#my maternal instinct is too strong for my weak little body | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

little-butterfly-writes · 3 years

Note

Hiii I hope you are having a good day I’m kinda new to tumblr so Idk where to request and ask stuff but yeah can you write something where Victor (MLQC) has like a very weak child I just want some domestic stuff 🥲

Of course dear! I apologize for being so late. I hope this was what you were looking for, I'm not too proud of this in all honesty. ^^'

Notes - The name Hao is Chinese and means 'perfect' or 'well'. I thought it'd fit well! Hao is around 6, making him a kindergartener.

Warnings; Bullying.

Word Count - 1980

Our little boy Hao was a product made from me and Victor’s love. When we decided we wanted a child on our first anniversary of marriage, we tried nonstop until the single line turned to two lines. I remember how happy Victor was when I told him the news. He held me tight against his chest and whispered how much he loves me.

Hao, our son, quite literally lives up to the meaning of his name. He is perfect in every way. He has my eyes and nose, and the rest of his features take after Victor’s. Hao is always so kind to others and is as intelligent as his father.

~~~~~~~~~

I’m still half asleep, clinging close to my husband still. His arm around my waist hugs me possessively to his body. I can feel his fingers running gently in my hair. Victor has always been extra cuddly on the weekends, Especially on Saturdays, when no one has to get up early. Hao is never picky about getting up early, but he likes to get extra sleep when he can.

I snuggle closer to Victor. Morning cuddles are always my favorite. Victor is always slightly disheveled, much more different from his everyday look. He kisses my forehead softly. I’m nearly asleep again when I feel Victor’s weight shift. A small body crawls in between us.

Hao takes Victor’s spot for his snuggles. Victor huffs and holds us both to him. I can imagine the small pout taking place on his face. I chuckle and hold my son close to me. “Mommy! Time to get up!” He says, burying his face into your neck. “I’m up, I’m up.” I say, giving Hao a kiss on his forehead. Victor’s baritone voice pipes up, “Are you hungry?” Hao nods vigorously. “I still wanna cuddle mommy though, give me a few minutes.” I pat his inky hair, giggling at Victor’s disgruntled face. “Are you excited for school tomorrow? It’s your first day!”

Hao nods with a starry look in his eyes. “I’m so excited to start!” Victor chuckles. “Don’t be late like your mother.” I huff and pout. “It was ONE minute Victor…” Victor smirks. “One minute and fifteen seconds.” I try to banter, but he’s already getting out of bed to make breakfast. Hao and I get up as well and make a beeline to the dining room.

We spend our Sunday lazing around, making sure Hao’s bag is all ready for tomorrow, and relaxing on the couch. After tucking Hao in around mid even, Victor and I head to bed as well.

The next morning, I gently wake up Hao and tell him to get ready while Victor makes breakfast. I hop in the shower for a quick wash and get ready myself. We all meet in the dining room and eat our food in peace. A thought crosses my mind as we walk out the door and I panic. “Victor, we didn't pack him a lun-” He squeezes my hand. “Dummy, I packed one for all of us. Don’t worry.” I sigh and walk to check Hao’s seatbelt before we drive to drop him off.

We follow Hao to his classroom and meet his teacher. After a few pleasantries, Victor and I take off for work. He drops me off at my building before heading off to LFG.

I walk to Hao’s school to pick him up since filming ended early today. I wait on the bench in the school’s exit and keep an eye out for him. He’s talking to a group of boys by the gate, so I decide to let them finish talking. He must’ve made new friends already.

Hao walks over to me a few minutes later with a solemn look on his face. “Hey, honey. Are you okay? You look upset.” I say placing my hand on the top of his head. “It was fine. I’m just tired.” I notice my son’s voice is a bit softer and donning a tone of sadness. “Little Hao, are you sure? You sound upset.” He shakes my hand off and holds it with his tinier one. “Yes, I’m sure. Can we go home? I want to take a nap.” I can feel my maternal instincts screaming at me to prod on, but I end the conversation there.

Around late afternoon, Victor comes home. Hao doesn’t greet him like he usually does when he sees him. He says hello and goes back to his room. I find it odd for someone his age to act like this. “Victor,” I sigh. Victor holds me to his chest. “Is Hao okay?” He asks. I shake my head no. “I was just about to say, I don’t think he had a good day at school. He’s been like this all day.” I melt as Victor strokes my hair. “We’ll keep an eye on him tomorrow after school. I’ll make him pudding tonight, maybe he’ll feel better after eating that.” I nod in agreement. Despite all our years being married, Victor never stopped caring about me or Hao. Even if his love was still a little rough on the edges, his actions always show it.

During dinner, Hao is still quiet. We try asking him questions about his day, but only receive half hearted responses. Then I noticed some bruises on his arms. “Hao, did you get hurt at school today?” I say putting my hand over his. He nods yes, “I fell at the playground today. It’s fine.” Victor and I share a concerned look. “Is someone bothering you at school?” Victor asks gently. “No!” The three of us are startled by Hao’s sudden outburst. “No daddy, no one is bothering me at school.” Victor doesn’t seem convinced, but he lets it go for now.

Victor brings out the pudding after putting our dishes in the dishwasher. Hao refuses, saying that he’s still full from dinner and asks to be excused. I nod yes, placing both of our puddings in the fridge, not feeling happy enough to eat it myself.

This seems to go on for a few more days. Hao’s little bursts of anger, the sadness in his eyes, distancing himself from me and Victor. Victor decides to arrange a meeting with the school’s faculty to see what could be causing this.

On the day of the meeting, Victor’s hand is on the small of my back, comforting me softly. It’s dismissal time, so there’s a myriad of students exiting the building. Despite all the noise and chatter, I hear a familiar yelp. Victor seems to hear it too seeing as how we both move to the direction of the noise.

There we see it. A boy perhaps in the same grade as Hao or maybe one above hitting our son in a secluded area. I shout out to him and he looks over our way, seeming to be just as relieved to see us. I kneel down and hold his shaking body to mine. The other boy tries to find a way to escape, but a glare from Victor stops them dead in their tracks. I leaned to whisper in Hao’s ear, “I know you’re scared, but I need you to go get your teacher. Can you do that for me?” He wipes his tears while nodding and heads off. I grab Victor’s hand and look up at him. I can see the scowl on his face, nearly red with rage.

In the office with the boys and Hao, we wait to talk to the principal. Hao sits on Victor’s lap, giving his arms a small examination for any more bruises. I hold onto Hao’s hand, occasionally giving a small squeeze to reassure him.

The minute the mother of the other child is here along with the principal, Victor stands Hao near me and bolts up.

We walk into the office, Hao now relaxing on my lap. Victor is to my right and the other family is next to him. I have to fight back my tears of anger and guilt as Hao clings as tight as his small body can to me. “Did you have any idea that this was going on? My son has been bullied for days since the beginning of school. You can see the purple marks on his arms.” Victor says, nearly sounding feral. “It’s the beginning of the year, it's been so stressful for all of our teacher’s to notice-” Victor cuts the principal off. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. I don’t care if it’s the beginning of the year. I’m pretty sure it’s easy to notice signs of a bully.”

The child’s mother spoke up, “They’re just boys being boys. You and your son are overreacting.” I roll my eyes and bite my lip. “Excuse me, but if that was the answer Hao wouldn’t be coming home depressed and angry.” I hear her scoff. “Tell her Jin, you were just playing, weren’t you?” Jin sneers, “Yeah, it was just playing. You’re whining for nothing.” A gasp escapes my lips.

Hao grips onto my shirt. “It wasn’t playing! I didn’t like it, I was getting hurt..” I cradle his head to my chest and press a kiss on a tuft of hair. Victor’s knuckles are white from his grip on the chair’s arm. His voice is venomous, ��It’s very clear to me that this school isn’t right for Hao. If you didn’t notice this, then what else haven’t you noticed? We’ll be transferring schools immediately.”

Hao’s lip quivers hearing his father’s voice like that. The principal tries to reason, but to no avail. Victor has already made up his mind. “I will also be pulling my funding from this school. I see no benefits from it.” Now the principal is having a full blown fit. Our family headed out of the school and on our way home.

At home, Hao eats his pudding while sniffling as Victor and I sit on opposite sides of him. I have a small ice pack for when he wants to put them on his welts. “Hao, why didn’t you tell us about this?” My voice sounded like a plea. He puts his spoon down and his head droops. “I thought I could be strong like daddy and take care of it myself, but it seems like I can’t even do that…” I look up to see Victor’s reaction. His eyes are wide and his mouth slightly agape.

Victor places a hand on Hao’s back. “Hao, you don’t need to be like me.” Hao tears up, “Yes I do! You’re always so brave and strong! I wanna be like you so I can take care of mommy more.” A small hiccup leaves his mouth.

“Hao, you don’t need to be like me. I never started out this strong and brave, it takes some time to become like this. Your mommy helped me gain courage.” He says with confidence. “Daddy, do you promise?” Victor nods, drawing Hao into a tight hug. “I promise. And no matter what, I’ll be proud of you.”

~~~~~~~~~

I wake up on a Sunday morning to a cold bed. I get up and walk up to the window, seeing Hao and Victor walking back from their jog around the block. We decided as a family we would walk together after dinners. Victor and Hao made an agreement to go on runs together on the weekend. I giggle and sneak a picture of my two boys, setting it as my wallpaper and send it to Victor.

I walk downstairs just as they walk through the door. Hao’s eyes light up and he rushes to hug me. “Little Hao, are you excited for school tomorrow?” He wiggles in my arms delightfully. “Yes, yes! I like this new school a lot more!” Victor smiles and squeezes us both in a tight hug, leaving a kiss on my forehead.

#mlqc #mlqc victor #mlqc victor li #mlqc fluff #little-butterfly-writes

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idreamofplaid · 3 years

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Finding Destiny

Square Filled: Plus Size for @spnkinkbingo & Late Presentation for @spnabobingo

Characters: alpha!Sam x omega!Reader; Madame Tremaine (OFC)

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Y/N always felt like an Omega. Life told her otherwise, until tonight.

Word Count: 3027

Created for @spnkinkbingo & @spnabobingo

You smelled like a garden had exploded on you, a garden with some miscellaneous spices and nature smells. Truth was, you smelled like a mess, but you’d been desperate. Living as a Beta was like being invisible.

You were convinced it didn’t help that your body wasn’t fashion model thin, or thin at all for that matter, instead having generous soft curves in your breasts, hips, and thighs. You had spent the last ten years watching Alphas and Omegas pair up, claim each other, shower each other with their love, devotion, and commitment. It had left you feeling more and more lonely, and food was your coping mechanism. The result of that was more pounds added to a body you already thought was too large.

Meanwhile, with each passing year, you felt more and more like life was passing you by. You, too, wanted to be claimed. There were no Alpha tendencies in your makeup; you were sure you were an Omega. You longed to be cherished, protected, filled with pups. Your untapped maternal instincts were strong, and you wanted to have a mate, be a mate. The Beta lifestyle wasn’t yours, so how had you been born into it?

Initially, when your heat didn’t come. You were confused, followed by disappointed, then discouraged, and finally resigned. Periodically, throughout all these reactions, you were devastated. The devastation overtook you when you least expected it, and then mercifully would leave again so you could function and pretend to be a happy Beta. Had it stayed with you constantly, no doubt you would have fallen into a deep depression.

It was that unwanted and sometimes paralyzing sense of hopelessness which always returned due to your Beta status that had sent you to the establishment owned by Madame Tremaine. It was rumored that she could bring on a reluctant onset of the first heat. That’s what you were once again trying to convince yourself this was, abandoning your previous period of accepting your fate. That’s all it was, a delay. Your body just needed some encouragement, a little push to get your hormones in motion. That first heat was going to happen; it was just slow.

So, it was in that frame of mind that you entered her herb shop at the end of a narrow street in an unfashionable part of the city. Wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with glass jars of various sizes that contained materials of every description. Dried flowers hung from low hanging rafters, and a display case that was filled with what appeared to be rocks and gemstones ran the length of one wall.

The bell over the door had tinkled when you entered the shop, summoning Madame Tremaine from the rear room of the shop. She pushed aside a beaded curtain that hung in the doorway leading to the back. She sized you up, her eyes traveling over you from head to toe. You were wearing a full skirt and a peasant style blouse. It was a cute outfit, but you still felt inadequate and self conscious about your size. For a moment, you felt a little pathetic because you’d come here seeking her help at changing what nature, God, the universe, or whatever had decided should be your lot in life.

She was, of course, sleek and dressed all in form fitting black pants and a black shirt that emphasized her long, graceful arms and fingers. She had adorned those arms and fingers with turquoise rings and silver bangles, while large silver hoops hung from her ears. You were thinking of turning around and walking right back out when she said, “What brings you to see me tonight?”

You were determined not to stutter in spite of your nervousness. You could at least pretend to have a fraction of the confidence this woman so clearly possessed. “I’ve heard you can help Omegas with the onset of their first heat.”

She looked at you again. “How old are you?” You hesitated, not wanting to answer her question. You definitely should have left. This was so embarrassing. She lifted her chin and gave a wave of her hand, causing her bracelets to jingle. “Never mind. I’m sure I have what you need. It’s just a matter of finding the right combination of smells that compose your scent. Your body will then react with them and produce the scent on its own, triggering your first heat.”

For the next two hours, she had experimented on you with her herbs, flowers, and ground spices. She began with the flowers, explaining to you, “Very often an Omega’s scent includes a floral note. We only need to find the right one, then move on to the other elements.” It wasn’t tuberose, jasmine, violet, magnolia, or plumeria. She tried at least seven others before giving up on the flowers.

She moved to a particular row of jars with purpose. “Perhaps we should try something sweet instead.” The next round of fragrances she applied to your skin consisted of honey, vanilla, chocolate, coconut, sugar, and caramel. She was beginning to look a little perplexed, making you feel like a failure all over again. Not only were you unable to find a mate, now this wasn’t working either; but you needed it too. You felt like this was your last chance.

“How do you know it isn’t working, Madame?” You had absentmindedly grabbed your skirt and started to twist the fabric.

“Because I’m an Alpha; I could smell it if you were producing your own scent.” Of course she was an Alpha, all the confidence. Her tone had been a little sharper than she had intended. You were, after all, a paying customer. She shouldn’t let her frustration show. Madame softened her voice and tried a different approach. Perhaps you are a more rare type of Omega without the usual sweet or flowery smell. Let’s give something else a try.”

Next she went for a smaller set of jars that contained spices and pulled some tiny stone chips that were near a larger blue stone from the display case. First, she used a mortar and pestle to grind the stone chips then added some rosemary to the bowl, grinding it up as well, and finally sprinkling in some almond oil to bind it together. Your curiosity got the better of you and made you brave enough to ask, “Why did you add stones? They don’t smell.”

“Ah, but they do; it is just very subtle,” she answered, “and sometimes just the catalyst that is needed to activate the chemical process that will result in you producing your own scent.” She applied this mixture to the inside of your wrist. Still, the result was nothing. After that, she went through the motions of trying a few more things, but you knew with each passing minute this had been a huge waste of your hard earned money.

You left her store and practically slinked to your car, wanting nothing more than to get home to your favorite robe and a glass of red wine. When you closed the door with a heavy thud, your eyes landed on the gas gauge. Dammit. It was almost on empty. You wouldn’t make it home without stopping for gas. Perfect. There would be one more humiliation before this night was through. Gas stations in this part of town didn’t tend to carry out transactions through the pay at the pump method.

Perhaps your tendency to be invisible would play in your favor this time you thought as you pushed on the metal bar to open the glass door leading into the gas station. Your last shred of hope at maintaining your dignity had been destroyed when you’d pulled up to the pump and found a sign attached to it just as you’d expected. Pay Before You Pump. Now you had to go into this store smelling like a cheap whorehouse.

You made your way to the counter as quickly as you could, hoping to just put down your money, dash back outside again, get your gas, and go. You mumbled $30 on pump 3 and reached for your purse. That’s when you heard it, a voice that was just the right amount of deep and smoother than the honey back at Madame Tremaine’s shop. “Where are your apples?”

The guy behind the counter looked up reluctantly from his handheld video game. “We don’t have any. Sold the last of them this morning.” He turned his attention back to his game, and you turned to see who had spoken. What kind of face went with that voice?

The answer was the kind of face you saw on magazine covers and movie screens. The man with the sexy voice tried with the clerk again. “But I smell…” Then the gorgeous hazel eyes in that handsome face caught yours, and he tilted his head causing his golden brown hair to fall over his forehead. “It’s you.” His eyes narrowed a little.

Then something happened that had never occurred in your life. You were overcome by the smells of mahogany, champagne, and leather. The smell washed through you, entering every cell in your body, causing slick to pool in your panties, and your knees to go weak. You were beginning to sink to the floor.

The kid behind the counter finally put down his video game. “Lady, are you okay?” He was a Beta. He couldn’t smell any of what was happening two feet from him.

The mysterious Alpha caught you. He held you up while he put two twenties down on the counter. “For her gas.” He helped you out to your car, got you seated inside, then filled your tank. He walked back to you when he was done and leaned down to put his hand on your shoulder. The smell was overwhelming now. It was heady, more than if you’d drunk the champagne instead of just smelling it.

The Alpha kneeled in front of you. That magnificent voice had softened when he spoke to you. “I don’t think you should drive. I’m going to call my brother to come get my car, and then I’ll drive you home.”

Your head was feeling too light to argue, and there was a twinge of feeling bordering on pain starting between your legs. You nodded. “Okay.” Just like that. You trusted him, trusted him completely. It felt right what he was doing, taking care of you.

You closed your eyes and leaned your head back against the headrest. His voice sounded farther away, and you caught snippets of his conversation as you attempted to navigate all the emotional and physical feelings of your first heat. “Dean, i need you to come get the car.” Dean must be his brother. You missed the next part and then, “I’ll explain it all later. Just trust me. It’s never been more important.”

He returned to you and used that same soft tone he’d had with you before. “C’mon, let’s get you home. He lifted you like you weighed nothing more than a feather and carried you around to the passenger’s side of the car. He settled you in the seat and walked back around to take his place behind the wheel. Then, he turned to you. “I’m Sam.” His eyes focused on yours again. “And you’re my Omega.”

You gave him directions to your house, and when you got there he carried you inside, across the threshold just like you were a bride. “Where’s your bedroom?” It didn’t seem at all strange to have this man you’d just met in your house, or to be giving him directions to your bedroom. You wanted him there. The idea of him leaving scared you a little bit.

Sam put you down on your bed, and that fear bubbled up in your heart. You reached for him. “Don’t leave.”

He took your hand. “I wasn’t going to leave. Just go outside the room so you can change for bed. Your smell is so strong. All I can smell is you. It’s going to bring on my rut. So, I should probably put some distance between us. But I’m going to stay. Make sure you’re okay.”

You squeezed his hand. “I’m not. I’m not okay. I need you. This is so…” A huge gush of slick ran down your thighs. You cried out. “Sam, please. I don’t know what’s happening.”

A look of concern shadowed his gray green hazel eyes. “Your heats haven’t been like this before?”

You had a nearly vise like grip on his hand now; it was starting to hurt, and you grabbed his forearm with your other hand. “I’ve never had a heat before. This is the first one.”

It took a couple of seconds for Sam to comprehend what you’d just said. Then a fierce, protective gentleness filled his eyes; he didn’t let go of your hand until he was on the bed with you, then he took you in his arms. “I’ve got you, my Omega. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

“It hurts, Sam. Why does it hurt?” This wasn’t what you had imagined it would be like to be an Omega. They’re had been no one in your life to explain it to you, and you were sure the books you’d read must be exaggerating.

Sam stroked your hair, trying to soothe you. “It hurts because you need an Alpha. Your body wants to be knotted. You need an Alpha’s knot.”

You held onto him tightly. “Will that make it stop?”

Sam whispered, “Yeah, that will make it stop.” He kept running his fingers through your hair, and then he growled. His hand stilled; his body was shaking with the effort to control himself.

His growling and shaking surprised you, and you jumped. “Sam, what is it? What’s wrong?”

He doubled his efforts to steady himself and stopped his shaking. “My body needs you too.” His voice was much more gruff than it had been before.

You raised your hand to sink your fingers into his hair, just as his were buried in yours. “Make it stop, Sam. Make it stop for both of us.”

While he was taking off your clothes, it didn’t occur to you once to feel self conscious about your lack of a flat stomach, the fullness of your thighs, or any of the other parts of your body you considered to be an imperfection. He kissed each and every one of them, while telling you how perfect you were. Your Alpha made you feel beautiful.

The touch of his hands was so gentle, even while you could feel the heat radiating off his skin. When his lips first touched yours, it was like when the match meet the candle wick, and the flame sparks to life. Sam kissed you for a long time, causing you to produce more slick, getting you ready for him.

When at last he broke the kiss, you looked into those eyes with the ability to change color; you saw into him, found that deep place where no one but his Omega would ever be allowed to go. “Were we meant to be together, Sam?”

He brushed his knuckles across your cheek. “Yeah, that’s how it works.” His eyes held yours, “I’ve been waiting for you so long.” The smell of leather was stronger now. It signaled the depth of the lust he was feeling, mixed with the more tender emotions.

You put your hand over his where it was still resting against your face. “It’s okay, Sam. I’m ready. Take me. Make me yours.”

Sam put his hands on the inside of your thighs and opened your legs. His eyes never left yours as he entered you slowly. The stretch pushed you to the limits of what you could take, and you knew it was nothing compared to what was to come when he gave you his knot.

He moved inside you with a gentle rhythm that heightened your passion and your need for him. When you started to roll your hips in time with the movements he was making, Sam reached between your bodies and started to rub your clit. He gave you exactly what you needed, and an intense orgasm came crashing through you.

While your body was still in the spasms of its release, Sam’s knot began to swell. “Yes, Alpha, yes. Please.”

Sam took you in his arms and rolled you to your side to face him while his knot continued to swell. He covered your face with soft kisses. “Are you okay?”

You clung to him, still afraid you might somehow lose him even though his body was firmly attached to yours. “Yes. This is what I’ve always wanted. You. I wanted you. I just couldn’t find you.” Tears started to slide down your cheeks. Everything about this night was overwhelming.

Sam wiped away your tears, kissed your temple, and whispered in your ear, “Shh. i’m here. I’ve got you now, my sweet Omega.”

You buried your face in his neck. The smell of the leather was receding now, blending back in with the mahogany and champagne. “Are you sure I’m your Omega, Sam? I mean I know I must not look like the other Omegas you’ve been with.”

He held you closer to him. “Yes, I’m sure.” You felt a fresh wave of his seed pumping into your womb. Sam put his fingers under your chin and tilted your face up to look at him. “You are more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen.”

You smiled, and a different kind of tears filled your eyes. This time they didn’t fall. You felt secure. You felt wanted, and you felt claimed even though he hadn’t yet put his mark on you. He would though. You knew it. Sam would claim you, mark you, and you would be proud for everyone to see it.

Sam brushed his thumb over your chin just below your lip. “What are you thinking, my Omega?”

You nodded just enough to kiss his thumb that was beneath your lips. “I’m thinking you were worth the wait.”

Everything: @gambitwinchester @princessmisery666 @onethirstyunicorn @peridottea91 @logical-princey @emilyshurley @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @fangirlxwritesx67 @waywardbaby @atc74 @ledzeppelinsbonzo @shaniquacynthia @mariekoukie6661 @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @fandom-princess-forevermore @terrarium-jpeg @emoryhemsworth @crashdevlin @heycasbutt @jules-1999 @mrsdeannafuckingwinchester @cosicas-cuquis @sammyimpala-67 @queenoftheunderdark @dean-winchesters-bacon @mrs-meghan-winchester @timelordy-fangirl2 @sweetness47 @hobby27 @awesomesusiebstuff @kickingitwithkirk @sandlee44 @supernaturalgrandma @lonewolf471 @dawnie1988 @volleyballer519 @outcastedangel @kdfrqqg @lizette50 @sorenmarie87 @winchesterxfamilybusiness

Sam/Jared: @girl-next-door-writes @stunudo @feelmyroarrrr @idabbleincrazy @evansrogerskitten @focusonspn @autumninavonlea @spnxbsessed @durinsbride @deansyahtzee @waywardnerd67 @fullmooner

#spnkinkbingo #spnabobingo #alpha!sam #omega!reader #sam fluff #sam smut #alpha!sam x omega!reader #spn abo

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sasorikigai · 3 years

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(( From Yang, for the Satoshi good boy. ))

It had been a while now, since the soldier had come across Satoshi Hasashi. Somehow having formed back into the world of the living despite all odds… And Yang, of course, hadn’t hesitated a second to take the young man under her wing. Promised to train him with what she knew, help to keep him safe, secure. And loved. She always did have a natural maternal instinct at times, having been unable to truly leave any child alone, and this was no different. That urge to be as much of a mother as she could for the poor young man ran deep. Even as she had begun the training classes, to help him harden his body and ease his mind, she had also been there for emotional support. To hold him when he needed it, bring the soul of his determined self back into the present. Yang had always been quite good at that… Even with his Father, so long ago in another place and time.

While they had begun to know each other quite a bit, and the female warrior knew of surface facts… There was so much that she had been unaware of in Satoshi’s life, of his closer family matters, those little details most would pass off as nothing until it was gone. Over the many years it had become a very well known feeling for the woman, looking back on memory that was beyond return. Loosing a family, friends, comrades, loves, best friends. It was a cycle of the earth, and holding it in without looking back could be painful. A well learned fact that could darken a soul and mind.

Thus today, had found the teacher currently gently holding her student within her lap. Arms around Satoshi in a warm motherly embrace. Sitting outside in the sunlight with nothing but the light breeze to rustle through tree leaves above, distant sounds of water flowing from a river, or animals moving about. Quiet and secluded. “Satoshi. Tell me about your family.” Her voice was warm and gentle with it’s cadence, careful not to speak too loudly for fear of disturbing the birds not far away. “Remember the best things about them. How you might be made to laugh, what they may do in their small ticks. Heh, even the little moments of frustration. Family matters.”

Random Inbox Shenanigans || @yetremains || always accepting!

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || His loneliness used to be like a deep shadow spike, a million miles longer than his body; highlighted by his doubts and amplified by the hollow screams and shouts, as Satoshi Hasashi would fight back, but not really making a difference. In the callousness of the world abound, his brain ignites with throbbing pain once again, as persistent rain taps on windows mercilessly. The window is chill with irrefutable sermons of his own mental anguish, the pain radiating deep down in his temples, taking in the living conscious or whatever is left of it. It feels as if multitudes of scorching tendrils are pouring through every thought of his, tumbling, expiration becoming exceedingly difficult as the foundations of sadness piles up meticulously in his organ. Every sharp tool is his devotee, commemorating with him, but how he resiliently clings to the remaining pea-sized sanity of his brain, repeatedly falling deep in slumber, and abruptly awakened by the scorching rush of his fire dwelling within.

