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#no thoughts head empty only corpse
mkarchin713 · 2 months
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DC x DP Prompt: Sticky Note
Poor sleep deprived Danny has been kidnapped by the Joker.
In the goons defense they thought only Tim Drake would fall for the old “hey kid you wanna have some Death Wish Coffee, just hop into our scary murder van” trick.
Joker was not exactly happy his goons grabbed the wrong black haired, blue eyed, sleep deprived college aged kid.
After shooting one of his goons Joker had calmed down enough to accept this was a lemons and lemonade situation.
He had the plexiglass tubes set up to fill with acid at a moments notice and his other goons were on their way with Red Robin. He could make whole “choose who dies, your bird or your lovers kid” ploy workout even if he used a random civilian. He just puts a blindfold and mouth gag on the civilian and look, instant Tim Drake.
Joker had to admit to Curly’s corpse that at least he kidnapped a Tim Drake lookalike who was so out of it already they didn’t even need to drug or threaten him. All the kid did was mumble something about fruitloops and fell asleep in the tube.
Now all Joker had to do was wait for Red Robin to get here.
Everything had been going so smoothly.
The brats were in the tubes, the live stream was up and running, and Batsy looked ready to tear his head off.
Unfortunately Harry just had to interrupt his monologue. Apparently there was a problem with “Tim Drakes” tube.
It was empty.
…. It was Empty!!?!
Well not entirely empty.
On the inside of the tube was a little green sticky note
I got bored so I left 😜
He got bored!?
Joker had bored him!?
Joker would not take this lying down.
He would find that kid and show him just how exciting he could be.
Right after Batman stopped punching him.
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sweet-as-an-angel · 5 months
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Zombie! MW2 w/ a Human Sex Slave
Warnings: 18+, Monster Fucking, Zombie Fucking, Implied Initial Dubious Consent, Stomach Swelling, Cum Inflation, Unprotected Sex, Brief Worry of Infection, Rough MW2, Gentle MW2, Zombie! MW2, Human! Reader, Sex Slave! Reader, Captive/Captor Relationship, Implied Stockholm Syndrome, Kidnapping, Descriptions of Smut, No Pronouns Used For Reader Except You.
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Zombie! MW2 who found you scavenging alone one day out in the wasteland, entirely unaware of their presence.
Zombie! MW2 who capture you soon after, not ones to waste time.
You were the first lone human they’d seen in months, and they’d be damned if they were going to let you slip through their fingers.
Zombie! MW2 whose intentions with you are unclear. Until you notice the bulge in their trousers and the purr in their groans as they watch you writhe against the restraints, watch you helplessly struggle against a fate they’ve already decided for you.
Ghost, König and Soap are the roughest with you, often the ones to just tear a your pants off when they’re desperate, filling you not long after.
They’re rarely gentle, instead opting to take you raw and use you for their own ends, slamming their hips into yours until you hear them release a guttural roar, emptying days’ worth of semen inside you.
Your first time with Ghost almost left you feeling like you were about to burst with how backed-up he was, his balls almost bursting and slapping the skin of your backside red and raw with each thrust.
He’d made sure to leave his mark on you, the prominent bulge in your stomach slowly deflating as his semen leaked out of you.
And while Soap and Ghost’s loads are somewhat palatable given how frequently they use you, König almost always leaves you feeling like you’re about to burst.
Given his height, he’s the biggest of all your captors. Not only that, but his cock is thick enough to leave you feeling like you have rocks in your stomach whenever he forces himself into you, his strokes long and pounding, making sure you feel every inch of him.
Price, Gaz and Alejandro are a lot more gentle, understanding that, while you’re human, you’re still fragile.
They’re soft and slow with their thrusts, giving you time to adjust to their size before continuing.
While they can’t talk, they do try to comfort to as best they can.
They’ll stroke your head, press their forehead to your shoulder (only to feel you tense beneath them, anticipating a bite) — anything to try and make you feel less like you’re a sex slave and more like a friend with benefits.
Of course, you worried the first few times they had their way with you that their pumping you full of their seed would infect you, turn you into one of them.
However, after weeks went by, you were still you. No rotting skin, no cannibalistic thoughts, no loss of autonomy.
But, much to your horror, you felt as if they’d infected you with an idea, a feeling.
That being that you enjoyed what they were doing to you, ravaging you, pumping you full of their load until they were satisfied and your stomach was swelling.
And while your sanity tried to reason your way through your acceptance — that you were being held prisoner by literal parasite-infested corpses — your mind, for better or worse, didn’t care.
Not when they were providing for you, bringing you food, clothes, blankets — things you were certain would be nigh impossible to obtain were you roughing it alone in the wastes.
Or, perhaps you were rationalising your willingness to stay here with them, to live as their human sperm bank, reduced to an existence of bending to the will of militant captors whose semen dripped down your thighs, whose hands forced your face into pillows or made you bounce on their cocks while looking at them, giving you a glimpse into their eyes, the people they once perhaps were: whose surprising stamina and strength left you whining, crying and almost begging for more whenever they finished, more often than not forcing orgasms out of you, too, making you push back into them, body willing to take every ounce of their cum and inch of their cocks.
Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)
Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist
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ddejavvu · 5 months
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eddie brock is the og loser boyfriend and i can’t stop thinking about venom just like completely bullying him when he’s in a relationship like his partner is like this drop dead gorgeous person and eddie wears the same sweaty jacket all the time and eats frozen tater tots haha
"There are crumbs on your shirt." Venom observes, and when Eddie nods with a noncommittal grunt, he continues, "And it is not a shirt. It is a sweatshirt. A sweaty sweatshirt, Eddie. And you wore it yesterday."
"That I did," Eddie crams another handful of chips into his mouth, salted and straight from the bag. His attention remains solely on the television in front of him, and Venom's goopy form shakes its head.
"Y/N is coming over later." He reminds the human, watching with disdain as Eddie chokes slightly on his mouthful because of the way he's slouched in his seat. He swallows regardless, and when he speaks, his voice is gruff from the irritation in his throat.
"Yeah, she'll be here in a few minutes," Eddie nods, "Hey, do you think they fake this show? The drama, and all."
Venom has no interest in whether the trashy reality show that Eddie is so enraptured by is fake or not. He cares that you'll be here any minute now, and Eddie looks like a corpse that's been rotting for a few days.
When the doorbell rings, Eddie moves to get up. Crumbs begin raining onto the carpet and he groans as his lazy joints ache, so Venom shoves him back into place with a strong tentacle and uses another to stretch and open the door for you.
You're clearly expecting a person on the other side, but you're quick to recognize the tentacle you're met with instead. It wraps greedily around your waist and you place your hand over its sticky form, grinning as you're barely able to shut the door behind you before Venom yanks you over to the couch.
"Hi, baby," Eddie greets, tipping his head onto the back of the sofa to grin upside-down at you, "How are you?"
"Good," You lean down to kiss him upside down, and Venom is appalled that you're willing to put your lips on Eddie's crumb-coated ones.
"Sour cream and onion?" You guess, and you're rewarded with the near-empty bag of them that Eddie had been demolishing.
You settle happily onto the couch by Eddie's side with the chips in your hand, and when Venom begins to let go of you you hold his tentacle in place. The symbiote watches you silently for a moment, observing your behavior and thinking a whole host of unsavory thoughts about humans and their disgusting tendencies.
"I do not understand," Venom interrupts your gushy sentiments with Eddie about how terrible the acting is on so-called 'reality' shows, "Eddie is disgusting."
The man's nose wrinkles and you let out a scoff of a laugh.
"Thank you, Venom. That's very kind of you. Did you forget you're made of slime?"
"Slime does not sweat. And I do not have crumbs stuck all over me."
"Venom, being in a relationship with someone means that you need to be comfortable with them. We don't have to dress up all the time, Y/N knows what I look like in pajamas and I've seen her hair unbrushed in the morning."
Venom, too, recalls the rather impressive tangled mess of hair that you sport after a night of deep sleep.
"You do not mind that he smells?" Venom turns to you, his milky-white eyes blinking with a squelch.
"He's smelled worse," You give a half-shrug, only one of your shoulders moving as you squirm closer to Eddie beneath the blanket he's draped over you.
"You're both too good to me," Eddie grins, batting his lashes sarcastically, "Careful not to flatter me too much, don't want my head to get too big to fit in my helmet."
Venom regards Eddie for a moment, then thinks of the motorcycle helmet the man breathes into every day. It's repulsive.
"Your head is already abnormally large," Venom observes, settling into Eddie's shoulder opposite from you, "I will keep insulting you so that it does not get bigger. You are repulsive."
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slytherinslut0 · 5 months
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MATTHEO RIDDLE- Beg For Me
Chapter Seven-Info: You and Mattheo have been butting heads for months, since you were assigned as his tutor, and one day during a session full of tense bickering, he has enough.
(This will essentially be a toxic book where we are Theos fucktov. No love here, very minimal fluff.)
Tags: 18+, SMUT, Sub!Reader, Dom!Mattheo, Dirty Talk, Toxic Behaviour, Degradation Kink, Jealousy, Possessive Behaviours, Manipulation, Violence, Aggression, Blood, Slapping, Slight Masochism, Sexual Aggression, WeaponizingEnzoBerkshire(im sorry?), Fingering, DARK THEMES.
***FIND THE REST OF THE CHAPTERS HERE.
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"Rowena, render me resilient." You huffed, mumbling to yourself while pulling your infuriated corpse out of the creaky wooden chair in the empty potions classroom. "I'm going to fucking kill that boy."
Mattheo was thirty minutes late. Thirty. Three. Zero.
At first, you dismissed his tardiness, convincing yourself it was just another instance of his habitual delay--and in those initial ten minutes, you buried yourself in your homework, trying to maintain an air of indifference. But as the clock ticked away, another ten minutes, then another five, your patience wore thin, your nerves splintering with palpable annoyance. From that point on, each passing second seemed to echo with the ghost of his absence, amplifying your frustration.
The room seemed to close in on you as you stared at the clock, wondering why he would brush you off so callously when he damn-well knew he was the only fucking reason you were there, in that classroom, in the bloody first place.
