tried to collect himself. He pressed his palms to his thighs and breathed; in through his nose one two three four five and out through his mouth one two three four five.
Feeling his heart rate slow, full of equal parts light and dark, Hiromi called out into the gloom, straightening slowly.
"Kogane." The creature appeared with a pop, waiting, patient. Hiromi spoke your name, and then, hesitant--
"...is she a player in the game?" A heartbeat. Two. Three.
"Confirmed--"
Hiromi did not hear the rest, buckling to his haunches with a primal cry of gratitude, and a few moments of dry sobs as his fingers raked through his hair. Chest heaving, he breathed again, one two three four five, one two three four five.
In the space taken for one breath, Hiromi decided not to find you. You, who had always chosen not to fight. You, whose pleading eyes still haunted him. You could not be sullied by his rot.
Hiromi stepped out into the night, a porcelain man checkered with cracks, seeking only to rebuild a world worthy of you.
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He's here.
Climbing the stairs, fine piano music rang distant, its notes bittersweet, cherries in kirsch. Your feet carried you unbidden and you ascended, the notes becoming sweeter, feeling him, closer, playing this Siren's song.
Stepping into the doorway of the skyline bar, he must have felt your approach. The lights were low, refracted through a hundred hanging glasses, a hundred under-lit bottles of vim and vigour. The room sprawled out in an expansive, long C-shape, and your heart stuttered to see Hiromi at the end, pale fingers moving across the piano, white-shirt-shoulders burdened by the weight of his song.
You felt him build in the music as you approached, each note demanding more of him, and more and more and more and more--
There was only the briefest hitch in the music, barely perceptible, as you slid onto the bench beside Hiromi. He did not look up, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes pressed tightly shut.
Consumed by the need to feel his skin on yours, you reached out, your hand ghosting over his. In a flash, Hiromi's hand darted up to grab yours, fingers tangled, as his other hand continued to move, playing this bisected song. A few moments passed, this way, with Hiromi pressing his lips and nose to your knuckles, his face contorted, conflicted-- pained.
"Go," he whispered, breath fanning over your hand, "bad."
"I...I don't--...bad?" You turned towards him, to hold him, and he jerked, twitching away from you, and you felt your heart tug along with him.
"No. Me. I...am bad." You shook your head, more and more fervent as Hiromi twisted away from you, quietly cursing, husky, tortured. He tried to release your hand, and you refused, plaiting your fingers in his, steadfast in a way that filled him with an animalistic urge to appreciate you.
You turned from him, your other hand resting upon the high keys, pressing gentle, uncertain notes. Overwhelmed by your closeness, and your insistent faith in him, Hiromi softened to watch your profile, backlit from the liquid glow of the bar. Your small hand, moving softly over the keys. Your heart beating like butterfly wings in your throat.
"No. Not bad. Lost. Lonely. Sabishī."
Every moment of belief you handed him, pulled Hiromi closer to the light. Swallowing thickly, he brought your joined hands to the keys, laying his palm over the back of yours, overlaying your fingers with his own. He pressed, soft insistent touches, on your fingers, guiding them to play. You felt your belly coil with odd pleasure, captivated by Hiromi's hands, all at once gentle and rough, smart and instinctual--
"Hiromi--"
"No. Stop." Hiromi tensed, his voice rough, fraying alongside his self-control. His hand shook over your own, the notes stopping now. Heat burst through you, certain he felt it too, this dangerous need, and his name forced its way out of you again, a challenge.
"Hiro--"
Hiromi spat venom again, growling and cursing as he stood, lifting you by the waist, sitting you upon the keys with a spray of notes, his arms shaking as they pressed beside you, trapping you in. Nose to nose, his breath on your lips, his face twisted with fury and need, Hiromi whispered to you.
"Stop. My name--" Hiromi shook, on his last thread, half a step away from using you--
When your hand snaked to his tie, tugging him closer, your other hand sinking into the back of his hair, Hiromi snapped.
His lips pressed to yours, hot and hungry, his body closing the rest of the distance to be flush between your thighs. Your mouth opened to him, feeling his urgency as he drank down your stolen breath, one hand tilting your head back to consume you, the other dragging through the plush rolls of your belly and hips.
Every kiss was hot and anguished, punctuated by Hiromi's low rolling voice, not needing language to feel the fervour and vice on his lips-- "--won't be gentle-- I'm sorry I-- I can't--"
You insisted your understanding on him the only way you knew how; fingers working his tie off and draping it round your own neck, locking your legs around him to press his aching cock against your core, undoing his shirt in a desperate flurry, all notes and fingers and tongues and moans.
You tasted rum in his mouth, all spice and brown sugar, and his hand wandered to your throat, feeling your pulse there before tilting you backwards, arched against the hood of the piano. With your head rested back, he spoke to you, shirt now unbuttoned to his navel, cock straining against the material below a trail of black hair.
"--making a mistake to let a monster put his mouth on you, English-- let's see what sounds you can make." Your khaki t-shirt was pulled off over your head, where Hiromi let it catch around your hands, twisting it to bind you. Hiromi kept you gripped this way, leaning over you, caging you in as he gripped the cups of your bra between his teeth, yanking them down to free your breasts.
Hiromi shuddered and moaned, feeling a drop of pre-cum soak into his boxers, as he flattened his tongue over your nipple, rolling, tasting, pulling you between his lips, nuzzling from side to side like an animal. You mewled, jutting your hips involuntarily, and Hiromi pressed back, pleasuring you with rough, sharp thrusts against your clothed pussy.
Hiromi leaned back, releasing your nipple with a hard suck, gazing down at where he fucked himself against you, mesmerised by the way you shivered and humped against his cock. Unabashed, his words falling over you like strange-eyed constellations, Hiromi fucked you with his voice--
"--cum like this, and I'll give you my fingers...cum like that, and I'll give you my tongue-- fuck, I'll eat you alive, you fucking goddess--"
As Hiromi spoke, all twisted rage and growls, his hips slammed into you, spurred on by your squeaks and whimpers, gripping the fat of your hips to ram your core against him. The pleasure was brutal, all harsh fabric friction and Hiromi's unrestrained adoration, and you tried to hold yourself together as you were dragged to orgasm, your frantic hands pressing disjointed chords on the keys beneath you.
Hiromi wanted to, needed to cum like this, with you, knowing he'd be able to continue fucking you after until he collapsed in your arms from exhaustion. Pausing only briefly to reach into his boxers, and angle his angry, throbbing cock upwards so the bulbous tip pressed between his waistband and belly, Hiromi's eyes rolled back in unadulterated ecstasy as he continued to fuck you against him.
You were both close, having been unfinished even by yourselves for weeks, and Hiromi's eyes burned into yours, feral with the need for you to finish with him, feeling your thighs tense around him as you babbled, fully understanding your meaning behind the nonsense--
"--gonna cum-- please-- Hiromi-- harder--"
You pressed back against the piano, arching with a high-pitched cry as hot pleasure burst through you, from your deeply aching clit outwards, crackling through your fingers, all white-hot sparks and embers. Watching you convulse against him, angling his hips to rut his trapped cock tip, feeling his thighs and belly set alight with the force of his orgasm, his hands planted either side of you, back twitching as he came with a bark.
Still riding the last waves of your orgasm, you watched him in fascination. The sight of Hiromi's cum spurting in long, white ropes onto his navel and yours, his agonised, fractured gasps, had you humping against the underside of his cock again, dragging out your peak to hear him whimper, cock twitching against your core. Your hand drifted to his belly, stroking the cum between your fingertips in a blissful haze, squeezing a thumb under the foreskin of his exposed cockhead, stroking his slit with his own lubrication.
Hiromi convulsed and growled at you, clasping your hand against him, dopey and shaking as you drank his reaction from his eyes, thumb still circling his cockhead, slippery with his seed.
"St--st--aaaaahhh..." You shushed Hiromi's weak cries, grazing your tongue over his lips, delighted as he twitched in your hand, weak little spurts of cum oozing onto your fingers. Hiromi let you continue like this, for a few seconds, before wrenching your hand away, plaiting your fingers into his own and nuzzling into you furiously. His heart leapt to hear you giggle as he bit into you, still to desperate, everything still not enough to take away this pain and this filth and this misery--
His other hand wandered down, stroking down the rolls of your belly, pinching, nails grazing, digging in all the way to your belt, undoing it with military efficiency. Not bothering to undo the button, he yanked down the zip instead, giving him enough room to manoeuvre his hand between your skin and the fabric, shucking your underwear aside to cup the wet heat of your pussy in one long hand.
Dipping his hand out to collect the cum off your belly, he thrust his hand back inside against your pussy again, teeth gritted and bared as he drank down your reactions now. He was satisfied to see the playful glint in your eyes flicker, your eyebrows raised in shock and overstimulation, teeth sinking into your lip as he rubbed your clit roughly, cum-sticky fingers rubbing broad strokes side to side across it.
"--two can play at that game, sweetheart...feels good? More? Harder?" Hiromi pressed you, in these words you didn't understand, and laughed, darkly satisfied as you wiggled beneath his hands, one hand resting lightly on your throat as you tried in vain to scoot away from him, your breath releasing in airy whimpers.
"No answer?" Hiromi moved his fingers faster, harder, your pussy squelching with your mixed cum inside your trousers, feeling you writhe beneath them, "I'll decide for you then."