Tears were welling up in his eyes now; he knew somehow, that Yang would eventually inquire about his family. And despite the glassy jewels forming in potent surge, his tears would not become drops of liquid appearing of their own accord. They retract back to fuel the fevered warmth of his being, as Satoshi grips his fingers tightly between her own. “I was too young to realize how much my mother sacrificed for both my father and me, but she always accepted us for who we are, without labelling us. She fueled my own sense of well-being, because she always was a soul that is compassionate and who loved without any prejudices or expectations. The Shirai Ryu General’s wife is not the most easiest construct to be, but she was a quiet, yet influential and potent presence amidst the Shirai Ryu. And she helped me to become the catalyst for my own change. I was too weak and fragile back then, in my body, mind, and soul. I think of her, and I find my heart and soul stirred by the truth of her death and sacrifice. She died exuding limitless love and passion which grew and flowed freely.”

Upon the subject of his father, such restrained rush of emotions expel, in his confessional, as if they were ebbing from his essence. Long had he waited, as Satoshi honed his skills, perfecting some Shirai Ryu techniques which even Hanzo Hasashi would find admirable. And yet, still, Satoshi is still have yet to learn of his father’s whereabouts, and he wonders if those candles will flicker, lest he lets them burn completely and be extinguished. “He was the one who taught me to uphold myself with compassion and reverence; to honor my needs and move in ways that indulge the desires of my body and soul. I did not understand it when I was a mere boy of six, but now I have never lost sight of my progress - to cultivate love for myself the way that I do for others, as my father once had, and brave the storms to be like the scorpion.” To live his life on his terms, and that willpower is what makes my destiny my own. Learn to be strong, in my mind and heart.” A forlorn smile etches, as Satoshi ruminates them both as the epitome of loving, yet strong and ferocious individuals. “I also remember my mother’s cooking and my father’s stubbornness. I must have inherited both of them.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||

#✗ life severed in swelling writhe of veins (satoshi)#✗ (ii) the touch of merciless glacier still embedded #(relationships; yang)#yetremains #submission

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dudeandduchess · 4 years

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As promised, bby, Part 2 of Afflictions of the Heart. Though I am a bit iffy about some parts of this, so I might re-write it later on when I get more inspiration. 🤔

Hope you bbys like it tho! 💜✨

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Kyōjurō x F!S/O: Afflictions of the Heart (SFW Scenario, Part 2):

Warnings: Angst, Character Death, Demon S/O, Moral Dilemma, Mentions of Death of an Unborn Child, Mentions of Blood, Mild Violence, So Much Drama

Read part 1 here.

No matter how hard Kyōjurō tried to move on with his life, everything always seemed to pull him back to (Y/n). It could be as simple as seeing someone with the same shade of hair as her, and he would be so out of sorts for a while.

Almost every little thing reminded him of her but, even though he tried to stop it, his own conscious wouldn’t cease its efforts in connecting everything to her.

From the way that the stars shone, down to how a hairpin looked on someone— everything always came back to her. Which stood to reason why he never stopped searching for her.

He always held out hope that she had been turned into a demon, and always kept an eye out for any signs of her wherever he went; because she couldn’t have gotten far, what with only two months having passed by since their supposed wedding.

The thought of the ill-fated date sent a pang of hurt coursing through the Flame Hashira’s chest. It was so intense that he had to make a conscious effort to keep on walking, as stopping in the middle of a busy street would only cause an inconvenience for other people.

Still, he couldn’t resist not lifting a hand up to his chest— placing it right over where his heart was. He had to remind himself that, no matter how much pain he felt, he had to keep going.

So that less people will have to lose their loved ones like he had.

The strong must protect the weak; just as he should have protected (Y/n) and their unborn child with all his might. Should have, but didn’t.

He had been too cocky, too confident, with the wisteria charms that he’d initially put up around her home— that he’d forgotten to switch them out with fresh ones the week before their wedding.

So he only had himself to blame for that— but those feelings of guilt only came at him when he was alone; when there were no reasonable voices around him to keep himself from delving in too deep in his own guilt. They preyed at his subconscious, and they plagued his every thought before the medicine— that Shinobu had made for him— kicked in.

Even he had to admit that he was no longer the same person that he had been before. He still tried to be optimistic, and also made an effort to keep the flame in his heart alive... but everything felt like a lost cause without (Y/n) in his life.

He had lost the only woman he’d ever loved, and he only had himself to blame for it.

So the moment he saw her deep within a mountainous forest, miles away from where she lived, his heart had all but stopped— and his eyes had instantly zeroed in on her figure.

She looked to be the same woman as before, save for the eerie glow in her iridescent, golden eyes— as well as the long mane of fiery red and orange hair. If his eyes weren’t deceiving him, her hair looked to be a play of his own natural hair color.

It flattered him, yet saddened him at the same time— because even as a transformed demon, he still had something about him that was tied to her subconscious.

(Y/n) straightened up from her hunched form to reveal, much to Kyōjurō’s horror, a bloody mouth as well as the body of a dead woman at her feet. His breath had hitched at that, and it took everything in him not to give in to the sobs that threatened to bubble free from his lips.

Because to see her like that... and to know that his own carelessness had been the cause of it; it ate at his conscience deeply.

The rational half of his mind screamed at him to draw his sword— to make things quick and painless for her— but his heart said something completely different. His own personal feelings rendered him immobile; completely unable to draw his weapon on her, even though she had bared her claws at her sides— ready to attack at any given moment.

“(Y/n),” The Flame Hashira called softly, his voice cracking. He wanted to ask her how she’d gotten there, and why she was attacking an innocent woman, but no words came. He didn’t even know where to start.

He could only stare into her iridescent irises, all while trying to keep his tears at bay.

Silence punctuated his call of her name, with nothing but the sound of the air rustling the leaves in the trees emphasizing the eerie standstill that seemed to envelop the world around them.

Still, Kyōjurō tried once more— because maybe if he got to her subconscious, he could talk to her... about what, he wasn’t sure of; since killing a human as a demon was an unforgivable sin. He knew that she had to die, since the gods only knew just how many innocent lives she’d managed to take during the time she was a demon.

The notion of ending (Y/n)’s life by his own hands made him sick to his stomach but, in the end— and with shaky hands— he still found himself drawing his sword on her.

“(Y/n), I’m so sorry,” Kyōjurō whispered, his tone so quiet and thick with unshed tears that it had the aforementioned woman’s eyebrows furrowing together.

Almost all of the instincts inside her body told her to attack while he wasn’t in a proper attacking stance, yet a small part of her— something so small yet so incessant in the back of her mind— told her to let her guard down.

To let him in, and to listen to what he had to say.

“How do you know my name?” The young woman asked softly, all while clenching her fists and fighting everything in her that wanted to harm the blond man.

The Flame Hashira opened his mouth to speak, only to pause when he didn’t know what to say. But when he did find the words, he said, “You were my wife, even though we never officially got married. Please, remember, my love.”

But when only silence answered his words, he tried once more.

“I... we used to go to the shrine near your home and exchange vows in front of the gods.” Kyōjurō’s voice hitched at the last word, as memories of him and (Y/n) pretending to practice for their wedding played in his mind.

And one by one, his tears began to roll down his cheeks in hot rivulets. He couldn’t stop them, not that he even tried to; because his chest felt so tight and painful with all the emotions that he’d been trying to suppress for so long.

He was done pretending to be strong, when all he wanted was to break down and cry; to grieve over the loss of his almost-wife and their unborn child.

Slowly, he dropped the hand that held his sword to his side, before making his way towards the petrified (Y/n).

As if on instinct, the young woman took a step away from the Hashira, and then drew an arm up to her stomach; as if to protect it from him.

The sight of her cowering from him made his heart break even more and, despite himself, made him sheathe his nichirin blade.

“Please don’t hurt me. I was just trying to feed my baby.” Her words felt like a sucker punch to his chest, and it had him roughly biting down on his bottom lip to keep himself from outright sobbing. “Please, she’s the only thing I have left of my human life.”

Regretfully, the Hashira shook his head as more and more tears rolled down his face. There was his formerly enigmatic and bright (Y/n), clutching her stomach and believing that she was still carrying their child— out of her remaining maternal instincts, or as a way of coping, he didn’t know.

All that he was sure of was that it hurt him to see her look so desperate and afraid— of him, no less.

Still, he forced his feet to keep advancing— until he was no more than two feet away from her. Then, with his right hand, he lifted it up and gently touched her face with his fingertips.

Her fangs began to elongate at the action, and a low growl rumbled in her chest, yet he made no move to stop. She could attack him and he would willingly welcome it; because it was his fault that things had turned out the way they did.

To her merit, (Y/n) kept a tight leash on her own defensive urges. She knew that she could easily off the man in front of her, but she held herself back— all because of that small voice inside the back of her head; one that kept telling her to trust him.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/n), for letting this happen to you... for letting our happy ending be taken away,” Kyōjurō uttered softly through his tears, while his hand moved to cup his lover’s face— before wiping the first of her tears away with the pad of his thumb.

She couldn’t put a name to his face, yet every part of her sensed the familiarity in their actions. Her hands had even moved on their own accord, and had reached up to encircle his wrist with the left one— while the right one moved to trace the soft skin of his left cheek with the tips of her right hand’s fingers.

All of it felt like she had done the actions so many times, that she couldn’t help but cry even more.

It, honestly, felt like coming home after such a long time. He felt like home to her.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/n). I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Kyō.” (Y/n)’s own response shocked even herself, as she hadn’t expected his name to go rolling off her tongue so smoothly. And, judging by the way that the blond’s eyes widened, he was surprised as well.

She still couldn’t remember her family— nor any other parts of her human life— but all that rang clear in her mind were her memories with the man in front of her. Hell, if it wasn’t for the paper that she had found tucked into the sash of her yukata, she never would have known that her name was Rengoku (Y/n).

Before she could help it, she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck— hugging him tightly while biting down on her tongue to keep herself from attacking him. Everything inside her screamed at her to hurt him— to devour him— but she ignored those devilish urges in favor of burying her face against his chest.

Because, with the memories of him, came the realization that the child inside her— the one that her remaining maternal instincts tried to protect— had long been gone.

Loud, pained sobs escaped her lips at that— which had Kyōjurō wrapping his own arms tightly around her, all while patting her hair down as gently as he could.

“T-the baby!” (Y/n) wailed against her lover’s chest. “Our baby. I couldn’t protect it, Kyō. I couldn’t-”

She couldn’t even continue, what with how her crying had escalated to loud, wracking sobs that made her whole body tremble. And no matter how she tried to get words out of her mouth, they were all pushed back down by more sobs and hysterical wails from the young woman herself.

Each and every one of her cries was a stab at the Flame Hashira’s heart, yet he could do nothing but hug her closer and provide her the comfort that she desperately needed.

It was the least he could do; because empty words and even emptier promises were not his way of providing comfort. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell her that things will be alright, because he knew just how badly her own realizations were beginning to weigh down on her conscience.

“All of the people I’ve... oh gods,” (Y/n) muttered through much quieter sniffles, after the gods knew how much time had passed. But still, all Kyōjurō could do was hold her tighter and cry with her— because, for the second time in his life, he was at a loss for what to do.

His heart and mind waged war with each other, as he thought of how to solve their predicament. Part of him wanted to keep her safe somewhere where no other slayers can touch her, while the more rational part of him told him to do the right thing.

And the right thing was to kill her.

The mere thought of raising his blade to her— not in self defense, but to slay her— made his stomach churn. He couldn’t bring himself to even want to do it; because, for all it was worth, she was still the woman he loved.

However, she took the decision right out of his hands when she pulled away from him and cupped his face in her hands. Their gazes stayed on each other’s, which had Kyōjurō’s heart pounding erratically inside his chest.

Since the mix of defeat and determination on his lover’s expression only meant that she had made up her mind— and no amount of pleading from him would change it.

“I want to make things right, Kyō.”

He didn’t need to ask her what she’d meant by that, because she knew— as well as anyone else— that the price of taking a life, was also a life; even if she had been doing it out of some twisted perception that it was for her unborn child.

It still hurt her to think that she had succumbed that low; but she didn’t dwell on it too much— because she wanted to spend the last few moments of her life with the one man who’d given meaning to it all.

And so, both of them made the trek up to the highest point of the mountain— never letting go of each other’s hand— to greet the sunrise in all its glory.

Kyōjurō stood there on the peak, with (Y/n) clinging tightly to him; as if she was giving him a lifetime’s worth of hugs, while she buried her face against her lover’s chest.

Slowly, the first few rays of the sun illuminated the horizon; steadily painting the inky sky with bright yellows and oranges that matched the colors in her hair.

“Thank you, Kyō, for making this life of mine worth living.”

The Hashira nodded, as he swallowed past the thick lump in his throat and pressed a kiss to the top of her head— if only to hide the fact that he was crying once more.

“I’ll look for you in our next life... and then we’ll have our happy ending there; us and our baby.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, (Y/n).”

#kyoujurou rengoku x reader #rengoku kyoujurou x reader #kyojuro x reader #rengoku kyojuro x reader #kyojuro rengoku x reader #rengoku kyojuro #rengoku kyoujurou #demon slayer rengoku #rengoku imagines #kimetsu no yaiba rengoku #kyojuro rengoku #kny x reader #demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kny rengoku #jen writes

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aerlths · 4 years

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fourth rank. tseng

request: would like to request a tseng imagine where he finds out his S/o is pregnant probably back to the accounts of what they did in the office/home in your last fic and Elena being jealous of S/o tries to upset her as much as possible but tseng making sure what belongs to him but he happy to have a child with his s/o. Also can we get supportive uncles rufus, rude & Reno please.

previous imagine referenced (you don’t need to read that one, they’re independent works)

[reminder that requests are open for headcanons, imagines or fake text messages, all characters and pairings.]

word count: 3704

You hid the pearl white object between your palms, staring straight ahead at the dark cherry wood of the cubicle’s door. Shinra’s bathroom wasn’t quite the place where you’d idealized such a moment, but as you’d moved in with Tseng a month back, it was the only viable option. Your knee began moving on its own accord, up and down in a rhythm that resembled your rapid heartbeat.

The passing of those unbearably slow couple of minutes was announced with a light beep – a new model designed for discreetness while reassuring it had done its job. You took a second longer, just one, and turned the test in your hand to see ‘8 weeks pregnant’ written in bold letters.

“Fuck,” it left your parted lips before the magnitude of this new reality had even begun settling in.

You instinctively reached for your stomach, fingertips circling in a soft caress, as if to reassure this new life that you knew they were there, that mom was here. Fuck, mom. You were going to be a mom. And Tseng would be a dad - the two of you would be building a family? The thought of your fiancé coddling a small bundle immediately brought you to tears, and you had to bury your face in your hands to muffle the sounds of joy that escaped your throat.

Leaving that small stall you’d been sitting on for most of your lunch break proved to be a much more difficult task than it had been coming in. Your reflection clearly denounced that something had happened, and you could only pray that no one was to come in while you blew your nose and fixed your makeup.

When you finally walked out, you were met with a long-haired man leaning against the wall by the bathroom. You practically jumped at the sight of him, like a cat caught nipping at the fish. By the preoccupied look he threw you, it didn’t slip by unnoticed.

“Are you alright, love?” He asked in a cautiously low tone, and you couldn’t help the way your heart dropped in his presence. The little object buried within your suit jacket surely explained the overwhelming adoration you’d been feeling for him lately – you could tell daddy would be the favorite.

You considered him, leaving his comfort zone to approach you at work, and offered him a smile. “I am, shouldn’t I be?”

“You were in there for a while,” he gestured towards the ladies’ room behind you, “I was worried something might have happened.”

God, it would take immense willpower not to immediately blurt everything at him. You made an attempt at striking up a pose. “I was doing my makeup! You know I like to look good when we do field work.”

Tseng scrunched his nose and eyed you, searching. You felt yourself heat under his gaze, never quite getting used to the intensity of those eyes. “I don’t believe you. We’ll talk later.”

He’d caught you but didn’t seem the slightest upset. Instead, you were blessed with a brief kiss to your temple, the sweetness of it melting at your core. He guided you through the small of your back along the corridor, only inching away from you when you arrived at the office’s entrance.

The thought that graced your mind when he left for his desk in the adjacent room made you flush from head to toe, and you had to quickly turn away from him to avoid any questions. Eight weeks, the test had said. Six weeks dated back to a particular night in this very office, or perhaps its follow-up only a mere hours later. Six weeks in which he subtly eased your presence into his work life, where he slowly released his stoic façade to meet you in a healthier in-between.

You hadn’t had much time to think of just how you would reveal the news to him, but you instantly knew that you wanted to make him feel. For a brief moment the idea of requesting his friend’s help to surprise him crossed your mind, but you scratched that – you want him to be the first one to tell, and, figures, walls have ears and Elena does too. The last thing you wanted was her finding out this early, and your raging hormones would most likely have you clawing at her face or blowing up that annoying little smirk.

Breathing deeply to avoid feeding the thought, you searched for your two companions for the day’s mission – Reno and Rude. Tseng was to stay behind signing off some paperwork, and you would be exceptionally supervised by none other than the vice-president himself, Rufus Shinra.

No one knew exactly why he was involving himself in this case. Despite its importance, it was an extremely rare occasion to have him take even a smidge of interest in your activities. Some had speculated that he was planning to raise the position of one more Turk, but you doubted it – most likely, he had a personal connection to the group of men you were investigating.

And so, as cheerful as you had never been in the years you’ve served the company, the four of you arrived at the scene. Reno was tapping his nightstick against his shoulder, as if doing so enlightened him in some way, and you could see Rufus side-eyeing him, not maliciously, but with curiosity. He was about to go further ahead when you halted him with a raise of your arm.

“Wait,” you warned, and touched the yellow materia tucked within your wristband. When you felt no response from the sense command, you lowered down your arm. “Now it’s clear.”

Rude chuckled behind you, and you heard a chirp bark of something along the lines of ‘that’s tsengs girl’ from the fiery redhead already marching ahead. You proceeded with caution through the dark tunnel, fully aware that there was something very important that needed protection. Your fight style, though, was almost exclusively based on your powerful materia usage, as you had a particular endurance and skill for handling magic attacks than most. This meant that you could engage in a battle from a safe distance, and that you could just as easily cast a barrier upon yourself.

He probably won’t allow me to do missions like this once he finds out, though, were the words that found themselves into your head. Nevermind that, you continued on the second highest ranking turk’s heel, fingertips lingering around the green orb at your hip, just in case.

“Fuck!” You heard, and that was the catalyst to lead you all into a chase.

Reno, having mastered his impressive speed materia, was already way ahead, and in what turned out to be a very unsatisfying short-lived action moment, caught up to the runaway. He hit him right across the chest, harshly, and in the blink of an eye Rude had him secured, arms behind his back.

You remained in place, wary of the easiness with which you’d found this man. You’d been looking for an old Turk, a runway that had resurfaced with the threat of spilling all the dirty little secrets he’d learned while on the job, and the three of you – three of the very best – had been sent to take him down. Would someone who was fully aware of the risks and yet still provoked Shinra be this weak?

Just as you’d suspected, there was only the warning of rustling behind one of the pillars before something was shot in your direction. Without a thought, you cast Barrier on the Vice-president, knowing you should first and foremost protect him. Before you could shield yourself, however, a man came flying towards you, delivering a blow right in the middle of your chest. One of your hands came to instinctively meet your stomach as you fell to the ground, while the other reached for the metal staff that was shrunk in your pocket. As you pulled the object out, it extended to its full, massive length, and shone a silver-ish light around your body.

Beside you, Rufus was surrounded by the same protection, his pistol in hand prepared to shoot at the figure hiding once again. He looked over to you, blue eyes lingering a moment too long on your middle area, and back ahead. Reno and Rude rushed over two your side, and they too exchanged a suspicious glance, but said nothing. You weren’t certain if it was the hormones or the maternal instincts kicking in, but by the intensity of your glare and the iron grip on your staff, anyone could tell you had entered murder-mode.

“I know it’s been a while since you’ve been a part of the team buddy, but you really shouldn’t underestimate us fresh faces like that.” Reno taunted, clicking his tongue in disapproval. He too seemed more than a little pissed at the dirty trick.

“I don’t feel like playing.” You looked between the men around you and exhaled loudly, raising your weapon in the direction of their target. “We’re not giving you time to prepare, you stupid fuck.”

Rude winced behind you, but quickly changed his expression into one of awe as you wordlessly blew up the pillar where he hid with a powerful Fire spell, blasting him back in the process. You stepped back, knowing full well you should leave them to the rest if you wanted to keep up to barriers. They, of course, wasted no time in engaging him in battle, ultimately resulting in knocking him out.

As they fought, Rufus inched closer to you, his voice low. “The fourth spot is yours.”

You blinked, confused. “Pardon, Mr. Vice-President?”

He gave you the smallest of smiles, the silver shimmer still strong around his form. “At first, I was simply curious to see to exactly whose wedding I had gotten invited to, but I now see that there must be a change in rank. I can comprehend why Tseng would place a ring on you.”

The harsh sound of Rude’s fist against the target’s cheek had been unsettling enough that you were momentarily distracted, but Rufus continued, unphased. “I’m moving you up. You have very impressive control, especially considering your…situation.”

His gesture towards your stomach had your face going very pale, eyes wide. “H-How did you…?”

But you looked down, and realized your palm was still placed protectively against the area. Ah. “Thank you, Mr. Vice President. But please don’t mention the baby to Tseng, I have just found out myself.”

A very loud echo of “Baby?!” had you jumping in surprise, the seemingly finished duo turning towards you with cat-like grins. Well, there goes telling your fiancé first.

“Dude, Tseng’s gonna be a dad? What the fuck.” Reno practically yelled, twisting the arm of the detained man in his excitement. “Does this mean I’m like, an uncle?”

The usually calm and extremely quiet Rude nearly mirrored his colleague’s excitement, and it warmed your heart to see him as such. His expression changed significantly into one of worry as he seemed to have reached a realization – you braced yourself. “(Y/N), you do realize Tseng will murder us once he realizes we let you get hit, right?”

Reno widened his eyes and let out another loose ‘fuck’. You shook your head at them, smiling. “I can take care of myself, and I’m only eight weeks in. That trash bag hit me in the chest, I’m fine.”

They didn’t relax at all, but you didn’t blame them. Even you were preoccupied with the possibility of him being upset.

Upset?

Holy shit, Elena was about to burn the entire Shinra’s Headquarters down. She’d been the previous fourth place, praised for her martial arts skills, and now not only had she dropped down from the golden quartet in lieu of you, but she would also have to swallow down the very big ‘you’ll have her crush’s child’ lump. She was going to lose her mind, you were completely certain – and, well, she did.

In the trip back the two men chose to ignore the death countdown above their heads to go back to the excitement of the news. Even Rufus himself seemed thoroughly amused, and you felt a bit like a celebrity with the amount of attention you were receiving from them. The commotion didn’t go unnoticed when you arrived back at the office, mission successful, and you had to practically implore the two Turks to act normal and go back to their jobs. They had, however, helped you come up with a sweet idea, and were currently ensuring that no one would disturb you as you went over to his office.

Seriously, if you didn’t tell him right then, it was bound to reach his ears before the end of the day. Reno didn’t quite understand the meaning of secrecy, and had rambled so loudly in the truck you took that you wouldn’t be surprised if all the lower ranking SOLDIERs – snow-balled information from the drivers in your trip – already knew. So there you were, a small package in your hands, and the softest smile you’d ever given him.

You closed the door behind you as you entered, granting you an immediate raise of his brows. “I gather it went well?”

“It did! The Vice President even gave me Elena’s place.” You mused, slowly walking up to him.

“He did?” He asked, and the pointed look you shot him had him backtracking. “Not that I don’t think you deserve it! He just doesn’t seem the type to make sudden changes like that.”

You leaned against his desk next to where he sat, trying desperately to hide the excitement. You faked a pout. “I’ll have you know he was impressed by my quick response and magic use!”

“I know love, you’re the most talented I know.” He assured you, and you felt your cheeks warming at his words. He closed the laptop he’d been typing on to fully turn to you, giving you his undivided attention. There was something in that little gesture, something that was still novelty in your relationship, that had you melting inside. “You came here for something, right? Is everything okay?”

Smiling again, albeit a bit shyly this time around, you placed the nicely wrapped package in front of him. “It’s a gift for you. I think you’ll need it.”

He looked at you with that warm, loving gaze he reserved for your most intimate moments. It had you dying to jump him and hold him tightly, but you didn’t want to ruin the surprise. He palmed the packaging, instantly being able to tell what it was, and smiled. “I always need book; you know me well.”

“This one is special though.” You commented, almost as if absentmindedly, and waited for him to tear apart the dark blue wrapping paper.

The cover for the parenting book “Cribsheet” was staring right at him. You didn’t fully comprehend what it was from the way his expression transitioned from confused to understand to blatant happiness that turned on the faucet and had the water works begin. Wordlessly, and with every inch of him practically yelling adoration, he pulled you into his lap and sank his head in your chest.

You arms wrapped around him, holding him close. “We’re going to be parents.”

He nodded against you, still refusing to look up. He whispered against your body. “I love you so, so much (Y/N).”

Your heart was filled to the brim with a type of joy, a blissful feeling you couldn’t explain or pinpoint. Only then you realized, you hadn’t once considered the chance that he might not want this child. You knew the man you loved, and you knew he didn’t do anything on accident – if he was occasionally ignoring contraceptives, you knew that it meant that he was ready. And you were ready too, to love and protect whatever precious thing that you’d give birth to.

After a little while, he pulled away to take in your image, the goofy grin on both your faces priceless. “How long?”

“Two months.” You said, to which his smile only grew. “There’s actually a chance that they were conceived right here, you know?”

Tseng visibly gulped and scratched the back of his head, pretending it had nothing to do with him. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your mouth.

***

The following day, it soon became evident that the entire floor was aware of your situation. On the pleasant side, it did feel good to have people gushing over you, praising you, and overall just being extra nice. You knew you wouldn’t tolerate it if you were to spend the next seven months being coddled as if you were made of glass, and you’d made it very clear to Tseng the previous night that you’d continue working for as long as it was safe for the child. However, this initial warmth from your coworkers was doing wonders to your ego and already excellent mood. That was, until Elena came into play.

You’d pondered before that if she were to bother you while you had something this important, precious baby growing inside of you, she’d finally get to see you at your worst. For two years – the time you’d officially dated Tseng, you tolerated her and her big mouth under nothing but respect for her as a coworker. She, on the other hand, had gotten bolder and bolder instead of realizing that he was playing catch with no one, as Tseng was completely off limits. You had yet to give her the taste of your metal that you’d been wanting to solely because of your man, who had to protect the order within the Turks.

Right now, with that lopsided smirked and the malicious twist of her hair, you were about to say a big fuck you to all of that.

It started in the early morning, when you were in the line to get coffee, when you heard a snicker and the words, “That’s why she’s been looking so fat,” out of Elena’s mouth. The baby inside of you not only was obsessed with daddy, but also apparently with blood, because you very nearly spilt the hot liquid in her flat chest.

Breathe, remember? You told yourself to find that perfect picturesque place inside your head, travel far down there, and leave the blond alone or she would, and emphasis on the complete certainty, get some serious bruises on herself.

The baby, think about the baby.

And so you ignored her. And you ignored her when she complained about her rank swap, when she commented on your appearance at least three other times, when she wondered aloud whether Tseng was cheating on you or not, and soon the “think about the baby, calm down” turned into “think about the baby, they want you to destroy her”.