The single-minded focus on confronting Mattheo propelled you forward, urging you to swing open the creaky wooden door with a determined force. As you stepped into the eerie, freezing corridor of the dungeons, your resolve transformed into a palpable energy, driving you forward with every purposeful stride. The anticipation of the impending confrontation overshadowed any trepidation, making you oblivious to the typical nerves that might have accompanied a situation like this.
As you approached the Slytherin common room, the distant thumping of loud music permeated the heavy door, sending vibrations through the floor beneath your feet. Despite the unfamiliar territory and the intimidating reputation of the Slytherin's domain--which was often veiled in a haze of marijuana smoke and the lingering scent of alcohol--your anger acted as a shield, eclipsing any reservations or second thoughts.
Your frustration boiled over as you banged on the door with a force that reverberated through the wood, echoing your impatience. With each pounding knock, a faint haze of smoke seeped out from the cracks around the door, a telltale sign of the revelry inside--it felt like centuries had past before the door swung open, a thick cloud of smoke billowing out from the bustling common room; and before you could react, a Slytherin student you didn't recognize--tall and imposing, grabbed your arm and yanked you inside, pulling you close to him.
He pressed you against the door as he slammed it shut behind you, his eyes narrowing as he scanned your appearance from head to toe, clearly suspicious of your presence inside his domain.
"Who the hell are you, and what do you think you're doing here?" he demanded, his voice sharp and laced with suspicion. The scent of alcohol mingled with the smoke, adding an acrid edge to the atmosphere as he scrutinized you, waiting for an explanation. "You're out of your bloody depth little Ravenclaw...some nerve-"
You stammered, hardly able to catch your words. "I-I'm Mattheo's tutor...he didn't show up to-"
"Mattheo's tutor, huh?" he sneered, his voice dripping with mockery as he cut you off. "Well, good luck trying to drag him out of this madness on a Friday night. Once he's in, he's in deep, and nobody can rescue him, especially not a helpless little Ravenclaw like you."
His grip on your arm tightened, emphasizing his point, the pressure sending a jolt of pain through your body. Your stomach twisted as you watched his lips curl into a cruel smirk, his blue eyes glinting with sadistic amusement.
"You're better off running along before you get sucked into our world. We Slytherins don't play nice, especially when it comes to parties."
With that, he shoved you away from the door, dismissing you with an irritated flick of his hand, leaving you standing there, caught between frustration and helplessness, engulfed in the suffocating haze of smoke and the pounding rhythm of the music as you attempted to gather yourself. Admittedly, the smell was getting to your head, you pulse pounding in your temples and matching the base of the music. You shot your gaze around the room, in search of any sort of sign that Mattheo was around--but you didn't get very far before you felt movement behind you.
Your heart raced as you spun around, finding yourself surrounded by practically all the boys from the infamous Slytherin Quidditch team, their cold gazes assessing you with a mix of curiosity and arrogance. Draco Malfoy, the groups undeniable leader, sneered at you, his blond hair perfectly styled despite the chaotic atmosphere of the room.
"Well, well, look what we have here, boys," Draco drawled, his tone dripping with superiority. "A lost little Ravenclaw wandering into our house. Did you take a wrong turn on your way to the library, sweetheart?"
You swallowed, your eyes shooting around at each of the men as they circled around you, Theodore Nott and Regulus Black shared a knowing glance, exchanging silent communication that made your skin crawl. Blaise Zabini, the schools best known charmer, stepped closer, his smug smile sending chills down your spine.
"Or perhaps you're here to join the party?" he suggested, his eyes lingering on you in a way that made your skin prickle with discomfort. Lorenzo Berkshire, the powerhouse of the team, folded his arms over his chest, his expression unreadable as he observed you. The room seemed to close in around you, the haze of smoke thickening as their presence suffocated the air.
With every instinct screaming at you to escape, you tried to muster courage. "I-I'm just looking for Mattheo," you stammered, your voice barely audible over the pulsating music. "I'm his tutor, and he was supposed to meet me for a study session...I came to find him."
Theodore smirked, tilting his head as he scrutinized you with a calculating gaze. "I don't recall Mattheo mentioning anything about a tutor," he said, his voice low and edged with suspicion. "Are you sure you're in the right place, Bella?"
"Or, perhaps you're here for something other than tutoring?" Lorenzo said, his voice like a low growl--your nerves multiplying as he took a deliberate step forward, his eyes never leaving yours. "You should know that little birds who dare to venture into the snake's den rarely ever make it out alive..."
Lorenzo's words stirred something inside your chest, your stomach twisting into a knot so tight you thought for sure your intestines were about to explode. The boys, their eyes gleaming with a sinister intent, moved forward with calculated steps, their chuckles weaving through the air like unsettling whispers. They encircled you, a menacing dance of predators closing in on their prey-the glint in their eyes mirroring the sharpness of fangs as they closed the gap, enveloping you in a suffocating sense of dread.
You couldn't help but to be acutely aware of the irony of the situation, you were the helpless little bird ensnared in the midst of hungry snakes--desperate for rescue that you knew would never come--internally freaking the fuck out until you steeled your shoulders, gathering every single last ounce of your courage to meet Enzo's burning gaze head on--a glint of defiance twinkling behind your eyes.
"Little bird, Berkshire?" you taunted, your voice ringing through the room as you took a bold step toward him, your head held high to meet his eyes. "Last time I checked, the Ravenclaw emblem was an Eagle…unless it’s changed without my knowledge…" you continued, your gaze unwavering, watching his jaw clench with irritation. "Do you know what eagles are capable of, Berkshire? Or is that information too elevated for your limited intelligence?"
Lorenzo's lips curled into a contemptuous smile. "Save your Ravenclaw wit for your textbooks, little bird," he said, his tone dripping with disdain. "In our den, you're just prey, no matter what emblem you wear."
The boys around you chuckled darkly, their laughter echoing through the room like the hiss of snakes, only fuelling your urge to defend yourself further. Lorenzo took another step forward and you straightened your shoulders.
"Your attempts to wield venom through words mirror your feeble Quidditch endeavors…always falling short of the impact you intend," you sneered, your confidence cutting through the tension. "Perhaps it's time to reevaluate your definition of prey, considering the ones who underestimate tend to fall the hardest."
Lorenzo's nostrils flared, his face turning crimson with rage. "You got quite the mouth on you, little fucking brat," he spat, his voice sharp as a dagger, hand reaching up to grip your jaw, pulling you tight against him--the scent of alcohol flooding your nostrils as his free hand gripped your hip, your mouth parting in complete, paralyzing shock. "You want to fucking say that again, huh?"
The boys surrounding the two of you exchanged uneasy glances, their initial amusement morphing into concern as they realized just how far he was willing to take things. A few of them took cautious steps back, their confidence waning in the face of Lorenzo's escalating rage.
Your voice wavered, a mixture of fear and defiance. "Let go of me."
"Not so tough now, are you?" He chuckled darkly, his grip tightening. "You're bloody pathe-"
Lorenzo's malicious words hung in the air, pregnant with menace, but they were abruptly silenced by a deep, furious rumble that reverberated through the room.
"Berkshire," you recognized that voice. You’d never, ever not recognize that fucking voice. "What the fuck are you doing?"
The resonance of his voice was like a rolling thunder, each syllable echoing off the stone walls and sending tangible shivers down your spine. The very atmosphere seemed to quiver in response, and you could almost feel the raw power of his anger vibrating in the air, setting the entire room on edge. Enzo's eyes widened in alarm, his confident facade crumbling like fragile parchment in the face of Mattheo's wrath.
Slowly turning, Enzo locked eyes with the approaching Riddle, whose gaze blazed with an unyielding fire, and without giving him a chance to react, Mattheo surged forward, his movements swift and deadly. His fist, wrapped in a tempest of rage, found its target in Enzo's jaw with a resounding impact.
The force of the blow sent shockwaves through the room, Enzo's head snapping violently to the side, a spray of crimson erupting from the corner of his lip, painting the air with the evidence of Mattheo's strength--and the room stood still for a moment, suspended in a heartbeat of sheer shock as Enzo stumbled backward, his once-defiant demeanor now entirely shattered.
In the wake of Mattheo's ferocity, the room remained suspended in a tense silence, like a captured breath waiting to be released, the echo of the impact still ringing in your ears. Enzo, once the epitome of arrogance and aggression, now stood stunned, his hand clutching his injured jaw as he struggled to regain his balance. The other boys, previously reveling in their sadistic taunts, stood frozen, their eyes wide with disbelief at the sudden turn of events.
Mattheo, his chest heaving with restrained fury, stepped forward, his gaze locked onto Enzo.
"Touch her again," he growled, his voice low and menacing, "and I'll make sure you regret every last moment you spend at this fucking school."
Enzo, now visibly shaken, nodded weakly, a mix of fear and humiliation clouding his eyes. Without another word, Mattheo turned his attention to you, his expression softening slightly, concern flickering in his eyes.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice gentler now, a stark contrast to the storm of emotions that had just erupted in the room. "Did he hurt you?"
Your mind buzzed with a whirlwind of emotions, struggling to process the chaotic events that had just unfolded. Numbly, you shook your head, your hand instinctively reaching up to rub your jaw, still tingling from the force of Enzo's grip.
"No," you said, not daring to meet his eyes. "I'm fine."
With a nod, Mattheo turned, his eyes boring into the remaining onlookers, his voice slicing through the air like a blade. "Enough gawking. Move along," he ordered, his tone laced with steel. "This isn't a show for your fucking amusement."
The intensity in his words sent the spectators scrambling like startled crows, leaving you and Mattheo in the quiet aftermath, the weight of the recent events hanging heavily in the air as he peered down at you with dark eyes.
"You came looking for me?" he whispered, his voice barely audible above the fading echoes of the room. "Thought you'd appreciate a night off from my bullshit."
Your chest seized as you eyed his face--the cut across his nose from yesterday still faintly bleeding, swatches of blood still decorating his jawline and cheekbones--you couldn't deny that this boy was a bloody mess. A cunning, arrogant, complicated fucking mess--but Gods, was he fucking attractive.
"I don't appreciate being blown off without notice, Riddle..." you huffed, chewing on the inside of your cheek. "Not that you could ever relate."
“You’re right, I can’t..I usually get some notice before being blown.” With a slight smirk, he gripped your wrist, meeting your eyes. "Come on. Let's get you out of here."