Hiromi urged your orgasm to build, faster and harder this time, teeth gritted as he dragged you to the edge, growling into you as his tongue flicked roughly over your nipple--
"--come on-- know you can do it-- I'll go as hard as you like, come on, good girl--ah, there-- good girrrrllll..." Hiromi softened his movements, fingers undulating against your pussy as he pulled another orgasm from you, moving one finger from your throat to dip into your mouth, shuddering as you sucked it around your cries and whimpers.
Hiromi felt his cock beginning to stir to life again, and he committed you to memory like this, draped over the piano, wet breasts heaving, his seed dripping down your belly, eyes glazed, body supple.
Another word, that he did know in English, slipped from him, as he dropped to his knees before you, worshiping at this otherworldly alter in the moonlight; "Beautiful."
You blushed, voice catching in your throat as Hiromi smiled up at you, soft and captive in his sincerity as he unbuttoned your trousers, easing them, with your underwear, gently to your ankles, and off. Feeling suddenly so exposed, so flawed, you squeezed your eyes shut. You felt Hiromi grip your ankle with such tenderness, pressing a long, languid kiss to the delicate bones on the inside.
"English," Hiromi called, beckoning you back to him. You shook your head, blushing, eyes still closed, and he insisted. "English, please--" your eyes opened, uncertain, and Hiromi hummed in satisfaction as he began to kiss his way up your inner legs, "--beautiful."
Sighing and leaning back, one arm over your eyes, your heart bursting with the oddity of having fallen in love like this, you felt safe behind your language barrier as you spoke without a filter; "Oh, Nose. I love you. I really do."
Hiromi paused, stunned and ecstatic, his lips still on your inner thigh. He shocked you both, at how quickly his grasp of your language had come along; "And I love you, English." Hiromi chuckled with genuine glee as you clapped your hands over your face, mortified. Hiromi nuzzled into you, wickedly playful, but soon overtaken by this violent urge again--
"And...I love--" you squealed as you felt Hiromi force your thighs apart, sinking his tongue and nose quickly between your folds, groaning as he tasted the heady mix of his and your cum around your clit. His cock, almost fully hard again, throbbed, tightening his waistband as the blood rushed to it again. Hiromi reached down, releasing his cock with a sigh.
He took his time, lifting your thighs over his shoulders as he lapped at you, dipping his tongue into your entrance, tasting you, teasing you. You leaned, watching him again, and he looked up at you, hooded eyes burning as he nuzzled his nose against your clit, and held his own cock in his hand, stroking slowly. You felt jolts of voyeuristic pleasure, watching him masturbate himself to the taste of you.
"I...I like that," you whispered to him, your hand moving down to graze your nails against his scalp. You watched Hiromi like pornography as he shuddered, his cock leaping in his hand, your eyes fixed intently on his hand gliding up and down his length as you felt your pleasure beginning to crescendo yet again.
"More, I--" you moved your hand in the air as if you were the one stroking Hiromi's cock, mimicking faster movements, "--faster, Hiromi." Hiromi hummed in understanding, groaning sandy little groans into your pussy now as his hand sped up, jacking himself off harder, feeling your pussy clench around nothing beneath his tongue as you watched him, your keening cries getting higher and higher until--
-- you came again, trembling with the fluttering soft pleasure of your third orgasm, thighs clamping around Hiromi's head as he sucked your clit gently between his lips. Hiromi panted, gripping the base of his cock, delaying his high, fingers wet with more pre-cum, desperate to drag you to the floor and finish using you.
Pulling his mouth away, his hands trembling on your thighs, Hiromi's face was unreadable as he looked at the floor. Standing, dishevelled and sweating, looking up at you with feral hunger, his cock still twitching in his hand, you could see the barest vestiges of Hiromi pleading you for permission, with those exquisite dark eyes--
All it took from you was a nod. Hiromi pounced, wiry arms deceptively strong as he lifted you, legs locked around his waist, nose nuzzling against yours, teeth nipping your lips with a rumble. Hiromi whispered his mother tongue against your mouth, reaching out one hand for his overcoat, and tossing it into the floor, before laying you on your front, sinking his teeth into your shoulder blade with bruising force.
"--you're beautiful, and you're good, and I don't deserve you-- fuck, I need you now, I--I need--"
Hiromi panted above you, barely restraining himself from slamming into you immediately as he looped an arm round your neck and chest, pulling you up and forcing your back to arch. Ghosting his nose over your ear, he whispered your name, making you shiver and squirm, certain you'd break unless you felt him inside you soon.
"Ready, English?" You trembled, nodding, head tipped back as his cock grazed against your slippery folds. One hand cupped your arse, stroking softly, before slapping, Hiromi captivated by its plush jiggle against his fingers, how you cried out, how your skin flushed so deliciously.
Not holding back, Hiromi slammed into you, one forearm planted to the floor while the other restrained you against him, cupping your breasts in one squeezing hand. He shook, cursing, his teeth in your shoulder, as he felt the tip of his cock kiss your gummy walls, feeling your pussy clench around him in shock.
Prone, hands clawing at his overcoat, Hiromi felt enormous inside you, so swollen and plush after waiting to be filled for so long. You whimpered, resting your head sideways against his clutching bicep, feeling the muscle tense and jump as he rammed into you at a relentless pace, still speaking husky reassurances to you in his native tongue.
"--rest, just-- keep still and let me hold you, I-- I can't slow down anymore--"
Feeling simultaneously used and protected, caged in like this for him to chase his own pleasure, your breath came in ragged gasps, both hands now clutching the forearm across your neck and chest, head swimming with the instinctively blissful fullness of his cock, tightly sleeved within you. You felt your belly jolt from the force of Hiromi's thrusts, and pressed up towards him, proud to hear him moan in response.
Hiromi fucked you with abandon, needing this release, needing to shed his sin and worthlessness, his heart leaping to feel you fall apart beneath him. His hips began to stutter, strength abandoning him as his orgasm approached, moaning deep breaking moans in your ear, nipping, holding your neck in his teeth.
His legs buckling beneath him, Hiromi cried out in bliss, his arm shaking around you, hips flush against your arse, cock twitching long, hot spurts of cum inside your walls, feeling you pulse around him, sucking him in. You revelled in the glorious feeling of him twitching deep inside you, your belly hot and clenching as his seed seeped out between your clenched thighs. Hiromi lay above you, panting, pressing soft kisses into your hair, using his arm to roll you sideways with him, covering you both with his overcoat.
With his arm beneath your head, the other lazily stroking the curve of your waist and hips, Hiromi laughed lazily behind you.
"You love me, English, hmm?" Hiromi laughed again as you clapped your hands to your face.
"Stop, Hiromi, stop--" you cried, blushing all the way to your toes as he squeezed you closer, "-- or I will shoot you." Hiromi lifted his head, peering mulishly at you, one eyebrow raised. You scowled, pointing to your gun, and then at him, and he gasped in mock horror.
"Ara ara," he rumbled, teasing you in alien words, "so violent when you're meant to be happy."
You remembered these sweet small hours the most, after the horrors that came. You remembered lying in each others' arms, sticky and teasing. You remembered sneaking to the bathrooms, splashing each other at the sinks as you cleaned up as best as you could. You remembered laughing as Hiromi cursed, trying to clean the residual cum off your clothes. You remembered Hiromi calling for you, afraid, anxious, before you ducked back up from behind the bar, your arms full of snacks and drinks. You remembered lying beneath the piano, gazing out across the city, flicking peanuts at each other, sharing slow, lazy kisses. You remembered naively seeing a future between you, a happy life with none of this unthinkable chaos.
It was your fault, you cursed yourself, vomiting and wracked with sobs, staggering away from the devastation. If you had been able to develop your power, and pose a real threat, Hiromi wouldn't have been burdened with such a liability.
Lost in each other again, nose to nose beneath the piano, your instincts had kicked in just fast enough to kick Hiromi away, saving his life as the floor between you both split with dreadful electricity. A strange-haired, wild-eyed boy burst through the room on a voltage, bottles smashing, the floor splitting, your rifle disappearing into the chasm as Hiromi shouted for you, urging you, ordering you-- you were sure, to move, to run, to save yourself and leave him.
You could do none of them, your military training meaning nothing to this god. You could do nothing when Hiromi stepped into his path, defending you, fighting tooth and nail. You could do nothing as the floors split beneath him, dragging them down in lightning flashes, horrifying rumbles. You had fled from the collapse, leaping flights of stairs one at a time, possessed by some strange force. You had not felt Hiromi again. Powerful though he was, you could not see how he could walk out of such a fight alive.
Putting all the dregs of your energy into hiding, refusing to let Hiromi's sacrifice be in vain, you cried yourself to sleep, nose in Hiromi's overcoat, his cum still cooling between your thighs.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Each day merged into the next. Time had lost meaning. While you had the urge to fight before loving Hiromi, to have loved and lost him broke you and the future you may have had. The battleground was no place for someone such as yourself now. You cursed the injustice of it all.
Cold, dirty and exhausted, your head rested sideways against an industrial bin, praying the rain would wipe your soul clean.
You had translated his business card, with your little dictionary--
Lawyer. Higuruma Hiromi, Criminal Defence Lawyer.