At about the seventh time you heard another off-hand comment from her, you understood why she was acting so bold. Somewhere on that dysfunctional brain of hers, she concluded that you would sit quietly and take it because you had a child to protect. She’d apparently forgotten that you could most likely beat her up with an eight month’s belly, much easier with only two months.

Reno and Rude had been off on a mission of their own, nowhere near to hold you off, and Tseng was working from within his personal office. There was no one around with competence to pull you off from her if you did decide to give in to bloodthirst. Good.

It was at the eight comment, that was met by even her friends with disgust, that you flew from your chair to stand in front of her.

“What the fuck did you say?” You snarled, dared her to repeat. You’d heard her pretty clearly, much more than you ever wanted to hear.

Your profession wasn’t particularly dignified, and you all did a lot of bad things – but fuck if you aren’t going to bash her head in for the words that escaped her mouth.

She stared at you, clearly taken aback. “It’s a joke…calm down.”

“Say it,” you taunted, reaching for a blue orb that dangled in the belt by your waist, fully ready to go all out, “repeat how you just “joked” about me losing this child. Say it.”

Elena gulped visibly, and you were right to assume that she was under the impression you magically became a defenseless centerpiece. “Lighten up, I was obviously jo-“

She didn’t finish, because you’d already taken your staff out, fully intending to rip her a new one. Before you could even Poison her, though, a firm hand came to rest on your shoulder. You knew without turning around who it belonged to.

You attempted to explain. “Tseng, she just--“

“I know, I heard you.” His tone was cold, borderline terrifying, but you knew you weren’t the target of his rage. If there was a hole in the ground, Elena would’ve hopped in without looking back.

“Tseng, I can expla--” She tried.

“You’re suspended.” He stated firmly, a gloved hand pointing accusingly at her. “I’m taking up this matter with Vice President himself. I’ve had it up to here with your antics. Your big mouth has caused us enough troubles as it is, but you can’t even keep it to yourself in your workplace. Workplace harmony is also extremely important for a job like ours where we only have each other to rely on, and the only conflicts we’ve had in ages we’re solely provoked by you. You’re suspended.”

You were left staring in a mixture of shock and absolute delight at your future husband, relieved beyond measure that he’d finally put her in her place. You were, however, disappointed that you didn’t get your chance to finally get revenge.

Later on, when the two of you lay in bed, his hand lazily tracing soothing circles against your back and chin tucked atop your head, he reinforced just how amazing you were, and that no Elena would change the fact that you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. (Ah, and perhaps you discovered that this man had an…inclining to seeing you fight. Figures.)

#ffvii #final fantasy 7 #tseng imagines #tseng fanfiction #ffvii tseng #ff7 tseng #wowwwww i wrote a lot for this one #i loved writing this #the parts after the *** were added because of the request #since the request specifically asked for that #though it didnt go much w the flow

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

Swallow The Moon

(Read Katherine as Jodie!Katherine)

Remember back to when Aimie, Millie, and Maiya left SIX and everyone was writing fics about them disappearing and then being reincarnated again in their new bodies? Well, this is like an AU where instead of Sophie!Kat coming back after Aimie!Kat disappears, it’s Jodie!Kat. And yes, this is still West End, so everyone else is the same, aside from Courtney!Anne and whatever the new Cathy’s name is! Although they never make an appearance in this. But yeah!

Word count: 4329

——————

Past Katherine would never ever in a billion years turn up on her “rival’s” doorstep with a platter of brownies. Past Katherine would have downright refused to go, and if she was forced to, she would have made sure the brownies were made with an entire carton of salt and spoiled milk and expired eggs. Past Katherine would have dressed the front door with glitter that would never wash out, just to attract even more unwanted attention to the one who always tried to steal her mother away.

But Present Katherine didn’t want to do any of those things. In fact, she was a little repulsed that she ever thought about trying to give a lonely girl food poisoning.

It’s strange, she thinks, that all it took to change her morals was temporary death. Ever since her second reincarnation, she felt different. She looks different, too, now in the body of an adult (and very muscular, mind you) version of herself. She swore she was even older than Jane; it appeared to be the body she never got to live in. And, with it came a really, REALLY matured brain. She realized she didn’t even need Jane anymore, she attended therapy on her own, she wasn’t that afraid of men anymore because she knew her rock-like fists could knock their teeth in if they tried anything (don’t quote her on that—she was just hoping they were as strong as they looked). And she no longer thought about wanting to tear down the musical’s music director just for kicks and giggles. Guilt was left in the absence of the devilish mischief.

And so, that’s why she was on the doorstep of her ex-rival (God did she really consider this girl her rival? How terrible was she?). In a rainstorm. Holding a platter of brownies. She told the universe that the storm really didn’t help, but, honestly, it was kind of what she deserved.

Katherine perked up when she heard the lock click. The door soon opened, Joan took one look at her, then slammed it shut in her face.

Well. She kinda deserved that, too.

“Joan!” Katherine called desperately.

“Go away!” Joan shouted.

“Please, I just want to talk!”

The door flew open midknock and Katherine nearly rapped on Joan’s nose.

Before her stood an irritated, although quite small music director. Has Joan always been that short? And scrawny? Or was it just because Katherine was just now so much more muscular and tall and-

Joan growled, as if she could hear Katherine’s ego inflating and nitpicking her own body.

“I wanna talk.” Katherine said again. “Please?”

Joan looked her up and down.

“You can frisk me if you’d like.”

Joan wrinkled her nose and made a disgusted face. She shook her head, muttered something about something else being ‘just great’, then turned around and stomped into the apartment. Katherine followed.

As much as she hated to admit it, Katherine was startled at how beautiful the flat was. The past version of her always assumed the music director’s home would be completely covered in pictures of Jane, but she didn’t see a hint of the silver queen anywhere. Instead, there were wooden carvings and colorful pottery, thriving potted plants and original paintings, polished deer antlers and clever little sculptures. The only light on in the place was an ocean driftwood scented candle and a lamp on the round table next to the couch. It was cozy in there, although a little lonely. Katherine wondered if all the carvings and statues were supposed to be poor replacements for real people.

“Well?” Joan crossed her arms and glared at Katherine. Her glare was never really all that threatening, but now that she was in a new body, Katherine found that it was completely ineffective. “Have you come to gloat about how much prettier you are than me? How much more people will like you now? How much Jane loves you even more?”

Startled, Katherine quickly said, “No. Not at all.”

Joan looked her up and down again, and Katherine took the chance to observe her, too.

Have you ever wondered what would come out if you were to throw every color of paint into a wood chipper? Well, Joan was that outcome. Her pale skin was covered in some kind of dust and there’s splinters and wood chips caught in her hair and in between her fingers and embedded under her fingernails. Red and yellow and orange paint was splattered across her face and torso, as if someone had melted the sunset in a cauldron and flung it all over her. Her eyes are like the moon over a frozen ocean- murky and scuffed, but still glittering in the light.

“I told you, I just want to talk.” Katherine said gently. “I made brownies.” She squinted at Joan and noticed a flush of dark pink beneath all the dirt and paint on her face. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine.” Joan grit, although she looked supremely uncomfortable with Katherine being in her house with her. “Put your brownies on the counter. But don’t expect me to eat them. Who knows what you put in them...”

Katherine wondered for a moment if she knew about her past self’s food poisoning plot. She winced and quickly set the tray down before going into the living room where Joan was. There was a half-finished painting of what seemed to be a flurry of moths sitting on the easel.

“It’s good.” She commented.

Joan looked over her shoulder at her, then immediately glanced away. She said something to herself again and retrieved a second easel, two blank canvases, and some more paintbrushes from a room next to the guest bathroom. She set the easel up and gave the canvas to Katherine.

“I like when my guests paint things,” She said gruffly, swapping her half-finished canvas out with the new one. “It’s like a game, I guess. You come over for the first time, you paint something.” She shrugged and swiped a blob of pink paint with a thin brush, making sure her easel was angled so that Katherine couldn’t see what she was making.

“That’s really cool!” Katherine said. “How many people have made stuff?”

Joan was silent for a moment.

“You’ll be the first.”

Katherine frowned. “Oh...”

They painted in silence for a long time. Katherine wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it gave her time to rehearse everything she wanted to say to Joan. And, good lord, there was so much. She hoped the girl would let her get it all out before she was told to leave.

“Joan—”

Joan suddenly came sidling around her easel to see what Katherine had been painting. She took one look at the (badly painted) cats cuddling, snorted, then grabbed her own canvas and threw it at Katherine’s feet.

“This,” She pointed at it. “This is why I will NEVER be liked like you are.”

Katherine grimaced as she looked at the painting of a pale blue and moon silver screaming dragon getting its jaw horribly broken by a rusty jaw trap. Despite how gratuitous and gory it was, she had to admit that it was quite amazing. Joan really was a skilled artist.

Katherine carefully picked up the painting and set it on its easel to dry as Joan stormed into her kitchen. She didn’t go after the girl, knowing how unsettled and uneasy she was at the moment, and didn’t want to make that worse. So, she waited in front of her dripping cats—she knew she shouldn’t have painted them to be silver and pink. Even though she didn’t really view Jane as a mother anymore, it seemed that some parts of her still held onto that bond they shared.

She heard a noise from the kitchen—a cough and then what sounded like a sniffle. Some kind of instinct flared to life within her—something maternal, she realized. She had Motherly Senses?! Oh, that was SO COOL! She always wanted to be the caretaker for once...or maybe she didn’t and she just wanted to now. Either way, she didn’t care! She’s always wondered what it was like to have Mum Instincts—

There was another cough from the kitchen, this one much more watery and weak. The instincts flare again—THAT’S what it felt like. Worried and concerned and making her feel like she had to hold whatever was in distress.

“Joan?” She called out. “Is everything okay in there, hun?”

Did she just use a pet name on someone? Ohhh, she LOVED THIS BODY!!

“Yes,” Joan replied hoarsely. She came bustling out a moment later holding two cups of a steaming liquid. She set one on the dining table and then scurried to sit on the opposite side. Katherine quickly joins her at the table.

“I wanted to apologize.” Katherine said after a tense moment of silence between her and the girl. “For how I treated you before.”

Joan looked down at her cup with an unreadable expression- Anger? Guilt? Relief? Pain?

“It was awful of me to do to you, Joan.” Katherine went on. “I was immature and stupid and mean. I never should have treated you like that.”

“You called me a ‘weird little diamond’.” Joan pointed out grimly.

“Oh. Right. That.”

“And Moon Eyes.” Joan added. She ducked her head, as if she were trying to hide her eyes from sight. “That’s not really easy to forgive when it’s said enough...”

Katherine grimaced. She remembered when she had made up that nickname: It was a bad day, but for a stupid reason. She got mad when Joan gave Jane yet another painting and loudly referred to her with that title instead of her regular name. She apparently thought Joan’s eyes were too grey and too creepy and too much like a twin pair of stolen moons to be real. Or human.

“Oh god,” Katherine muttered. “That was- Oh, Joan, that was so terrible of me to do to you. It must have been awful...”

“It STILL IS awful.” Joan growled. “Can you even imagine being bullied for your eye color? You made me want to gouge my own eyes out!” She slammed her fists on the table and suddenly looked like she wanted to lunge across it and strangle Katherine.

Katherine gasped softly at that revelation. She gripped tightly at her heart with one hand, while the other remained flat on the table. Guilt was eating away at her like thousands of starving ants.

“I’m so sorry.” She said. “Really, I am.”

“So it really took dying again and switching bodies to realize what you did was wrong?” Joan asked. She wasn’t being accusatory, rather just curious.

“Unfortunately.” Katherine sighed. “I don’t know why I did it. Jealousy, maybe?”

Joan’s head snapped up. “Jealousy?” She echoed. “What do YOU have to be jealous about? You have EVERYTHING!”

Katherine nodded grimly. “I know.” She said, and she swore she heard the remnants of her past self screaming in her ears, telling her not to say that and not to give in to this little gnat. “I have a family and fame and friends and money and—”

“And Jane.” Joan murmured.

Katherine looked at her sadly. “And Jane.” She echoed. “That’s right.”

Silence settled between the two of them. Joan had her eyes closed and she was breathing deeply through her nose, like she was trying to keep herself calm from an oncoming panic attack. The flush beneath all the dirt suddenly looked a lot darker.

“I,” Katherine started, and she saw Joan open one moon eye to look at her.. “I just had to apologize. I want things to change. I want to make things okay.”

Joan nodded softly. She reached up a hand to scrub her eyes, and Katherine realized with a wrench of guilt that she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

“It’s just— I was so lonely.” She whispered. “You took Jane away from me. And I knew—still know—that you needed her more than me, you have PTSD, you have a tragic backstory, you have to relive your trauma every night, but—” She put her head in her hands and shook it. “It didn’t change anything. I needed her, too. A-and I know she loved me—would love me—still loves me—if I just got a chance with her.”

Katherine frowned.

Jane never loved this moonborn creep and you know it. Her past self whispered. Her voice is higher pitched and younger like it used to be. Hearing it set her on edge. It was like the shell of the body she used to be in was right behind her, murmuring in her ears.

Shut up. She growled.

You know it’s true. Past Katherine merely said again. We’ve both heard Jane mutter about how much of a nuisance Moon Eyes is. You KNOW she’s never liked her.

Katherine desperately wants that to be false, but she knows it’s true. She remembered how Jane would call Joan an “annoying little weasel” under her breath and how she would toss all the gifts she got into her closet to rot, and god forbid Katherine would LAUGH when she did so. She laughed like the horrible, horrible person she was.

We’re not horrible. Past Katherine said indignantly, and Katherine could already picture the way she used to ruffle herself up when being stubborn and brat. We’re right. And I’m NOT a brat by the way. And even if I was, which I’m not, that would make you one, too. So HAHA!!

I’m not you. Katherine said. Not anymore.

She ignored whatever her past self responded with and focused her eyes on Joan. The girl was looking down at her cup with a pitiful expression. When Katherine didn’t answer her, she must have thought she had gotten bored of her already.

“I’m sorry,” Was all Katherine could think to say at the moment. Joan looked up at her with her great big eyes and she swore she felt her past self shudder somewhere within her mind.

“Doesn’t matter now.” Joan muttered, gripping her cup tightly. She had to scrunch her eyes shut and take a few more breaths through her nose before she could speak up again. “I-I mean— You’re older. Jane—she doesn’t need to care for you anymore. She- maybe I can be-”

For a moment, she looks hopeful, but then the sadness takes over again. It replaces all her anger, too, until it was the only emotion she seemed to have.

Poor girl, Katherine thought.

Don’t pity her. Past Katherine said.

Stay out of my head.

OUR head. Past Katherine stated. I am you, no matter how hard you try to think otherwise.

“Joan—”

“I wanted to hurt you, you know.”

Katherine tensed at those words. She looked at Joan, who seemed as ashamed and as guilty as she was.

“I just wanted to—hurt you.” She said again, her voice tight with pain and resentment. “I wanted you to know what it was like to be left alone and picked last and be unwanted by everyone you’ve ever known. I wanted you to Know what it felt like to have everything taken from you. I wanted for me to have everything for you to have nothing.” She looked up at Katherine and her eyes were like a dark lunar eclipse reflecting on fractured ice. “I wanted you to feel in your soul what you’ve done to me.”

But we HAVE! Past Katherine cried. We’ve endured more than this moon-eyed freak ever has in both of her lives combined! We know what it’s like to suffer. She doesn’t.

Suffering comes in many ways. Katherine growled, impatient with her past self.

Yeah, but I think being raped and abused by four adult men several times takes the cake. Past Katherine said bitterly, and she seemed to be rolling her eyes wherever she was in Katherine’s head.

“I’m sorry you felt that way.” Katherine said softly after a moment.

Joan whimpered pitifully. “And you say you’re awful.” She propped her elbows on the table and clutched her head. “If you heard the thoughts I have about you, you’d be running for the hills.”

It’s my fault. Katherine thought sadly. I did this to her. I broke this poor, innocent girl.

No, Past Katherine said. We didn’t do anything. We aren’t some monster, SHE is. You heard what she said. And, besides, we can’t be a bad person. We went through hell, we’re allowed to be—

You think that’s an excuse? Katherine scoffed. Just because we were abused and taken advantage of, doesn’t mean we can’t be a bitch. Victims of trauma can still be assholes, idiot. And, news flash, we were one.

Past Katherine merely huffed and probably rolled her eyes again.

Doesn’t matter now. The damage is done. She’s broken, as you said. She can’t be fixed. She said. Look at her, she’s already falling to pieces.

What?

Katherine looked up sharply to see Joan bracing both hands on the table and swaying slightly. The flush on her cheeks was now much darker than the dust and paint.

All it took was a cough to rattle her frame and make her fall.

Katherine was out of her chair before she even knew what she was really doing, controlled by those new motherly instincts. She ran over to Joan, who now laid dazed on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling. She propped her up in her arms; her face was so hot when she touched it. And her eyes—oh, her eyes...

“Moon Eyes! Moon Eyes! Moon Eyes!” The chant she used to yell when Joan passed by echoed in her head, but she couldn’t help it because when she gazed down at those twin pits of molten silver, all she saw was a pale creature of night in her arms. Its eyes were pieces of the moon it stole from the sky and shoved into the deep hollows in their face, hoping to make them more human, but it didn’t. It never did. The moonborn white alien remained outlandish and otherworldly.

Joan shuddered in her hold. She tried to blink even faster to ward off apparent dizziness, but it did little to help her.

“You’re running a fever.” Katherine told her. “Joan, you’re burning up.”

“Why do you care?” Joan choked out.

“I’m worried about you, honey.”

“But why?” Joan sobbed, tears now cascading down her cheeks, like the moons glowing in her eye sockets were melting from the heat of her fever. “You don’t care about me! Nobody cares about me!”

That’s true. Past Katherine put in helpfully, but Katherine shoves her voice into the darker reaches of her mind.

“People do care about you.” Katherine assured the weeping girl. “I promise. I promise they do.”

Joan gazed up at her before the fever consumed her. She went limp in the queen’s arms and, for a moment, Katherine saw something paler than her moons—the whites of her eyes when they rolled back in her skull.

—

You really shouldn’t touch her. Past Katherine chided as Katherine was feeling Joan’s forehead again. It was wet with sweat again, despite her already wiping it off two times in that hour.

Shut up. Katherine growled.

She looked down at Joan, who she had carried into the master bedroom and tucked into the bed. The girl was breathing harshly through her mouth, soft whimpers and murmurs falling from her pale lips every once and awhile. Katherine had done her best to make her comfortable, but she was still quite new to the whole caretaker thing, even with the memories of watching Jane tend to her so many times before.

Those were the days, Past Katherine sighed wistfully.

I thought I told you to shut up.

You don’t tell me what to do. I can do and say whatever I want.

You can’t control me.

For now.

Katherine shuddered. She hated how ominous that sounded.

She got up from where she was perched on the side of the bed and looked around the room for pajamas. She hated snooping in Joan’s clothes of all things (when she accidentally opened the undergarment drawer, she slammed it shut with so much force she was surprised the whole thing didn’t explode into tiny wood shavings), but the poor girl was probably sweating through what she was wearing right down and that wouldn’t be too comfortable.

After a bit of searching, she eventually found a fresh shirt and some shorts, but it wasn’t the only thing she dug out. In a drawer near the ground, beneath a thin blanketing of folding T-shirts, there were papers and canvases and notebooks. Without really wanting to, she began to look through them.

Oh my god, Past Katherine muttered in her brain.

They were drawings of her. Her from the past. Not all of them, but—there were just so many.

Paintings of her bloody or dead or drawn to look like a succubus, paintings too smeared with red to see what had been originally displayed upon the surface, paintings that were ripped on her face, as if Joan had taken a knife to the canvases and cut it to shreds. There were half finished paintings with tear stains and marks where the paint bled with the droplets and paintings that had horrible things scribbled around an abstract headshot of her face. There was even a painting of a dead cat with a hot pink rhinestone collar.

And then there were paintings of Joan crying, Joan bleeding pink blood, Joan dying or already dead, Joan hanging from a noose and Joan cutting her wrists and cutting her throat and cutting every inch of her body until she had scraped off every shred of unwanted and unliked flesh—until she was more like Katherine was.

There was a painting of a ram with red paint that Katherine was sure wasn’t actually red paint.

And, underneath all the canvas carnage, there was one larger than the rest. A painting of a hideous, skeletal creature as pale as snow, but with eyes that were somehow even paler. They were too big, too. Its stomach was so sunken—she could see every rib poking out from the bleached flesh. The fingers were too long and tipped with short black claws. There were cuts engraved all over its body that wept blue blood.

Somehow, Katherine knew exactly what this was supposed to depict.

Moon Eyes. Past Katherine said bitterly.

Katherine screwed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memory of a plan she once had to spread the cruel joke on social media. She gripped the edges of the canvas tightly.

What have I done? She thought. This poor girl... I ruined her.

You didn’t do anything. Past Katherine said, miffed. And neither did I. Some people just get subjected to bad things. Like we did in back then. Not that this is anything like that. That was a real problem, this is just a little schoolyard teasing. She broke herself by losing her mind over this. I mean, look at these paintings. She’s insane.

You’re terrible. Katherine growled. Will you grow up? I’ve accepted what we did, why can’t you?

Because she doesn’t deserve your pity. Past Katherine responded distastefully. She’s a nobody, and you know that. Nobody even knows WHY she came back. There are hundreds of more important people that could have been reincarnated, our sister, for example, but NO. We got this moonborn, moon-eyed, night owl, pale FREAK.

SHUT UP! Katherine roared. With a blast of blazing fury, she forcibly threw her past self into the darkest reaches of her mind.

Blackness soon filled her head like inky bile. Silence.

Katherine put all the canvases back into the drawer and closed it. She stood up quietly and crept back over to the bed. She picked up the rag lying in the bowl of water she had brought in and began to wipe away the sweat that had accumulated on Joan’s face.

You did this to her, She whispered to herself, this time with her own voice, not her creaking past one’s. You ruined her. Broke her. She’s messed up, now, because of you.

She put the rag back into the bowl, then watched Joan sleep. Her face was scrunched up, as if she was in pain even in her sleep.

She doesn’t know pain. The hiss of her past self bubbled in her ears. If you want to pity her so badly, then give her a reason to be in pain. Hurt her more than we were hurt. Scar her until even Jane will have to feel bad for her. If that’s truly what you want. Because nobody will believe she’s hurt until you make it visible.

And so, Katherine peeled back Joan’s eyelids and dug her fingers into her eye sockets. She scooped up the pale orbs and pulled them out of their black cavities. She held the moons in her hands. She rolled them around in her palms, feeling their smoothness and squishiness and warmth against her skin, and then they lolled around and blinked up at her.

Joan jerked awake with an anguished wail. The moons lodged in her face are so wide and so pale and so very lonely, like they longed to be back in the sky. Katherine’s fingers twitched; she thought she could feel the webs of blood dripping through them.

You could always put her out of her misery. Past Katherine said. Nobody would miss her. Nobody would even look for her.

But Katherine silenced her voice before she could project another horrendous vision in her brain. When she reached out to Joan, she didn’t go for her eyes, but rather her cheeks, and she cupped them tenderly, like she was trying to hold Joan together while she was about to shatter.

“Shh, shh,” She hushed the weeping girl. “It’s okay, sweetie. It was just a dream. You’re alright. I’m not going to let anything hurt you. I promise.”

It’s the least she could do, seeing as she was the one who stole the moons and put them in her head in the first place.

#six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction #six fanfic #six the musical au #katherine howard #joan on the keys #swallow the moon #momward

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btswishes · 5 years

Text

That one.

Monsta X (Wonho Maifia Au)

Part1 / Part2 / Part3 /...

A/N: This is a bit new as an idea for me. Enjoy and sorry for any mistakes made. :*

Word count: 3,109

Warnings: Blood, talk of death, cussing

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Society lived normal lives and complained about little things. They never knew what it was to struggle, live day for day and know your life wasn’t yours to begin with. Your whole world was a small room. One bed, one desk and little objects scattered all around it. You would wake up to screams, loud noises people from the rooms next to you banging. After the first few years you stop noticing what happened outside your prison.

Placing your headphones in your ear, you would sit on the bed, knees to the chest, looking at the wall. New people came in and out of this building. There was no escaping it, one had only 2 options. Get ‘adopted’ by some sketchy organisation, or get carried out in a body bag. Sadly the truth was that there weren’t many workers like you and most couldn’t take the first 10 days in this rat hole.

If you get adopted you either get killed, or end it all yourself. So in the end of the day it was die or die. You were here already for the 5th year, but your room being at the end of the corridor, where the craziest creatures were, no one visited. Mostly because you staid quiet and it felt like there wasn’t anyone to even check.

It had been even more empty since your brother ,in life conditions ,got adopted a few days ago. Yuu was a boy originally from Guangzhou, China. He was pretty happy, the opposite of you. You came to like him after spending almost 2 years in here. Talkative Yuu would get scolded often, but you never thought he would be taken like that with the soft character he had.

Today was a Friday on which usually you would get customers. As always you were in the same spot, listening to music, the muzzle being held onto your head with a lock. The only thing you could hear was the music blasting in your ears, keeping you in this world you created for yourself.

“Sir. We didn’t know that someone like you would be coming here these days.” a man was talking outside, following a bunch of men “Most haven’t been surviving lately and we have been loosing them like flies. Not many have been found too.” they stopped next to your door and peeked into Yuu’s old home “This one here was the last danger level we had. He was adopted 3 days ago.”

A loud hit echoed in the hallway. The man was obviously pissed at this news.

“Hyung.” a boy almost whispered standing in front of your door “Look.” the man and his people followed right behind him, peeking into the dark room.

“ Oh that is number 23.She was one of our first arrivals, pretty docile and quiet, we never had any problems with her.” the worker rubbed his palms together uneasy

“Isn’t this supposed to be the code red wing? “ the boy who found you commented with a raised eyebrow

“Well yes, she is here on boss’s orders but unlike everyone else she never made a peep and never tried to kill herself.” he was talking fast, worried that one wrong move and his head will roll on the floor

“Open the door.” the main shot spoke silently

“S-sir I can’t do that.” the worker kept fidgeting, tripping over his words. Suddenly they got stuck in his throat ,when the tall man grabbed his shirt.

“I didn’t ask you, I told you to do it.” pushing him back he fell on the floor and fiddled, pulling out the keys. The sudden light creeping in your room finally made you notice what was happening outside. Your head moved slowly left, view point raising up, you saw him (look at gif)

Your eyes locked onto him, his blonde hair was moving gently as a small smirk creeped onto his lips. His hand reached in from the hole and he waved at you slowly. With the same speed you stood up and walked over to him.The light of the hallway was illuminating your body from your nose down. Going closer in your line of sight ,the keeper in panic pulled out a gun and pointed it at you.

“S-stay back beast!” he was told that if anyone walks past the line in their room he was allowed to shoot and you did just that. His voice was very loud and you could hear it from the headphones. The moment you looked at him, the man snapped from the fear and shot once at you, hitting one of the cables coming down from your ear. This being your only means of escape from the dark world, made his action unforgivable.

Since the area from your nose up was covered in darkness, the blood red color of your eyes illuminated everything like it was nothing. Your hand creeped into the door, nails scratching he titanium.