Mattheo's hold on your wrist was firm yet oddly reassuring as he guided you through the chaotic Slytherin common room. The room was a cacophony of laughter, music, and rowdy students, but his presence seemed to part the crowd effortlessly, creating a path for the two of you with ease. The air outside the common room was a welcome relief, free from the suffocating haze of smoke and the overwhelming scent of alcohol. Mattheo didn't release your wrist, his touch lingering, and you found yourself following his lead as he navigated the dimly lit corridors of Hogwarts.
Silence settled between you, broken only by the distant echoes of the party behind you. Mattheo's expression was unreadable, his eyes focused ahead, as if he was deep in thought. The tension that had gripped you inside the common room began to dissipate, replaced by a strange sense of calm in his presence. As you walked, you stole glances at his profile--his jawline sharp, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes a stormy mix of emotions.
There was something different about him tonight, something vulnerable beneath his usual composed facade.
As the two of you finally reached the vacant potions room, Mattheo relinquished his hold on your wrist, allowing his fingers to slide away like the fading echo of a melody. He gently pressed open the ancient door of the classroom, and you slowly ventured inside.
Your senses heightened, capturing every subtle nuance of the space. The faint creak of the floorboards beneath your weight, the distant hoot of an owl, and the rustle of leaves against the windowpane merged into a symphony of nocturnal sounds. The anticipation in the air crackled like static electricity, wrapping around you as Mattheo's presence loomed closer, his warmth seeping through the layers of your uniform.
A singular step carried you further into the room, yet your feet rebelled against moving any closer. Your body buzzed with a peculiar blend of apprehension and curiosity, a tingling sensation that crawled beneath your skin. Mattheo's proximity felt palpable, his body brushing against you as he stood just behind, a silent guardian in the obsidian night.
The click of the lock reverberated through the chamber, its sound shattering the silence like a fragile glass.
His words caressed your ear as he spoke, accompanied by the strong scent of whiskey on his breath. "You're a goddamn handful, Raven..."
At the sound of his voice, your lids fluttered involuntarily, warmth creeping down your back, you were beyond thankful that he was behind you and couldn't see your reaction.
Your voice was a breath as it left your lips. "That's funny, coming from you..."
"Touché, princess." He hummed, the vibration massaging your spine. You tensed as his hand brushed your shoulder, pulling your hair back with it. "I'm sorry about Berkshire...he's a real charmer..."
You huffed, shaking your head, dismissing the heat that pooled in your core with each passing moment of his proximity. "Seems like all you Slytherin men are...certainly know how to dish it out, but don't know how to take it, hm?"
His lips curled into a smirk, his tone laced with arrogance. "Oh, we know how to take it, Raven," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "I certainly do, anyways..."
Your breath caught in your throat. "I'm not so sure about that, Riddle...my mouth has gotten you going many times now..."
"Fucking right it has..." he growled, lips grazing the sensitive skin on your neck. "But I can handle you...the real question is, can you handle me..."
Your pulse was flying, rocketed somewhere into another galaxy. "Haven't I proved myself yet..."
A low, rumbling chuckle escaped him, reverberating through the room. His warm breath brushed against your skin, sending shivers of anticipation across your flesh. His tongue traced a torturous path up the side of your throat, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. His hands hovered over your hips, their presence magnetic, hesitating slightly before tightening their grip as if uncertain of your response.
"Not even fucking close, princess..." he purred, his words dripping with desire. "You have a long ways to go still..."
A soft, involuntary sound escaped your lips, your head falling back against his shoulder, surrendering to the intoxicating sensations that coursed through you. Resistance seemed futile; you were utterly ensnared in his grasp. He wielded an irresistible power over you, and you had no strength left to resist, even if you wanted to--all you had were words; empty, meaningless words.
"I thought you didn't want to do this anymore," you whispered, your voice barely audible above the hushed breaths between you. "I thought you just wanted me to be your tutor."
Mattheo's grip intensified. "I said a lot of things last night that I didn't mean, Raven..." he murmured against your neck. "I was drunk."
"You're drunk right now, too, Mattheo..." you muttered, unable to hide your amusement. "Bloody hell, you have issues."
"I know...I've gotta work some shit out," his teeth nipped your earlobe, you could practically feel the smirk on his lips. "I'm exercising my demons, Raven, I promise..."
His words hung in the air, laced with desperation and a yearning for understanding, as if he sought solace in your presence but didn't know how to ask for it--with a sharp inhale, your hands found his, and when he loosened his grasp on your hips, you spun around to face him, meeting his dark, penetrating eyes.
Your hands fell to your sides, fingers trembling as your gaze darted from his eyes to his lips, and back to his eyes. "What the fuck do you want from me, Mattheo Riddle..." you whispered. "Give me a solid answer...for once in your bloody-"
"I want you," he cut you off, his hand shifting to cup the side of your face. "...I want you on your knees for me..." his thumb brushed your cheek, his head tilting. "...I want you swallowing my cum..." he wet his lips, leaning closer, "...but most of all, I want you moaning my fucking name until it's the only word that pretty little mouth knows how to say."
Your lips parted, a soft exhale of contentment escaping your throat as he brushed his mouth against yours, stealing every breath from your lungs.
"But…you can't stand me, remember..." you whispered, your voice trembling like fragile glass. "You hate me..."
"Yeah," he huffed, his gaze flickering to your lips. "I hate you."
Your heart thundered against your ribs. "You hate me.”
"Yeah, I fucking hate you," he replied, his eyes simmering with intensity. "Do you hate me?"
"Yes," you responded, the words flowing from your lips like molten lava. You needed no time to think about it, not even a second. "I hate you."
"Yeah?" His eyes darkened, his features glossing over with something that made your stomach twist. "Say it again."
"I hate you, Mattheo Riddle..." you murmured, his lips brushing over yours again, sending electric sparks across your skin while his hand slithered around your lower back, pulling you closer. "I hate you so much."
He gripped your uniform between his fist, a low chuckle leaving his throat, his voice dripping with seductive arrogance. "I don't think I believe you, Raven." He purred, his warm breath caressing your lips. "Maybe you should prove it."
He pressed his lips to yours in one swift, powerful kiss, the intensity of it leaving you breathless. His mouth trailed a scorching path along your jawline, his tousled curls tickling your cheek as his warm breath fanned your skin. Speaking became a struggle amidst the sensations that engulfed you.
"How do you propose I do that?" you managed to breathe out, your voice barely audible over the thundering beat of your heart. His lips moved to your ear, pressing against it with a tantalizing heat.
"Hit me," he murmured, his voice a seductive whisper that sent shivers down your spine.
"What?" Your body erupted in an incomprehensible collection of emotions, admittedly taken back by his request. "Why-"
"Hit me," he repeated, voice harsher now. "Just like last night--fucking slap me, Raven...don't be shy, you know I deserve it..."
The intensity behind his words propelled you into action, a whirlwind of emotions swirling within you. Without a moment's hesitation, you inhaled a sharp breath and drew your hand back, the room electrified with anticipation. With swift precision, your palm met his cheek in a sharp, resounding smack--his tousled chocolate curls dancing upon impact, his head jerking to the side.
In the charged aftermath of your slap, a potent silence hung in the air, laden with fervent anticipation. When he smirked, his eyes ablaze with a searing intensity, it felt like a scorching brand against your skin. Undaunted and admittedly more fucking turned on than you'd ever been before, you wound your hand back again--this time, your slap landed with a fiercer impact, a guttural groan escaping his lips as your palm connected with his cheek for the second time.
Before you could register what was happening, his hand gripped a fistful of your hair, his strength surprising you, and he spun you around. With a forceful push, he shoved you against the wall, the impact sending a shiver down your spine. His lips crashed onto yours with a hunger that matched the storm raging within you, igniting a fire that threatened to consume you both.
"You like that, Raven?" He purred, his fingers working to untuck your blouse before slipping underneath the fabric, the sensation of touch sending shivers down your spine. "You like making me fucking hurt, huh?"
"Gods, yes," you gasped, words choked through your breath as his fingers teased your nipple under the fabric of your bra. "You deserve so much more than that."
"That's right," he groaned, arrogance flooding his tone, lips moving like a sin along your neck, igniting your senses. "I'm a piece of shit, aren't I...using you like this...taking you as my little fucking toy when I said I wouldn't..."
A shuddering breath escaped your lips, your fingers tangling in his hair, unable to deny the raw intensity of your desires for even a single fucking second longer.
"Mattheo," you gasped, your voice barely audible, your body amplifying your words as it pressed closer to his, spine arching as he teased your nipple. "Touch me...please, just fucking touch me..."
"There she fucking is...there's my dirty little slut..." Mattheo groaned, low in his throat, teeth sinking into your neck. "Begging for me without even needing to be told...fuck, you learn so quickly, don't you..."
As his hand trailed down your stomach, you let out a shaky breath, feeling the heat of his touch flood through you. The trail of embers he left in his wake had your mind reeling, making it hard to even form coherent thoughts--your heart pounding so hard you were completely fucking certain he could hear it.
"Matty..." you whimpered, his teeth marking your neck, your grip tightening in his hair.
As his fingers slipped under the hem of your skirt and found their way to the mound of your pussy, you couldn't help but arch your back, pressing your hips closer to his hand. The fabric of your thong did little to impede the sensation, and you felt your body responding involuntarily to his touch. Your bodies were pressed tightly against each other, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in rhythm with you.
"Shh," he murmured, hand slipping from your hair and clamping over your lips. "You'll need to be quiet princess...you don't want to get caught like this, do you?"
His body shuddered against yours as you mewled, the vibration sending a wave of pleasure through your limbs. Mattheo pressed himself harder against you, his hardness pressing against your thigh--the sensation sending a jolt of excitement through you, causing you to roll your hips against him in response. You were so fucking far gone now, there was absolutely no saving you. You wanted more of him, all of him, every single inch he wanted to fucking give you.
"Oh my fuck-" Mattheo's voice was a breathless growl as he slipped his fingers under your thong and slid a finger through your soaked slit, your entire body jolting against his--a loose moan reverberating through your chest. "Oh fuck, Raven...you're so fucking wet..."