Knowing this detail of his life, a sweet overlay of understanding dawned upon you, his character suddenly so understandable, his anguish shooting through you like knives, and all too late, too late--
"...English?"
Your head jerked up, to the end of the alleyway. Silhouetted, dripping in the rain, bleeding and bruised but impossibly alive--
Your face crumpled, pressed into your wet sleeves, shaking. Slow splashing footsteps approached you, Hiromi kneeling in front of you, a hand coming out to graze through your hair.
He opened your dictionary, dusty and bloodstained, before flicking to a dog-eared page;
"Found you."
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cashmoneyyysstuff · 1 month
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Can you do a scenario of Bakugou aftermath of the manga war right now, cause sense he had so much character development I think he have changed majorly big. And was wondering a bakugou x reader, aftermath after battle. I hope your up to date with the manga rn cause it’s super sad :(
But Mabye a scene of reader x bakugou, he wakes up in hospital and sees her waiting next to him in a chair waiting for him to wake up. And when he does he’s glad to see her alive and asking so many questions ☹️ maybe even a lil romantic vibe at the end ??!??😌
That would be so sweet thank you’!!
this is such a cute request ! i've been thinkin of writing a post war fic lately so thank you for the ask ! i tried to honour your request as best i could, hope you'll like it ! <3
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BNHA MANGA SPOILERS !!, fem reader, injuries n blood n stuff, reader cries easily sorry im projecting, katsuki n reader have been together for a while (since before the first internship arc !)(..does this technically qualify as childhood friends to…anyways !), worried reader, worried katsu so its a lil angsty but it's pure fluff no worries !, kissing, katsuki is touchy and cannot pass up skin contact, katsuki is a biter cus i say he is so biting, best jeanist is here!! (and maybe kinda ooc cus idk him like that😭🫶🏾), afo is mentioned and called a ballsack lmfao i hate him, everyone is fine and dandy and healthy(?) cus im a major optimist, lemme know if i missed sum else<3!
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it's been three weeks since katsuki's been asleep.
you'd woken up a week and a few days after the war had ended. you don't remember much besides fighting for your life, that of your friends and of the people of japan. you were greeted with the worried, relieved and snotty faces of your classmates. denki and kirishima had basically tackle hugged you and were immediately strictly reprimanded by iida and momo. your limbs hurt like hell but you could ignore it and focus on squeezing your friends for now.
except not everyone was here. you immediately realised katsuki was one of them.
you were horrified to find out from your friends, who were sure this would be your reaction and were refraining from telling you, that katsuki had once again suffered major injuries and had been asleep for a good week now.
your classmates had tried to reassure you, "bakugou's always doin' the impossible, he'll probably be awake and he'll go back to cussin' up a storm before we know it." sero said, trying his best to comfort you. you send him a smile that doesn't fully reach your eyes, but you still appreciate him nonetheless.
since that day you'd gone to visit him everyday. sometimes you'd just stare at his pretty lashes fluttering, wondering when he'd wake up. other times you'd talk to him about your day. it was boring, since you were still healing and still stuck in the hospital, but it was something.
your classmates came to visit too. kirishima comes to visit the most but you assume he’s just here to check up on you and make sure you’re okay. he stays for around an hour, sneaks you some actually edible food then always leaves you with a “don’t push yourself too much, okay !”
you go to visit your other classmates, like izuku who had also taken a major beating, but was just as stubborn as your katsuki when it came to durability. you’re amazed to see how quickly he goes back to his old self, anxiously waving his arms around and telling you he’s completely okay, before promptly wincing and yelping out an “ouch !” when he moves his arm the wrong way. you jokingly warn him not to push himself too much too quickly or you’d mess him up even more than he already was every time you leave.
“i’ll try !” he chuckles, giving you a thumbs up.
you’d also met best jeanist recently, who had come to visit your boyfriend one day while you were also there. he told you that katsuki had talked about you once and that, in best jeanist’s words he seemed to be very enamored with you. you couldn’t help the way you shyly looked down at the ground, letting out a flustered chuckle and you thought you heard best jeanist laugh underneath his long, long turtleneck.
you’re currently sitting by katsuki’s bedside for the fourth monday in a row, smiling to yourself as you watch him sleep. you wonder if he’s dreaming about anything. despite the fact you looked it up and people can’t exactly dream while they’re in a coma, but you like to think he’s just asleep and having a very nice dream. the thought makes you happy, but it also makes a knot grow in your throat.
“i do hope you're having nice dreams, but i also hope you wake up soon." you whisper lovingly, brushing some hair out of his face. you run your finger along his nose bridge and cheek, usually he wouldn't be able to take soft touches like this for more than 10 seconds before getting embarrassed and pushing your hands away, trying to distract you from his beet red cheeks. you let out a watery giggle at the memory.
your throat starts feeling a little dry and as much as you don't want to leave katsuki, you figured you wouldn't miss much if you were only gone for a few minutes. you press a quick kiss to his forehead and before you get up to leave the room you look back at him once more time. only to see something strange, his eyelashes flutter more than usual, then his eyebrows furrow,
and then his eyes open.
he blinks groggily once, then twice. he tries to reach up and rub at his eye but the bandage on his arm won't allow him to and he winces. he realizes someone is in his room after a second, slowly looking up as if in slow motion. but then his movements fast forward when he realizes it's you in his room.
his eyes widen and he practically jumps up. hastily sitting up and leaning against the railing of his bed towards you
"yn—fuck !" but he seems to have underestimated how serious his injuries were in the moment. he doubles over and hisses in pain. the noise kickstarts you and immediatly you're in motion. you rush over to him, softly but urgently grabbing his shoulders you softly push him back against his pillows, he groans as you do. "don't sit up so quickly !" you fret "just lay down—"
he grabs your arm with his somewhat okay one tightly as soon as you make contact, "are you—fuck—are you okay ?" he asks breathlessly, his eyes urgently search around on your face and he frowns slightly as he scans over your light scratches. " fuck, i passed out before i could get to check up on you.." his eyebrows furrow even harder, mad at himself for not being able to watch over you.
he lifts his not so injured hand up just slightly and you lower your head so he can place it against your cheek. he rubs over it slowly "yer not hurt, are ya ? i mean—fuck, you are, but—"
"katsu.." you smile, already shushing him.
"nothing broken ?" he starts up again, prodding at every body part he can reach. you giggle lightly. "yer all bandaged up. swear i'll find the bastards who did this shit to you."
"i already dealt with them, so you don't need to worry about that." you chuckle. he copies you, his movements slow down the slightest bit and he chuckes slightly and you've missed that sound so much your heart squeezes.
“yeah, course you did..” he sighs, eyes shining brighter than usual and you suspect he’s tearing up a little when he swiftly looks away from you to wipe at his face, you don’t comment on it cus you could feel tears welling up in your eyes as well.
he tsks at the mostly okay, but still injured, arm against his face before pulling it back glaring at it, “this shit’s a real pain.” he mutters angrily, sucking his teeth.
you spring into action again, like a toy starting up when you wind it “don’t move it so much, you messed it up really badly during the fight !” you both notice how you flinch back when you instinctively go to grab his hand, then reach forward once more and barely grab his hand to guide it towards his lap, and then his body towards the pillows behind him again. katsuki’s eyebrows furrow at your ghost like touch.
he doesn’t say a word as you ramble and simply stares at you. you’d noticed he hadn’t even put up a fight when you’d pushed him back down onto his bed, but you were more worried about his well being rather than his behavior. but now you start to get a little bit worried at his lack of reaction, you place your hand on his chest softly, afraid to hurt him "wait just a sec, i'll go get a nur—"
"no." you let out a surprised sound when he grabs your hand. he stares straight into your eyes, and the bright red shine in them is such a huge contrast to them being closed for so long it almost knocks the wind out of you.
he vehemently shakes his head "i don't need none of that."
"katsuki, you need—"
"no i don't." he says stubbornly, you don't know if you're happy or not that he seems to be just as stubborn as before everything happened. it's a relief, sure, but it's starting to annoy you a bit. you want to fire back but he cuts you off "i don't need a nurse. need you." he mutters into your hand he had brung up to his lips to speak his last sentence against.
it’s only a light press of his lips against your skin but it sends chills down your spine. he does it again, red eyes fixed onto you to bring his point across. you suck in a harsh breath, then sigh in defeat.
"okay.." you sigh. "but we still have to get a nurse later." he grunts into your hand in begrudged agreement, "later." he mutters.
once he's gotten his feel of you, he slowly lifts his head up to look at you. he shuffles around in bed until he's sitting up a little straighter, waving you off when you sit up to help when he winces slightly.
he reaches for you and tugs at your arm lightly, as if he wanted you to sit closer to him. you happily oblige, scooting a little closer until you're leaning infront of him. he grumbles, obviously unhappy about something.
"come over here." he whines petutalanty.
you giggle at his childish demand "katsuki, no. you're very hurt and i don't wanna make you feel worse if i accidently push at something too hard. we can cuddle all you want when you get checked up." you explain. he’s obviously unhappy about that, rolling his eyes accompanied by a huff.
just like he usually would. you feel your eyes burn but your chest feels lighter and lighter the more you realize he’s here. your holding his hand and he’s holding it back, you’re looking at him and he at you.
it’s your katsuki.