“Sir let’s move!” the man hid his weapon and started pushing the gang of men to move, but the blonde haired man didn’t take even the smallest step.

“I want that one.” he stepped away from the door and waited for the worker to unlock the gate. He hesitated after what he just did ,but the gang wasn’t feeling very friendly towards him and both ways he was gonna get it. Calling upon a few more people, they opened the gate. There was a moment of silence before a hand grabbed the edge of the wall and crawled out from the pitch darkness. Your eyes were stinging from the sudden light. Looking around, you were scanning everyone, the way they were dressed, the things they had on them.

The guards escorted you to a room where you found two women. They were dressed in military clothes and had weapons as well.Quite understandable.

“Congratulations, you are getting adopted.” one of them walked up to you, her hand pulling you onto a chair and brushing out the hair you were growing for 5 years now “I will cut only a bit of it, since last time we tried you broke our equipment.” the other one stripped you naked and pulled out clothes you had never seen before.

“This is something like a gift from us to you. Chose the style you like.” your hair had been tried up into a high ponytail reaching below your butt. There was a pair of black skinny jeans with ripped knees and a over-sized hoodie that caught your eyes. The women helped you get dressed since you had never tried things like these on and gave you a pair of military boots that had a bit of a heel on them. It felt awkward at first but you got the hand of it.

“I would have put some makeup on you, even if you look really pretty without it. But that muzzle is in the way.”the woman flashed you a sad smile “ You a code red?” you nodded slowly

“Must have been awful here for you. I hope you find some happiness outside.” the women knew that it wasn’t possible ,but most of the children here were taken care of by them and somehow they had a maternal instinct towards them.Stepping out and the group of men laid their eyes on you. From behind them walked up the blonde man, leaning down to look at you.

“Look at you. “ his eyes scanned you up and down a few times, before he lifted his hand towards the guards “Key.” after a bit of discussing, they handed over a small object. The man took it swiftly and leaning closer to you. For a second your eyes widened, but the clicking sound you heard followed the loud tud. Your lips parted a bit as your palms ran over your cheeks. Snapping your head up you saw him smiling at you “I knew you were even prettier without that thing.”

You couldn’t believe you were feeling your skin, your head wasn’t heavy anymore and it felt nice for once. His big hand came in front of you and you just stared at it. “I don’t bite, I promise.” the man smiled, but you were confused. The gang of boys were staring closely when their boss gently pulled your arm up and placed it onto his, closing his fingers around your hand “ Next time I do this, grab my hand, ok?” you nodded shortly after. With one swift move he pulled you out of the gigantic building and you realized that you were in the middle of nowhere this whole time. Land upon land and nothing else insight.

The men opened a car door and sat down one after the other, as you stared.

“Hyung.”someone with brown hair pointed at you. You were inspecting the whole situation. Two strong hands grabbed your hips and lifted you up from the ground pulling you into the vehicle and onto his firm lap.

“There we go.” you sat there,quiet just flashing everyone big doe eyes

“I don’t mean to be the one saying this, but Wonho you sure she can do the job we need her to do? Unlike the others we saw she seems.....weak.” this one had an interesting face shape and was also blonde

“She was in the danger zone, I am sure there was a reason for that.” the man looked at you while you were sitting onto his lap “I think we should introduce ourselves.” from your right their names were Shownu, I.M, Minhyuk, Kihyun, Hyungwon and Jooheon. “I am known as Wonho the boss of this mafia family.” he rubbed his hand onto your back in a calming and soothing way, trying to make you comfortable.

Your head was staring out the car window, as you were taking in all the new things around you.

“Y/N.” everyone had given up on a conversation with you when you spoke

“Huh?” Jooheon noticed your voice

“That is my name.” you added, looking at the men in the car “You were introducing yourselves right?” the boy just nodded, shocked from your answer

“Good girl.” Wonho patted your thigh. Your eyes trembled a bit when you heard praise, something that never even reached your room in that hellhole.

“So...”Shownu turned towards you “How long have you been in there?Any family or something like that?”

“5 years, I had a mom, dad and brother. “ you explained

“Do they...um kidnap you from your home or something like that?” Jooheon jumped back into the convo. Pursing your lips out you thought for a bit.

“It’s called harvesting. When a meta human awakens they get a single. The first moments are when we are at our weakest and they offer fake help. No one wants to look like a monster so they act like angels and take us from there.Some go crazy and end it, others get adopted.” you said calmly

“Is everyone as calm as you?” Hyungwon’s hair pulled your attention when you slowly reach out to him. He was surprised but didn’t move ,with the piercing gaze his leader was giving him. The corners of your lips moved up a bit as your fingers went though his hair

“You look like the puppy I used to have.” your comment made everyone in the car start laughing

“She said you look like a dog!” Minhyuk grabbed his stomach trying to breath

Wonho’s eyes were focused onto you, the smile catching him off guard. His strong hand pulled you back to him as your arms unintentionally wrapped around his neck.

“Anyways!”Hyungwon cut everyone off still waiting for his answer “You are too calm for someone of...your kind.”

“I am not calm.” you sighed as you felt the car stop “I just made peace with my life. After awhile you realize that trying to change the world around you is a waste of time and energy. You will go mad if you try to do something about a place like that. They didn’t hurt us if we didn’t act up, we got one thing a month if we were good. I just learned to change the world in here.” you tapped your chest “And it was much better from then on.”

“Damn, that made me almost bow down to you. Who knows all the things you have seen in there.” Hyungwon exclaimed

“You can only hear things and just imagine what is going on.”

“Hyung we are here.” I.M opened the door and in front of you was standing tall a mansion. It was just beautiful, trees all around it, bright green grass and bushes upon bushes of roses and other flowers you hadn’t even known existed.

Wonho got off, still holding your hand tight “Welcome to your new home.” With a small jump you soon touched the grounded once more.He was keeping you close, like a father protecting his child. Your eyes looking around, curious. Wonho stopped his motion the moment he noticed his two doberman guard dogs. They were big and pretty vigilant. They listened only to their owner, not even to the closest men he had.

Wonho hurried to pull you behind his back. You crooked your head to the side and noticed the other men staying far from you two.

“Loki, Ares! Stand down!” the dogs were focused onto what seemed to them intruders. Without noticing your swift movement, not even a second later your body was standing in front of the dogs. A cold chill ran down the spine of everyone looking at this scene.

“Y/N!”upon hearing your name you turned back. Out of your sight but in Wonho’s, they stood tall above your head. Loki’s paws landed on your shoulders as his mouth opened wide.

“Oh I can’t look at this.”Jooheon looked away, expecting the worst knowing these creatures

Almost like a motion picture movie, your neck moved slowly back towards the dogs, as you left a big and sloppy lick run across your face. A small smile tried to pop onto your lips and you started patting the dog.

“Are you Loki?” the dogs were getting hyper and happy for no reason after the stare down you had with them behind their owner’s back.

“Wait what?!” I.M almost choked upon seeing all of this. He tried to walk closer thinking they were more friendly now, but in a blink of an eye both Ares and Loki stood in front of you in a defensive position, growling “Wow, ok” the boy stepped back with his hands in front of his face “Got it.”

“This is pretty new.” with arms crossed in front of his chest, Shownu spoke to the boss

“Yeah.”Wonho was confused since his guard dogs never acted like this with people from the family, not to mention someone they never met in their whole lives. With a finally calm step he walked over to you and reach down to tap Ares on the nose, turning him into a playful puppy “They seem to like you a lot.”

“Mhm.”you nodded

“I have had them since they were puppies.”

“They love you very much ,even if you mistake their names sometimes.” you said looking at the man next to you

“Yeah-” his body moved towards you swiftly “Wait how do you know that?”

“Well Ares here is very talkative, right?” upon your question the dog barked out loud

“You understand them?!”Jooheon’s eyes widened “No wait, you understand animals ?”

“Mmmm.” looking up, taking some time to think “Yes, but I am better with dog-like and cat-like creatures since I have been close to them before and we are similar.”

“In what way? Claws and glowing eyes?” the boy continued, asking what everyone wanted to know at this point.

“Let’s close the door and go to the living room. Not here.”Wonho stared at the garden in front of the mansion, looking a bit cautious. Soon you found yourself sitting on the ground, playing with the dogs and everyone else comfortably onto a soft chair.

“So...are you closer to a cat or dog?” Minhyuk began where you left off

“I have enhanced senses and reflexes. I can feel the presence of any living creature in a wide radius. I can tell you how many people are on the territory right now without mistake. Most of my abilities come from animal factors. If there is a creature out there that can do something I can too. But I need to know about it. Being locked up I had seen only guard dogs and the occasional cats that sneak in the building.So I am much more familiar with them.”

“You can talk with them too?” since you were facing away from the group, you didn’t focus too much on who was asking

“Yes. Animal languages are like English for example. Australia, UK, America and so on, differ only on some native vocal changes.”

“So you are saying they speak the same language but different species have dialects?” you nodded “Wow that is amazing.”

“Do these abilities appear out of nowhere when you are in danger or do you use them consciously?”

“Umm, I think both. There are so many creatures in the animal kingdom that it is impossible to know every thing I am capable of. But I can’t fly since I am obviously not equipped for that.” you shook your hands in the air

“Ok, enough questions.” Wonho pushed himself off the chair and looked at the boys. Without even a peep, they got up, bowed and left the house. You were sitting in this gigantic room, alone with the dogs and Wonho. His footsteps came closer, until his body was behind yours. Your head moved up to look at him.

“Are you my new owner?” you asked with pure eyes, shooting an arrow through his heart

“No.” he bent down, running his hand through your hair ,making you lean into it “You have rights like me and any person in the world.”

“Then what are you?”

“Well, think of me as your boss. I give you things to do and you work for me.” with a small nod you said ok “It’s late, so you should be going to bed.”

The man stood up and you followed him up the stairs into a room, that looked like a whole apartment compared to your old one. He said goodnight and left fast.

The first thing you noticed was the bookshelf taking the space of a whole wall. Almost instinctively you grabbed one and sat on the bed, reading and reading as much information you could find. The night had just began, but you weren’t planning to rest.

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sarahw-writing · 5 years

Text

“Let It Snow” - 03 Fire

Well guys, here's the new prompt!

I finished it a few days ago, but my Christmas and post-Christmas days have been a bit busier than I first anticipated, so it took me a little longer to find the time to edit this one.

I've actually enjoyed one of my best Christmas in a long time, and I really hope that you've all had an amazing time too!

I hope you like this one, and Happy New Year!!!

Summary:

After a highly unusual Christmas Eve, Vegeta will take delight in an even more remarkable Christmas Day...

This may or may not be a naughty prompt, so as always:

You can read the uncensored version on AO3.

You can read the censored version on FF.

Or you can keep reading under the break:

03. Fire.

Vegeta stood his ground in the midst of the storm, feet firmly planted on the barren rocks as an endless tidal of vast, raging waves broke against his immobile form, buried amongst a flood of tempestuous waters, an ocean just as turbulent as the thoughts suffocating his perturbed heart.

He could still feel them, he could still feel those small hands clutching his sweater in her sleep as she’d drifted off in his nervous embrace the night before, just like he could still hear those drowsy, whispery words, begging him to stay after he’d carried her to her bed, trying to carefully untangle her arms from his neck, and get her to let go of him, with no success.

“Please don’t go…” Bulma murmured in his ear, shimmery eyes still half-open, but already drizzled with sleep.

It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying how easy it’d been for him to obey her wishes last night, sensing his body freely choosing to stay beside her long before his mind could catch up with his own reckless actions.

He’d quietly removed his shoes, trying to ignore the nerve-racking emotion that that pair of greedy little hands evoked inside of him, obstinately refusing to set him free, not even after he managed to sneak into her girly bed, joining her under the covers and lying with her.

At first, the Prince had expected a repeat of their first night together in the infirmary, hoping for the sleepy earthling to release him, perhaps curling by his side, now that she’d finally convinced him to ease her loneliness by keeping her company.

But Bulma’s body seemed to have different plans for him, and it wasn’t long before the intrepid woman broke the rules, one more time, smashing yet another one of his boundaries by getting even closer, pressing her lithe figure against his pitifully trembling one, and holding onto him as if she’d always been meant to be right in his arms.

The weak hands that had once been draped around his strong neck for support, had now found refuge in the broad protectiveness of his chest, tiny fingers grasping his warm clothing as her legs naturally entangled themselves with his own, languidly rubbing her cheek against his flushed neck in exactly the same way she had when she’d leaned into him underneath that white mantle of snow.

Everything in her was soft, gentle, so terribly inviting that his anxious indecision quickly vanished into thin air, chasing the memory of the chaste cuddle they’d both indulged in outside, and instinctively trapping her in his arms, binding her in a placid hold as the longest sigh caressed his skin, as if the only thing she’d ever needed to find some peace was for him to give into her humble pleas.

She’d felt smaller than ever beneath his touch, and he couldn’t help but panic at the realization of just how fragile, how absurdly defenseless she truly was, and how brave it’d been for such a delicate creature to get as close to him as she undeniably had, not only in the physical but in the emotional realm, touching and reaching out to him, tugging at his darkened heart in ways no one ever had.

He’d hardly gotten any rest that night, merely dozing on and off from time to time, acting like some inexperienced juvenile as he watched her sleep with ingenuous fascination. He couldn’t deny to himself any longer that he’d fantasized with a moment such as this more times than he could count, yet no fantasy would ever come close to the sensation of that minute body flowing in his hands, that slow, rhythmic breathing reminding him of how marvelously comfortable the gutsy woman felt in his presence.

Vegeta spent the night drowning in the purity of her essence, in that clean, lily-white scent incessantly emanating from her. And, either he was getting close, dangerously close to losing whatever remained of his sanity, or he had, as sure as creed, heard his name slipping from her lips in her state of blissful unconsciousness.

The Prince had, at least, possessed enough willpower left in him to part from her before she’d rise and shine, reluctantly disentangling his needy body from her own deprived one, and giving her one last, longing glance as he’d stood on her balcony, a defeated figure bathed by the early rays of sunshine, devouring the heart-wrenching sight of the small woman swaddled in a cocoon of pink sheets and floral blankets, whining faintly in her sleep, lamenting the loss of the man who’d kept her safe all through the night.

His new masterplan had taken shape the moment he’d flopped down exhaustedly on his miserable bed, furious with himself for having behaved, yet again, like some silly puppet in the hands of that wicked woman, gladly allowing himself to fall into whatever sentimental trap she’d conceived, and built, especially for him, and vowing to duck out from that blasted house as soon as he squeezed in a few vital hours of sleep.

But then Panchy Briefs had to make another one of her annoying entrances, barging into his room with her perky giggles and that disconcerting, maternal tone, followed by another irresistible whiff of succulent foods and, before he knew, he was sitting at the table once more, impotent to escape the nightmare that these infernal ‘Christmas’ celebrations had become.

He’d partly found some consolation in the abundant feast of tasty goodies, and in the comforting fact that the only ones enjoying with him that heavenly ‘Christmas Day’ lunch would be Dr. Briefs and his peppy wife.

And then she came along, brightening up the whole place with her invigorating presence, and making the food in his mouth instantly fall into his stomach, hard as a rock, when she brazenly sat right in front of him with zero hesitation.

There had been no fancy jewels or elaborated hairdos this time but, much to his shame, the Prince had been entirely unable to keep his eyes off her throughout the whole meal, powerless to ignore those shiny blue curls, which she’d chosen to carelessly set free, or that simple, but oddly elegant, little black dress, with long sleeves and a demure décolletage, openly exposing the most kissable collarbones with every casual flick of her hair.

But the most unbearable torture of them all had been that smile, that pure, honest-to-Gods smile of hers, perhaps not as bright as the one she’d proudly displayed before her ex-lover’s betrayal, but just as candid, inundating his confused mind with absurd thoughts and the most ridiculous of hopes, the secret hope that he’d been the only one responsible for the rebirth of her lost happiness.

Too much.

It had all been too damn much, and the only thing left for him to do, the moment his ravenous Saiyan appetite had been fully sated, was to awkwardly mumble the pathetic shadow of an excuse, getting the Hell out of Bulma’s home before he’d end up making a fool of himself, just like he’d done the previous night.

He’d practically galloped straight to the door, blasting off into the freezing skies with not one look back, not even bothering to get out of his formal clothes as he sped up, setting loose in a futile attempt at letting off steam, desperately striving to leave such madness behind, from her every gesture and charming mannerism, to those increasingly intimate moments shared in confidence, away from the rest of the world, and that turmoil of foreign emotions overruling his spirit, taking over from his usual cold, detached self, and scattering suggestive ideas and fantasies that he’d never truly indulged in before.

It’d been a long while since he’d run from the Briefs household like this, seeking solace in the silent comfort of solitude. But now, as he stood stoically amid some thunderous sea storm in the middle of one of Earth’s majestic oceans, he bitterly discovered that loneliness no longer seemed to pacify his insanity as effectively as it once did.

His shoulders fell in defeat, his regal body growing limp at the frightening realization that there was nowhere to run, no place to hide anymore, and that the time had come for him to make a choice, to either walk away from the bewitching female, and from everything she represented, or to cave in and let Destiny take charge, surrendering to the woman’s magnetism, once and for all.

And Destiny turned out to be a golden light, an illuminated window guiding him through the dark of night as he walked the perennial fields of snow that Capsule Corp.’s immense gardens had become, deliberately letting go, with each hypnotized step, of his fears and inhibitions, not even knowing what Life had in store for him yet, but accepting, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that his capricious Luck would somehow be bound to one being, and one being only.

Destiny was a woman sitting by the fireplace, finding shelter in the cozy seclusion of her home’s small guest house, a sacred place that no one but her ever made use of anymore. He watched her unashamedly through the glass doors, not afraid, for once, of the possibility of getting caught in the act by the brilliant woman whose stunning blue eyes were now daydreaming in front of a sea of sizzling flames, a small hand swirling a thick glass of liquor distractedly, while the other toyed with the fringes of the Persian rug that served her as perch.

Destiny was a jubilant smile, followed by a lanky finger curling in a come-hither motion, happily inviting him to join her, without qualm, the second her curious gaze discovered the unmistakable silhouette of the familiar intruder lurking outside.

Destiny was Bulma.

“There you are!” She exclaimed with relish, her genuine joy at seeing him joining her for the evening racing a barrage of emotions all through him. “I’ve been looking for you all day… Come! Come sit with me!” She asked enthusiastically, already patting the cushy rug with the excitement of an impatient little girl, eager to share her special surprise with the stunned object of her affections. “I have a surprise for you!”

“You do?” Vegeta asked in bewilderment, cautiously joining her on the carpeted floors by sitting cross-legged beside her.

“Yup!” She announced, the thrilled pride in her voice making her anticipation contagious by the minute. “I guess it’s my Christmas present for you…” Bulma confessed, letting go of her untouched glass and turning to her side, where a pillow, a furrowed blanket, and a pile of wrinkly blueprints revealed that, whatever it was that she had in the cards for him, she must have been working hard at it for a while.

He waited patiently for her to find what she was looking for, doing his best to stop his stupefied face from showing any emotion, especially his honest surprise at discovering that the woman had one of those holiday gifts for him too.

She’d already briefly introduced him to such a bizarre tradition the night before, after having exchanged quite a few of them with her closest friends, but Vegeta had simply assumed that he would be excluded from this ritual this time. After all, Bulma and her family had already shown him far more generosity than anyone ever had, and it wasn’t as if he was in the position to give her anything in return, should she ever choose to present him with some sort of special gift.

“Alright… I found it…” She murmured to herself, successfully finding her chosen blueprint and crawling clumsily towards him, her knee casually touching his as she sat nearby. “Look!” She proclaimed, proudly spreading out the large piece of paper before his inquisitive eyes.

“What…?” Vegeta mumbled reticently, with that sense of embarrassment striking him every time he was in the presence of one of Bulma’s prodigious inventions. “What is it?”

“It’s a new training bot!” Bulma clarified, a sympathetic smile etched on her lips at how strangely vulnerable the proud warrior looked whenever he was shown something he knew nothing about. “Look…” She calmly proceeded to explain, making the Saiyan’s mouth run dry when she leaned almost indecently into him, resting the mysterious document on his lap and running her fingers all over it. “The exterior is made of this new alloy that my Dad and I have just patented. It’s much more resilient, not only to your blows, but also to extreme heat. And, you see this?” She asked, pointing to one of the circuit designs with her index finger, without even giving him the opportunity to answer before she resumed her masterful presentation. “I��ve finally solved this equation that’s been driving me crazy all week! So, basically, this bot will have several settings, and tons of aleatory programs, so it’ll make things really challenging for you!”

The Prince gawked at the enigmatic blueprint in sheer shock, aiming to digest, with severe difficulty, not only the tsunami of brand-new information that she’d just put at his disposal, but the incredible thoughtfulness of such a gift. It wasn’t one of those useless, sentimental presents that these foolish humans were so inexplicably fond of, but a real gift, something that would help him grow and improve, something that would allow him to attain the one dream that mattered to him the most.

“So…? What do you think?” Bulma prodded, her good-hearted smile never faltering, trying to lighten the mood of a man who was clearly struggling with a generosity that he, very possibly, thought himself wholly unworthy of. “Pretty cool, uh?”

Vegeta’s gaze returned to the woman, and to that gorgeous smile of hers, awkwardly clearing his throat while trying to think of something, anything, to say, yet knowing that he’d fall pitiably short regardless of his choice of words.

“It’s…”

“Acceptable?” She guessed gingerly, a playful expression dancing in her eyes as she secretly tried to spare him from embarrassing himself.

Even if the pigheaded Saiyan still remained an enigma in far too many ways, all these months living together hadn’t been entirely wasted on her and, by now, Bulma had already unraveled quite a few of the Prince’s secrets. The main one being that, for all of that pompously conceited mumbo-jumbo that he loved to babble about on the battlefield, Vegeta was painfully uncomfortable, most times verging on pathologically shy, when it came to expressing his emotions anywhere else; and, though he loved to bicker and order her around any time he needed repairs on his beloved Gravity Room, he always seemed to be at a loss for words whenever she was the one who’d take the initiative in helping or having a nice gesture with him.

“I’m glad you like it…” Bulma whispered fondly, her heart breaking a little at the way he timidly nodded in assent, those obsidian eyes now evading hers, getting lost in the spellbinding flames of her fireplace. “You’ve never had these before, have you?”

Her new offer, and a warm, appealing scent he’d never smelled before, instantly made him peep at the woman’s hands, which had now put down her precious blueprints, and were graciously holding a large bowl in front of him.

“They’re chestnuts,” she pointed out, delicately resting the bowl on the rug. “I just roasted a few. They’re really nice, you’ll see… They’re kind of sweet…” She carried on, picking up a few of the small brown items and placing them on the open palm of his hand. “You have to peel them like this, and then… Wa-Wait!”

“What?” He frowned, his mouth freezing, having popped the whole thing in right after hearing the word ‘sweet’.

“Um… Uh… You’re… You’re supposed to peel them first…” Bulma broke down, trying as hard as she could not to crack-up at the hilarious view of her alien guest holding a mouthful of unpeeled chestnuts in his mouth. “See? Like this…” She demonstrated, slowly peeling one of them and splitting it in half. “And then you open it first, like this, in case there’s a worm inside of…”

She hadn’t even finished her sentence and Vegeta was already spitting out a bunch of half-chewed chestnuts, at the speed of light, straight into the fire.

“There are WORMS in this?!” He barked, absolutely horrified at the mere thought of such repulsive critters.

“What? No, no!” She exclaimed defensively, surprised at seeing him so openly disgusted by something of this nature, particularly considering that little Goku had once offered to share one of his centipedes with her for supper. “It’s… It’s actually very rare, I swear! It’s just in case…”

“Hmph!” He snarled, his scrunched nose reminding her of some bratty five-year-old refusing to eat his Brussel sprouts.

“Aw, come on Vegeta…” She pleaded, both incredibly amused and a little worried about such a strong reaction, wondering if perhaps there was some obscure, traumatic event associated to those scary worms. “I’ll do it for you. Here…”

Bulma expertly peeled one roasted little nut, cracking it in half and examining it with great attention, before tentatively offering it once again to the offended Saiyan who kept side-eyeing her as if she were holding a bottle of pure poison in her hand.

“Please? Pretty please?” She begged, puckering her bottom lip like a needy brat. “You trust me, right?”

“…”

‘Damn her!’

Damn her and those sad puppy eyes, and her blushing cheeks and fluttery eyelashes, and her luminous smiles and unreal kindness. Damn her and those stupidly pointless ‘Christmas’ celebrations, and her sappy gifts and fluffy pink socks. Damn her and her foolish generosity, and her steady hands, never relenting, never letting go, treating him like a man instead of a monster. And damn those goddamned roasted chestnuts for tasting so goddamned good, just like every goddamned thing she’d ever given to him, when he finally had the courage to accept her invitation and eat the goddamned thing.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” She whispered, her tone subdued, but brimming with the calm satisfaction of a woman who was gradually discovering that, perhaps, she held more power over the man she was falling for than she ever knew.

They both ate in silence by the fire, with Bulma peeling and meticulously checking every single one of the warm delicacies, before passing them to the compliant Saiyan quietly appreciating them. Every now and then, she’d eat one herself, but she gladly gave most of them to her guest, happy to see him enjoying yet another one of her home’s traditions, and overcome by the most nostalgic déjà vu as she evoked the times when it was her Mom the one peeling her chestnuts for her, it felt like centuries ago now.

When they were done, Bulma discreetly set the empty bowl aside, stifling a muffled yawn while stretching like a mellow kitty, ready to share one more treat with him tonight.

“You must taste this…” She murmured naughtily, taking a small sip of the half-full glass of liquor she’d been idly stirring in her hand when he’d first found her tonight, closing her eyes and moaning softly as she savored every drop, before offering it to him. “It’s my Dad’s favorite cognac. It’s more than fifty years old…”

Vegeta didn’t vacillate this time, bringing the heavy glass under his nose and inhaling a long, deep breath, before getting a leisurely taste of the intoxicating brew. The Prince had never cared much for alcohol, finding Earth’s wide assortment of liquors especially weak for his insanely fast metabolism, but he had to admit that this particular blend was pretty damn good.

He savored it slowly, deliberately, letting it melt in his tongue the same way her tiny moan had melted in his ears, never taking his eyes off the woman who kept staring at the comfy fire as if it held the answers to her every question in life.

“I haven’t thanked you yet…” She muttered, her stare low, but with a shy confidence that implied that she’d already made peace with whatever Demons had been tormenting her in recent times.

“What for?” He asked genuinely, so deeply overwhelmed by the swell of foreign emotions and events experienced during those past few days, that he didn’t even know what to think of her, of them, anymore.

“I don’t know,” she confessed in a meek whisper. “For understanding, I guess…” She turned to him, the peacefulness in her serene smile awakening something occult and forbidden inside of him. “It’s nice to have someone on my side…”

Her side.

A man like him, an eternal outlander with no real home or roots to speak of, had no one’s side but his own, taking and plundering as much as he wanted, whenever he wanted, without owing anyone a goddammed thing in return.

And yet, as preposterous as it sounded, if there was one being, just one single being who deserved to have his side no matter what, it should be Bulma. The one who’d offered him a home, and everything his heart could ever desire, in order to conquer his most coveted dream, the one who’d given him more, far more, than a penniless scoundrel like him would ever deserve, without asking for a thing, not one blasted thing, in return.