Breath hitching, engulfed in a deluge of lust, you wriggled against him, lava already flowing out from your centre and through your veins.
"Look at what I fucking do to you..." he pressed your head against the wall, his own head shifting back to meet your eyes. "Who else gets you this fucking wet, huh? Fuck...this little pussy already belongs to me..."
You choked back a moan, stifled under his rough palm as the pad of his finger drew slow circles around your clit, warmth flooding your body. Your hands clutched the fabric of his shirt now, digging in with enough intensity to slice the fabric with your nails. Mattheo growled, watching every ministration of your face under his hand, rubbing faster in response, sending shocks of pleasure through you, your hips bucking.
"That's it...fuck..." he muttered, loosing himself in your eyes, in the heat of your pussy dripping from his touch. "No turning back now, Raven...you're going to fucking cum for me...you're going to make yourself mine..."
Your lids fluttered, body trembling, oxygen fleeing you without hesitation; short, insistent groans escaping your throat, his fingers assailing your stiff nub. You were balancing on your peak, ready to tip over, never knowing pleasure so fucking intense in your entire life.
"Look at me." He hissed. "Look into my fucking eyes as you cum for me."
Every nerve in your body felt electrified, pulsating with a pleasure so intense it was almost painful--chest rolling and head spinning as you met his eyes; drowning in their chocolate intensity. His touch, his gaze, everything about him overwhelmed your senses, plunging you into a euphoria you had never experienced before. You were gone, hardly hearing his words, hardly even conscious, the sensations flowing through you were unlike anything you've ever known. And then, before you had a chance to accept it, white light flashed in front of your vision, blurring your sight, a blissful heat ripping through you and shattering your sanity as you squealed into his palm--Mattheo’s lips parting and his chest heaving as he watched you, not daring to blink, not even daring to breathe.
You became aware how tight you had been holding him, and you quickly released him, a wave of hot shame washing over you. Your hair was sticking to your face, your cheeks tingling.
"Such a good girl," he said, lifting his fingers from your pussy and bringing them to his lips, shoving them past his teeth, holding your stare as he sucked your juices off of them before slowly pulling them out with a pop. "Just getting a taste of what I have to look forward to later."
You exhaled a long, trembling breath--your conscious slowly returning.
“Gods,” you gawked, speechless, body still tingling with the aftershock of your climax. “What are you doing to me, you plague of a boy…”
He chuckled darkly, his lips curling into a malicious smile. “Told you I’d ruin you Raven…” he said. “I may be many things, but a liar isn’t one.”
———————
Here’s eight->
1K notes · View notes
ioniiaa · 2 months
Text
My Darling, My Honey
Alastor X Fem!Reader (Part 5)
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Quick Notes:
This is when both reader/you and Alastor are both alive. (... we'll probably end up in hell later on btw so stay tuned...)
Reader is an artist/painter.
Part 5:
It was almost pure bliss.
Except many months later, you found out a secret of his one day.
He was an exceptional chef, you were always in awe of how he cooked such magnificent dishes every day.
But one day, you peeked out into the forest through the window in the living room and saw Alastor standing alone, covered in blood. Your first instinct was to run outside, so you did just that.
You rush to his side and ask if he's okay, and what had happened to make him covered in such copious amounts of blood.
He blinks a few times before oddly turning his head to you, breaking out of his stupor, "Oh my dearest (y/n), do not fret so. For I am only acquiring our dinner for tonight!"
You look down at what he is holding in his hands. Your hand shot up to cover your mouth. A leg. A human leg. Your eyes then trail to the ground where you see a bloody human body, mangled beyond recognition. "This is.. dinner?"
A large grin appears on Alastor's face, "Quite right! This one should be enough to last us through the week!"
He looks at your face with an almost vicious look to his eyes, awaiting your response anxiously, not that he would let that show, anyways.
All you can manage is "Oh. Okay." Before you walk back inside the house without another word.
It's no exaggeration to say that your brain chemistry was permanently altered from that moment onward.
The situation felt so strange and bizarre, you didn't know what to think. Part of you knew that was he's been doing is extremely horrible and corrupt. It almost made you empty the contents of your stomach, it didn't feel real.
It didn't feel real, but suddenly some of Alastor's behaviors started to make sense. His picky taste for food...He never let you help with cooking, you had chalked it up to him being more of a perfectionist, but now... you know its more than that. He was hiding the fact that he was butchering and preparing human flesh, right in your very home, all this time.
But.. for some reason... all you could think about was how dedicated he was to providing a comfortable life for you, because he truly loved you. Everything he did every day showed you that you mattered and that you deserved only the best.
"But I still love him with all my heart... maybe I'm just as messed up..." Was a sentence your mind kept repeating to itself for quite some time.
Your appetite shrinks after the initial shock for a few days, but you were never one to skip meals or have your appetite be gone completely, even if you were sick. In this instance, you weren't sure if it was a blessing or a curse in this case.
The meals he made for you had never made you sick in the past, so your body was already used to eating his cooking, and he made such amazing food, carefully crafted with such love and attention to detail, you couldn't help but keep eating his delicious cooking, no matter how bizarre and immoral it was.
"I think I really am just as messed up..." The thought crossed your mind again, but thoughts were interrupted by a rare occurrence, a kiss on the cheek from Alastor as he set your plate down in front of you.
The fact that you never stopped eating his cooking and always thanked him for his food and hard work, even after knowing where the main ingredient comes from, solidified the fact that you were the one. You loved him even after seeing him all bloody, holding a dismembered corpse, and telling you it was dinner. It was this pivotal moment that he knew, that you were the one to be his beloved forever.
In the coming weeks, things went back to "normal". You were settling into the new normal, as Alastor didn't hide the meal prep like he used to, and seeing him bloody and bringing in mysterious cuts of meat into the house became a normal sight to you.
One night when you were going to see Mimzy, Alastor informed you that he was unable to escort you that night. You were a little disappointed, but he assured you it was okay for you to go, it was just that he had plans that he wouldn't divulge any information on, no matter how much you pressed him.
Little did you know, but that night, Alastor was out on the town shopping for the perfect ring to propose to you with.
-> Part 6
962 notes · View notes
halfvalid · 6 months
Note
Hey! Since your requests are open, may I request opla!Zoro x reader (established relationship) where the reader has a lot of self doubt (not only in their looks, but their abilities and their place in the crew) since it’s, unfortunately, been shoved done their throat by pretty much eveyone they knew, even their parents, that they would never be good enough? Maybe Zoro figures out that they have sort of been spiralling lately and they have a talk about the readers past and the problems they’re facing and he comforts them? Maybe it ends sort of spicy or turns out full on spicy, if you’re comfortable with that!
daybreak
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ABOUT
alternate title: some fluffy established relationship hurt/comfort to save my soul
rating: teen & up
characters: live action!roronoa zoro | fem!reader
pairing: live action!roronoa zoro x fem!reader
word count: 2.9k (short; sorry!)
description: zoro notices you've been seeming off recently, and you confide in him your insecure feelings of self-worth. he comforts you.
tags: strawhat!reader, established relationship, fluff, emotional hurt/comfort, kissing, no use of ‘y/n’, soft zoro, ridiculously stupidly absolutely horrifyingly fluffy. 
author’s note: thank you so much for the very lovely request! i hope i did your prompt justice; i ended up not writing any spice at the end (just slightly suggestive) since i didn't think it fit the story but i hope you like it anyway ^^
it feels slightly ooc, but i also wrote it in the span of two hours at 1:00 am so can you really blame me. 
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It was morning on the Going Merry, and you were cleaning up the wreckage that had been scattered along the deck in your last battle. The crew had gone up against some other pirates; it’d been late at night, and the attack had come suddenly, what you’d thought would be a peaceful docking turning combative quickly. 
You barely remembered the fight. One moment, the warning bell had sounded, and the next Zoro was rolling out of bed beside you, grabbing his swords and darting out of your bedroom before you could even register what was happening. The fight had gone in the Straw Hats’ favor, thankfully; Zoro, Luffy, and Sanji had fended off most of the threat, and you were back on the open sea, safe from enemies for at least a little while now. 
You let out a sigh as you swept shattered glass into a dustpan, shaking out the collected trash into a nearby empty barrel. None of the men usually bothered to start cleaning up—typical—so you’d pulled yourself out of bed as early as possible to get the ship looking a little more like normal. 
Zoro had left some corpses on the deck for you to deal with, and you’d had to toss them overboard, a grimace tugging at your lips as blood stained the white of your blouse. No matter. You’d finished sweeping, at least; all you had left to do was mop, right as everyone else was waking up. 
You filled a bucket with warm water and soap, and were just grabbing the mop from the closet when you heard footsteps. You glanced up, surprised to see Zoro heading towards you, one hand grasped loosely around his sword handle as always. “You’re up early,” he said, casual as ever. “Woke up and you were gone.” 
“Figured I should get a head start on cleaning,” you answered quickly, not meeting Zoro’s eyes as you dunked the mop into the bucket. His brows creased as he watched you start mopping, pushing the handle along the deck to wipe it clear of bloodstains. 
“How long have you been doing this?” Zoro asked, after a few seconds of delayed silence. You shrugged, dunking your mop again before going for another few swipes. “We can help clean too, you know.” 
“It’s the least I can do,” you protested. You moved past him, trying very hard not to meet his eyes—but Zoro didn’t let you pass, one hand going out to grab the mop rod and stopping you in your tracks. “What?” 
“What do you mean, least you could do?” Zoro asked blankly. 
“I mean—” you shrugged, muscles limp like your entire body was sagging you down. “You and the others were the ones to deal with the pirates, so I figured I could at least—”
Zoro still looked confused, brows pulled together, forehead taut with a frown. “I distinctly recall you throwing a pirate twice your size overboard. Unless I was imagining things.” 
You sighed. “Not what I meant.” You tried to push past Zoro again, but he didn’t let you, hand still tightly grasped around your mop handle. 
“Okay, what did you mean, then?” 
“Nothing. Will you just let me finish cleaning so there aren't blood stains all over Luffy’s ship?” You sighed again, even as you attempted to keep the sound inside—but you couldn’t help it. It was like there was an anchor stuck inside of you, pulling everything from your feelings to your body down, the weight of gravity tugging at your features. 