“that’s bullshit, m’perfectly fine.” he scoffs.
you give him a once over, raising a brow for good measure “right.” you laugh when he scoffs again, but he can’t hide the smirk growing on his face at the sound.
it’s your katsuki, alright.
it’s quiet while you’re just indulging in each other’s company, the worry in your stomach gnawing at you every day he wouldn’t open his eyes these past few weeks finally washing away as you look at him lovingly when he closes his eyes and sighs against your skin.
“stop starin’.” he complains against your hand he still had in a tight grip, cheeks turning red. it seems like he doesn’t want to let go of it any time soon and doesn’t have any plans to as he bring it up to his mouth to bite you. you struggle and squeezes at his nose with a grin.
“hey, is it so bad to wanna look at my boyfriend that he’d been sleeping every day up until now ?” you make it sound like a joke, but your smile falters slightly and katsuki realizes. his eyes widen slightly.
"how..how long was i out for ?" his voice is still clouded with sleep even now. you plop back down onto your chair, dragged closer to him now “about three weeks.” you mutter, sad smile on your face and eyes downcast.
neither of you say anything for a moment and you’re quickly reminded of the quiet you’d gotten used to when he was still asleep. you don't like it and you want to fill the silence but you don't know what to say. katsuki doesn't respond and keeps looking at your expression, blinking slowly, like he does when he's trying to discern how you feel. he's annoyingly perceptive and you feel yourself get flustered by his gaze.
"now who's the one staring.." you mutter shyly, eyes drifting towards the floor to close him off of your mind with those all seeing eyes of his. you can tell he's seen through you, but it's worth a try anyway.
he reaches and tugs at your chair leg for you to scoot closer somehow. once, then twice harder when you don't make any move to listen to him. he grunts and you worry he'll hurt himself like he always end up doing when he’s not being careful, so you lean your face closer to him. you'd stare at him at all day like this if you could but your eyes won't look in his properly before they're shooting back towards the floor, katsuki huffs a breath of laughter onto your cheek.
"m'not allowed to look at my girlfriend after bein' passed the fuck out for three weeks ?" he smirks his eyes are soft even when he gruffs a mean laugh when he reaches up to pinch your nose back and you grumble at him, softly patting at his hand to shoo him away with a smile you try to hold back. he pokes at your cheek, you go to shoo and scold him but he surprises you by softly placing his hand against your cheek.
“was worried about you, you know.”
your eyes widen and your mouth drops open slightly at his sincerity. your heart warms and you can't stop the tears blurring your vision anymore. you clamp your mouth shut so as not to sob, but your bottom lip wobbles and katsuki huffs again.
"was thinkin 'bout you the whole time. hate that creepy ballsack head,” he grumbles bitterly “kept me from seein' my girl." he smiles when you let out a watery snort. you grab ahold of the hand on your face, running your thumb across the rough skin.
"i heard you really did a number on him."
"course i did. fuckin' decimated the fucker." he boasts and you laugh loudly. "made him cry like a baby. literally." he adds, you raise a brow in question but he simply shakes his again, as if telling you not to worry about it.
you don't question it and simply sigh against his hand happily, it feels nice to feel him again. "the others are gonna be happy to see you up. kiri's been coming to visit you every day. and i've forbidden izuku from getting out of bed, but he asks about you all the time."
katsuki scoffs, thumb slowling down in its movements "damn deku.. he better not think he's hot shit cus he woke up before me." you snort loudly at that, shaking your head at his childish antics.
"good he's not runnin' around. he'd probably end up breaking more of his bones by himself."
"that's what i said !" you giggle, and katsuki snorts. you missed hearing him. you missed him so much, you reach a hand up and wipe at your still wet eyes, katsuki grabs at that hand to wipe at your tears for you.
"was worried about you too, katsu." you sniffle "when i heard you got yourself hurt bad again i just—i got really scared.”
your boyfriend's eyebrows furrow sorrowfully and he wishes his body wasn't so weak so he could wrap you up in his arm and feel you close, never let you go. but his hand against your wet cheek will have to do for now.
but katsuki is a creature of habit, so he speaks "come over here." he whispers.
you lean in a small distance at first, not really sure of what he wanted you to do. katsuki grunts but when you get close enough he reaches for the back of your head and pulls you in, pressing his lips to yours.
and it's everything. soft yet his grip on you is firm, slow yet urgent when you grab the front of his hospital clothes and he huffs against you when he shoves his tongue into your mouth with a soft groan. eyebrows furrowing in focus to handle his breathing because he doesn't want to pull away.
not yet.
you're first to pull away but he doesn't let you go far, immediately swooping in for another kiss, this one just as- if not more urgent-than the first. you softly run your hands through his soft locks and try to memorize the feeling like you hadn't been touching it everyday for the past three weeks. it feels different now.
not yet.
finally, you pull away even after katsuki chases your lips with a pout. you giggle and tug at his hair and he huffs at you, and leans forward to bite at the tip of your nose.
"katsuki !" you squeal flying back to wipe at your nose.
“don’t katsuki me” he chuckles, cheeks dusted pink. from the lack of oxygen just a moment ago or from embarrassment you don’t know, “ ‘ts your own fault, dumbass.”
you scrunch your nose and stick your tongue out at him and he snickers again. you’d missed that sound. you’d missed his laugh, and his stupid nicknames and his voice, the way he says your name and his eyes and his smile.
“i missed you.” you breathe, smiling at him with what you know can only be called heart eyes. katsuki blinks at you, turning red to the tips of his ears. he looks away but reaches for your hand, you give it to him and he presses his lips to the back of your hand.
“missed you too. really did.” he mutters.
this is the most embarrassed you’ve seen him and the sincerest at the same time, you commit the image to memory as your stomach flutters and your heart beats for him. and his for you. you can feel it in the way his hand steadily gets warmer, the way he closes his eyes and breathes you. in the way he kisses each of your fingertips and finishes it off with a bite to each to make you laugh.
you both know a lot of things still need to happen but they can wait for now. for now, his heart is here, beating with yours. your katsuki is awake and back where he’s supposed to be.
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axiina · 5 months
Note
PLSSS soft corio comforting reader after they get he saves her(or them idm) from the arena after she tried to say a proper goodbye to her tribute (kinda like sejanus) but maybe she gets hurt and super traumatized but hes there for her idk
If I Killed Someone for You
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Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x capitol!reader (gender neutral)
Summary: It wasn't supposed to end this way. You just wanted to say goodbye to your tribute, Lamina. Luckily, your boyfriend was there and made sure you didn't get hurt. Just why do you look at him differently now?
Words: 1.5k
Themes: hurt with comfort, a bit of fluff but also angst
Warnings: slight spoilers to movie and book, small changes to canon, Pup isn't Lamina's mentor, character's death, murder, a bit of trauma, blood, comforting, a bit of argument, death, overthinking, reader feels guilty about situation, referring reader as 'you'
Author's note: Lamina deserved better so you are her mentor, fuck this idiot Pup.
It was supposed to be fluff, but it came out a bit sad and traumatic. We got a soft Coriolanus, leaving aside the fact that he killed someone in the process. Enjoy!!
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It was a pure act of desperation.
You just wanted to tell Lamina what you hadn't managed to do before. You had grown close to the young girl, who was horrified by what was happening. The very fact that she was in the arena, alone, without any support was driving you crazy.
She didn't deserve what happened to her. You hoped that maybe Lamina would be able to win and would be able to return home to the family she missed so much.
With each hour of the Hunger Games, her chances seemed to get smaller and smaller. For those few days, you sat like you were on pins and needles staring at the big screen at the Academy. After a while, the helplessness returned and you had to try not to cry in front of the cameras.
Lamina did not deserve it. None of the tributes deserved it. You did everything you could to make Lamina feel as comfortable as possible during the meetings and her stay at the Capitol. In the arena, you tried your best to make sure she wasn't hungry or thirsty. You didn't want her to get hurt. That, however, was not enough. Seeing a boy from her district, Treetch, joining another group made you feel anxious.
"What if they kill her? What if he betrays her…" This thought ran through your head repeatedly like a mantra.
She became weaker and weaker every day.
Your last meeting was too short. You didn't have time to say goodbye to her properly. You wanted her to know that even though you were physically somewhere else, your heart and thoughts were with her, at the arena. You had to say goodbye to her. You wouldn't forgive yourself if Lamina died without hearing a proper goodbye.
That's why you decided to see her one last time. Under cover of darkness, you crept into the arena in disguise and quietly snuck under the beam where Lamina was. Perhaps foolish and reckless, but you didn't think about the consequences. Ever since the girl got to the arena you couldn't find a place. You slept only short naps and didn't even want to meet Coriolanus, who was getting more and more worried about you.
While you were at the arena, every now and then you looked nervously around to the sides to see if anyone was coming. Lamina was surprised when you showed up. It was all surreal and you felt as if you were detached from reality. As soon as you saw Lamina you started crying. You both cried. Now the knowledge of how dangerous the arena was came to you like a powerful punch. She can't die. You don't remember what exactly you told her. You don't know if you said anything that made sense to her at all. The adrenaline made your mind kind of foggy. However, you know that it lifted her spirits. She knew you were with her and supporting her. You don't know exactly how much you were in the arena.