All in all, Vegeta figured that, since the beautiful dummy had been foolish enough to take his side, it would only be fair for him to take hers as well.

“And thank you for staying with me last night,” she insisted, laying a soft hand on his forearm and petting it lightly. “I know it wasn’t easy for you…”

Bulma cheekily reclaimed her glass, briefly running the tip of her tongue across her upper lip as she brought it smoothly to her mouth, bracing herself for her grand revelation.

“Yamcha called after lunch, you know?” She confided, breaking into a roguish smile when she saw one of the warrior’s eyebrows raising with unexpected curiosity. “He tried to tell me about some big fight he just had with that dumb girl… I don’t know…” She shrugged with palpable disinterest, taking another sip of the bittersweet drink and languidly tilting her head back as she tossed it down. “I told him to go fuck himself…” She proudly concluded, looking Vegeta right in the eye with a cocky smirk that he could have easily made his own, instantly erasing his sudden fear that she might consider taking that worthless idiot back in a moment of weakness.

“Good girl…” He purred in approval, sending shivers down her spine with his husky bedroom voice, and with that sly smile curling his lips as he leaned to her, covering her hand with his own as he stole her glass, washing down the rest of the potent drink in one clean gulp.

His fingers lingered around hers as they both held the empty glass, his touch anxious but firm, rugged fingertips stroking her shaky hand with a closeness he’d never shown her before, holding her stare for a lifechanging instant until he lost his nerve, letting go of her as that irresistible smirk died out on his lips.

Bulma’s gaze remained fixated on the empty glass, captivated, enthralled by that almost magical exchange as the room spiraled around her out of control. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt the direct contact of the Prince’s flesh against hers, but such innocent moments of intimacy had always been accidental, casual, a far cry from the affectionate nearness they’d both engaged in ever since he’d agreed to keep her company in that cold infirmary.

In any other man, she would have never dared to look much into such apparently superficial instants but, in this man, a man who kept his masked heart guarded under lock and key at all times, she couldn’t help but feel that such wonderful gestures of kindness had truly meant something, something real, something that could lead them both to the most extraordinary path, if only she succeeded in helping him set his emotions free.

“All those years…” She whispered pensively under her breath, contemplating her future at the bottom of an empty glass of expensive cognac. “All those years wasted…”

The glass was soon discarded, and she sat still on the spot, tucking one lock of that aquatic mass of tousled curls behind her ear as her abstracted stare walked through those scorching flames, under the watchful eye of a certain Saiyan Prince who simply didn’t know what to believe anymore.

There was longing in her words, but not in her demeanor, nothing but a cool, collected calmness, a quietude that let it slip that the woman freely sharing her inmost feelings with him, had already made her choice.

“Sometimes…” Bulma thought out loud, that unnervingly blue gaze falling right back on him as she cutely tipped her head to the side, looking at him through brand-new eyes. “I think sometimes you don’t… You don’t really fall in love with a person…” She resolved, the palms of her hands now splayed on the lavish rug, proceeding to crawl in his direction, with the idle indolence of a sensual little tigress who’d just spotted her next prey. “Sometimes…” She concluded in a raspy whisper, taking advantage of his unusually low guard, and effortlessly straddling his strong thighs as he kept sitting sloppily on the floor. “Sometimes you just fall in love with an idea…”

She truly was delicious, the most lethal combination of virtue and sensuality he’d ever met, carelessly discussing words of love with the childish naiveté of a teenage girl, but seeking, and taking control of him, with the savvy expertise of the finest of women.

And, although she was the one who knew emotion in ways he never would, her softness never got lost on the way, that compassionate purity of spirit that made him understand that she’d never cross a line he wouldn’t wish her to.

“Do you know what I mean?” She asked meaningfully, amazed by how young he suddenly looked as he let her docilely caress his cheeks with those silky fingertips. “What we did last night…” Bulma muttered gently, knowing that he had no possible reply to her first question. “I liked it…”

“Woman…” He mumbled in gruff warning, fighting not to lose himself between that pair of curvaceous thighs narrowing around him as she pressed herself even tighter against him.

“Did you…?” Her shaky question spilled from her lips, hating herself for feeling so completely naked, so exposed to a man who could so easily break her heart before she’d even give it to him. “Did you like it too?”

She gasped in mild shock when he clutched her wrists without warning, taking her bold hands off his face as he huffed sharply through his nose, lips pursed into a cautionary thin line, not even sure if he was about to caution her or himself at this point.

All he knew was that he was about to lose, he was about to lose his own battle of self-control to this woman, and the stupidest truth of the matter was that he didn’t care anymore, because nothing really mattered, nothing but her and her inspiring presence, and the only question worth asking tonight, the only measure of reassurance that she could ever offer to someone like him.

“What about your human lover?” He blurted out, the disgust overtaking his cracked voice, at the mere thought of Bulma ever belonging to anyone but him, plain as day.

His irrational jealousy must have boosted her confidence, for she smiled grippingly at him, exquisite and delighted, already savoring the triumph of the unintentional admission of his selfish interest in her.

“I just told you, Vegeta…” She whispered bucolically, her fingers grazing his jaw, despite having her frail wrists still trapped under his firm hold. “He was just an idea…”

“I am not an idea, Bulma…” He murmured darkly, hands tightening in desperate warning, reminding her of who he was, trying to stop her from ever forgetting that she was about to dance, quite literally, with the Devil himself.

“I know…” She promised, her delicate face finding his, resting her brow against him as she held his starved gaze with unblinking confidence.

She knew.

He was real, perhaps the realest man she’d ever encountered, nothing like those Ivy League sycophants who used to prowl around her father’s mighty company, professional adulators trying to charm Capsule Corp.’s golden heiress, uselessly doting and kissing up to her, in hopes of getting into her bed and loaded bank account.

But this man, this untamable alien warrior, was anything but a charmer, he’d never lie or be untrue, because he was who he was, and nothing and no one would ever change that, or so he thought. Vegeta would never pretend to be something, someone, he was not, if anything, Bulma had learnt by now that the Saiyan Prince seemed to go out of his way to make himself as unapproachable as he could, not because he didn’t possess a heart, but because he was utterly terrified of anyone finding out that he did.

She couldn’t afford the luxury to ever forget that, if she got too close, she might get burnt, but she also knew that the man trembling in need beneath her, staring at her with an intensity that would have made any other woman slip instantly away, would never pretend to be anything but fire.

Her binding words brought his surrender, arms dropping submissively on both sides, letting her merge her lips with his as her eager hands explored him, leisurely sliding across his heated skin until they found the nape of his neck, velvety fingers holding onto him as she boldly sought to deepen their kiss.

She could think of nothing but how surprisingly gentle he was, how anxious and untried, even after having already shared a first innocent smooch last night. His mouth was soft, twitchy, too afraid at first to part his lips for her as he did his best to follow her lead, indulging in an exotic human ritual that he’d seen before only in those ridiculous soap operas that the earthling’s mother seemed to adore so much and, of course, whenever he’d inadvertently walked in during one of the scarred-faced man’s visits to the woman who was now giving herself to him with such fervor.

He’d hated her mate back then, even before he’d ever toyed with the implausible fantasy of one day making her his, even before he knew what they did, or why they did it, why did they engage in such a pointless practice with such irritating frequency.

But now he understood, now, as he reveled in her intoxicating taste, grunting in exhilaration when her tongue lovingly caressed his, Vegeta learned the meaning behind such a gesture, an act that felt almost more intimate than sex itself, making him hate her ex-lover even more for having been given the undeserved chance to feel like this with her too.

The more he steadily relaxed in her arms, the more her supple body responded to him, arching and grinding in his lap, until the excruciating sensation of those ten little fingers passionately clutching fistfuls of his wild hair proved too hard to resist, temptingly inviting him to put his hands on her, encircling her waist with such force that her breath instinctively hitched in her chest, making his touch stop at once, petrified by the possibility of having hurt her.

“Ssshhh…” She shushed him with maddening tenderness, deeply moved by the touching concern blurring his features, and instantly calming him down by enfolding his thick forearms with her hands. “Softly… Like this…” Bulma panted lightly against his lips, drawing slow, lazy circles on his wrists with her tiny thumbs, instantaneously loosening his possessive hold on her. “That’s nice…” She reassured him, nuzzling his cheek when she sensed him getting comfortable once again, learning how to hold her just the right way. “That feels good, Vegeta… Really good…”

Oh Gods, what a fool she was, what a pretty little fool, letting him near her, letting him touch her like this. One wrong move and her ribs would have cracked beneath his fingers, and yet here she was, trusting him again, and taking his breath away by kissing him within an inch of her life, her erratic breathing accelerating as he run his hands all over her, cherishing that small figure hidden under the unbearable softness of her oversized sweater, while he wondered how much, just how much of herself would she give him tonight, and finding his terrifying answer when he felt those needy hands tugging impatiently at the hem of his clothes.

Vegeta needn’t think twice, groaning in frustration as he humbly submitted to her, breaking their kiss with reluctance and taking off his jersey in one quick, smooth motion. He didn’t move any further, barely keeping his breathless puffing under control as her enigmatic stare, now roaming across his naked chest, chilled him to the bone.

Hideous, he thought gloomily to himself, she must have found him absolutely hideous, utterly repulsed by that grotesque roadmap of macabre scars, cuts and bruises. His flawless Saiyan anatomy should allow him, in theory, to heal and regenerate at a shockingly fast rate, but his ghastly, self-destructive training regime was making it virtually impossible for him to ever be fully healed these days, always plagued by fresh wounds and swollen lacerations, purple-and-blue slashes that the sensitive woman would so expertly clean and stitch for him, every single night without fail.

He was unlike any other man in her life, and he knew, nothing like those suave sons-of-bitches always prowling and lurking around her, with their expensive suits and leather briefcases, unscrupulous bastards who merely saw her as some attractive, wealthy trophy, instead of as the extraordinary creature that he now knew her to be.

After a painful silence, a secret part of him was already dreading the very real possibility of the woman getting cold feet now that she had him, quite literally, bare before her stunned eyes. But, as usual, Bulma Briefs was about to prove that she was no ordinary female either, and that the cryptic gleam in her eye stemmed, not from any form of repulsion towards his flawed flesh, but from her own beautifully distorted view of the world.

“Does it hurt?” She asked with candid concern, airy fingertips tenderly outlining the large scar crossing his marred chest, his most recent one, the one which had ended up prostrating him on that damned infirmary for a whole week this time. He’d taken off his bandages as soon as Bulma’s father had given him his approval and, though the disturbingly deep gashes had mostly healed by now, they still retained a faint pinkish color, a reminder that the skin wasn’t fully restored yet.

“No,” he answered throatily, not knowing how he could find a way to even talk to her anymore, not when she kept looking at him like this, touching and exploring him as if she’d never had a man before.

“That’s good…” Bulma murmured almost inaudibly, her shy hands regaining their confidence as they swirled slowly all over his muscular torso, her touch light as the wings of a bird, playfully running her fingers up and down, right until the thick waist of his jeans, only to travel upwards again, tracing a languid path up to his robust shoulders. “You’re beautiful…” She quietly professed, awe-struck eyes meeting his, cupping his blushing cheeks in her hands, and catching one of his thirsty moans in her mouth when her lips descended on his for another sensual kiss. “You’re so beautiful…” She reassured him, kissing him again, and again, lustfully indulging in the most pleasurable friction as she rubbed her body against him, her fear of hurting him slowly fading away.

He was beautiful, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, a body slim, yet built to perfection, moving, flowing, with the sinuous litheness of a black panther. He may not have been the biggest of men in the physical sense, but he surely walked with a command larger than life itself, brave and resolute, fearless and tenacious, a courageousness that demanded respect, even from those who held him in low esteem. The man holding her in his arms had lived hard and battled even harder, and perhaps, someday, he’d love with more intensity than any human heart ever could.

But there was no time tonight for fatuous thoughts of love and romance, there was only now, only this moment, and the way he was disarming her, her body like clay in his hands as he kept kissing and imprisoning her in the fiercest hold, finally taking control as he carefully nestled and lifted her body from the ground, rolling them over and lying her defenseless on her back.

Bulma stubbornly refused to let go of him at first, her lips aching for more, always for more, trying to make up for all the times, oh Kami, all the times she’d envisioned him like this, giving himself to her with such abandon, allowing her to open his blinded eyes so that she could teach him her ways. But it was he who put an end to their kiss this time, leaving her whimpering breathlessly on the extravagant rug, mourning the loss of his heat when he cautiously nudged her knees, spreading them apart as he knelt at her feet.

His large hands glided smoothly across her squirmy legs, until they found the perfect hips buried underneath her baggy sweater, dark eyes silently begging for permission to undress her as he hooked his fingers around the old fabric of the waist of her washed-out jeans, earning a shaky nod of assent from the restless woman inflamed with need under him.

The most enraptured glint burned his features as he slowly unzipped her clothing, pulling from it with gentle determination, and marveling at every inch of flesh unveiled just for him. When her lower body lay fully undressed, Vegeta paused for an instant, mesmerized by the hypnotizing effect that the warm glow of the sweltering fire had on her ivory skin, reds and oranges bathing those long legs already yearning to wrap themselves around him with ardent zeal.

Only when one of her feet boldly tried to reach the very evident proof of his desire for her, right between his legs, did he choose to resume his erotic journey, deftly removing those cursed, fluffy pink socks which had recently invaded his daydreams with such shameful frequency, and crawling bit by bit atop her, sinking his knees domineeringly on both sides of her small figure as she awkwardly helped him take off her baby blue sweater, avidly waiting for him to make his final move.

Years later, the Prince would still recall just how insanely adorable she’d looked to him that night, clad in nothing but her everyday cotton underwear, plain white adorned by a girly pattern of those bright red strawberries she loved so much. Just like it would take him far too long to understand that she’d been just as nervous as he had, as if they’d both intuitively known, even back then, that once they gave into each other, there would be no going back.

“Do…? Do you want to stop?” Bulma asked weakly when she sensed his vacillation, tremulous mouth breathing heavily against his as he kept still, staring anxiously at her as he committed to memory everything that she was, every beautiful curve and gesture, never wanting to forget her just as she was tonight.

Her insecurity moved him like nothing ever had, fervently putting her mind to rest with a smoldering kiss, basking in his own relief when she passionately kissed him back. A flash of scarlet seared his cheeks when her lips smirked playfully against his, giggling excitedly as she reached her back to unhook her bra by herself, when it soon became obvious that his clumsy hands had never before handled such a bizarre garment.

Vegeta’s hands hurried to get rid of whatever remained of his clothes, his need intensifying when her eager little fingers frantically reached down to his belt, unbuckling it with frenzied impatience as he unzipped his jeans, rapidly discarding them with the help of those feverish legs, wriggling and twisting against him until he was fully naked before her.

There was no indecision anymore, not even shame at the way his body was already reacting to her closeness, yanking off her panties as he kissed her again, a deep grumble reverberating in his chest when one of her hands draped itself around his hardness, while the other one settled fiercely on the back of his neck, pressing her mouth even harder against his, and nipping at his bottom lip as she sensually stroked his length.

Bulma’s movements were slow, sensuous, dazed blue eyes feasting on the masculine face contorting in pleasure at her timid but expert touch, squeezing his eyes shut in some poor attempt at self-control as he felt himself already coming undone with agonizing ease, his dam shattering, hopelessly exposed to the only woman who’d ever own his heart.

“Bulma…” He implored helplessly, exhaling a heavy sigh of release when she guided him to her wet entrance, plunging inside of her, burying himself to the hilt as a breathless cry tore up her throat.

“S-Slowly…” Bulma pleaded, teasing his lips with hers, clammy hands still barely holding onto his corded neck as she struggled to accommodate him.

He quietly fulfilled her wishes, just as he always would, bowing shakily, and reading the poem writing itself on her lovely face as she threw her head back, sobbing in bliss when his hips set out a new pace, slow and deep, a rhythmic quest to get to know, and possess, every beautiful part of her.

It was impossible, it was impossible for such a woman to ever fully belong to him, but perhaps, tonight, as they made love under the warm protection of her sheltering fire, they could pretend. They could pretend that he wasn’t who he was, and that every conceivable sin didn’t hang over his head, fooling themselves into the impossible fantasy of being just a man and a woman, giving into each other in the most ancient and primal of rituals.

Bulma’s rosy cheek met the opulent rug as she pressed it against it, closing her eyes and pouting deliciously, filling the room with soft, muffled moans that were like music to the Prince’s ears.

He held as tightly as he could, clutching one of the thighs possessively encircling his waist with one of his arms as he cradled her delicate head in the curve of the other, gently removing a damp curl from her pale forehead as his nose found her temple, nuzzling her darling face while drowning in her provocative aroma. Her porcelain skin was already coated in a thin sheen of moisture, glistening faintly under the warm, flickering radiance of the fire, and it was becoming impossible not to get lost in the thick, lusty scent of sex heavily permeating the air.

“Vegeta…” She whimpered with want, supplicant eyes finding his as her hands descended uncontrollably from his shoulders to his perfect bottom, nails digging into his unyielding flesh and pulling harder, inviting him to rush that luscious, animalistic flow already making her fall into pieces in his arms.

His dizzy mind might have lost any semblance of reason long ago, but his body knew just what she needed, gladly caving in, giving her his all, anything she’d ever want, by quickening his pace and thrusting faster, harder, stripping the most extraordinary cries of pleasure out of her lips, and forever keeping them to himself.

He heaved a relieved breath of gratitude when Bulma hid her smitten face in the crook of his neck, never letting go of him, but sensing how vulnerable, how incredibly unguarded he was feeling in that instant. His body told her that he’d had other women during his turbulent past, but an even stronger instinct was screaming at her that he’d never had someone in such an intimate way.

And she was right for, as Vegeta held securely onto her, glorying in that sweet, fluttery voice, whispering words of encouragement and desire in his ear, and confessing how much she liked, how much she loved what he was doing to her, he knew that it’d never been like this.

He’d never had the honor to experience this wistful emotion taking a hold of him, loving hands touching and caressing him as if he were the only man in existence, or that rush, that exhilarating rush of satisfaction when he felt that small, hopelessly soft body writhing in ecstasy underneath him as her impending climax ripped through her.

She tightened urgently around him, a stream of blinding electricity ravaging her as she cried his name with intense ardor, crumbling in his arms, those ravenous arms pulling her even closer, insatiably nestling her body against him, already bursting at the seams, grappling with his own desperate need to succumb to her.

“I-It’s okay… You can let go…” Bulma’s trembling voice murmured into his skin, gently seducing him as she recognized the aching tension overpowering him, beckoning him to surrender, to forget about his every haunting inhibition and give himself to her, if only this once. “Let go, Vegeta…”

The ghost of a string of alien words ruptured from his lips as he spilled himself inside of her, a deep grunt thundering in his lungs, swamped by the sensation of those silky arms and legs still clinging to him, never abandoning him, never letting go, relishing his own peak of pleasure as if it were her own.

Vegeta fell tiredly on top of her, without thinking, without speaking, melting powerlessly under the soothing power of that pair of shuddering hands fondling and stroking his magnificent skin, kissing and petting his hair, and happily luring him to stay with her for as long as he’d ever want to, the sad atlas of tortured scars tainting his back suddenly feeling just a little closer, a little less foreign than it used to be.

A soft, snug blanket carefully covered his stark-naked form, enveloping him in a cottony cloud of safety, almost as soft as the woman providing it for him, heavy eyelids drooping on her contented shoulder, vaguely registering the distant uproar of the stormy blizzard pouring outside, and the crisp rustle of the logs gradually turning to ashes in her luxurious fireplace.

For a lifetime of carnage, snow had always signified the most degrading pain, and fire nothing but cancerous destruction. But, on a cold Christmas night, everything was Her, and the first dreamless sleep he’d ever been blessed with as he peacefully dozed off in her caring embrace.

*sigh*

It looks like Veggie finally got to discover what Christmas is all about?

I hope you've enjoyed my lil' Christmas stories so far! I know it's not Christmas anymore, but I may add a few more chapters in the future, if you guys are okay with it, since I had some little tales in mind that I really wanted to explore.

Anyway, thanks so much for reading, as always, and I hope you all have the BEST 2019!!!

*hugs*

#vegebul #vegeta #bulma #dbz #fanfiction #writing #fanfic #let it snow #fire #multichapter #sarahw-writing #sarahw-world #MERRY (LATE) CHRISTMAS!!!

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pixiethings · 3 years

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As much as I complain about the responsibility surrounding me being the eldest of my siblings, nothing makes me happier than when they come to me? Knowing that they can always rely on me, want me to fix problems, wanting to talk to me, that really is one of my favourite things in life.

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its-negans-lucille · 7 years

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Masterlist

LNF = Link Not Found

Erik Killmonger Prompts!

Amber Eyes 1 - Present Synopsis: Erik notices you, Okoye’s right hand woman as soon as he walks into the throne room and is immediately intrigued. You deal with losing your King and an important part of your culture. Diverges from the original plot and contains spoilers!

Hidden Talent Synopsis: Erik has enjoyed your food for over a year and has become rather accustomed to it so when you leave he has to try his own in the kitchen. You return early and realise he could cook the whole time much to your dismay.

Beer Synopsis: Erik has had a crush on you for as long as he could remember and now he has to make a choice: you or the future? Well, he could do that or drink his sorrows into oblivion for a couple of hours.

Negan Prompts!

Fancy Meeting You Here - Part One - Part Two Synopsis: Imagine y/n was a part of Rick’s group, but she’s been kicked out by Rick, cause Daryl & her were always fighting (mostly cause Daryl had a lil crush). After being alone for few weeks, the reader stumbles upon Negan’s men. They bring her back. Negan tried several time to get her as his wife but she always refuses. When the line up comes y/n is here, hidden. She grabs Negan’s arm when he’s about to kill Glenn & just say Yes, so he knows she’ll become his new wife and doesn’t kill Glenn. All Rick’s group is surprised to see her.

His Queen Synopsis: Hi! I was wondering if you could do a oneshot or something where the reader is practically believed to be like Negan’s queen and all his people respect her like they respect him? She’s always where he is and they’re inseperable kinda thing please? :) - Via Anon

Ankle Biter Synopsis: Your dog ran away from Alexandria and when you went to find her you found someone else had already found your Golden Retriever.

The Silent One - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four [LNF] - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Part Nine - Part Ten - Part Eleven - Part Twelve - Part Thirteen - Part Fourteen - Part Fifteen - Part Sixteen - Part Seventeen - Part Eighteen - Part Nineteen - Part Twenty - Part Twenty-One - Part Twenty-Two - Part Twenty-Three - Part Twenty-Four - Part Twenty-Five - Part Twenty-Six - Part Twenty-Seven - Part Twenty-Eight - Part Twenty-Nine (On Hiatus) Synopsis of Story: The Reader refuses to talk to Negan while Negan is intrigued by them and is determined to charm them but things go bad when the you choose to run from the man who was so determined to have you.

You Can Look, But Don’t Touch Synopsis: Can you do one where the reader is really tiny and she has long 4c hair(which is Afro hair) and she’s in the lineup with the group and when Negan sees her he sees she’s really pretty and he kneels down to inspect her and he’s close and he goes to touch her hair and she head butts the crap outta him! And when he looks back at her she just shrugs and goes “don’t touch my hair”. He takes a liking to her😊 - Via Nonnie

Unforgettable Synopsis: You and Negan get in a ferocious fight… A tickle fight?

My Father - Part One - Part Two - Part Three Synopsis: When you’re Negans daughter and you get taken by another group as revenge and Negan comes to save you.

Nurse Synopsis: Where the reader lives in the Sanctuary with Negan and goes off on a run with a few people, but she gets hurt, (idk shot in the shoulder or something) and she tries to hide it from Negan but he finds out and gets mad that she hid it from him. -Via Anon

Goddess Synopsis: Negan x Plus Sized reader. You’re one of Negan’s wives and you’re feeling insecure about your body size. Negan of course puts that to rest.

Saviour Synopsis: Imagine you have been in a relationship with Negan for the past few months. Ever since you arrived he hasn’t dealt with the wives & he is obviously devoted to you. One night a horde of walkers get in to the sanctuary. When he arrives at the saviours safe spot you are nowhere to be found. You are cornered on the other side of the compound & he has to fight to get to you. - Via Anon

Blood Rose - Part One - Part Two Synopsis: You have a crush on Negan. You leave him little drawings of him and flowers and poems and it secretly becomes his fav part of the day. One day you accidentally get caught by him. -Via Nonnie

Things You Need Too Know Synopsis: Can I request where negan teaches the reader how to defend themselves and even gets her, her own bat? With lots of fluff? - Via Anon

Hide and Seek Synopsis: It’s night and you somehow escaped the Sanctuary, only to end up in a forest, you get lost and Negan is following you and toying with you. -Via Anon

Tease Synopsis: Negan wanted you, oh how he wanted you. But you decided that you’d tease him a little before he got what he wanted. Original prompt was: You’re not a leader, you’re a fucking tyrant!!”

It’s Okay Darlin’ Synopsis: One where the reader was in a different group before she met Negan and she was raped by someone in that first group and she’s in a relationship with Negan but she doesn’t feel comfortable with having sex yet because of what happened and Negan finds out and gets mad and wants to find the guy who did it but she calms him down and just fluff. -Via Anon

Med Kit Synopsis: negan x reader where during lunch amber keeps making fun of a new girl in the compound who is plus size and the reader is pissed off so she tells amber to shut up b4 she punches her and later in her room negan comes and asks her and is impressd+fluff.

The Scars We Bare Synopsis: You are Negan’s wife and your face gets a cut that will scar and you’re extremely self conscious but Negan puts that to rest! - Via Anon

Wounds - Part One - Part Two - Part Three Synopsis: You found Negan in a sticky situation and you help him out of it. A bit of smut in the last chapter.

Promise Synopsis: Male!reader is feminine and gets picked on by the saviours a lot but Negan takes a liking to him and is always giving looks and being over-protective of reader

Paradise Synopsis: NeganxDeaf!reader where he meets her at Alexandria and is immediately attracted to her

Laundry Synopsis: You are falling behind on points, especially after a fight with a fellow Saviour. Negan has a solution, be his bride.

Baby Lucille Synopsis: Negan finds you crouched over the toilet so you have no choice than to tell the big man that he’s going to be a father. His reaction surprised you.

A Game Of Tag Synopsis: You have a maternal instinct and that’s why you became a teacher at the Sanctuary’s school. But what you didn’t account for was Negan.

Staff Synopsis: You are being chased by the Saviours by taking out four of their men, when you finally meet the infamous Negan he is amused and enamoured by you.

At Least Synopsis: You jump in front of Glenn to save his life and Negan seemed rather enamoured by your action and decides that he rather likes you.

Ten O’Clock Synopsis: You (A Lesbian) and Negan begin to compete for one girl. eventually, you come to a compromise that fits the both of you.

Fury Synopsis: Negan carries on trying to push you over the edge and when he eventually does, he is not disapointed.