“Luffy’s ship?” 
You shrugged. “The Straw Hats’ ship. Whatever.” 
“Our ship,” Zoro said. There was a certain twinge of something in his words; still blankness, but laced with a dawning realization that you weren’t sure you liked. “You’re upset.” 
“Nope.” This time you really did manage to get free of Zoro’s grasp, yanking your mop out of his grip and starting back on cleaning the deck. The acrid smell of iron hit your nose as you scrubbed the dried blood off—you’d have to go back in later with a sponge to get all the cracks and crevices, but for now this would be okay. 
Zoro followed you, unceasing with his interrogation. “Yes, you are. I know when you’re upset, and you’re upset. What happened.” It was more of a statement than a question—Zoro didn’t often doubt himself, really, which was one of the many things that’d helped make you stumble into falling for him. “Was it about last night? You know the cook's just making fun when he keeps a counter, right? It doesn’t matter if he brought two or five more men down than you.” 
“It’s not about that,” you insisted. 
“So you admit you are upset.” 
You groaned, finally turning to look Zoro in the eye. He’d stopped walking, the dawning sun glinting hazey gold onto his skin in the early hour. There was still an overcast of blue from the night in the sky, and it made the heavens look ethereal, watery and glittering. 
“Come on,” he urged. “Just tell me what’s wrong.” 
“It’s really nothing you need to be concerned about,” you attempted, but your voice was weak now. Zoro stepped closer to you, gently pulling the mop out of your hands. Your fingers let go easily. “It’s silly.” 
Zoro gave you a look. “Out with it.” 
“I don’t know, I just—” your fingers clenched, like your hand was trying to find something to do now that Zoro had rid you of your mop. “Comparatively I just don’t do much. So I want to help out as much as possible.” 
“Who said you don’t do much?” 
“What?” 
“I don’t think I need to repeat myself,” Zoro said. He let the mop fall to the ground, arms crossing over his chest as he watched you. “Who said you don’t do much?”
“I mean, nobody. It’s just true.” You shrugged, distinctly uncomfortable with the way Zoro was looking at you—all attentive, like he was trying to strip you raw with his eyes, uncover whatever secrets might be hiding in the pores of your skin and the gaps of your teeth. “Luffy’s the captain, we wouldn’t be able to do anything without Nami, you and Sanji are the fighters, and Usopp’s everyone’s favorite. I’m just kind of… filler?” 
The more you spoke, the worse your words got, your tone turning more desperate as the sentences fumbled out of your mouth. Zoro’s eyebrows raised higher as you went on, and you flushed, red prickling all over your skin. 
“First of all,” he started, “Usopp is not my favorite. That’d be you. And—where are you getting this from?” 
You shook your head, trying to backtrack. “Nothing. Nowhere. It’s not that import—”
“Yes, it is, and we’re talking about it.” Zoro pulled a nearby barrel by the side of the ship, plopping himself down atop it and gesturing for you to sit. You didn’t, but you did move over to the railing, hands curling around the painted wood. “Speak.” 
“I have nothing to say,” you tried. Zoro just shot you an unimpressed look, and you squirmed. “Fine. I don’t know. I joined last, so I just figured… you were all kind of already set without me, right?” 
Zoro shook his head. “We’re a crew,” he said, voice strong but somehow still gentle. “You’re part of us for a reason. What, this entire time did you think you were—expendable?” 
You fidgeted uncomfortably, weight shifting from one leg to the other. “No.” 
“Don’t lie.” 
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Last night—I only got, like what, two guys? And you reacted way faster to the situation than I did,” you started, words flailing around on your tongue as they rushed out. It was indelicate, for certain, and you yourself couldn’t make sense of most of the words—but once you started, you couldn’t stop, even as they slurred together. “I was still getting out of bed and grabbing my weapon when you’d already dealt with half the enemy crew.” 
“Don’t compare yourself to me,” Zoro said with a shake of his head. “That’s not fair. I’ve been training since I was eight. It’s different.” 
You huffed out an exasperated breath, trying not to let your frustration get the best of you. “I can't help it sometimes. It’s a bad habit.” You loosened your grip on the ship railing, staring out at the golden clouds hovering over the sky.  “Sorry.” 
“Don’t apologize,” Zoro answered. He didn’t say anything after that—giving you a space to talk, you supposed, in case you wanted to. But his hand did reach up to press against yours, pinky brushing against your finger as he held onto the railing beside you. 
“I guess I just always had these standards back at the village,” you managed out eventually. Your island had always been one of the more traditional places in the East Blue, and there were plenty rules and guidelines abound. One of the many reasons you’d left the place in favor for Luffy and the Going Merry, really. “So I just… always want to do more. It’s not that bad.” 
“Right.” Zoro’s pinky looped around your finger, now, holding it close in a soft kiss of the hands. You sighed. 
“My parents were kind of rough on me, I guess,” you tried, sneaking a glance over at Zoro’s face to see if it satiated his curiosity at all. His expression remained as steel as ever, so you just continued. “They wanted me to be the best I could. But their standards were too high, even when I was little.” You found yourself rubbing circles into the back of Zoro’s hand with your finger, more so to comfort yourself than for any other reason. “Just normal stuff, like being upset about my school grades or my combat training levels being too low. Nothing that terrible.” 
“But…?” Zoro asked, tilting his head up to look at you. You smiled, but the action didn’t reach your eyes—it was all mouth and jaw, cheeks lifting but eyes glinting with the same glazed stare. 
“It just affected me a lot, I suppose,” you answered. “Always trying to get better. Never satisfied. And I guess now—I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough.” 
“For?” Zoro asked. His voice was low, soft, all hollow and empty inside. There was a tinge of roughness lacing it, like he’d forgotten to clear his throat, and the scratch of his vocal chords had surfaced up along with the words. 
“Myself. My parents. Luffy. You.” Your lips tightened into a line. Vaguely, you could feel the warm pinpricks of tears starting at your waterline, and you tried to will them back, letting out a little laugh. “Everyone, I guess.” 
Zoro’s hand had come to hold yours fully, fingers woven in between yours, thumb pressed firmly against the joint of your thumb. Somehow, that one motion managed to force the last of the words out of you—all wet and soft, eyes glued fiercely to the horizon in fear of seeing what was etched on Zoro’s face. 
“We do arranged marriages back at home,” you started, trying very hard to keep your voice from trembling. it worked only marginally—there was a tiny quaver in your tone, but it was soft, not noticeable unless you were really listening hard. “And my mom used to tell me I’d die alone. Because I wasn’t pretty enough, or smart enough, or anything enough for any of the boys there.” 
“Oh,” Zoro said. It was quiet; barely a whisper. You tried for a wry smile. 
“I like helping, though. I don’t mind cleaning up or whatever. It makes me feel more useful.” You tried to tug your hand out of Zoro’s grip, but his fingers tightened, keeping you in place. A nervous laugh escaped your throat. “And I know I’m part of the crew and all of this is just silly. So it’s really fine—”
Zoro tugged your intertwined hands to his chest, causing you to stumble and glance down at him in surprise. His expression was nearly unreadable. It’d darkened, and there was a contemplative gaze in his eyes, lips parted with invisible words perched on his tongue. “Don’t do that,” he whispered, and your stomach dropped, the nervousness that had gathered inside during the conversation tightening up into a hall. “Don’t say it’s okay or that it’s not important. If it’s making you upset, then it matters.” 
“I guess,” you tried, and Zoro’s gaze lifted to fix you with a glare. “Sorry.” 
“It’s okay, I just…” Zoro shook his head. “Look, whatever your parents used to tell you, whatever you have ingrained in your head—it’s not true. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do more, but… you don’t have to do it. You’re enough already.” 
Your gaze softened, lips falling open to say something, but Zoro wasn’t finished yet. “You shouldn’t come out here and force yourself to clean up just to make up for your—waste of space, or something. You’re not a servant. And you’re not wasting up any space. I think everyone would agree that you’re a very important and vital part of the crew.” 
“Thanks,” you whispered. Zoro’s hand was warm around yours, and you felt the threatening droplets of tears start to rise up at your waterline, ready to fall at any moment now. Zoro just nodded. 
“You’re a great fighter, and way smarter than what you give yourself credit for,” he said firmly. He raised your hand to his mouth, then, leaning over to press a feather-light kiss to your knuckles. “And the boys on your island have to be blind, because you’re pretty enough. You’re more than pretty enough.”
He whispered the last words, all soft and sacred on his tongue. “You’re beautiful.” 
That was enough to drive your tears over the edge. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to stop the flow as the warm sensation of liquid streaking down your cheeks began. Droplets caught in the crevice of your lips, and at the hinge of your jaw—Zoro brought a hand up to wipe them away. “Are you okay?” he whispered. 
“Yeah, I just, um.” You shook your head, sniffing. “Thank you. That… helped. I think.” 
Zoro bummed out his response. “Of course,” he said easily. “You’re my girl. It’s my job to cheer you up.” He kissed your knuckles again. “And you can talk to any of us. I’m not really the best at this, but everyone else…” he shrugged. 
“You’re doing just fine,” you assured him. Zoro nodded, tugging you down until you finally took a seat on a crate beside him. “I think it’s just been worse lately.” 
“If it makes you feel any better, I think you’re better than the waiter,” Zoro said. You just laughed. 
“I think you’re biased, but thank you,” you said. “Here, I, um, I promise I’ll let you know if I’m feeling down, I guess. If you don’t mind.” 
“Definitely don’t mind,” Zoro answered. This time he placed a gentle kiss on your neck, somewhere at the bottom near the back. “Leave the mopping for someone else. You’ve already done a lot.” 
“Okay,” you whispered, eyes fluttering closed as Zoro kissed the rest of the way up the back of your neck. He placed a final one right below your earlobe. With that, Zoro stood up, sweeping one arm under your legs and hoisting you up. You cracked open an eye to regard him with a blank look. “What are you doing?” 
“Bringing you back to my room,” Zoro answered. “You didn’t get much sleep tonight. And I doubt anyone wants to watch me kissing you on the main deck anyway.” 
That was fair enough reasoning, so you didn’t complain, letting him carry you all the way to his cabin and gently lay you down onto his bed. He leaned over to press a gentle kiss to your lips—you could still taste the saltwater from your tears from before. “Want me to stay?” Zoro asked. 