Everything happened so fast when Coriolanus grabbed your arm. Your brain didn't even register the fact that the boy appeared there practically out of nowhere. He looked terrified. He spoke quickly and incoherently. You only understood as he begged you to run away from there, because at any moment someone might come out of the tunnels and kill you. You were frozen with panic when it came to you. They hate the Capitol. They hate you too, and they certainly wouldn't think twice before killing you. Your fear was increased when Lamina's eyes widened in horror and only one word came out of her mouth.
Run.
Tributes began to leave the tunnels. As soon as they noticed that there were two mentors in the arena they started running towards you. Because of the adrenaline in your veins, you don't remember much of what happened next. You and Coriolanus ran as fast as you could when Coral, Mizzen, Tanner and Bobbin chased you while holding objects in their hands that could be the cause of your upcoming death.
The next scene that stuck in your mind was when your boyfriend hit one of the tributes on the head with a wooden plank. The boy fell down, and Coriolanus, without thinking much, hit him a second time. Then another and another. You looked at the body of Bobbin lying lifeless and Snow standing over him, unable to get a single word out. Your heart was raging and your head was spinning, feeling fear. You were terrified.
You couldn't tell what was the reason. The fact that you had just nearly died in the arena, or…. no, it couldn't have been that. He was merely trying to defend you. Yes, that was definitely the reason. Coriolanus is not a murderer, he was just…. he was terrified and acted emotionally. Bobbin would have killed him if Coryo hadn't done it first. Then you would have been next in line. Yes, that's what would have happened.
Both of you were injured, but at that moment it didn't even cross your mind to ask him how he was feeling. The Peace Keepers almost carried you out of there. Your parents were as terrified as you were. By the time you were sitting in your room wrapped in a blanket as your mother hugged you crying something finally hit you. You could have died. Your family would have been devastated. Your friends and…Coriolanus. Well, exactly, Coriolanus. He almost died because of your fault. Your stupidity and recklessness. Now he is injured and probably suffering, and you are not there with him. After what happened you didn't even say a stupid thank you to him.
"What were you even thinking! You could have died there! Did you even think about your loved ones? About me? What would have happened to me if you had died there? If I didn't get there in time!" Coriolanus repeated walking in circles around the empty classroom, the next morning. You had your head bent down, and tears were running down your cheeks. How could you do something like that?
Coriolanus sighed and sat down next to you, wrapping his arms around your body, pulling you closer.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't yell like that. You're probably still terrified. I was just…scared. I was scared that I would lose you."
It seemed to you that his voice cracked as the boy pressed his cheek against your head.
"Don't do that again. Don't scare me like that. If you had died I wouldn't have forgiven myself. I wouldn't be able to live normally." He whispered in your ear with a trembling voice.
"I'm here, love. I will always be until you have had enough of me. Although, most likely, even then I won't give you a break." A quiet, slightly trembling chuckle left his lips, at which you also smiled involuntarily.
"Enough of you? Never." you replied in an amused voice gently pulling away, but still remaining in his embrace. "I'm sorry, Coryo…I'm so terribly sorry for you. I just wanted to say goodbye to Lamina. I don't want anything bad to happen to her. I don't want her-"
"Shhh, it's okay." Coriolanus rested his forehead against yours and took your face in his hands gently stroking your cheeks. "It is past. The most important thing is that we came out of it alive. Lamina is also alive and relatively well, excluding the circumstances."
"Thank you, Coryo. Thank you for everything. For saving me that night and that you do not resent me for it." You whispered, trying not to cry. You nuzzled your cheek into his palm and placed a gentle kiss on it.
Coriolanus' face moved closer to yours and he gently brushed your lips with his own as if he was afraid he would frighten you.
"I am angry at you. Earlier even furious, but I love you too much to stay mad at you." Coryo gently rubbed his nose against yours and looked into your eyes.
His beautiful blue eyes. Cold, but at the same time it makes you feel at home. Eyes that yesterday were raging and at one point…full of hatred.
Your smile slowly disappeared as you remembered what happened to Bobbin.
"Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday-" you started uncertainly, but Coriolanus cut you off.
"No." His voice seemed cold and in a moment you were embarrassed and your heart beat faster. You were the reason he had to do it, and now you're reminding him of it. Maybe he thinks you are blaming it on him.
Your thoughts, however, were interrupted by your boyfriend's voice. Softer this time.
"I didn't mean to. I didn't want to do it, but it was stronger than me…Please don't hate me. I love you and I did it for you too."
His eyes were glassy and he seemed panicked. You shook your head in denial and took his hand in yours bringing it close to your lips and kissed his knuckles.
"No, you're a good person, Coryo. Nothing has changed. I continue to love you, and you only proved me during the night that I couldn't find a better one."
Coriolanus wrapped his arms around you and kissed your forehead.
"You know you don't have to…you don't have to be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt you. Never."
You froze for a brief moment. It was as if he was reading your mind. How could you think that about him? He saved you. If not for him, you would be dead.
It was stronger than that. When he approached you this morning your heart was beating faster and a chill went through your body.
"It's because I love him. Typical reaction" You repeated to yourself in your mind.
Every time you felt his hands stroking your hair while you were hugging, you thought about how tightly he gripped that wooden plank with which he cracked the head of the boy in the arena. How the blood spurted onto his snow white shirt from his school uniform. And those eyes. The eyes that always made you feel butterflies in your stomach, and then they seemed so unfamiliar. You thought about how later after the situation at the arena, he tried to approach you, and you took a step back with your eyes wide open in horror.
Of course, he knew. You don't need to read minds to know that. And he was intelligent. He knew right away.
"I know, I know, Coryo. It's just…" you knew that if you continued your voice would break. Besides, you didn't know what to say. You snuggled into his neck hugging him more tightly at the waist. You don't want to hurt him with such thoughts, but they are so intrusive. You can't get them out of your head despite his reassurances, affectionate words and gentle touch. "I'm sorry, I should be there for you, and I'm making everything worse."
You whispered soaking the collar of his shirt with your tears.
His hand went to your hair gently stroking it.
"Stop, it's not your fault."
You stayed like that in each other's embrace, in silence. Words are not important now. What is important is that you are together and nothing will change that.
He will not hurt you. Yes, he won't hurt you.
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nico-di-genova · 8 months
Text
Parts of Blue Beetle I cannot stop thinking about
Jaime’s Gotham U hoodie. I need it. I must buy it immediately. @ DC pls give it to me.
Milagro and Jaime sitting on the roof sharing a drink and just talking. It’s familiar for them, something they’ve probably been doing since they were kids
Milagro drinking too, which feels like SUCH a big brother move on Jaime’s part. Like yeah, sure you can drink, but only where I can keep an eye on you so you don’t do anything stupid.
The way Jaime feels like an adult in some ways and like a little kid still in others. They really nailed the early/mid twenties feeling of being a child trapped in an adults body.
No one pressuring Jaime to get a job and save the house/help his dad. It’s a pressure he’s solely placed upon himself, this sense of responsibility that he’s meant to pull them up and out, even though they never asked anything more from him then to be their Jaime.
The beetle merging scene, horrifying. Looked like something straight out of the exorcist.
When Jaime and Jenny almost kissed, and Jaime was left like half hard and embarrassed. So real of him. It was also another moment that just felt real, even if it was played for laughs.
Milagro during the entire Reyes house attack scene. Like Jesus she had me sobbing so hard. The way she was so visibly scared and crying for her mom, looking at Jaime and practically begging for his help. She was just a scared little kid who wanted her family, who wanted her big brother to come make everything better.
When Rudy was talking about Alberto bringing him over the border when he was ten and Alberto was 19. It’s such a short but emotional scene, and it really adds to the character dynamics. You see Alberto as more than Jaime’s dad, but this kid who also was once scared and overwhelmed by his responsibilities, but still shouldered them because it’s all he could do.
Milagro wearing her dads jacket for the rest of the movie :(. I love her, she deserves the world.
The absolute rage and fear on Jaime’s face as he was forcibly ripped away from his family, unable to do anything, as his father suffered a heart attack right in front of him. The sheer amount of terror he must have felt to realize in that moment that he was powerless and to see his sister sobbing over their father’s body while he couldn’t get to her. Jaime Reyes is a better man than I will ever be, because if I’d gotten my hands on Victoria or Carapax it would have been over for them. Also the way he just kept screaming dad/papa like a little kid calling for their parent after waking up from a nightmare :(. He’s just a kid, he thought he would come home and fix everything and instead he has to watch it all fall apart in front of him.
Jaime and Milagro in general, best siblings. I’d die for them :)
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flowerandblood · 4 months
Text
The Fall from the Heavens (3)
[ dark • Aemond x Strong • niece female ]
[ warnings: oral sex, smut, angst, incest, obsession, violence, swearing, humiliation, chauvinism, mention of injury ]
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[ description: A cool distance turns into friendship and more when two children see that they can find refuge and understanding in each other. However, naïve dreams collide with the reality in which every event has consequences and what once could have been love becomes a dark, newly painful obsession. Angst, sexual tension, obsession, violence, madness, very dark Aemond. ]
The story in this series is an alternate reality from the oneshot Stay and love, leave and die, in which Aemond reads the letters his niece has sent to him over the years. They are the same characters and it shows what would have happened between them − I have changed the background story from their childhood slightly for the sake of the plot.