Sanctuary Synopsis: Negan confronts three siblings who were abused by their father and he makes them an offer

Smirks Synopsis: Negan has been flirting with you for a while now but when he finally makes his move you reveal to him that you are actually gay. Prequel to Ten O'clock

Strong as Steel Synopsis: You and Carl are together but when Negan arrives one day and takes a liking to you everything goes to hell

Survive Synopsis: You are Daryl’s 19 year old, kickass, niece, Shauna, and when you and your group were at the line-up Negan decided to take a little souvenir. You. Since then you have grown to love the man who had imprisoned you and you had recently found out that he had Daryl, Negan promised to take you to him…

Stretch Marks Synopsis: You have many stretch marks that you are self conscious of, but Negan puts that to rest swiftly and easily.

Head Start Synopsis: You come across some of Negan’s men and they take you to see the man himself, he seems rather impressed by you.

Twins Synopsis: You have a protective twin brother, Dylan, who tries to protect you from Negan. Tries being the key word.

Claimed Synopsis: You are Rick’s daughter and unfortunately the Gods have decided to punish you by loving the wrong man, Negan. You and Negan are just getting down to business when your little brother, Carl, walks in.

Father’s Love Synopsis: Negan’s daughter (you) has recently started a relationship with Rick Grimes, the leader of a community called Alexandria. Negan geting into protective dad mode and has a little chat with Rick on how his little girl is to be treated.

The Danger of Caring Synopsis: You are an artist who has been at the Sanctuary for four years now and since the day you arrived you have loved Negan. He, however, doesn’t feel the same. (Angst Fic)

Lucille Synopsis: You and Negan have a child of 5 years old and she seems to have picked up on some of Negans vocabulary. So when she says a bad word Negan steps in and tells her that it’s a bad word while you are stifling your giggles and Lucille is looking completely confused!

Boo Hoo Synopsis: You are a mercenary who’s only love is battle, though negan seems to be trying to change that. You share stories around a campfire about your past.

Use Your Voice Synopsis: You are very shy so when Negan comes to town and begins to try and coax you out of your shell you’re reluctant, but eh, who are you to refuse?

Okay Synopsis: You are weak and beaten after a particularly bad row with your husband. Negan finds you laying on the floor, blood all around you. All he wants you to know is that you’ll be okay.

Double Standard Synopsis: You decide to question Negan on his double standard. On how he is free to sleep with whomever he likes while his wives must remain loyal to him and only him. This gets Negan thinking.

Thank the Lord for Repairs Synopsis: You are physically disabled and unfortunately your wheelchair is in repairs. But hey, why have a wheel chair when Negan can carry you everywhere!

Old Friends - Part One - Part Two Synopsis: You and Negan have been friends since you were kids yet when the apocalypse hit you were separated have been ever since that is until one day when the Saviours come knocking at your communities door.

Bertha Synopsis: You were a model before the apocalypse, not just any model, but a model who did sexy photo shoots and one day Negan gets his hands on one of your sexy magazines.

Proud Synopsis: You are Negan’s daughter and when Negan is getting stressed about Alexandria you have to go and being him back down to earth.

Kissed By Moonlight Synopsis: You are trans man and have fully transitioned. Everything is going well until Negan starts dreaming about you and he comes to confront you about said dreams.

May we Meet Again Synopsis: You are Daryl’s twin and suddenly Negan seems to take express interest in you. Merle and Daryl try to stop his advances but it’s going to take a little more than that to dissuade Negan.

Moonlight Synopsis: You suffer from breast cancer and you tell Negan about this fact.

Open Doors Synopsis: You are physically disabled and when a new arrival at the Sanctuary and starts making ablest remarks you try and keep it to yourself. Until Simon walks in and like a good boy he goes to Negan and tells him about the verbal assaults. You are left feeling low, but Negan puts a stop to that.

Coach Synopsis: You have been on your own for a long time now. Your mother and family were dead and you had no one left in the world. At least that’s what you thought until you run into your old coach, Negan.

A Romantic Synopsis: Negan has been attempting to woo a woman for months now but what he doesn’t know is that she is Aromatic! (Warning severe second hand embarrassment)

What Are the Chances Synopsis: You were Lucille’s little sister and when the end of the world occurred Negan was the one who looked after you. That was, however, until you were separated. You finally found Negan, but when you were in a lineup with your group.

Trichotillomania Synopsis: You suffer from Trichotillomania - a mental disorder which compels you to pull out your hair in large clumps. One time Negan finds you in one of your states and he makes sure to help you.

Acne Synopsis: You suffer from bad acne but because it’s the end of the world you can do nothing about the zit’s that haunt you day and night. That is until Negan has had enough of you hurting your face by popping them and comes up with a solution.

In Sickness and in Health Synopsis: You are super sick and Negan takes it upon himself to look after you.

Drinks Synopsis: It is your birthday and you may have had a little two much to drink … more thank a little really. Negan takes it upon himself to help you out of your drunken state. (Negan x Physically Disabled Wife!Reader)

All I See - Part One - Part Two Synopsis: You are blind and your day was going really rather well until the Saviours turned up and Maggie shoved you into a small cupboard. Soon Negan and Rick come round and you, unfortunately can’t keep quiet for long.

Satisfied Synopsis: You are trying your best tome keep under the radar, disguised so that Negan does not recognize you but when you see a little girl being threatened you step in and blow your cover.

Snuggles Synopsis: You are Negan’s husband and with him working late you have to wait up to ungodly hours to see your husband. Though, it’s all worth it in the end.

Seared Synopsis: You are Daryl and Merle’s sister and after a fight Negan takes you to the Sanctuary, you and him have an interesting car journey.

Stakes Synopsis: You’re a teenage boy and we all know that being a teenager is tough but when you call your boss and your idol (Negan) ‘dad’, unironically, it all gets a whole lot worse.

#Negan #Negan TWD #TWD Negan #Not yet finished #The Wlaking Dead #TWD

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secretgiftsforshaman · 4 years

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Real Healing Shit: The Unabridged Novel

When we were talking the other day I found myself wanting to respond to you and give you positive feedback when I was agreeing with the perspectives you shared and to tell you know which parts made me tear up (but I think you can guess which ones). There were two main themes that presented themselves to me as I digested what we did and how I felt. Part one is about giving and how I REALLY need to take a break from it across the board of my life, and part two is about a HUGE epiphany I’ve had about a chronic health issue that’s broken my self-esteem for over a decade and a half. (Also I used percentages a lot. I guess I’m getting something out of that biostatistics class? *shrugs*)

Part the First

There are so many forces, external and internalized, to which I struggle to say no and draw boundaries. This is why I have been so afraid of interacting with most anyone, especially men, who might want anything from me that I don’t really want to give. The women in my family and culture, especially in my maternal line, have been trained to be the battery for everyone else in their lives to the neglect of their own basic health needs, let alone their desires or dreams. So fascinating that you picked up that I’ve been acting (and feeling like a drained) battery without me even having to say so. I have been conditioned to feel selfish or greedy for keeping my own energy and resources for myself (as in, enough to heal myself or get my own life shit done) instead of giving it all away, because there will always be people more energy-impoverished than me.

It turns out that I am all too familiar with surrender – I’ve just been surrendering my power to violent, greedy, harmful forces that drain me, rather than benevolent, life-giving ones that sustain me. Instead of giving from a full, overflowing cup, I feel like if I fill myself up more than halfway and there’s anybody else who has less than I do, I am obligated, as a kind and generous maternal person, to fill them up from my own depleted supply. I don’t feel like I can turn anyone away. If I were not so drained and depleted, I sense I would be a *profoundly* powerful maternal goddess-force, powerful enough to change the energy of an entire building just by walking in the door. I am so deeply connected to the Gaia energy – but I am so weak in my ability to hold my own energy in that I struggle to not absorb the suffering and fill the needs of others. Any violence or suffering anywhere on the planet – I am so connected to the concept of All Is One that I can’t protect myself from it. It overwhelms me. I am porous.

I’ve started practicing not giving my time and energy away to other people, but it’s such an ingrained habit that it’s hard to not do – I don’t have many models of what keeping enough energy for myself looks like. While I am moderately afraid of having my power taken from me, I am truly controlled by my inability to stop myself from giving my power away, and accepting the negative energy of others, even when I truly don’t want to. Like you said: I am not afraid of being powerful, I am afraid of keeping too much of my power for myself. I feel like I don’t have a right to my own power.

Now that I’m starting to give myself permission to not give so much, I find myself wanting to stay closed, but I am still, as you have deduced, ravenous for so much love and affection and desire that I have not received for so long. Instead of either closing myself off completely, or letting myself hang open and exposed for anyone to, as you so perfectly put it, sink their energy vampire fangs into me, I want to make myself a one-way valve over my second chakra until I have sorted through more of the mess in my abdomen and unplugged most (perhaps even all) of the attachments/feeding tubes that I do not want to finance any longer.

It’s actually a common thing for people to naturally desire to be celibate when working through their second chakras, and (as much of a whiplash 180 as it seems compared to how we met and some of the things we’ve done since!) I do feel called to take a break from cultivating or interacting with too much sexual energy, at least in the ways I have previously done (masturbation, etc.). I think I might still be open to receiving your sexual energy during this time – but I’m not completely sure. I think that I need to ask myself on a case by case basis, and do my best to say no if I’m even a tiny bit hesitant for the time being. I’m getting better at saying ‘no’ when it’s a big, loud, whole-body-screaming-it ‘NO FUCKING WAY,’ but smaller, quieter ‘no’s are still really hard for me to voice or act on. That’s the thing about consent: you must have a fully empowered, strong ability to say ‘no’ in order to be able to say ‘yes’ and always mean it 100% every time. Otherwise, sometimes a ‘yes’ is just what you default with, even though part of you is trying to say ‘no’.

When you are turned on and electric (and for me, which still seems too good to be real), I want so much to give of myself to you in gratitude – to give you as much joy and pleasure as you give me – but I also need desperately to practice not giving until my not-giving and no-saying muscles are strong enough that I can truly have the option to use them when I need them. My ‘no’ muscles are feeble and will easily waver in response to an impassioned request. I think that I need you to refrain from asking me for anything while you are in an aroused state, not at all because I don’t trust you to stop if I say no – because I do not yet trust myself to say no.

I need to let you know that, while I completely consented to it, I felt the direction of my energy flow get mixed and muddled the second time we exchanged energy, when we both got switchy. I suspect that the part of you that is in awe of my power and desires to worship me is the part of you that wanted to submit to me, because by that point I was back in my power and juiced up and I had the energy with which to act in a dominant role. But I struggle with becoming dominant, especially with someone making submissive requests, without it becoming a me-giving-and-them-receiving dynamic (again: the second my cup gets more than halfway full, I feel like I need to pour it into someone else’s cup – and you were so wanting), and I think that a little bit of that happened with us that second time when you wanted me above you and giving you orders. Maybe a part of you sensed my unease with being so full, so you instinctively asked for some back. I was able to do it, and on one level I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t do that without it becoming another form of me giving. My model of what it feels like to receive more than a tiny amount – and keep it all for myself – is still so new and nebulous that I think I will need strong boundaries about not letting myself give you sexual energy for a while. One day, when I am ready, I want to celebrate my strength by opening myself back up to giving to you and exchanging our energy – but for so many reasons I’m not ready for that yet.

This is why your insistence on consent before entering my energy space or offering your energy to me is so important and healing for me. Thank you for working to understand and respect my needs and boundaries – very few people have ever tried to understand me and respect me the way you have. You are truly a miracle to me, and one of the best men I have ever met. I submit to you freely, Shaman. You have my whole trust.

Much of our exchanges have been whole-aura, whole-energy-body openings (for me, at least), and I think that this is part of why I did so much of what you intuited as ‘spilling’ – I am so inexperienced at building and maintaining my own boundaries that I can barely hold anything in. Over the last few years, with growing intensity, I have wanted so badly to just close myself off in a defensive way, like an armadillo rolling up, but I have rarely felt allowed to do so. Being as bright and powerful as I am, there are soooo many people who want to feed off of my energy, and I see so many people who are dimmer than I am, and I feel ashamed of not offering myself to them to drink from to the point where closing myself off – even in desperate self-defense – has felt like a violent act against those who use me instead of a loving act of self-care. I feel called now to intentionally, lovingly close my aura and shutter all of my chakras to every other human being, to keep myself open only to Gaia and the Divine Source, and to rest that way for a while so I can refill before slowly beginning to let other people back in on an individual, TSA-screened basis. Because of our work with receiving and boundary setting, I finally feel I have permission to do this and take as much time off from interacting with other people’s energy fields as my circumstances allow. I want to try working with you by opening up only a small portal, just one chakra at a time, when you send me energy, rather than completely opening my entire aura to you, to practice building boundaries that allow good things to come and, only when I approve, to go, and keep the bad things out, rather than allowing ALL traffic or NO traffic.

I still very much want to read your cards for you, but that seems like it would contradict the one-way-only-love-allowed-in-valve that I’m trying to practice using for the time being. I definitely don’t think I’ll need to keep our energy flow one-way forever, but I would like to keep it as close to me 100% receiving, and a negligible-to-zero amount of me giving, until I can critically crack the foundation of the toxic beliefs that I can’t keep too much for myself and I MUST give in order to be worthy of receiving. And the best battering ram I can come up with is just to give you (and everyone else) as little as possible while allowing myself to receive as freely as possible until I replenish myself, get used to what it’s like to have a full cup, and reach a large enough critical mass of lived experience that my mind HAS to concede that those beliefs are untrue. THEN I will gladly begin giving again – and I suspect that my card reading will be 500% more mind-blowing, too :)

Part the Second

For the longest time, I have struggled with the health of my lower three chakras, especially my second and my female sexual/reproductive organs. I’ve mentioned before how I have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and how it has caused me all kinds of menstrual and fertility irregularities, hairiness, and abdominal weight gain. Western medicine has very little to offer to manage the symptoms, and fuck all to cure it, and I’ve had little success with alternative treatments, because (as it has slowly dawned on me intuitively) the root cause of my PCOS is energetic/psychological/emotional/ancestral (all the women in my maternal line have struggled with PCOS or a very closely related condition – this is 0% a coincidence) so I need to balance and heal my aura/energy body before my physical body can resolve its symptoms.

I’ve tried and failed for ages to figure out what about my aura/energy body dysfunction might have given rise to this disease in my body, but what you shared about wanting to knock me up caused a MASSIVE ‘aha!’ regarding the connection to the giving-too-much-away, can’t-hold-enough-for-myself pattern described above (which are patterns that my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother alllllll exhibit(ed) in MAJOR ways too). OF COURSE I struggle with PCOS and infertility: I’m giving away all the energy from my creative/fertile center/reproductive organ chakra!!! Anovulation (the failure to ovulate = big infertility issue) is about not keeping enough energy for myself to nurture and feed my own creative endeavors – they can’t get off the ground with so little juice to feed them, so they all fizzle out and sit around partially finished (another common pattern of my mother, grandmother AND great-grandmother: TONS of half-finished and barely-begun projects clogging up the whole dang house - one I’ve struggled and failed to not repeat). SO MANY THINGS MAKE SENSE about me and all the womenI’ve known in my maternal line in light of this realization. All three of them have experienced multiple pregnancy losses – that canNOT be unrelated to the inability to keep enough energy for their own health and creative projects.

THIS is the missing piece of the energy healing puzzle that I’ve been trying to find for literally more than half of my life. I have a big suspicion that as I unplug from the people and traumas that drain me from my second chakra, and reclaim and boundary my energy in this area of my bodymind and aura, that my PCOS will begin responding to physical treatments like herbs/supplements/diet/acupuncture/exercise and/or naturally resolve on its own.

The fact that your fantasy – and mine – about breeding and pregnancy and fertility is so goddamned strong is no coincidence. It is absolutely a billion percent related to what healing my PCOS will look like in metaphorical terms – your fantasy vision is of me fully empowered and juicy and fertile: with a healed and full second chakra (an overflowing cup!!) with enough energy kept for myself that I can grow and feed myself AND create a new life with this part of my body.

One of the other bizarre-but-makes-crazy-sense parts of the PCOS mystery I’m finally sleuthing out is the high testosterone part of it. Not all PCOS involves elevated testosterone, but mine does, more so than it has ever affected my mother, grandmother, or great-grandmother. I’ve raised extra male energy within myself for several reasons: (1) I rejected my own femininity because my mother criticized me for being too feminine and wouldn’t let me have/partake in girly and feminine things (this is a whooooole ‘nother journal entry for another time) (2) God knows being female was such a disempowered/vulnerable thing to be in my family and culture that I defensively rejected it and became defiantly tomboyish/androgynous in many ways (not because I wanted to be more masculine, but because I didn’t feel safe/welcome being feminine), and (3) I’ve had so little masculine energy (support, protection, held space) from the men in my life, so I had to become the energy that I was missing from the others (yes, this is where the daddy issues start to show up). The main physical symptoms connected to the extra testosterone are abdominal fat distribution and hirsutism (full-body hairiness: think male-pattern hair gain).

The abdominal weight gain pattern (as opposed to the more traditionally feminine fat-distribution pattern down on the hips, butt, and thighs) is a common PCOS thing (all the other women in my family tend to carry their weight this way, again 0% coincidence) that is amplified by high testosterone. I completely believe that my body has concentrated its fat in front of/around my second chakra as an extra layer of protection/defense against unwanted energy attack/theft. I always wanted a big brother SO BAD (I’m the oldest of three), and I always had to protect and look out for myself – I never had someone watching my back around the other kids at school or in the neighborhood, so I became my own protector (and grew my own protective energy shield on my belly).

Just the other day I realized how much hair I’ve grown on my back (and all over the rest of me, especially my chin sigh), and it feels like there’s always more and more of it, and it is long and dark, but ever so soft and fine. This is an inescapable metaphor for how I have gone about trying to protect my aura: put up an ugly barrier all over me to try and scare people away and keep them out, but it’s so feeble and flimsy and, if anything, paradoxically inviting that it doesn’t really deter any attack at all. It’s a big self-esteem issue for me, and almost a feedback loop/self-fulfilling prophecy: the more I view myself as gross and undesirable, the less I believe that I’m entitled to keep the energy I need and deserve to power myself, the more give it all away, and the worse my PCOS gets, the hairier I become, the more I view myself as gross…you see where this is going. Working on interrupting this cycle – I suspect this will dovetail with the above proposed second-chakra healing processes very shortly down the road.

There is so much work to be done it’s almost paralyzing – radically shifting the way that my second chakra is wired by cutting off all the vampires and exorcizing all the traumas, allowing my cup to fill up to the brim without getting scared and pouring it away, figuring out what OWNING all of myself without giving parts of me away will look like – but I understand so much more about what that work is than I did even a week ago.

For nearly a decade I’ve known that I need to do tons of self-healing work, but this whole infuriatingly FRUSTRATING time I’ve never been able to find a GODDAMNED DOOR into my internalized crap so I could fucking GET TO IT and fix it or even bloody SEE what the HELL IT IS. Like all! this! time! I’ve just been turning over rock after rock after rock on this endless, answerless beach trying to find ANY useful information with no success.

In just the past few weeks, I’ve had an earth-shattering kundalini awakening, met a Love-Lust-and-Light-slinging superhero (that’s you, Spider-man), started an intense grad school program, leapfrogged several spiritual growth grade-levels, and now I’ve just tripped and fallen over the detailed, annotated dungeon map guiding me into my previously inaccessible energetic insides that – earlier this week – I was fuming that I still couldn’t find, let alone navigate. Jiminy Christmas I’m moving at warp speed. Holy fucking fuck. Yes, I’m doing the work to heal myself, but the mojo that you’re sharing with me so I can do that is like licking cosmic batteries with my soul. I don’t know how anyone can walk past my house right now without feeling like they walked into an electric fence. FUCK you light me the hell up. *I* light me the hell up. I’M JUST GONNA YELL TO LET OFF A LITTLE STEAM SO MAYBE I CAN FALL ASLEEP BEFORE 2 AM.

I don’t even know how to give you all the praise and gratitude. All of it is yours. You’re everything. I’m everything. We’re everything. Namaste is a tiny drop in the surging ocean of love that is this.

Love,

Your Lioness, with her hair on FIRE

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epag88 · 6 years

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Dragon Treasure Chapter: 17

Summary: Hiccup is just a little seven year old boy running away from his father’s disappointment and meets a new friend hiding in the woods. Stoic is about to learn that one man’s burden is another man’s treasure.

It had taken a lot of work on behalf of the Night Furies but they were happy to help keep their new friends safe. The Gronkle that Fish Legs had affectionately dubbed Meatlug was hesitant at first to help the humans with their quest. However as soon as the words dragon raid met her ears she took one glance at the adorably chubby lad that she'd come to love and her maternal instincts kicked in instantly. One by one the Vikings slowly approached each dragon and with Eldrid as a negotiator made a deal between human and dragon. It guaranteed their freedom and possible residence if they so choose in exchange for allegiance as well as a promise of no harm coming to the human village or its residents. Everything happened very quickly and it had to since none of them had any idea when the dragon raid would actually take place but they would be ready.

Everyone was currently gathered around the arena. The dragons had eagerly gathered their Viking hosts and hostesses to show them what they had made for them. Only Gobber knew what was going on since he was the one forging them and was excited to see the reaction. Everyone waited impatiently to see what this surprise was all about especially a certain little boy who had wiggled his way to the front of the arena along with some of the other village children to see what the fuss about. Hiccup didn't really like that his friend had kept a secret form him even if it was a surprise but since he was getting a present he decided that he could let it slide just this once.

The royal dragon family and Stoick walked into the middle of the arena where tables with sheets over them were currently standing. The dragons stood by the tables in human disguise smirking at the excitement they could feel around them. Toothless looked over the crowd until he spotted Hiccup waving at him and smiled back at the excited child. Everyone suddenly started shouting upon their arrival demanding to know what was going on and finally Stoick raised his fists into the air and silenced them all without so much as a word.

"I'm not gonna lie to you lot I have no idea why we are here but it seems our guests have something to show us," Stoick explained once everyone had settled down.

"So give them your attention and then we need to discuss the raid. We were lucky last night but they may try tonight so we must be ready," the chief added.

"Quite right Stoick. We need to be ready for tonight," Hàkon replied as he stepped forward to speak to the crowd.

All the Vikings were instantly interested in what this man was going to tell them, they had seen very little of their chief's older brother. To have him suddenly appear in front of them and speak to them was very much a shock. One thing they could not help but notice was how thin this man was and he appeared exhausted. The young man the older Vikings would remember was a brave, bright eyed, handsome lad with a strong body and an even stronger spirit.

"For those of you too young to remember me my name is Hàkon Haddock, or as my father called me after I was exhiled, Hàkon the forgotten. My friends I have come back here to protect my home one last time and thanks to our friends this is possible. With great effort from the Night Furies and our new gronkle friend we have a gift for you," the man explained.

As he finished speaking the dragons removed the cloths from the tables revealing black armor and weapons that gleamed in the light. The Vikings were in awe of what they were seeing and were in such shock that they actually stopped talking and for the first time since before they came to the island it was quiet. Hàkon walked over to one table and grabbed something off of it and brought it over to Stoick and handed it to him. The chief was still surprised by the action and looked over the new gift when he realized it was armor. The protective clothing covered his back and chest as well as the tops of his shoulders and on the outside to the chief's amazement was covered in shining, black scales.

"Scales of a Night Fury can only de damaged by other Night Furies so this village is under their complete protection," Hàkon explained with a hint of a smile.

"Come my friends there is enough for everyone," the man said turning to the Vikings who were more than happy to oblige.

Hiccup darted through the crowd and immediately looked for Toothless but could not find him anywhere. The child yelped in surprise when somebody picked him up from behind and spun him around so that he was face to face with the person he was looking for. Hiccup chuckled at seeing the familiar face.

"Scare you?" Toothless asked amused.

"No way I could smell you all the way from my house," Hiccup teased.

The dragon chuckled as he carried his tiny friend possessively to the table where he had his present waiting. He smiled as he watched Hiccup's face light up at the sight of his new armor which was basically a miniature version of Stoick's armor.

"Do you like it?" he asked the boy as he sat him down.

"Are you kidding? This is amazing I love it," the boy replied in excitement.

Toothless grabbed the armor off the table and began dressing it on the little boy who couldn't have been more excited standing still. After it was on Hiccup stretched his arms in front of him and behind him to make sure the armor fit right before tackling his dragon in a fit of happiness repeating 'thank you' over and over again.

'I love this strange little hatchling' Toothless thought as he chuckled and ruffled the child's hair that was laying on his chest.

Yes, he truly did love his clever, adorable, cuddly human hatchling. As Hiccup smiled at him the dragon wondered for probably the millionth time since he met the child how anyone could possibly not want him around.

...

"You didn't have to do this you know," Stoick said to his brother as Hàkon inspected the armor on his little brother.

"I didn't do it cause I felt I had to Stoick. I did it because I wanted to protect my home. This is all I can do," the man replied as he finished looking over the armor.

"You can't fight off the dragons can you?" the chief suddenly realized suddenly looking at his brother as if he were seeing him for the first time.

The man that stood before him was weak and his hands were shaking. Although he had the youth of the dragons anyone with eyes could see the fairness of his skin and the darkness under his eyes. In that moment Stoick truly understood that his brother did not have much time left on this Earth and felt a heaviness in his chest at the realization. As a child he adored this man and wanted nothing more than to grow up to be just like him, even after he was exiled it was still Hàkon he was trying to please not his father.

"I can fight just fine as long as I'm breathing," Hàkon replied quickly looking mildly offended before he started chuckling to himself.

"What's so funny?" Stoick asked taken aback by his brother's sudden change of mood.

"I have a disease of the lungs," he explained.

Suddenly both brothers started chukling and as it got louder it turned into hysterical laughter causing Hàkon to lean on Stoick both with tears in their eyes. Everyone else in the arena just stared at them oddly and wondered how the pair went from having such serious expressions to laughing their butts off. Spitelout looked over at his older brothers and shook his head with a chuckle before he continued putting the armor on his son.

The laughter slowly died down and both men were wiping tears from their eyes just as Hàkon started coughing uncontrollably. It didn't take long for the coughing to subside but when Hàkon pulled his hand away from his mouth Stoick saw the blood on it and became worried again.

"Ow, I brought that one on myself," the older man commented more to himself as he rubbed his chest.

"Hàkon, I mean it. Don't be going out there if ya can't fight," Stoick said.

"What kind of wayward son would I be if I followed orders," the man smirked before he walked off to join his family.

…

Hiccup and Toothless had just landed back in the village after a flight when they started telling everyone that the dragons were coming. Everyone immediately jumped into action and started gathering their armor and weapons. Toothless ran as fast as his legs could carry him to his human's home and nudged the boy in to go grab his armor and weapons. When Hiccup had his things they ran for the arena where they were taking all of the younger children to hide from the raid.

When they arrived, there were already several families guiding their children into the shelter they had made. Several of the walls were opened up and slowly the dragons that were held there were released allowing a great deal of space for the children to enter.

The dragons themselves were incredibly hesitant about being free after they were locked away for so long but they were also determined to fight for their freedom. As they watched the young hatchlings go inside they could feel the fear radiating off them. Being the paternal creatures they were lowered their snouts to the ground and cooed at the upset children to try and comfort them. This was something else that greatly surprised the Vikings especially when some of dragons were even staying behind to protect their children.