“You don’t have to,” you said automatically, and Zoro raised both his eyebrows. You let out a sigh. “Okay, I get it. Yes. Please stay.” 
“All you had to say,” Zoro said, shedding himself of his shoes and swords before leaning over the bed to watch you. He didn’t slip under the covers or anything, just propped an arm up on the mattress, kneeling beside the bed. There was tender silence for a few moments before Zoro spoke again. 
“I love you,” he said abruptly, voice rough but somehow still soft. Your heart beat too fast in your chest, ribcage squeezing in on the organ and making it skip. His hand slid along the mattress to find yours, and you took the offer, fingers clasping around his palm. 
“I love you too,” you whispered back. Zoe leaned over, then, the hand not intertwined with yours tilting your jaw over just so to allow him better access to your mouth. He kissed you full-on, tender but firm, mouth working against yours in a way that unraveled you entirely. Your grip on his hand tightened as he deepened the kiss, a soft sound emitting from low in your throat. Finally you broke apart, heaving for breath, exhales mixing together midair. An exchange of souls, you’d heard once, somewhere. 
“Come on,” you murmured, tugging Zoro closer to the bed so he got the hint. He slipped beside you onto it, turning your head again to meet you in another kiss. His hand drifted down to your waist, holding you securely in place.  
“I don’t think anyone should need us for a few more hours, right?” Zoro asked, and you laughed. He swallowed up the sounds with his mouth, tongue licking languidly into you as he rubbed delicate circles into the skin of your waist. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and then he was kissing you again. 
You let him siphon the soul out of your lungs, knowing you were getting his right back. 
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© halfvalid 2023
1K notes · View notes
thegnomelord · 2 months
Text
CH:2 You Were Made For This At Least You're Good For Something
CW: NSFW, blood, gore, scars, cannon typical violence, dissociating, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, survivor's guilt, military inaccuracies. Heavy description of reader having scars, reader gets called 'sir' once but overall GN.
AO3: 13.7k words. Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!
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Magic is often described as a loaded gun, a double edged sword, a grenade with a missing pin, an unmarked minefield — and a thousand more little comparisons parents have come up with to frighten their children, to drill the dangers of magic into their heads. And, should their spawn unfortunately present with said aptitude, to teach them how to spend the rest of their lives vigilantly holding the leash on their emotions tight, lest the magic consume them the next time they throw a tantrum.
Your own parents spoke about magic like it was a beast sent by a vengeful God; a venomous insect hiding in your boots, a beautiful creature luring you to touch it's deadly skin, glowing eyes peering at you from the darkness, a handsome wolf stalking your red hood from the tree line. Something so desperate for a single chance to devour you. Famished. Ravenous.
What a load of shit.
—Ethereal mana rushes through your veins like water through a busted dam, your fingers forcing it to form into skin chafing ash. Large dark clouds swirl around you like a shield, stray cinders brush your feverish skin in a distorted attempt to mimic a lover's touch, smog curls around your head like blinders to focus your eyes forward so you don't need to notice if it's a combatant or a civilian your ash consumes—
If magic was half as unpredictable as people made it out to be, you would have never reached the heights you did.
—The thick disgusting scent of gas and burning human flesh tenderly presses down on your chest, sharp claws persuading you to breathe out by gently caressing the spaces between your ribs. Your breath fogs over the darkened lenses, steam rising from your chest as the generator inside churns out more mana—
What does that make you?
—Sparks nip at your heel when your body thinks of faltering, sharp needles pricking half dead nerves and commanding your limbs to move in order to evade obstacles and falling debris and whatever else is thrown at you, magic strengthening your muscles so you can rush through the streets like a forest fire—
A weapon? A fellow beast?
—Silent black flames devour the corpses your magic creates, leaving nothing behind. Stifling heat straddles your brainstem and burns away the weeds of empathy before they can spread the seeds of hesitation in your mind, isolating your heart so it remains too hot to harbor any mercy, regardless of how many lives you cut short—
Yeah, sounds about right.
—The roar of fire deafens the screams and sirens, the soft crackle of flames is indistinguishable to the crack! of breaking buildings and snapping bones. It makes it so easy to retain the single minded focus you were praised and cursed for. To remind yourself of what you are; a mage, a soldier, an Ifrit, a Red Right Hand—
What else are you good for?
You—
Breathe.
You need to breathe.
You need to think.
While you still can.
Your brain is a jumbled mess of puzzle pieces a frustrated child threw into the fireplace. Burnt edges and missing corners prevent your mind from its natural configuration and forces your thoughts into obtuse positions. It takes time and effort to open your eyes, needles of stagnated mana stabbing your irises and making what should be a pitch black room feel like you're staring into the sun. Your body feels light like you're falling, your vision swims with spots of blurriness and sharpness, the back of your throat tight in an attempt to get you to puke up your empty stomach. You only manage to cough, but the vestigial impulse gets some other thoughts to trickle from your mind.
You focus your eyes to one point and stare until the blurriness retreats to the edges of your vision and the tripling shapes solidify into one. It takes more time for your brain to understand what your eyes are seeing through the steam, but you manage to make out. . . your glowing hands. . . your knees. . . dark ash, muddied water, bathroom tiles.
Your vision improves the longer you keep your eyes open, the room steadily darkening and becoming more bearable as the stagnated mana is forced to recede.
You concentrate on what you feel; water pelts your naked body, only to sizzle and turn into steam after rolling an inch down your skin. Cool ceramic tiles brush against your spine every time you shift, rapidly warming up to your body temperature. A drizzle of discomfort nibbles on your nerves when the hot air you breathe out burns the corners of your dry lips. Your fingers feel like rusted pistons as you intertwine them and numbly watch your 'skin' bubble, and those bubbles 'pop', giving you a grim glimpse of your blackened muscle and sinew and bone before the surrounding lava covers them up.
You don't even notice the ringing in your ears until your slowly sharpening mind forces it to go away, replacing it with the sound of running water, of the ventilation fan uselessly trying to suck up the steam, of your own heart beating like a hummingbird against your ribs, woodpeckers drilling into your skull from all angles as the world becomes so fucking—
—Loud. The world is Loud. Nothing like the calm and quiet brought to you by the battlefield, nothing like the sense of safety that comes from familiarity. No. Now the world feels like a swarm of angry wasps are burrowing into your ears to build a nest in your skull, sharp pincers gnawing on your bones and flesh and nerves and—
No.
You got this far.
You're not allowed to fall back into panic.
You force your chest to expand and take in a deep, unfiltered, unrestricted, breath. Ash with the disgusting undertone of rotten eggs curls inside your nose and doesn't let anything else pass. But a small hint of you manages to register in your brain, light and calming; your body’s lackluster attempt at incense to cover up the stench of rot.
And you taste. . . a lot. Too much; morning breath, ash, smoke, blood, the peppery battery acid quality of your blood — all blended together into a disgusting cocktail tailor made for you by what's left of the butchered angel sitting on your shoulder.
You don't think when you reach out to grab the glass of whatever shit liquor past you had bought. 'Glass' is far too kind a word for the tin can you're using, but metal doesn't shatter in your burning hands like ceramic or glass.
Your head thunks against the wall as you throw it back to gulp down the alcohol before it can boil, swallowing in big gulps like it's water. Your stomach cramps, the devil's finest piss would taste better going down your throat than the booze, but it's as effective as it is disgusting and bleaches your mouth until it's the only thing you can taste — sweet relief wrapped in thorns.
You don't revel in it.
The tin can bends like playdoh as you squeeze your burning hand, quickly reddening metal molding to your palm before you crumple it into a small ball. You flick it into the corner where it becomes another piece of the small pile that's been steadily growing there over the months.
Breathing in deep makes your ribs creak and groan like rusted hinges, your lungs burn and complain as you keep the air trapped in them until they're forced to function properly and a shuddered breath escapes your parted lips. The water feels nice and a part of you wants to stay under the stream forever, a part of you would be content growing moss and listening to the soft apologies your mana murmurs as it nibbles on your blood vessels.
You would hit that part of yourself if you could.
The thinning steam urges you to move. Shifting to your knees is difficult with Atlas's burden weighing on your shoulders, forcing your fingers to find purchase in the scorched grooves previously melted in the wall. Pulling yourself to your feet causes them to grow a few inches deeper, your burning hands leaving singed handprints on the ceramic walls.
The weakness in your knees forces you to spend a few seconds just standing, watching your magic slowly start to slumber. The once runny lava consistency of your 'skin' shifts to that of cooling magma, the vast excess of loose mana still in your blood slowly coagulating atop your 'skin' in the form of large chunks of volcanic rock, little cracks remaining between them to simulate blood vessels.
Washing yourself isn't a relaxing affair in general, but it's made worse by the heavy duty soap and rough sponge you have to use in order to scrub away the grime and ash stubbornly clinging to your skin. You try not to look at your body more than you have to, your eyes transfixed on the way the dirty water carries the signs of your violence down the drain. You never get any blood on you, your fires burn too hot for that, and you don’t know if seeing the water turn red instead of black would make you feel better or worse.
The most painful place to wash is the sharp transition between mage marks and living tissue at your shoulders; magic cares little for appearances, volcanic rock abruptly transitioning to soft skin that boasts spiderweb cracks — a tell tale sign of your mana intending to spread further. The nerves there are partially eaten away too, turning your skin into a minefield of zero sensation and absolute hell when one of those nerves is prodded.
You get out when the water runs clear, the residual droplets turning to steam the second you turn off the shower. You stumble as take a few steps, bracing against the small sink next to the shower, staring at the tap to keep your gaze from doubling again.
Something gnaws on your heart as you recognize that you're standing naked in your small safehouse. You should have recovered by now, gotten your shit together and went off to carry out whatever other massacre your employer wanted to commit. Your mind, ever the problematic thing, chimes in: How improper.
Your eyes skirt to the dog tags sitting on the sink, those little plates of steel chastising you "Fuck's sake firebug, this isn't a nudist beach!" like their owners did before. . . before.