Characters & Series Moodboard
* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *
Next chapters: Masterlist
_____
When he learned of the death of Daemon's wife, he knew it was a sign from the gods that his time had come − Vhagar, the largest and oldest dragoness in the world, was left without a rider.
He thought that at last he would make his father proud, that he would take his niece to Essos as he had promised her.
It seemed to him that the heavens were finally smiling on him, that everything made sense and was slowly beginning to come together, that he could see above the mist that surrounded him his destiny.
As he fled from the fortress in the middle of the night he thought only of the fact that he might die and hoped that if he did, his betrothed would mourn him greatly and never marry any other man.
Her sign of love and loyalty, of respect for his sacrifice for her and their future family.
Vhagar was frightening and huge, like a giant, dark, moving mountain, with her every movement the earth shook around her; he couldn't believe it when she obeyed his command, his body trembled as he climbed the ropes to the great saddle on her back, he screamed with fear and joy as she flew with him into the skies.
He was the rider of the greatest dragon in the world.
He was like Visenya, like Aegon the Conqueror, and his future wife was like sweet Rhaenys.
Everything was as it should be.
He ran through the underground caverns to wake her and tell her everything, to kiss her, to spend the night in her embrace and listen to her assurances that he was fearless, that he was brave and that she was proud to become the wife of the man who had become the rider of the most powerful dragon flying in the skies in their lifetime.
It was then that he came upon them.
He thought he would never let them humiliate himself again, that bastards or weak, quivering little girls who couldn't even tame a dragon would never stand in his way again.
All that mattered was her, and though he knew she would be upset, he felt that she would forgive him, that she would understand that this was revenge for all the years of humiliation he had suffered from them.
And then Luke cut his face with his blade − he suddenly heard his own loud, squeaky, almost girlish scream and grabbed his left eye where he had lost his sight completly.
He was given poppy milk to ease his pain and a stick was put in his mouth that he was told to clamp his teeth on; his mother cried out loud, horrified when she saw what had happened to him, the maester said the eye could not be saved and would have to be taken out.
That he would be a cripple.
He wailed and screamed, feeling the cut of the heated blade on his skin, struggling and writhing like an animal, tied to a chair, and then he stopped feeling anything, staring dully ahead, his mother and Aegon unable to look at it.
He saw her as if in a dream, and though she always smiled at the sight of him, this time she screamed loudly, terror and fear in her eyes.
She covered her mouth with her hand trying to hold back the sounds that came from her throat.
Then he understood.
So what if he had claimed a dragon, if she would never desire him again?
How would she force herself to marry someone who was from now on supposed to look like him?
He returned to King's Landing with the thought that all was lost and he didn't want to see anyone, much less her.
He didn't want her tears of sympathy, her assurances that she still loved him, her pity, the fact that in order not to offend him she would refrain from showing how disgusted she now was by his face.
He was no fool.
Her letter only angered him − he tore it into little pieces clenching his lips, thinking she was an idiot, giving him books now that he had lost one eye, reminding him that he would never see well again, that he would always be defective, that he would have to learn everything from the beginning.
However, as soon as he did so he immediately regretted it and burst out crying, looking at the pieces of parchment lying on his sheets, thinking of how he wished he could read it again because it was her handwriting, her words to him.
His conviction of his ugliness and the fact that what had happened crossed him out in her eyes as a man she could desire deepened his state into complete withdrawal, sinking into the darkness of his thoughts, fears and desires.
He needed someone to loathe, to throw all his ill emotions at, and he had chosen Luke as such a person, however it was the thoughts and dreams of her that kept him awake at night.
Waiting for her letters was his obsession.
She sent one every two months, always on the same day, for many years. At first they were short and full of uncertainty, but then it seemed to him that she had the impression that he didn't read them anyway, so she began to write and confide in someone who no longer existed, revealing to him the darkness and suffering of her own heart.
He was embarrassed by his own reactions, that whenever he saw a sealed message from her lying on his table he would take it reverently and sit down on a chair by the fire, as if in some kind of ceremony pulling off the lac and unrolling it slowly, feeling his heart beat fast.
Dragonstone appears to me like a prison, like a black coffin, the sky above me full of clouds. I can't remember the last time light dawned in my heart − when I wake up I wonder for a moment about the meaning of it all, only to realise that thinking about it is pointless, it only sinks me further into the darkness.
It seems that the more I move away from what surrounds me, the greater the silence that settles in my head.
After what happened something inside me died.
Not in the aspect of my body, but in the sense of a conviction that something is missing, like when you look in a mirror reassembled from hundreds of pieces and, even though it is whole again, you can clearly see its cracks.
I wonder, are you sleeping well, uncle? Are you having nightmares again? I often return in my dreams to that night. I see you and although I want to say something, I can't get anything out, just as I did then. I wake up with the conviction that I am still a child.
I pray a lot, although I don't know myself to which gods anymore. I guess to any of who would be willing to listen to me. They don't answer me, just like you.
He repeated to himself in his mind that he would read her despairing, feminine ramblings to mock her, but in fact he was immersed in her thoughts, in her world, trying to imagine her, analysing each word with pietism, returning to the sentences that had taken the most root in his heart and would not leave him afterwards for days.
He read her letters for hours, treating such evenings like a sacred day, running his thumb over his lower lip, staring dully ahead in the light of the blazing fire, thinking of her words.
Although he pretended that what she wrote meant nothing to him, once in a while, usually when he was waiting for her next message, he would take all her letters and read them one by one, analysing how her handwriting had changed, now much prettier and assured, how her choice of words had evolved, rich and full of metaphors.
He knew that, like him, she read a lot.
She never brought up the matter of his or her family, the details of their conflict, their betrothal and the fact that his mother had insisted that he marry one of Lord Baratheon's daughters.
When he learned that Rhaenyra planned to marry his niece to her cousin of House Arryn he grabbed all her letters she had sent him over the years, which he kept locked in his wooden drawer, and almost threw them into the fire, hesitating at the last moment, squeezing them in his hand, panting with rage.
Although he kept repeating to himself that it was a good thing he wouldn't have to take a bastard wife, immediately his mind went into a fury at the thought that she might have become someone else's mistress, borne children to other man, and he found himself sinking into her letters again, as if re-appropriating her in this way.
He feared nothing more than that one day she would stop writing to him.
He dreaded what he would do then.
The days when Aegon could mess with him were long gone. His older brother the drunkard knew he was no match for him in hand-to-hand combat, he was taller, smarter and stronger than he was.
Yet it was Aegon who was to inherit everything that would not fall to Rheanyra as future queen.
He wanted to be his opposite in every sense of the word; his appearance made him even more isolated from the opposite sex and he didn not look at women at all, spending long hours in the Great Sept with his mother praying at her request.
If it had been up to him, he would have prayed to the gods of Old Valyria, but he saw her loneliness and loss, and wanted to be a support for her, a son she would be proud of.
Despite what he tried to tell himself, the tension he felt as a man grew stronger within him, even more so in the evenings when he leaned over her letters again, when he thought of her scent, of her hand holding the quill.
He wondered involuntarily what she looked like now, what he would notice if he undressed her, if he exposed her bare breasts to him.
Would they fit in his hand, would they be soft and warm?
Would she moan sweetly if he touched her there?
He tilted his head back, trying to read further, settling himself more comfortably in the chair, his free hand slipping under his breeches, gripping his already half-hard, throbbing manhood.
He imagined that it wasn't his hand but hers that was touching him, that she wasn't disgusted by him, that just like before her hands were stroking his cheeks, her lips were finding his in a sweet, warm kiss.
A murmur escaped his throat at the thought, a wave of heat surged over him and he quickened, fucking himself with his own hand until he came with a low sigh of relief, imagining that she was sitting on top of him, that he had just filled her with his seed, that she was begging him not to stop.
However, when he regained his sanity he felt rage and shame.
He hid her letters in a drawer and did not take them out for weeks, as if offended that it was their fault he had to pray again and beg the gods for forgiveness.
He promised himself that this would not happen again, however, it always ended the same way.
The knowledge that he could not forget her enraged and calmed him at the same time, as if this state was natural, the parallel hatred and desire for her became one and the same in his eyes.
He hated her because he desired her, desired her because he could not have her, could not have her because he hated her.
He locked himself in this circle, not allowing anyone to see what was poisoning his mind and heart.
If in the poems women appeared innocent and bright, she was to him the symbol of his downfall, his flame of his eternal suffering, which burned him every day, but which he did not dare to extinguish knowing that complete darkness would then prevail inside him.
When it became known that Vaemond Velaryon had challenged Luke's claim to the throne of Driftmark he laughed out loud at the Small Council meeting, amused, embarrassing his mother and grandfather.
He thought the gods were cruel but fair.
The grin disappeared from his face, replaced by a strong heartbeat when their Queen conveyed that Rhaenyra, along with her entire family, would appear in King's Landing in a few days to settle the matter.
With her entire family.
He sat by the fireplace that evening, running his thumb over his lips, feeling that there was complete panic in his mind, hundreds of thoughts running through his head.
He wasn't ready for this.
He didn't want to see her.
He wanted nothing more than to see her again.
He was disgusted by her and her brothers, by the fact that he would be sitting at the same table with her.