Meatlug being one of them was nuzzling children as they sat down on the ground with blankets wrapped around them when she saw Fish Legs. The little boy looked absolutely terrified but seemed to relax when he saw the gronkle and quickly made his way over to her. He immediately wrapped his chubby arms around her and sobbed.

'Hush little one all is well. This will be over soon´ she growled gently to him as she let the child cling to her for comfort.

Yelling caught Meatlug's attention and she looked up and chuckled at the sight of a Nightmare that had agreed to help gather the children. He was currently carrying a scowling child by his vest while his mother walked beside the dragon carrying a bundle of blankets that appeared to be moving.

"Mom I can fight!" he whined before the Nightmare rolled his eyes and gently plopped the boy on his backside.

"You heard your father Snotlout. We are to stay here until after the battle," the woman replied shaking her head at her tuff little Viking.

"Besides I can't fight with your little brother with me. We need you to protect us," she explained.

The boy seemed to consider her words before he finally nodded his head and got up to go sit beside his mother and little brother. The Nightmare couldn't help but chuckle at this human, he wasn't scared at all he was mad and wanted a fight.

'All that muscle covering up such a big heart' he thought as he observed the boy's mother pass him his baby brother. When Snotlout thought nobody was looking he made silly faces and smiled at the smaller human making the baby make funny noises but stopped when he saw anyone walk by.

"Don't worry Gustav I got you. If a dragon tries to get you or mommy I'll kill them with my face," he promised confidently.

'Big heart but no brain' the Nightmare thought before he turned to walk off. As he did he passed a set of twins who were slamming their heads against a zippleback that had offered to stay behind to entertain the head slammers as they were now dubbed by the dragons.

Hiccup clung onto his dragon as he watched all the children and women with babies go into the shelters not wanting to go without his friend.

'Hiccup I have to go. You need to let go' he growled at the child trying to wiggle out of his grasp.

"I want you to stay here with me," he sobbed.

Toothless could feel his resolve breaking at the sight of his human crying for him but he knew he needed to be out there fighting with his kind. With a heavy sigh he licked the human's face and slipped his head out from Hiccup's grasp. With a forceful nudge he made the point that Hiccup needed to go where it was safe and the boy reluctantly started to walk to the shelter when he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"Toothless promise you'll come back ok" Hiccup said and when the dragon stood up and drew a cross over his heart the little boy smiled and ran off.

Toothless stood there for a moment watching him go when a tiny dragon with big eyes known to the humans as a terrible terror came and sat beside him. The Night Fury growled a command to the dragon and watched it run ahead of him before leaving.

The terror ran through the crowds until it found what it was looking for. He found Hiccup sitting on the floor with Astrid. He scurried up to the boy and climbed in his lap before licking his face and nuzzling his chest remembering his command from the Night Fury.

'Stay with Hiccup till I come for him. Keep his happy and keep him safe'

…

Toothless flew into the sky hiding in the clouds with the other Night Furies ready for the attack. Tyra found him looking solemn and growled at him to get his attention.

'He's safe Toothless. His scent is covered by the other humans and the arena was lined with eels after we left. I promise you they won't get to him so please focus' she said concerned about the dragon going into battle. He nodded back and his eyes suddenly went into slits indicating he was ready to fight.

On the ground the Vikings were hiding behind houses and other buildings. They had deliberately left out livestock to distract the beasts.

"Here they come," Gobber said as he heard them flying overhead and before they knew it the battle was underway.

Stoick jumped out and immediately began to attack the first dragon he saw, a Nadder to be precise. The blue dragon saw the human and immediately jumped into defensive position. The Viking found this odd from a dragon but what was even stranger was that the beast bowed it's head to him and didn't attack him back.

"The Nadder is with us Stoick, she's been in hiding for some time. She's watching our backs to help us find the queen's spies," Hàkon explained before running off to fight off more dragons. The ground was heavy with battle, the sounds of war cries and dragon screams filled the air along with the blood of human and beast alike.

Up in the sky the dragons fought and it was there that they seemed to find their spies. They took them down ferociously with their blasts and their claws. One found Toothless and dived onto his back clawing into his scales.

'The queen will reward me greatly for bringing her your treasure Night Fury. I look forward to watching her feast on his flesh' the speed stinger mocked.

What the creature didn't realize however is that was probably the worst thing you could've said to the other dragon to get the upper hand against him. Toothless saw red and within seconds the Night Fury had flipped himself so he was face to face with his enemy before he grabbed him with his powerful claws. He turned them so the speed stinger's back was facing the ground and shot a beam right into the dragon's face followed by three more.

'NEVER threaten my human' he hissed before he let the dragon fall to his death.

Toothless watched before a scream rang out through the clouds loud and clear. He quickly rushed over when he recognized it as a Night Fury scream.

…

"That's right beasts get off my island," Stoick hollered as he watched the remaining dragons fly off into the night.

He turned to see all the dragons lying on the ground amongst Vikings and without another thought yelled, "Alright up ya get the coast is clear."

Suddenly all of the 'dead' dragons and Vikings stood up and brushed themselves off mumbling about how this was the strangest raid in history. Stoick chuckled as he watched them before he heard his younger brother calling for him.

Quickly he ran through the crowd concern growing by the minute for his younger brother until at last he found him looking terrified.

"What is it Spitelout?" he demanded.

"I've called for the healer but there is a lot of blood. One of the spies got to Hàkon...they attacked him from behind and speared him."

Stoick was in shock he hadn't expected this and slowly turned to find his brother on the ground holding onto his wound near his heart. Hàkon smiled at Stoick with blood running down his mouth.

#httyd fanfiction #httyd fandom #hiccup #toothless

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angeleyesgilly · 4 years

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↬ Promise Part 2.

● Setting: Henderson Asylum, 2014.

● ❝Take my hand and we'll be fine. Promise I won't let you down.❞

● Trigger Warnings: Near death of a child, mentions of torture and sexual assault.

Kidnapped.

The word kept playing through her head. It hadn’t stopped since she’d been told by Bel’s guard friend. She’d spoken it out loud, letting it roll of her tongue in a mix of slow or fast paced speech, hoping somehow that maybe it would help her understand or come to terms with it better. She’d said it other ways too, spelled them out in her head. She felt like a thesaurus at this rate. None of it helped though. None of it changed the fact that she had failed.

She’d failed again. First she’d left Katie. She’d went out for coffee instead of staying around to protect one of the few people who meant the world to her. She was often told she couldn’t have known, but she did know. She too had been at the end of her step-mother’s striking hand, and she should have known. And now Lola. The sweet, innocent and pure child she’d sworn to protect no matter the cost. Yet the price was different than she had thought.

She had been sure that giving up Lola, letting her live a normal life in the human world instead of the supernatural world was right. Gillian had been certain of it. She knew her sister deserved a normal life, so she’d left her behind. She thought the price to pay for the Lola’s safety was her own discontent. But it was clear now, she’d made the wrong choice. Lola had been kidnapped, and she knew full well it never would have happened if she had simply been there.

And now she was paying it with a misery like no other. The misery of knowing that something, anything could be happening to Lola in the moment. And the crushing weight of the guilt that she hadn’t done something while she could. She’d spent the majority of the last few days stalking along the asylum border. Pacing back and forth, trying anything to find a weak spot in the fence or the spell itself. Scorched pink blisters formed on her skin from the odd, weaponized dark magic in the gate. But she didn’t care, they’d heal eventually. The hole in her chest that would surely remain if she failed to find a way to save Lola surely never would.

Once more, agony radiating through her hands as she pressed and pushed at the gates. She grit her teeth, hissing slightly at the pain. Tears burned in her eyes as she tried to push with both the added physical strength and the blow of her powers. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It didn’t budge. It hadn’t budged at all over the last few days, but she hadn’t stopped trying.

Hearing what sounded like the sizzling of water meeting grease, she pulled back, glancing down at her hands. They were sore and raw looking. Blisters bubbled, some popped to expose oozing liquid and crimson blood. She knew she had to stop. If she kept this up she’d drain herself silly. She shook her head stubbornly, ready to press her hands back up against the fencing for a take two. She’d already tried to go for the point where the fence had stopped. While the barrier didn’t scorch her hands in such a torturous way, it didn’t let up at all.

For once she was controlled not by her kind nature, but by her maternal nature, the deep rooted instincts to protect Lola. She knew she would do anything to do it. Whatever it meant in those moments, she would handle it. If it meant Lola’s safety she knew she would take every risk, even if it meant sacrificing herself to save the child. Deciding to shake it up, she stepped back a few paces and darted at the gate, colliding with it shoulder first. The material of her dress guarded her from the horrid burning, but an aching sort fanned through her shoulder from the collision.

“That won’t help you,” it was a man’s voice, a very familiar man’s voice. The voice sent shivers down Gillian’s spine, calling every nerve ending to attention. Her anxiety swelled and terror slinked through her veins, freezing her in place. She’d heard the voice many times, too many times. Heard him speak to her while he hurt her, while his medical tools had invaded her body. Her torturer.

The fear kept her frozen, but the different kind of anxiety – the protective kind that was white hot with animal instinct to protect and defend as opposed to freezing cold like the fear – rose up inside of her. It allowed her to battle some of the ice in her veins so she could turn to face him. The look on her face must have been scary to say the least. She was often decorated with a warm smile, and even when she’d been under his knife, she’d never been vicious, never been so hard. But his face paled a little before he got a hold of himself.

“You won’t get out, you’re not strong enough,” he was definitely cocky about that.

“Then let me out,” she retorted simply, the tone in her voice surprising her.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for out there,” he said. She stiffened once more. What did he know of what she was looking for? She’d been careful. She hadn’t mentioned Lola before. Surely Colin hadn’t spoken of it, had he?

“What is it you think I’m looking for?” She held her ground. It wasn’t easy. She didn’t like the approach she’d had to take. Sure she’d tried kindness before, and it had never worked with this man, but it didn’t feel any better to stoop to this coldness. But if it got her to Lola.

“Your sister.” He replied simply, his voice nonchalant as if he was discussing what he would eat for supper.In a second, she was in front of him. She wasn’t sure if she’d materialized or run. But the mention of Lola, it had drawn her in immediately. She didn’t even think about how she’d gotten there. “What do you know?”

“I know that though you try, you’re still weak little angel,” he said with obviously feigned sympathy. She felt it once more, a sharp pain in her side. She glanced down to see what had caused it, but she already knew. He’d fooled her somehow, tricked her. He had used her weakness to get her over, to get her close. He’d waited till her defenses had dropped long enough to get her. She stated fading rather quickly, and soon enough unconsciousness claimed her.

“Time to wake up little angel,” she blinked once, twice. It didn’t help much. It was dark. Even with her angelic sight, she had trouble seeing. The familiar damp, moldy scent reached her nose and she realized rather quickly she was in her old space. She waited for it, for the ache and agony of her body, for some sort of protest to show that she’d been hurt somehow. She didn’t feel anything though. Her hands felt odd, like they were buzzing with a current, but maybe that was just their healing from the torture she’d put them through in trying to pointlessly knock down the gates.

“Come on now, you don’t want a special wake up call, do you?” Memories of torture and terrors filled her mind. The feeling of brutal agony gripping her, no matter where the central source was. Over and over. She tried to shake herself out of it, but her body was being attack on all side by her senses. The familiar scents, sights, the feeling of crumbled rocks under her body, her mind immediately associated those with her torture. It was hard to pull herself away from her trauma on the usual day, but surrounded by one of the places it had been born certainly didn’t help.

Pressing her hand on her stomach, she easily found the jagged, risen lump that was the scar of her stab wound. It was a reminder for her, that she wasn’t in the danger anymore, that it was over, not healed completely, but not still open and exposed. It had become a stress relief when it came to memories of her torture too.

“That’s a girl,” the voice was amused, to say the least.

“What do you want?” Her voice came cracked, tired. She could still feel the weight of whatever they’d dosed her with in her system.

“Well, I have a proposition for you little angel.” The voice was laced with a smugness. She didn’t like the way he called her “little angel” it reminded her too much of her father, what he used to call her before he died. She didn’t like the way the new voice said it with a twisted cruelty. “Now you see, usually I wouldn’t make a deal with /your/ kind,” his voice showed clear disdain, and he knew he didn’t just mean the angels. “But I see a unique opportunity here. There’s only so much we can learn by cutting you open and pulling your insides to the outside. We can do that over, and over, and over again,” there was definitely a sick pleasure in his voice. He was enjoying it. “But I can’t learn much of your powers, of what you can do if you aren’t willing to cooperate.”

She pressed her lips together, trying to control her mind and the ugly rearing monster that was her anxiety and terror. Gillian remained silent, locked in a silent battle in her mind.

“Now last night we caught ourselves a vampire, he was new. You know those monsters can’t control their thirst,” disgust and disdain, but also that pleasure, as if he was glad the “monster” couldn’t control itself because it gave him a chance to attack. “He had attacked this child, little girl only a couple years old. Barely old enough to have lived life really.”

She stiffened. With Lola fresh on her mind, the idea of some other poor child being hurt by a vampire made her uncomfortable, pained. She didn’t respond yet though, stayed quiet as her fingers massaged the spot where her stomach was scarred through the material of the dress she wore. The blonde angel waited for him to continue with his ravings.

“Luckily we go there in time so she didn’t die,” he noted, seeming proud of himself. As if he deserved a badge of honor for one small action, as if it made up for all his atrocities. “But you see, she’s not doing so well. She needs help. Help that we cannot offer,” more disdain in her voice. He didn’t like admitting weakness, especially to a creature he seemed to hate so much. She quickly caught onto what he wanted. He wanted her to heal the child they’d rescued.

“You want me to heal her,” she spoke carefully, sitting up a little from her slumped position. It was in reaching out with her free hand to prop herself up that she realized she was in a cell of sorts, her hand brushing the bottle row of the bars. She knew the deal would be a poor one, whatever he offered her, if he even offered anything to heal the child would be poor. But she also knew she would help, even if she ended up back on the table to be tortured in the end.

“You’re not as dumb as you appear.”

“If you let me go…I’ll heal her,” even her attempt at bargaining was only half-way. The words sounded unnatural, and there was a false note attributed to them that even she could immediately recognize. A laugh sounded in the darkness. A familiar, amused laugh that she had always thought bordered somewhere on the edge of insanity.

“We’ll discuss your payment later,” he said with amusement. Hearing the jingling sound of keys, she realized that he truly did have her figured out. She didn’t like that, it unsettled her. A little dizzy still from the drug they’d dosed her with, she stood up, making her way in the direction of where the jingling had sounded from. She was a little off, but with her hands extending she managed to pat her way to the exit.

A rough hand gripped her arm, leading her off. It was odd how a touch could seem both reluctant and careful but at the same time harsh and absolute. She let the guiding drag her around, terror of the situation still coursing through her veins. Eventually she was led to a much cleaner, more pristine room. It was lit up, and looked out of place compared to where she’d just been.

Slowly she stepped through, being pulled along by the hand. She had to blink a couple of times to adjust to the bright lights – fluorescents like at the hospital – after being in the dark for so long. It was blinding, causing her eyes to protest for a second. Rather quickly her eyes adjusted, and she had time to take a look around the room. It was empty. She looked over at her torturer in confusion, fear lighting her features. Could it all have been some lure?

Seeing the sparkle of amusement in his eyes, she prepared to run. But his hand dragged her forward to the window of sorts on the other side of the room. Reluctantly, her limbs bound and quivering with fear, she followed. When she got within eyeshot of the window, able to see through the pane of glass, something new darted through her body. It was a mix of that terrible anxiety, her instinctive desire to protect and the burning maternal love she felt.

It had to be a dream. Surely.

A nightmare maybe.In the room there was a simple doctor’s table and machine’s surrounding it. But on that table, laying calmly, too calmly was a child. A young girl, who looked as if she couldn’t be older than six years old. Blonde curls graced the crown of her hair, flowing with the pale sunlit nature that Gillian knew so well. The skin was pale, too pale, sickly pale. The calm serenity of the features was still there, the very same this child had possessed since a young age.

Lola.

Gillian practically battered against the glass, ready to slam right through it. She didn’t even feel the impact as she collided. Though her body quickly rebounded. Some kind of extra strength pane. She hadn’t even left a crack in it. She was about to target the door next when that hand on her arm gripped her tighter. It didn’t really hurt, but she didn’t like the way it felt.

“Ah ah,” the voice shamed her. “You agree to help us, to work with us and we’ll let you help her, let her stay her. You don’t…” he trailed off, no doubt for the dramatic effect. “And well, our systems might just power down for a couple minutes…just long enough for those machines keeping her alive to turn off.” It took everything in her not to completely lose it. The only thing that tethered her to her sanity was knowing she’d be helpless to help Lola without him somehow letting her through. Surely everything was supernatural proof.

“Fine,” she said it. She was already making her way towards the door. She was practically rocking on the balls of her feet while she waited. When it was unlocked, she stormed in, heading right for the bed. She wasted no time. “Lola,” she whispered solemnly, holding out her hand’s over Lola’s stilled body. She closed her eyes reluctantly, scared that when she opened them the girl might be gone. Focusing, she summoned her power within herself, building and nourishing it. The power was warm, like sunlight, like everything good in the world wrapped into a feeling. She cast it out, channeling it out through the palms of her hands. The machine’s beeping picked up and she immediately opened her eyes, watching the child intently.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Hours maybe. All that mattered was the child, and keeping her safe. She didn’t care about the fear in those moments, all that mattered was Lola, keeping her safe. Nobody interrupted them. That surprised her, but she didn’t think too much of it. Finally, she noticed the twitch of Lola’s small hand. Alert as ever, Gillian glanced to the fact of the child. “Lola?” She asked gently. Gillian watched as Lola’s brown eyes fluttered open. At first there seemed to be an alarm in them, but when they fell on Gilly there was a mix of both excitement and fear.

“Gilly?” Gillian felt her eyes watering. She never thought she’d get to hear the voice of the child again, never hear that little nickname. Her hand found Lola’s smaller one, taking it in hers.

“I’m here pumpkin, I’m here,” she said, offering her a real, honest grin.

She felt the tiny hand squeeze hers. But then fear seemed to come back into Lola’s eyes again. Gillian heard the machine beeping louder. Lola’s heart rate was speeding up. “Gilly there was a bad man,” the child hiccupped. “He bit me,” Lola had begun to cry. In a matter of seconds, Gillian scooped her up as if she was still that small baby, cradling her.

“Sh sh sh,” she whispered soothingly, rocking herself a little so the soothing motion would hopefully calm Lola. “It’s alright baby doll, it’s alright, I’m here,” she told her gently. The small child was still sobbing, still shaking, but she seemed to calm down a little.

“What if he comes back?” Lola’s quivering voice asked, an innocence, fear and vulnerability obvious in it.

“I’m going to keep you safe,” Gillian whispered gently, and she meant it. She would keep her safe. “Whatever it takes,” it was the same promise she had made the day Lola had been born. This time though, her promise was falling onto ears that understood what it meant.

“But what if you go away again?” That seemed to upset Lola more. The poor child was likely confused. Gillian didn’t blame her. She would try her best to explain it eventually, but right now comforting the child was more important.

“I’m never going away again, okay pumpkin? Never again,” she swore it, every word laced with conviction.

“Promise?” Lola’s voice wavered once more.Gillian didn’t hesitate with her answer. “I promise.”

#solos

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tmntreasures · 7 years

Text

Honor Among Thieves Ch.15

She waited till everyone had went to bed, and even after that she waited for another hour to pass. Once she could hear nothing but the water draining from the sewers, that's when she got up. Quickly and quietly she gathered her belongings and slipped into her shoes. As she was about to leave, Donatello's station had caught her eye and she stopped to stare at it. Her fingers curled and she felt a strong urge to take something, anything from his desk, but she shook off the feeling. If she did that, they'd definitely come for her. Instead she looked for something she could leave behind, but she didn't have anything worthwhile. She sighed in defeat.

"Bye," she whispered and exited the lair.

The next morning, Aida awoke a little earlier than usual; not because she wanted to, but something just felt off. She stretched and yawned and grumbled as she forced herself out of bed, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. At first she did not notice the empty bed but as she stepped out her gut urged her back in. Not one to question her instincts, the girl went back in and pulled the lump of blankets away cautiously, not wanting to wake her partner. Her brow furrowed when no figure appear beneath the blankets, even after she yanked them off the bed completely.

At first she thought Bonnie was just getting breakfast or some coffee. But when the Latina girl stepped out into the lair, she saw no signs of her mentor. The girl began checking every room frantically, not trying to be quiet anymore. Her heart sank a little as it began to dawn on her. Bonnie had left without saying 'good-bye'.

She grumbled and began to scratch at her head, trying to figure out why she would do something like this; yesterday had gone so well after all. They all had had a good time. Even if she didn't like good-byes, she could have at least told her she was leaving. Aida checked the bedroom one more time, just in case she missed something, but sighed in disappointment when she nothing proved her wrong. The girl shuffled out and jumped a little when she saw Donatello at his station.

"What're you up so early for?" She asked, going over to the tall mutant.

"My scanner was going off..." He yawned. His fingers flew across the keyboard as if on autopilot. "I think it just needs to be re-calibrated. It's been picking up small things like cans, rats..." He paused when he watched the surveillance footage.

Aida watched the screen and frowned as she watched a grainy image of Bonnie leaving the sewers.

Donatello furrowed his brow, especially when he saw the time stamp. "Wait... that can't be right," He put his glasses on and began to replay the video, using a couple of programs to scan the file for any corruption. His shoulders slumped when everything came back positive. "I don't believe it..." He muttered. "Why'd she go so soon?"

Aida shrugged, her arms hugging each other as it suddenly began to feel cold. "I dunno. She didn't tell me either."

He sat in his chair, his eyes fixated on the screen as he tried to think of any reason why she would want to go. When he could think of none, he looked at the Latina girl, hoping she may have an answer. "Did she not like us or something?"

She thought for a moment and shook her head. "Maybe she liked you guys too much..."

An hour or so later, Leonardo finally awoke and went into the kitchen of the lair. He stopped when he saw Donatello and Aida looking rather upset and turned to them. "Why so glum?" He asked, not yet realizing that Bonnie wasn't in the room with them.

Aida had her arms crossed and jaw clenched, trying to keep herself calm. It was Donatello who had to part with the news. "Bonnie left. Right after we all went to bed."

"What?" Leonardo said, looking a bit surprised. He turned his attention the monitor that was replaying the footage of her leaving last night. "Damn. As quiet as a rabbit too..." He mumbled and then looked back to the two. He frowned a little seeing them look so disappointed, and tried to think of an excuse for the girl, but since she had gathered all of her things, he knew she wouldn't be returning. "Well, we did tell her she could go home soon." He sighed.

"Without saying good-bye though?" Donatello frowned before nodding at Aida. "I mean, I guess I could get why she wouldn't tell us. But she didn't even tell Aida."

"Cuando consiga mis manos en esa perra..." Aida grumbled and began to tap her foot wildly. "Ooh, ella deseará que ella me apuñaló ese día!"

The purple-clad turtle looked at the Latina girl. He hesitated for a second before responding to her, "Are you sure she didn't tell you anything?"

"Of course!" Aida snapped.

Leonardo put a finger to his lips and thought for a second on what he was going to say next. "It's... harder for some people to say goodbye." He lowered his arms. "And in her defense, she probably expects to see you again at least." He gestured to Aida with a hand. "I mean, you were her partner in crime.”

"W-well yeah but!" She tried to think of an argument, but the turtle had a point. The girl huffed and puffed, feeling like she had been foiled out of an argument and pointed. "She could have warned me first!"

Donatello nodded, agreeing with his brother. The explanation began to calm him down and he stood up. "As long as she visits, I guess I'll forgive her." He paused and looked at his station before grinning at Leonardo. "You'll be happy to hear this Leo...but nothing's missing," he patted his brother on the shoulder and yawned. "Well...I'm gonna get a quick hour back in. See you guys later."

As he began to walk off, Aida called out to him. "Wait! Donatello!" When he paused she gave him a weak wave. "If I don't see you later...'Good-bye' then."

He smiled and returned the wave. "We'll see you later Aida," He walked off to return to bed.

"So... Were you wanting to stay till the others wake up? Or do you need to get going too? " Leo leaned back against a counter.

She tapped her foot and grumbled. Now she wanted to say 'bye' to the others, especially since Bonnie had left so abruptly; but she did have to take care of her siblings. She sighed and shook her head, "I've gotta get going... but I'm gonna come back later tonight!" She waved a finger at him. "So tell everyone else that!"

Leonardo chuckled softly. "I'll make sure to relay the message." He nodded.

Aida smiled and snapped her fingers. "Oh! Before I forget..." She ran off to her room for a few minutes and returned, holding out the comic book Michelangelo had given her. "Give this back to Mikey. I didn't have a chance to give it to him earlier."

“Right," He nodded again and took the comic. "You know... I have to say I was a bit surprised that he handed this over so easily. It used to be his favorite only a couple of years ago. He must've read over it a hundred times." He flipped the comic open and skimmed over it.

"Aaah!" She covered her ears and shook her head. "I get it, I get it! It's a big deal to him, that's why I'm returning it!" She smiled but knowing all of this just made her feel even guiltier for some reason. Their selflessness made her feel like an absolute bum; perhaps this was the perfect time to get her shit together. After she found Bonnie, of course. "See ya later Leonardo," She waved at him before leaving.

---

The first thing she did was get her siblings ready for the day. Once they were all out of the house, the girl went hunting for her partner in crime. She went to her apartment first, going in through the fire escape as to try to catch her off guard. The girl opened the window and hopped into Bonnie's bedroom.

Bonnie was holding her lamp above her head, ready to strike until she noticed it was Aida. She smiled awkwardly and put down the lamp. "Girl... You were about to get your head bashed in." She laughed and then looked to the clock and then back to Aida. "Wha-what are you doing here?"

The girl was unfazed by the lamp; after all, she would have had the same reaction too. However, she crossed her arms and switched to her maternal mode as if she were talking to one of her siblings. "To make sure you didn't bounce out of town."

Bonnie cocked her head at her confused. "Bounce out of town? Heh. Not anytime soon. Maybe once summer rolls around." She joked and sat down on her bed.

Aida huffed, "Coulda fooled me with how you left last night." She walked about the room, picking up a large bracelet and looking at it.

Bonnie blinked and lifted her head. "Oh! That..." She looked back down to her feet and rubbed her neck. "Yeah, once they said we could go I just- wanted to go." She lied and shrugged her shoulders. "Save them the hassle of having to take me back up, y'know?"

The Latina nodded her head and set the bracelet down. "So you couldn't've waited for me? Or even give me a head's up? Not like I get up before they do every morning or anything."

Bonnie looked back up to her. She figured they'd be seeing each other again, so why was she so cross about it? "I'm sorry..." She said cautiously. "I just-- I was in the moment you know? I didn't mean to leave you behind, I was just caught up."

"Caught up?" Aida echoed, trying to decipher what she meant by that. "I was worried about you! You didn't even give me a head's up! I thought something happened to you! Like, I dunno, the mafia man got you or somethin'." She threw her arms up in the air and shook her head. "But you went right when we were all sleeping? Why so soon? Why-why not in the morning?"