Just thinking about it gives you the phantom taste of blood and something acidic, makes you feel a ghostly ache in your bones as if your chest had been ripped open one rib at a time. Invisible glass digs into your throat as you swallow, fish hooks tug on your skin. The mirror hanging above the sink calls for you, mocks you, dares you, orders you to look at the horrid thing that replaced a sweet young child.
Burning flames greet your gaze, swallowing up every last bit of natural color in your eyes just as the hungering beast devours those stupid enough to enter its woods. And you were that fool. The raised bumps of veins and arteries snaking across your chest and throat like creeping ivy attest to that, each inch of your blood vessels meticulously, painfully, pulled from the safe depths of skin and bone to heal on the surface of your skin (or bleed and rot. You could never tell when torture turned into intended murder.)
Your body tells a tale of your survival (for whatever that's good for), most of your scars old and healed, created at a time when you didn't know how to heal yourself. Dimly glowing lines of hardened mana occasionally stretch across your skin, spiderwebs of deep cyan peek beneath your hair on one side of your head and pulse across your throat, glittering amber swirls across your side — small and pretty testaments of wounds so horrendous only magic could keep you in one piece.
An eternal flame burns in your chest, its steady unfaltering glow outlining your sternum and each rib in such clarity it's like you're a cadaver in a morgue, a textbook example of a person slowly spiraling towards lichdom. The light emanating from within you makes the jagged dark ink curving along the space of your ribs stand out like a sore thumb, D.O.D. 2016.01.01. Your fingers ache to trace the little shaky messages of not Today, Guess again, yuo wish, NO, just one more day that circle it, but you can't bring yourself to do it.
You can't sully the last few things you have left of them, you can't, you can't you can't—
Crack!
You realize you've broken the mirror when you pull your hand back and see large shards stick out between your knuckles. Little reflections of yourself continue to mock you as you pull the pieces out. It doesn't hurt, it hasn't hurt since the mage marks first cracked the pads of your fingers, though you're still unsure if it's a gift or a curse —"leave it for the scholars to bicker about" as your Commander loved to say.
A shadow flickers in the corner of your eye, almost like a silhouette of someone you think you knew. Glowing lines of a magic circle burst into the air before you can physically react, mana simmering beneath your skin as magic comes to you easier than breathing.
The hallway lights up to reveal nothing. The thing you saw was just the shadow of a tree branch moving in the wind. You unsummon your magic before it can burn anything, the dwindling sparks nipping your fingers before they’re snuffed out as a way to show your mana is not pleased by the false alarm.
There is nothing there.
You are alone.
Again.
Your phone rings, the factory setting music grating on your ears. The phone is a piece of shit Nokia brick that belongs in a museum, but it works fine as far as burner phones go. Archaic technology like this plays better with magic than the flashy electronics people use nowadays, and the fact it doesn't connect to wifi helps make you harder to track.
You use the back of your knuckle to answer the phone, luckily not needing to pick it up as your mana enhanced hearing is a lot better than human. You manage to force a rough "Yes?" out of your throat.
"Nicely done my friend." Khaled sounds pleased with the death you brought, "You put on a very nice show." The eloquent Arabic he speaks makes the praise sound even nicer to your ears, like a balm of milk and honey to soothe your mind after what you went through. You can see how he's amassed as many men as he has, you could see yourself joining him full time if you were younger and dumber.
Your thoughts sit on your tongue like hot coals, but you swallow them down. "Thank you sir." You say instead, politely. Respect for your superiors was beaten into you years ago, yet exhaustion makes your words sound far rougher than his. Thankfully you're able to keep the accent of your mother tongue from deforming the fragile vowels.
"Ever the modest one." Khaled's chuckle is deep and just at the edge of mean, the subtle change in tone making the fine hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. "I need to pick up some more toys." And by 'I' he means you.
Toys — guns, bombs, other weapons intended for mass destruction; you're not surprised he's using slang instead of saying it outright. Your employer may be an overgrown murderous warlord, but he's not dumb, there's no doubt heavy surveillance has been put on both of you and Al-Qatala as a whole after your stunt.
It makes sense why he'd want to send you for the weapon's deal instead of going himself, there's no telling when some military group or pmc will try to bushwhack them in hopes of body bagging Khaled. Hell, you'd be disappointed if the CIA wasn't already in the final stages of planning a counter terrorism measure. Nosy fucks.
"Understood sir. Send me the shopping list." You feel your brow twitch with irritation when Khaled abruptly cuts the call. A sigh escapes you; your stomach feels like a witch is using it for a cauldron, all sorts of nastiness bubbling into a disgusting brew — your body's trying to warn you of something you can't see.
Not like you listen.
Dropping the last of the mirror shards into the sink you reach over to grab the dog tags and slip the cold chain around your neck. The metal warms up quickly, becoming indistinguishable from your skin. You rest your hand over them. If you try hard enough, you can just about sense the last remaining dregs of their magic— cool water, nibbling ice, soft soil — but the rest blend together into senseless mana, nothing but whispers of the past.
16 other tags rest against your skin, your own nestled somewhere between the dead.
You should have died instead.
You tear your hand away with a scoff, shaking those thoughts off and go get dressed. You slip on your helmet last, the tension in your shoulders evaporating when your face is hidden. Your lungs stutter for a second before adapting to breathe normally. You throw a glance at the shattered mirror and this time it's the helmet that greets you; just another soldier, just a mage.
Yeah. . . that's you alright.
Your phone vibrates, telling you you've received a message.
Right. You have a job to do. Here's to hoping this one isn't your last.
You're not holding your beath.
. . .
The briefing room is silent as Laswell goes over the census: 200 confirmed dead, hundreds in serious condition, thousands more who will be affected in the coming weeks and months when the seasonal storms wash the toxins into water sources and pollute the earth. And that's not talking about the long term effects, who knows how many will be lost in the coming years trying to neutralize the poisonous magic and rebuild.
Toxic gas itself is problematic when they don't know what specific kind it is, but when it binds with loose particle magic like ash or sand it can linger for decades, eroding concrete and skin alike. A whole generation will be born in hazmat suits.
Kate finishes speaking. A minute of silence follows.
Soap takes the time to try and visualize the dead as people rather than just a statistic, but his mind falls short. His tail twitches with irritation, fists clenching by his sides; he just can't understand how one person could do all of that without rockets or explosives.
His brain births a grim thought — fire hot enough to burn through concrete wouldn't leave behind any bodies, so he can tack on several more hundred deaths to the census, ones that have no way of being confirmed, leaving families without a body to grieve over.
"As far as we know." Kate begins again, her face grim, deep dark shadows stretching beneath her eyes. Only caffeine and determination have helped chase away her exhaustion. "This was a terrorist attack organized by Khaled Al-Asad," She pulls up two pictures on the interactive board, one of Khaled, the other — the same featureless helmet they'd seen on the news. "And carried out by a mage mercenary called Ifrit. True identity unknown."
Soap's ear twitches and he tilts his head at Ghost. "Bet yeh he's an ugly focker."
Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him. "Didn't think that 'bout me did you?" He mutters, eyes returning to the screen, staring at your picture as if it'll reveal some deeper meaning; an insight into a murderer's mind. Soap holds off on doing the same, he doesn't want any of the sludge on him.
“Could also be a ‘her’.”
Their gazes turn to the two women sitting at the front, the captain and lieutenant of another pmc the US has contracted to help them deal with this problem.
The one who spoke is a woman in her late 30's, brown hair pulled in a tight bun, green eyes occasionally flickering with whisps of unnatural blue; Captain Roberts – if Johnny remembered her name correctly from orientation – continues. “Women are better at using magic, and control it with the finesse required for more complex spells.” She explains with a dismissive look, absentmindedly waving her gloved hand like they’re just insects buzzing around her head.
Yeah, Johnny doesn't like her. And it's not because she smells like sweet lotus mixed with the stench of rancid fish rotting under the sun. It's because she's as hoity-toity as every other mage he's met (thankfully he's only met a few).
The shorter woman sitting next to Captain Roberts shrugs, black hair pulled into a similarly tight bun. "A little biased there captain." Lieutenant Martinez says, her black eyes flickering to look at the monsters. "Though, I can't say it's unwarranted." He hears her mutter.
Johnny notices striped patches velcroed to their arms, 2 icy blue ones on Martinez, 3 deep blue on Roberts. Distantly he remembers them to signal the power level of a mage on the international power scale, though he's blurry on the finer details.
Johnny’s ears twitch as he hears Ghost mutter a “Fuckin’ ‘ell.” under his breath before the wraith gruffly speaks up loud enough for all to hear. “Nail Ifrit and you’ll get the chance to check for bollocks.”
Roberts turns her head to look at Ghost. Her eyes look him over and the initial scowl (which Johnny's sure she was born with) turns into something that makes Johnny's fur stand on end and gums itch with the need to bare his teeth. She opens her mouth to speak—
A low rumble wafts through the air as Price blows out a puff of cigar smoke, the soft cloud escaping through the open window but the strong scent remains. "Hush." Price's pupils are thin like needles, shutting up Roberts with one look before he looks at Kate. "What do we know about 'em?"
Kate frowns, "Not enough." She pulls up a map of the world, a red dot placed somewhere in Libya. “Ifrit first appeared on our radars 2 years ago under the employment of a Libyan warlord called Ahmed Saleh.” Next she pulls up a video, playing it. The camera work is shaky, but Soap's able to make out said warlord speaking in a language he doesn't know, Ifrit standing by his side like some freaky statue. The camera shifts to focus on the row of men behind them, all bound on their knees with bags over their heads.
Johnny knows immediately what this is.
He still flinches when glowing circles spring beneath the mens knees, violent flames shooting high up into the sky as if Ifrit just used their personal key to open Satan's backyard. The camera flickers like an old TV, catching the last few seconds of glitched dying screams and magic burning away skin and muscle before the the video ends.
"Jesus." Kyle mutters next to Soap, his clawed fingers carding through the black feathers on his other forearm in a self soothing motion. "Just. . . Jesus."
"Ah dinnae think he’ll help." Soap mutters back, nose wrinkling as if he can already smell the burning bodies.
"A few weeks after this video was taken, Ifrit went into hiding before resurfacing again under a different employer." If Kate's bothered by the public execution, she doesn't show it. "Cross referencing the attack in Uzrikstan we’ve found over 50 arson attacks with the same M.O.” More red dots spread across the world map haphazardly, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. “As well as indication of Ifrit's involvement in numerous organized crime groups. Khaled is just their latest employer.”