Would she touch him with her soft hand? Did she still smell of vanilla? Would she whisper that she missed him?
What was he to answer if she did?
Mock her, tell her that she should retain the remnants of her dignity.
Tear off her gown, press his lips to her bare body, saying that he would sooner kill her than let her marry someone else.
He let out a loud shuddering breath, burying his face in his hand, feeling like his head was about to explode, his heart pounding like mad.
He had the feeling that he was losing his mind, that he was descending into madness.
When he saw Jace and Luke among the crowds, when he saw how small and skinny they were compared to him, when he saw their mouths wide open in shock as they realised who they were looking at, he thought he had never felt more satisfied in his life.
"Nephews. Have you come to train?" He asked in a deep, teasing voice feigning concern as he played with the hilt of his sword in his hand, flipping it between his fingers.
He wanted nothing more than to humiliate them in public.
His musings and wild excitement were interrupted by Vaemond's entrance into the courtyard − he grinned broadly at the sight of him, feeling a sense of satisfaction, sighing quietly, thinking of how the gods had rewarded his patience.
He turned impatiently, extending his hand to his servant, willing him to hand him another wooden shield and froze in half-step, out of the corner of his eye noticing a silhouette looking at him from the cloisters.
It seemed his heart knew who was standing there even before it reached his mind, for it began to pound like mad, his breath stopped in his throat.
He forced himself to look there again and that's when he saw her − he couldn't believe how much she had changed.
Although he could see the obvious features and similarities by which he recognised her immediately, her eyes, her eyelashes, the shade of her hair, the shape of her nose and face, it seemed to him that if she had been a bud when she left the Red Keep, she was now a flower that had blossomed, a ripe fruit that begged to be plucked, to bite into its flesh.
It occurred to him, looking at the unashamedly exposed bare skin of her shoulders, that it must have been pleasantly soft and warm.
He imagined his lips brushing the hollow of her neck, the scent of vanilla he would smell and he shuddered, ashamed and horrified at how hard his manhood throbbed in his breeches.
This sight, so clear, blunt, final, completely shocked him, and though it lasted only a moment, he managed to remember the shape of her breasts and hips, the shape of her mouth, her terrified gaze full of longing, from which he felt a tightness in his throat and this huge, overwhelming, cruel desire.
He turned away from her, furious, thrusting his sword at Criston, their blades clashing in the air with a loud clang of steel.
That evening he felt that something hung in the air, he felt her presence in the keep, he had the impression that if he turned he would see her silhouette behind him.
He played between his fingers with his dagger and looked at it, wondering if he would feel relief if he killed her, if he would then regain control of his body and mind again.
Maybe it was the right path.
Maybe it was because of her that he was unable to move on.
He shuddered and tensed all over when he heard a quiet knock on the door to his chamber − he felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck, knowing that it was her, that destiny had reached him.
He felt it in his bones.
He wanted to remain silent, he wanted to show her that she no longer had access to his world, that he recognised years ago that there was no way for them that they could walk together.
I pray a lot, although I don't know myself to which gods anymore. I guess to any of who would be willing to listen to me. They don't answer me, just like you.
He closed his eye, feeling a squeeze in his throat at the thought of those three sentences that echoed through his mind and heart like a bell, that undeniable desire on her part to be reunited with him that he pretended not to share.
"Come in." He said coldly, feeling the thrill of excitement, his heart pounding so hard that he felt like it was going to burst out of his chest.
The door opened with a quiet creak of wood, and she appeared in it, surrounded by the glow of candlelight, looking like a saint, like a ghost, like an innocent, sweet maiden who was lost in the black maze that had always been meant to lead her to him.
He resigned himself to the fact that there was no escape from it.
She closed the door behind her and turned to look at him; he wasn't sure if it was the flames that was trembling or if it was her body that was quivering all over with fear, in her big eyes terror, desire, suffering, everything she had written to him about.
Only after a moment did he realise that his jaw was clenched, that he was involuntarily still playing with his dagger in his hand as he looked at the indistinct silhouette of her naked body peeking through from under her nightgown, her long dark hair loose, its curls falling freely over her back.
He felt his length throbbing hard at the thought of her coming to him dressed as a lover, as if she were his, and he licked his lower lip with his tongue, catching himself breathing loudly.
Gods, how long he had waited for this.
"Did you received my letters?" She asked quietly, as usual without any further pleasantries, her voice trembled slightly betraying her fear. He shuddered to hear that she no longer sounded like a child, the way she spoke was melodious and pleasant, soft, warm.
"Yes." He replied in a low, deep voice, sounding like an echo in an endless, dark bottomless well. He saw that she blinked rapidly, as if she hadn't expected such an answer; she pressed her lips together and swallowed loudly, gathering the courage to say more.
She knew she had ventured into the dragon's cave and might never leave it again.
He knew, he felt that she was aware of what was on his mind, that she saw it in his gaze.
"Have you read them?" She asked at last, there was something final in her question.
He parted his lips slightly, lifting his chin in a defiant gesture, stretching comfortably in his chair, wondering if he should humiliate her with words that he had burned them all.
To let her know that she no longer meant anything to him.
He wanted to say it, but he couldn't.
"Yes, my Lady Strong. I have read them all. Many times, here, in this chair." He hummed, running the blade of his dagger across the armrest, making a deep, chiseled line on it.
Go on, he thought, ask me why I didn't write back, what I thought of your tendentious, weepy musings, what I thought of your feminine, touching guilt, of your weakness, of your coming to me now like a dog to beg forgiveness.
She, however, asked nothing.
He shuddered and threw her a surprised glance as she suddenly moved ahead and walked around his chamber, as if she had lost interest in the subject, making him feel discomfort, as if he had lost control of the situation, his advantage over her.
"Does your mother-whore know you're here?" He asked dryly, coldly, wanting to take away her confidence, to embarrass her, to strike at her dignity, reminding her that she herself had come to a grown man in such a shameless negligee.
She, however, merely threw him a surprised glance as she approached his bookshelves, the small one he had been given as a child replaced by three new ones, made of oak wood, high to the ceiling, filled to the brim.
She reached for one of the volumes and he felt a squeeze in his throat when he saw that she had taken out The Reflections on the Dignity of the Ancient Philosopher Areon.
"My, as you put it, mother-whore, never knew when I visited you, uncle. I was very determined not to be caught." She said calmly, but with an air of regret and weariness, as if the situation between them was tiring her, as if she believed that facing him like a ghost from the past would allow her to move on.
He thought they both could have done it, but he wasn't sure if the blade he held in his hand wouldn't have cut her neck then.
The thought that someone else might touch her body made him furious.
He snorted, turning his gaze to the flames, involuntarily turning his dagger in his hand − he grinned despite being tense and bitter.
"Do you often visit men like this?" He asked reluctantly, though inside he was dying to prove to himself that surely she had already slept with her guards or other men who would give her pleasure, that the sweet, innocent girl he remembered was long gone.
He heard her footsteps and felt her presence; he lifted his eyes to her, surprised, and noticed that her gaze was cloudy, her brow furrowed.
She looked as if she had been exceptionally offended by those very words.
"Have you no shame?" She asked him in a cool, trembling voice; he could feel the pain in the way she asked the question, his lips tightened into a thin line.
He was struck by how direct the question was.
He wasn't used to being spoken to like that.
But before he had time to respond with anything, to finally stab her in the back with words that were like poison, she began to speak, as if a dam had suddenly burst inside her and her thoughts poured out at him.
"I don't know who you are, the man who sits now before me, but if there is even a fragment of the boy I was meant to marry in you, let that boy know that he was and will be the only one in my heart. He was my best friend and I failed him. It is hard to live with the thought that someone you loved so deeply has died in a way, but there is neither a grave to pray over nor any hope of peace for his soul. What I fear is that the boy I knew has disappeared among the darkness and is dying in it every day."
He was ashamed that he felt a squeeze in his throat, that he felt a burning under his eyelids, that his heart was pounding like mad, that he froze completely in disbelief and shock as he stared at her wide-eyed.
She was crying in front of him, as if she was really mourning someone's death, and he didn't know what to do, even if he wanted to humiliate her, tell her to leave, he couldn't get anything out of himself.
He drew in air loudly and his whole body stiffened, the dagger fell out of his hand with loud clatter when she surprised him completely by sitting down on his lap, snuggling into him like a little child and burst out sobbing.
He had the feeling that she was not embracing him in the here and now, but a figure from the past that she missed so much.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She whined in a desperate, trembling, quavering voice − he felt he was struggling to catch his breath, his nostrils filled with her scent, the smell of vanilla, her familiar warmth, his manhood hidden beneath his breeches swelled in response to this sudden, unexpected closeness.
She shuddered feeling it and looked up at him, her face flooded with tears, terrified and ashamed, her gaze asking him what she had just felt underneath her. He began to breathe through his mouth, feeling the panic rising inside him because of the heat he felt in his lower abdomen.
There were drops of her tears on her eyelashes, her eyes big, her gaze hot, tender, terrified, her cheeks flushed with emotion, her lips puffy and plump, slightly parted in an accelerated breath.
"Can I kiss you?"
He wasn't sure if he really heard it, it seemed to have only resounded in his head as his memory of that sunny day, but involuntarily he leaned lower.