Her body tensed and her throat tightened as the girl continued to press on. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "Because..." She said through clench teeth.

"Oh what? Bad at good-byes?" Aida shook her head and frowned, "Leo came up with that one. He was actually really understanding about it all. Donnie was a little upset though..." She paused and shrugged, "I mean, we're thieves. We're partners. If you couldn't tell me you were gonna bounce last night, when we're in a good place, how can I expect you to tell me you're gonna bounce when we're in a bad spot?" She looked at her and frowned.

Bonnie opened her eyes only to glare up at Aida. "You know that’s not--" She started but shook her head. "I don't get why you're so bent over this? I just needed to go, okay? Didn't know I needed a permission slip to be excused!" She crossed her arms.

"Because you're my friend!" Aida finally snapped. "Friends tell each other, puta!"

Bonnie was visibly taken aback by her last statement. Her mouth fell open and she lowered her arms. "I..." She was at loss for words for a few seconds. Finally she closed her mouth and hung her head shamefully. "I'm sorry." She said.

Aida just stood there staring down at her for a little bit before shuffling her feet and looking away. "Well...I'm glad you're okay," She paused and shrugged. "You coming back tonight or...no?"

Bonnie adverted her eyes and sighed tiredly. "I don't-- I can't..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry." She said again.

Aida nodded and shrugged. It felt like a betrayal, but she had to remind herself that they were four giant mutants. It might be harder for Bonnie to feel an attachment to them; perhaps that was why she left so early? Because of this, Aida relaxed a little and nodded again. "Alright. Call me or text me later, okay?" She looked at her and smiled weakly.

“I will,” she nodded her head.

---

There was only a couple of hours before the sun would set, and the other turtles were finally up. Leo had already informed the other two what had happened with Bonnie, but assured them that Aida would be coming back to say goodbye however. He held a training session in the dojo while they waited for her return.

Michelangelo was practicing his nunchakus against a wooden dummy. All was going well until one of his nunchucks ricocheted off the mannequin and smacked him in the side. "Ah!" He dropped his other weapon and held onto his side. "Fuck!" he hissed.

"Hey!" Leo pointed at him with a katana.

"Yeah! Yeah! I know! No wordy dirds in the dojo!" He waved him off and grumbled.

"C'mon Mikey," Donatello grinned as he spun his bo-staff. "Get good!" The lean turtle screamed a little and ducked down, dodging the sai Raphael had thrown at him. "Dude!" He gave his larger brother a wide-eyed look right before they heard another scream.

Raphael's eyes widened at the sound of the feminine scream but sighed in relief when Aida stormed in, waving the sai angrily. "Youuu! You could've killed me!"

He held his hands up in defense and chuckled. "Buuut you didn't, so you can't be too mad."

"Aidaaa!" Mikey threw up his hands excitedly until his side throbbed in pain again. "Augh!" He winced and held his side, but gave her a small wave.

Leo spun his katanas in his hands. "Did you see Bonnie?" He inquired.

Aida nodded at Leonardo, "Yeah she made it..." she grumbled a little as she gave Raphael his sail back. "She won't be coming down though."

"What? Why?" Raphael asked quickly.

Aida shrugged. "Bad at goodbyes I guess."

Raphael hummed before turning his gaze away. The little rabbit really was like him.

Leonardo sighed and put his katanas back in their sheaths. "Well, it's good that she made it back." He walked over to Aida and crossed his arms. "You ready to go too?" He nudged her with an elbow.

"Wait! Don't you wanna stay another night? Just one more!" Mikey held up a finger and grinned.

She clicked her tongue and smiled. "I'll be back! I just...gotta start looking for jobs ya know?"

"Wait, you're serious?" Donatello asked.

"Of course!" She crossed her arms and hugged.

The lean turtle smirked and looked at his little brother. "Hear that Mikey? You inspired her!"

Mikey placed his hands on his hips and grinned proudly. A few seconds after he looked to her with wide eyes. "Oh! Oh!" He snapped his fingers at her. "I saw a ‘now hiring’ sign at Bests Pizza the other night!"

Leo cooed and smiled a bit. "Ooh. Discounts!" He teased.

Aida laughed a little and wiggled a finger at them. "You're lucky you boys saved my ass. Otherwise I'd tell you to shove it up yours."

Mikey walked over to Aida and slung an arm over her shoulder. "You'rrre welcome by the way!" He gave her a squeeze.

She felt her cheeks warm up but she quickly pushed the feeling aside. It was just Michelangelo being silly again after all. "Oh yeah. I'll be sure to thank you all for all those women who want to speak to the manager because I followed policy." She bumped his hip with hers before sliding out from under his arm. "Anyway, I should get going. I just wanted to tell you all that Bonnie's okay and that I'll be coming back."

"It'll be getting dark soon. You should let us take you up." Leo stated.

"Nah I got this," Aida waved his offer off. "Besides, you guys have better stuff to do than watch me."

"I'm walking you back," Raphael interjected, stepping forward with his arms crossed. "And that's final."

Aida huffed and held her hands up in defeat. "I mean...I won't argue against those muscles."

Leo's brows perked and he stared at Raphael skeptically. "Alright... Raphael will take you up then. Raph, I expect you back by ten." He nodded at him with his chin.

Raphael shrugged as he walked out. "Whaaat? Cinderella had until midnight!?"

"Cinderella had a ball to go to, and unfortunately for you, you don't! So get your shell back here at ten!" Leo hollered out.

"God, imagine trying to find a dress that would fit over Raphs big head." Mikey snickered.

"Forget his head, his shoulders are too wide!" Donatello chimed in.

"Haha, very funny," Raphael rolled his eyes. "I'll be back by eleven." He grinned.

The two left and Raphael escorted her in an interesting way. He carried her, but not in his arms, but on his back; but since he was so wide, the Latina girl had to hold on to the straps that were on his shell rather than use his neck or waist. It was almost embarrassing to think about how she looked.

"I feel like a backpack!" She hollered at him, her knuckles turning white and she held on tighter every time he made a leap from one rooftop to the next. "Why can't you just carry me? Or we can walk or something?"

"My arms are tired," He answered after landing on his feet. "And someone might see me if we walk. This is the fastest way."

She cringed when she felt her gut sink when he jumped again. "Doesn't make it the safest though!"

He smirked a little and reassured her, "Think of it as extra training. Don't think you're not gonna get any. When you hang out with us, you always get trained."

"I know. I started with Leo, remember?"

"Nah, not that basic shit. I mean real martial arts training. Something you can really use!" He grunted when his landing was a little rough and stopped to make sure she was still holding on. "We won't always be there in time to protect you guys."

Aida sighed when he stopped and adjusted her grip. "Yeah, yeah," She grumbled.

The rest of their trip was in silence and the turtle stopped only when they were two blocks from her home. He crouched down to let her off and nodded. "You'll have to go on foot from here. But I can keep an eye on you from the shadows until you get home," He explained, cracking his knuckles in the process.

She stretched her arms and legs once she was off, shaking the soreness out of her hands. "Nah, I should be fine. Thanks anyway." Just as she started to walk off, she felt him tap her shoulder. She turned and looked up at the large mutant, who suddenly looked a bit nervous.

"So, about Bonnie..." He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out how he should say it. "She's... she didn't come down because she hates us, right?"

"What? No!" Aida shook her head. "She just didn't want to say 'bye'. I don't know why, but maybe it has somethin' to do with her family?" She shrugged. "I dunno. I think it's silly she didn't want to, but that's just me."

He furrowed his brow, "What, is her family in town? That why she didn't wanna come down?"

Aida winced a little but shook her head. "No, more like...I don't think they got along too well." She tried to wave it off and began to walk towards home. "Anyway, I need to get going. You'll have to ask her for the details," She suddenly turned on her heel and pointed a finger at him. "But don't tell her you got the idea from me!" When he nodded she turned back and began to walk home. "Thanks, by the way. The city has felt safer knowing you guys are watching it."

He paused at what she said and smiled. It was nice to feel appreciated for once and it filled him with confidence. "We're just doin' our job," He said before slipping into the shadows, making sure the girl got to her doorstep safely before running off. Instead of going straight home, however, the giant turtle went another route. He got deeper and deeper into the city, using the street only when he had found Bonnie's apartment complex. There were lights on in the upper floors and he didn't want to risk getting caught by going down the fire escape; besides, it looked like no one was in the streets except for a few parked cars. He entered the alley and began climbing upwards silently, stopping at her window. The giant turtle hesitated before finally knocking on the window, not wanting to scare the girl by entering unannounced.

Before Raphael had gotten to her apartment, Bonnie was carelessly sorting through her stuff on her living room floor. She had several piles of valuables spread throughout the room. A notebook was in her hand, and she was making a list of it all. Her cellphone was on the floor besides her, and the ebay app was open on it. She was chewing on her pin in thought when Raphael had knocked on her window. It had surprised her and she bit down on the pen harder than she wanted to, causing it to bust open a little and spew out ink. "Eugh!" She spit several times, getting most of it out, though when she wiped at her mouth there was a little stain left on the corner of her lips.

She sighed and got up from her spot, going over to the window thinking it was Aida again. When she opened the curtains and saw Raphael there she flinched back and gasped a little. She looked back at all the stuff she had stolen and then back to him. "I!—Um!! This was all here before I met you guys! I swear none of its new!" She pleaded.

Raphael raised a brow before finally noticed the stolen merchandise. He grumbled a little but crossed his arms. "You're lucky you didn't take anything from Donnie this time. Otherwise It'd be hard to believe you." He scratched at his neck, now at a loss for words. He had an idea of what he wanted to say to her while he was on the way, but now that he was staring at her it became difficult to speak. "So uh...h-how's your day been?"

Bonnie sighed again, this time of relief when he didn't seem too mad about the stolen items. She opened the window and leaned on the seal. "Uh... Okay." She responded, rubbing her arm. "I'd uh... Invite you in but, there's not much room." She said as she hopped out of the window and onto the fire escape. "You uh... Wanna go to the roof?" She pointed upwards.

His eyes widened a little at her suggestion, but he had to peer upwards to make sure her neighbors weren't awake. All the lights were off, for now, making him nod at her suggestion. "Yeah, sure thing." He stepped aside to let her through first.

Bonnie closed the window behind her before climbing the fire escape and quietly as she could. When she got to the top of the building she turned to Raphael and braced herself. "Sooo... I'm guessing you're here to lay into me like Aida did?" She winced.

"No," Raphael answered, sitting on the edge of the building. "You don't like good-byes, then that's your thing. But I just gotta tell you some stuff." He clasped his hands together and continued. "I'm sorry I was tough on you before. You're actually pretty alright, even if you are a thief."

Bonnie blinked in surprise and she felt her cheeks heat up at his words. "Uh, thanks?" She laughed a little. She walked over to the edge of the building and sat down next to him but with her body facing away. "Is... that all?" She raised a brow.

He shrugged a little when she sat next to him and kept his eyes focused on his hands. "Well no but, I'm bad with words," he laughed a little before feel self-conscious again. He was silent for a moment and bounced his head in thought. "Basically...you should keep coming back to the lair. 'Cause it was fun having you around. And I still gotta make up for making you cry and all too."

Her heart raced at his words. She didn't understand why, but the fact that he wanted her to come back around made her feel warm inside. She fiddled with her fingers in her lap. "I just..." She paused thinking about what to say. This was all too unreal; and what was even worse was that she couldn't make out her feelings about the whole situation. Why did she feel so connected to these creatures, why did she feel so guilty about leaving, and why was she even considering selling her merchandise and stop thieving for them? It just didn't make sense. Normal people would run, and ironically she should too, but for the first time in a while she wanted to stay. What could this possibly mean? She groaned internally.

"I just figured it wasn't right for me to stick around." She continued. "You guys are good, and I'm--bad." She shrugged. "Well I mean... I'm not the worst, but not the best either."

He chuckled and smiled at her. "You're preachin' to the choir, sister. I always feel like I'm holdin' my brothers back." He stared at her for a moment, making note of how the moonlight made her skin glow a little. "And I mean...if you really were bad, I think you would've grabbed one Donnie's things again." He licked his lips nervously and clapped his hands together. "I guess what I'm tryin' to say is: you don't have to come back soon if you don't want. But...you always got a safe spot with us. You don't need permission to come either. Just make sure no one follows you, okay?"

Bonnie turned and faced him with a small smile on her face. "You know... I thought about taking something of Donnies again." She laughed. "But I knew you'd come after me if I did, so I didn't... but yet, here you arrre." She gestured to him.

He laughed a little and shrugged. "Hey once you meet us, you can't get rid of us," He patted her back gently before standing. "Well, I gotta get goin'. Dojo Daddy wants me back by ten."

She laughed again and crossed her arms. "Alriiight." She sighed and stood up as well. She looked up into his golden eyes and they made her heart jump again. It took everything in her to not cower away, but she forced herself to keep the gaze. "I'll uh... See you around."

He looked at her eyes and felt his body relax. He had never really looked at her before, since he had spent most of her time in the lair brooding, but she really was beautiful. It took a quick glance at his hand as he waved at her to remind himself she would never feel the same way. "Yeah. See ya Bonnie," he left quickly, disappearing into the alleyway and ducking down into the sewers. The large turtle felt his heart race and he growled to himself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" He stormed down the tunnels as he scolded himself for the feelings that were bubbling in his stomach. At least it was just a crush, and those he could get rid of easily; however, it still bothered him that such feelings affected him.

Bonnie watched Raphael leave until she couldn't see him anymore. It was then that she returned to her apartment. When she got inside she stared at the piles of valuables she had put together. She thought about how much it would all be worth, and how there were even some things she wanted to keep, but her gut twist at the thought. She picked up her phone and saw that she had a bid on one of the items she put up for sale, and it was a bit over the price she estimated for it. She could probably wait it out and get a better price, but Aida's words about being too greedy echoed in her head. She sighed and pressed a button on the app, finalizing the sale.

#TMNT #TMNT 2016 #TMNT FANFIC #TMNT OC #Honor Among Thieves #Bonnie #Aida

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yourdeepestfathoms · 5 years

Text

and then you became the moon (part 1)

you’ve heard of the fics about how the queens met and got close now get ready for: that but with the ladies in waiting and it’s mainly about Bessie and Maggie

this fic is heavily based on some amazing headcanons by @the-k-howard-look which i absolutely LOVE! seriously they are so freaking cute and i love reading over a lot, so i had to do something with them!

TW: None, I believe, but let me know if there are any

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

It was raining.

Four women sat in a back room of a theater on that fateful day, staring at each other in silence. It was a little awkward to say the least, but, eventually, one of them spoke up.

“Well, I guess I’ll take one for the team,” She said, “I’m Maria de Salinas. I was Catherine of Aragon’s lady in waiting.”

The most noticeable thing about her was her curly, frizzy hair, but also her kind eyes, which were similar to that of a gentle doe gazing at you from the forest. Out of all of them, she was definitely the most laid back and calm one.

“Maria,” The woman to her left said, “Yes, you’re not exactly hard to forget. Especially with that mane.”

Maria grinned at her.

“Good to see you too, Bess.”

The woman had her arms crossed over her chest and sat up straight, holding herself in a defensive posture in a way. Her build was similar to a bear’s, but she had the eyes of a harpy eagle and the hands of a wolf.

“Elizabeth Blount,” She introduced herself, “But I prefer to go by Bessie. I was a lady in waiting to several queens.”

“Oh yeah, I remember you!” The blonde across from her pipes up. She’s not as relaxed as Maria, but is definitely more loosened up than the other two. However, she looked well built and strong. “I don’t think we talked much, though. Anyway, I’m Joan Meutas, but I think my name is sometimes Jane? It’s Joan, though. Jane Seymour was my mistress.”

“Joan, Jane,” Maria shrugged, “They’re easy to mix up.”

Joan laughed a little, already matching well with Maria’s carefree, friendly demeanor.

“Yeah. It’s strange.”

Maria nodded and then looked to the last of the group.

She was young, no more than seventeen at best, and was awfully scrawny. Her brown hair was a mess upon her head, she was very pale, except for the dark red flush on her cheeks, and she was shivering, but her pale blue eyes still remained very beautiful, despite how glassy they looked.

“Oh. I’m Margaret Lee. You can just call me Maggie.” She said and her voice is very hoarse.

Bessie perks a little upon hearing her name, which makes Maria glance at her, but she settles quickly.

“Are you okay?” Joan asks the youngest, slight worry glinting in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Maggie replied swiftly, “Just a little cold, that’s all.”

“It has been raining for awhile.” Maria nodded.

A few moments later, a woman enters, introducing herself as Sasha. She began to explain the show, telling the four of them about how they were going to be the band for the queens.

“Can’t wait to stand in the background!” Maria said and Joan snorted.

Although actually being able to perform would be fun, the group accepted that they were just going to be the ones who played the music. At least they were being paid.

Over the next few days, basic rundowns were gone through, and it wasn’t long before the sheet music for the first song was given. However, something else was happening.

The youngest of the group, Maggie, was definitely getting sicker. She came in looking more and more feverish as each day passed. It was worrying, of course, but Bessie seemed to be the most concerned. A strange maternal feeling kept welling up inside of her each time she saw the girl. Perhaps it was because she had died giving birth to her daughter, who was also named Margaret.

Maybe...

No.

No, Margaret Lee was not her Margaret. She was just missing her baby, which was also weird because she had seven kids, so you would think she would get tired of holding a screaming bundle that looked like a wrinkly tomato.

But something about Margaret...

The name was special, at least to Bessie. It had been suggested to her by Lady Anna of Cleves, who she had been working under while pregnant. The two of them mused about baby Margaret without even knowing if she WOULD be a girl. Although, Anna knew for a fact that she would be, though.

And she had been right.

Unfortunately, she never got to meet baby Margaret, like Bessie, who only held on long enough to name the infant.

What if this was her second chance at being there for her Margaret?

No! No. No, that was just absurd.

However, her motherly instincts continued to flare, especially when she noticed Maggie starting to sway during rehearsals.

“Margaret!”

Strong arms wrapped around Maggie’s waist when she started to collapse. Her eyes pop open wide and she staggered, trying to push away.

“Easy. I’ve got you.”

Bessie lowered the two of them to the ground. Maggie presses up against the wall, her cheeks burning in embarrassment. Or maybe that was just the flush from her fever.

“Sorry,” Maggie whispered, “I just-”

“No need to apologize, love,” Bessie assured her, “You really shouldn’t be here if you’re sick, though.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.”

“Have you taken any medicine?”

Maggie opened her mouth and then closed it. Bessie frowned.

“Maggie?”

“Can’t afford it.” Maggie mumbled, bowing her head in shame, “I can barely make rent, so I can’t waste any money on anything else.”

“Oh, love...”

Maggie shook her head. She pushed herself up to her feet, wobbling a little, but uses the wall for support. Bessie stands quickly, hands hovering out a little, ready to catch the girl in case she fell again.

“How about to stay with me tonight?”

Maggie froze. She looked at Bessie with wide eyes.

“What?”

“Come stay with my at my flat.” Bessie said, “I have medicine.”

“Bessie, I can’t do that.” Maggie stammered.

“I insist.” Bessie pressed, “Please, hun, you need time to recover. You’ll only get worse if you don’t take anything. Let me help you.”

Maggie opened her mouth, then shut it. Her hazy mind toiled over what was just presented to her. The codependent part of her couldn’t help but be filled with a sense of need, thinking that this woman really wanted to be around her. The other part, though, was screaming at her to say no. Intruding on Bessie’s home was rude. However, her need to be cared for by someone was much greater than the fear, so she agreed.

It was settled, then. After rehearsals ended, Bessie drove herself and Maggie to her flat. When they got there, Maggie was barely awake in the passenger seat, leaning her head on the seat belt. She was so dazed and out-of-it that she didn’t even hear the driver’s side door closing or her own opening.

Bessie looked down at the girl with a soft smile. She hated to have to disturb her, especially when she looked so peaceful (or as peaceful as one could get when ill), but they had to get inside before the drizzle outside picked up.

“Maggie, love,” Bessie said softly, lightly pressing on her shoulder to rouse her, “We’re here.”

Maggie’s pale blue eyes fluttered open and she stared at Bessie for a moment before mumbling something incomprehensible and unbuckling her seat belt. Bessie helped her out of the car and up to the flat. The bassist absolutely would have carried the girl, she didn’t look heavy at all and Bessie wasn’t weak by any means, but she felt that that might have been overstepping the boundary. So, instead, she just kept one arm around Maggie’s shoulders for support.

“Are you okay with animals?” Bessie asked while getting her keys out. She noticed Maggie tense up and frowned. “What’s wrong, love? Are you going to be sick?”

“Dogs?” Maggie squeaked out.

Bessie furrowed her eyebrows before realizing what the girl meant.

“Oh, no. I don’t have dogs. Just a cat.”

Maggie relaxed and nodded.

“Not a fan of dogs, I take it?”

The girl nods again.

Bessie hummed, keeping that in mind.

She opens the door and guides Maggie into her apartment, where they are greeted by a meow from the living room.

“That old lady is Reefer,” Bessie said, nodding at the tortoiseshell cat. “She’s friendly.”

A small smile twitched on Maggie’s lips when she held out her hand to the cat, who nuzzles her fingers as a hello.

“She’s pretty,” Maggie murmured.

Bessie smiled a little before pointing out the bathroom and spare bedroom. While doing so, she noticed Maggie struggling to simply follow along with what she was saying. The poor girl needed medicine and she needed it now.

“Alright, hun,” Bessie set a hand on Maggie’s shoulder when she started to sway, “Let’s get some medicine in you and then you can get changed and take a shower. How does that sound?”

Maggie nodded feebly and Bessie eased her into sitting on the couch while she went to get the medicine. She ended up hunching over, holding her pounding head in both hands. Bessie frowned when she saw this while walking back over.

“Here, love,” Bessie said softly, holding out a small medicine cup full of a thick scarlet liquid. She chuckled lightly when she saw the bitter face Maggie made. “It’ll help you, I promise.”

Maggie had no other choice but to down the liquid, which left a disgusting taste in her mouth. She shook her head, deciding that she hated medicine, but loved Bessie’s presence and care, so she would deal with it.

After taking a few other things (Bessie was tempted to give her everything she had for an illness, but didn’t want to accidentally overdose the poor thing), Bessie helped Maggie to her feet and guided her over to the bathroom to clean off and get changed into some clothes she was letting her borrow.

After Bessie went back to the kitchen to start dinner, Maggie slipped behind the curtain and stood under the water for a moment. Finally, she moved again, reaching for a bottle of soap and slathering some against her body and-

“Wait.”

She still had her clothes on. Those had to come off. Of course.

She awkwardly loitered for a second, making sure the soap got out of the fabric of her shirt before stepping onto the floor mat. How delirious and stupid was she? Bathing with her clothes on? Who did that?

Taking off her clothes took great effort, as her limbs seemed to be made of lead. She discarded them in the sink, shuffled back into the shower, and almost immediately spits out the water that beats into her face. Blindly, like she has never bathed before, she paws around for a safe spot from the onslaught.

Normally, a hot shower would be relaxing, but when sick and feverish, it was like a torture segment. Instead of cleaning her, it was scraping her skin off entirely. Claws of fire latch onto frayed edges and tore down, tunneling down into her very core.

Maggie wasn’t going to let herself be defeated by a damn bath. She had the overwhelming urge to punch the spigot, but that probably wouldn’t do much for her. It was made of metal, after all.

All of a sudden, her knees gave in and she snapped out of her reverie when she collapsed to the floor. She reached up to try and regain some mobility, but only succeeded in knocking over every single soap bottle onto herself when her hand slipped on the bar.

Maggie: 0. Shower: 1.

Exhaustion seemed to be bred into her bones. It keeps her from sitting upright and she spends multiple long minutes just lying face-down on the floor, face smothered against puddles of water. She rasps and coughs, rolling heavily onto her side and pulling her legs in close. She pressed her burning forehead against her knees and shivered, despite the temperature of the water.

Resting her eyes for a moment wouldn’t hurt anyone.....

Water bills were a thing, though. And this wasn’t even her house.

Sighing heavily, Maggie pushed herself onto her knees and grabbed a rag to start wiping herself off. She douses her hair in shampoo and uses her nails to scrub the brown locks free from sweat. She repeats this process at least three times before finally twisting the faucet handle. The torrent of liquid fire sputters to a halt.

Lavender-scented steam billowed outward as the shower curtain was yanked open. Maggie paws around for a towel and swathes it around herself. She takes to drying her hair by shaking her head around wildly like a wet dog. Her entire body disagreed with this method, as it made her feel even more woozy, but she didn’t care.

Once she was finished wrestling with her clothes, Maggie sluggishly dragged herself out of the bathroom, still shivering. Bessie peeks out of the kitchen and then hurried over to her.

“I’m making dinner right now,” She tells her, “Do you want to take a nap while you wait?”

Maggie nodded and Bessie helped her to the extra room, but that’s the last thing she remembered, because she eventually woke up to the sound of music.

Prying open her heavy eyelids, Maggie rolled over and nearly fell right out of the bed, but managed to catch herself before she could smack against the ground. She peeked out of the bedroom and saw Bessie sitting in the living room, strumming at a shiny black and white bass. The hum of the instrument sent vibrations up through Maggie’s body, even at the distance she was standing at. It sounded so beautiful and she couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

Bessie jumped when she noticed the girl slowly approaching her. She halted in her playing and set her bass aside to go check on Maggie.

“You’re still really hot,” Bessie murmured when she felt Maggie’s forehead, “Is everything okay, sweetheart?”

“Your playing was really pretty.” Maggie said, her words slurring together.

“Oh. Thank you.” Bessie said, “Did I wake you?”

“Pretty...” Maggie just mumbled again. She teeters forward and Bessie quickly catches her. The bassist adjusts her hold, noticing whited out scars running up Maggie’s arms when she does so, but ignores those for now.

“Okay, love, let’s get you back in bed. You don’t seem to have the energy to eat right now, huh?”

“Wait-” Maggie’s eyes open quickly. “No. Wanna stay with you.”

“But-”

“Please?”

Bessie couldn’t say no to those big blue eyes that gazed up at her, so she agreed and, instead, made Maggie sit down on the couch. The girl curled up against her instantly and those motherly instincts came rushing back. Pushing the boundaries a little, she wrapped an arm around Maggie and pulled her close.

The way the girl snuggled up against her nearly sent Bessie into another plane of existence. There was just something about her that Bessie couldn’t explain, but she wanted to hold her and take care of her like a mother would. She was sure this was just from her missing her baby, and Maggie’s affection towards a woman she’s only known for a week is definitely from her fever, but she liked to think there was some kind of spark between them, even if it was an absurd thought.

Bessie knew, deep down, she shouldn’t get close to Maggie like this, but she couldn’t stop herself when she leaned down and gently kissed the top of the girl’s head.

The sigh of contentment made her heart flutter and she decided to ignore the thoughts saying she shouldn’t do this.

She had her little Margaret back in her arms and she wasn’t going to give that up.

#they have a mother daughter relationship sorry i dont make the rules #it's canon now #I love these two so much #six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction #six ff #six fic #bessie on the bass #maggie on the guitar #maria on the drums #joan on the keys #ladies in waiting #band as family #bandily #anna of cleves #catherine of aragon #jane seymour

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