He sighed as if relieved when her arms suddenly embraced his neck, her breasts snuggled into his tunic, and her wonderfully wet, soft lips pressed against his in a sticky, loud kiss.
They both moaned into each other's mouths as they felt him throb under her again, harder this time − he wasn't sure if it was his will that guided the movements of his hands as one clamped down on her hip and the other on the back of her neck, holding her in place, not allowing her lips to pull away from his as he slid his tongue deep into her throat.
They both trembled as he tentatively began to rock his hips, rubbing against her, overwhelmed by her familiar closeness and scent, her so-needed, gentle hands stroking his hair and cheeks, her thumb running over his scar under his eye patch.
The sight of her body, her sweetly parted lips, her hot gaze in which everything lurked, and her scent, the smell of fucking vanilla filled his entire mind.
He rubbed against her his already hard cock again and again, sliding his free hand under her chemise, placing it on her naked, hot hip, digging his fingertips into her skin, his manhood reacting to his movements instantly with a strong, pleasurable throbbing, he involuntarily began to pant.
He saw the blush on her sweet, innocent face, her hips in a slow, smooth motion began to move back and forth, pressing what was underneath her; he shuddered all over feeling it and they both sighed quietly as her fingers ran over his scarred cheek.
"− uncle −" She whispered softly into his mouth, exactly like in his dreams, like when he touched himself between his thighs with his hand, with longing and desire.
He was unable to remember when she pressed her sweet-tasting lips to his, hugging her soft breasts into the fabric of his tunic, what the reason for their disagreement was, it seemed to him to be completely trivial and unfounded.
He thought it was obvious that the lovers had argued with each other and then reconciled.
That was all he thought about as he undid the ties of her nightgown, sucking and caressing her mouth, jaw and neck with his swollen lips, leaving wet, hot marks on her skin, his hands slid it slowly off her shoulders, revealing her bare body, her lovely breasts, unashamedly before him.
He delighted in this sight, almost mythological, noble, for breasts were the joy of husbands and the source of milk for their offspring, something beautiful, admirable.
He could feel her trembling all over in his hands, terrified by her negligee; he was sure now that no one had ever seen her naked before him and this thought spread like a wonderful, hot wave through his body.
"− easy − your husband will treat your body with proper respect −" He murmured in a deep voice trembling with arousal, his large hand grasped one of her breast and squeezed it tentatively; he sighed feeling how warm and soft it was, he heard her surprised moan.
He grasped her cheeks in his fingers, with a brutal, sudden movement drawing her face closer to his; his hand slid lower, ran over her soft, wet, full lips. She moaned helplessly because of the increasingly rapid bucking of his hips, the bulge in his breeches rubbing against the spot between her legs.
"− please −" She babbled, and he decided to take pity on her, sliding his tongue deep inside her throat, stifling her loud mewl, his fingers began to tease and play with her nipple, her whole body shivered; he felt her hands tighten in his hair, her lips melt into his in a quick, hot dance of saliva and teeth.
"− uh − I − I feel a tickling inside me, uncle −" She mumbled out as innocently as if she really didn't know what was happening to her, as if she wanted him to help her understand what her body was trying to tell her, however he, hearing this, lost his temper.
Despite the material of his breeches separating them where their bodies met, he could feel her moisture.
She was wet.
She wanted him inside her.
"− it's understandable − you missed your uncle − hm? −" He whispered into her mouth with a kind of tenderness and understanding that surprised him, as if it had been obvious that this was how it would end. She nodded quickly like a child who agreed with his teacher, who wanted to be guided, to be shown what was right.
She squealed as he stood up with her, holding her in his arms, just thinking about the fact that he hadn't felt this calm for years, the sight of her, the smell of her made his head spin.
He couldn't even remember why he was mad at her, why he hadn't written her back, why he wanted to kill her.
How could he ever hurt her, his sweet little wife?
"− lie on your back − yes, just like that −" He murmured with delight, looking at her partially exposed body; her lips was pink and puffy from his caresses, her breathing quick as she looked at him dreamily, watching as he began to undo the fastenings of his tunic, getting rid of it and his chemise, leaving only his breeches.
He climbed onto the bed with a loud creak of wood, not quite sure what he should do, sensing subconsciously, however, that this was the day of their reunion, their reconciliation after years of separation, the figures of Lord Baratheon's daughters and Lord Arryn's son seemed to him nothing more than a joke.
Aegon spoke to him of how wonderful it was to taste the woman between their thighs, that they quivered with delight when he licked them there, and since he would devour her whole if he could, he decided to try.
She was horrified and distraught when she saw his face between her thighs; she tried to push him away, asking him fearfully what he was going to do, but only tilted her head back as his tongue ran over her leaking, throbbing, hot womanhood, the sound she made surprised even him.
"− o-oh, gods −" She whimpered as he licked devotedly what spilled out of her, the taste and flesh of his wife, her proof that she didn't despise him, that she still wanted him, that her tight cunt was waiting for him and for his caresses.
"− have you touched yourself here? −" He asked between one lick of his tongue and the next, her thighs trembling in his hands, her fingers clenched in his hair, trying to rub against his face. He grinned involuntarily sensing her desperation, seeing that she nodded and ran the tip of his nose over the bud hidden between her folds, she moaned loudly when he did it.
Encouraged, he grasped it in his mouth and began to suck on it, licking it with his tongue; her whole body arched, uncontrollable moans erupted from her mouth. He tried to cover her lips with his hand, fearing that someone would eventually hear it, but she clamped her hands on his wrist, blocking his movements.
"− please, uncle, too much − too much −" She whined out trying to escape; he stopped, seeing that her body was shaking in convulsions, surprised how sensitive the female body was and how many secrets it hid.
He thought he now understood why it was Rhaenys that Aegon the Conqueror wanted in his bed.
In the art of the body, one could not be aggressive and brutal as on the battlefield.
What they were doing was some sort of a feast, tasting and satisfying their desires, full of moistures and hot embraces.
He hummed as he leaned down again and slipped his tongue deep inside her, feeling how rough and wet her fleshy walls were, groaning quietly as her wonderful taste spread across his palate.
"− uncle − mghmm −" She mumbled breathing hard, with each flick of his tongue drifting away more and more, he could feel her insides pulsing all over around nothing.
"− it'll be wonderful to feel it clench around my cock one day − don't you think, sweet niece? −" He asked, pressing his face closer to her body, licking and rubbing her walls at the spot that when he touched it with the tip of his tongue she trembled the most, moaning helplessly, her hips coming up to meet his face, her breathing getting louder and louder.
"− oh g-gods, Aemond − oh gods,oh gods,oh gods −" She mewled, startling him as she raised herself up on her elbow, tilting her head back, bliss and delight painted on her face, her plump, glossy lips parted in sweet moans as if in disbelief that something so wonderfully pleasurable had shaken her body.
It was the first time he had ever seen female fulfilment and it was a stunning, wonderful sight.
He groaned low as he felt how much moisture flowed out of her, kissing her hot, throbbing entrance devotedly, slowly licking everything off, not wanting to waste a drop, even though she begged him to stop.
Everything he drank from her was for him, the wonderful nectar of his sweet wife.
He rose on his knees, wiping his face with his hand, looking at her in disbelief, panting loudly; she lay as if without strength, with her hands spread on either side of her head, her plump, puffy lips slightly parted in ragged breath.
His niece.
"Touch me." He demanded, slipping off his breeches, taking her hand in his, with a desperate, sudden movement clamping her fingers on his swollen, twitching manhood, leaking from his own wetness. They both moaned helplessly when, with movements of his hand, he showed her how she was to touch him.
She looked up at him in shame, squeezing him with sure up and down strokes, feeling him throb all over in her grasp; he rocked his hips involuntarily, sensing that he was embarrassingly close to fulfillment.
"− fuck − fuck, come here −" He gasped, grabbing her by her hair, forcing her to rise up and kiss him − their lips collided in a sticky, messy kiss, the combination of their tongues and their saliva, the smell of her, the sight of her bare body, the scent of her sex, her moisture around them, proof of what they were doing.
Against their gods, against their family.
He didn't care what happened next.
"− don't fucking stop − faster − oh fuck-fuck-fuck −" He growled out and moaned low, surprised at the helpless sound that came from his throat, coming with a sigh of relief onto her nightgown, his translucent, pearly spend spurting out onto her, startling her; he hushed her with his kisses, whispering to her between the sticky brushes of their lips.
"− easy, it's just me − shhh −" He whispered, letting go of her hand, allowing her to release her grip, her fingers all sticky with his seed.
"− lick it off − don't waste a drop −" He growled, wrinkling his eyebrows and she swallowed loudly, obediently licking her finger after finger, looking him straight in the eye. He watched her with satisfaction, thinking of how obedient and good a wife she would indeed be.
"− you are going to spend the night with me −"
______
From the author: In Stay and love, leave and die oneshot Aemond would not allow her to enter his chamber, he would remain silent - in his opinion, she had forgotten about him and suddenly wanted to regain his favor, which he found pathetic and irritating, not worth his attention. None of her letters reached him through the years, having been intercepted and burned by Otto. The next day, he informed his mother that either she would leave the Red Keep or he would, and she decided to return to Dragonstone so as not to escalate the conflict. In that universe, they actually speak to each other only in Strom's End.
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