Ghost lets out a low whistle. "Our arsonist's been busy."
"So what?" Soap's fur bristles even more, "The torcher just pop oot like a weed aw o'a sudden an' immediately jump intae terrorism?"
"Maybe?" Kyle scratches the back of his neck. "If they're a late bloomer and unbound then it makes sense why some crime rings would want them," He turns his head to look at Captain Roberts, "Right?"
She doesn't spare him a look, chewing on her words like Kyle had put something foul in her mouth. "I suppose developing strong magic after adolescence is possible." She begrudgingly says, "And unbound magic is stronger than bound, making Ifrit look like an appealing attack dog." She crosses her arms over her chest, stroking her chin in thought.
"But unbound magic also damages to the body." Lieutenant Martinez pipes up. "And that type of mage marks would take more than just 2 years to develop even if they used magic 24/7."
"You're correct." Captain Roberts finally glances at Kyle, giving him a look as if he had asked the difference between a pug and a werewolf. "It's more likely they had magic for a while. Not to mention received training for it."
Another low rumble escapes Price's chest, the sound reminiscent of construction machinery. "How come we didn't know about the firebug earlier?" His voice is calm, making the sharp edge underneath it cut deeper.
Kate sighs, "I hate to say it, but Ifrit is good." She says solemnly. "Their magic destroys electronics, they never show their face or leave witnesses, and they manage to cover their tracks up so well that we can't find even a partial mana-cule signature on the arson attacks, the most recent one included."
Her words make little sense to him, entering Johnny's ear and exiting through the other. He remembers taking a few classes on the types of magic that can mimic explosive materials when he was doing his demolition course, but all the jargons had made his head hurt and wasn't needed in the end. His tail tucks closer to his leg. "A what?"
Captain Roberts scoffs, but her Lieutenant speaks up. "A mana-cule detector picks up the way magic that's left in a victim's body refracts light. It's specific to every mage, so, like a magical fingerprint." She holds up her gloved hand to give visual to her comparison.
Soap feels Gaz's feathers brush against him as the man folds his wings closer to his body, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks at the screen. Kyle's eyes wander back to the starting image of the video where you're standing behind the warlord, mentally comparing it with the brief glimpse of you he got on the news. Something about you screams 'professional' to him, like you've done this so many times you got used to it the same way he got used to pulling the trigger of his gun.
"Ifrit doesn't look like some gang banger Khaled or some warlord picked off the street." Kyle finally says, and though he knows Laswell probably had the same thought, he still asks. "Could they be ex military or part of some pmc?"
"We're operating under this assumption, but we can't confirm anything." Kate frowns. "We're still trying to find any personal information about them."
"Getting to the important information." Captain Roberts says, giving them a pointed look. "What even is Ifrit’s level? With destruction like that I can’t imagine anything beneath L3. L4 if they’re 3 seconds away from becoming a lich or just high on Magnus dust."
"Fuck what dust?" Soap asks, but Captain Roberts just waves him off like his question is too stupid for her to answer.
"Magical crack." Ghost shrugs. "Makes the magic stronger, but also turns the mage into a firecracker."
Kate rubs her brows, a headache starting to pound behind her eyes. "By our calculations Ifrit falls into the L5 category." Her words make the rest of them go silent, but Soap just looks around confused.
"Preposterous." Captain Roberts huffs, "I can count on my fingers how many L5's there have been since Christ was born. Ifrit being one is just impossible." A deep scowl etches across her face. "At best, Ifrit is just an L3 high on Magnus dust with no regard for their body. They'll be a lich in a couple months."
"Regardless of what Ifrit is," Price speaks up, stubbing the cigar butt on the window sill and throwing it out the window. "What do we do about them?" A small bit of smoke escapes the corner of his lip, dragon fire burning hot in his chest in response to his well masked anger.
"An insider in Al-Qatala claims a weapon deal will be going down in a day." Kate swipes away the previous pictures, putting on a bird’s eye-view map of a shipping dock. 5 large warehouses circle an empty concrete space bordering the ocean, clearly long abandoned. "From what we know, Khaled has Ifrit secure most of his weapons because they’re careful. If a buyer’s even a minute late they call it all off."
"So punctual and paranoid?" Gaz sumarrises.
Ghost hums to himself. "Quite the work ethic." He side-eyes Johnny. "You could lean som'thin' from 'em."
Soap just huffs, his tail bumping against Ghost's leg in retaliation, his snagglefang showing as his lip quirks up into a small smirk when Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him.
"You’ll need to be tight, there's no telling when this opportunity will present itself again." Kate continues, ignoring them. "Team Alfa," A dot pops up on one side of the docks, Price's and Lieutenant Martinez's faces beneath it. "you'll be going in from the north. Bravo—" Another dot appears on the opposite side with Ghost's and Captain Robert's faces. "—the south."
The dots move to indicate how they're supposed to approach the position, ending up with them completely surrounding the docks. "We don't know Ifrit's full battle capabilities, so you'll need to be careful. Isolate and tire them out before attempting capture, but kill if you must." Laswell looks at them all. "We can only assume ifrit's magic is short ranged so under no circumstances do you get close to them, understood?"
"Crystal ma'am." Captain Roberts shrugs, throwing a look at the monsters at Taskforce 141. "Just let us take care of the mage and keep out of the way so you don't become collateral. I would hate to waste my time healing you." Her eyes linger on Ghost, bits of bright blue mana flickering in her eyes. "Well, most of you." Soap feels Ghost subtly stiffen next to him.
That woman's charming as a train wreck; Soap can feel himself prickle with irritation, more and more strands of fur rising to stand straight on his tail the longer he has to stay near Roberts.
Luckily they're let go early to go rest up and prepare while the two mages stay with Price and Kate to iron out the finer details of which mages which team is taking and what spells to use. Apparently everyone but Price and Kate are too stupid to understand the 'complexity' of their spells.
Soap would be insulted, but he takes the opportunity offered to him. He glues himself to Ghost's side as much as he can 'professionally', his tail curling around his leg as Johnny throws a smug look over his shoulder at Captain Roberts.
Johnny catches her looking back at him like he’s a flea ridden mutt and that just makes his tail wag. He forgets about her the moment the door of the briefing room closes, busying himself by subtly rubbing his arm against Ghost's, spreading a bit of his scent on the wraith's jacket. It's one of the few times he's glad wraith's don't have a scent — makes it easy to smell himself on Ghost.
"Someone's territorial." Gaz chirps as he joins them on Ghost's other side, feathers brushing against their backs to throw his own scent into the mix.
Ghost just looks at Soap bemused, his thick paw of a hand coming up to cradle the back of Johnny's head, gloved fingers gripping his skin like he's a puppy. "You bettah not piss on me."
Gaz breaks out into laughter and Johnny feels his cheeks grow warm. "Dirty bastard." He huffs, but stores the idea for later. "Are all mages like that?" He tilts his head back at the door.
"Uptight?" Gaz asks. "Snotty?"
"Wankers with their heads shoved up their arse?" Ghost helpfully adds.
"That's putting it brawly," Soap lets out a breath, amusement tugging at his lips as his tail wags.
"Yeah, I think it's like a requirement to be a military mage." Kyle chuckles, holding up his hand like he's judging someone's height. "You've got to be this much of a twat to join." He grins, passing them as he goes to get ready.
Soap wants to say more but Ghost's hand on his neck demands his attention, tilting his head up. His breath catches in his throat as Ghost bends down until their foreheads bonk together softly, the cool metal of the mask tickling Soap's skin. "Don't go doing anything dumb pup, olright?"
Dark eyes meet his own, a shiver runs down Soap's spine, his mouth dry as a desert when he tries to swallow the rock in his throat; Soap can't even begin to define the strange thing that was born between them on that one night in Las Almas, he can still remember the way Ghost's deep voice had kept him sane and his wolf's demands to blindly rush the enemy and get back to his pack quiet.
Johnny certainly can't define the late nights spent sharing that dog piss Simon likes drinking, nor the rough touches and hickeys they leave on the other, though they never have time to get further than that.
This feels nice too.
His hands sneak to Ghost's hips, thumbs hooking under his belt loops to pull their bodies closer, pressing his chest against Ghost's. "When have I ever done that?" He smirks, lips ghosting over Simon's masked ones.
He feels Ghost's chest rumble as the man chuckles, his other hand roughly gripping Johnny's arse. "You want a list?"
Johnny's tail wags more, "Well, I reckon I'd be up fer-"
"Oi, I’d hate to break the snogfest but we’ve got things to do!" Kyle’s chuckle breaks them up before they can do anything else. Soap turns to flip the bird to the bird, but Kyle's tail feathers have already disappeared into the changing room.
. . .
 The night is calm.
Mellow waves break against the well worn concrete walls of the docks, tree leaves softly flutter in the mild breeze, crickets and frogs sing their songs into the night air. The world itself doesn't care about you or the soldiers guarding the docks. Absentmindedly you track the movements of the men Khaled gave you, the barely noticeable crumbs of magic you stuck on them flickering at the back of your mind like dwindling coals.
All are accounted for. The night is calm. There is nothing out of the ordinary.
And yet your nerves are on a razor's edge. The relative silence scratches down your spine with long crooked claws, the calmness crackles beneath your skin like electricity. Your fingers itch with the need to tap them against your thigh, to do something; waiting has always been your least refined quality regardless of how often you needed to use it. Your body, your magic, Hell — the very essence of what you are — craves the heat of battle, the sweet lull of adrenaline's song to put your nerves at ease.
You resist moving too much. Years of training make hiding the signs of unease and nervousness easy as breathing, your body so still you could be mistaken for a statue if your chest didn't steadily rise and fall.
Taim doesn't possess your abilities. You can feel his nervousness on your tongue, like licking an old battery. His hands shift to re-adjust the hold on his gun for the 6th time in the past 10 minutes. You doubt he knows you're watching him from the corner of your eye, so the tenseness of his shoulders must be from you just being near him.
It doesn't surprise you — many countries that have had Russian or Soviet influence consider mages more monstrous than actual monsters. Mages like you are perversions of God's template, thieves who possess power not intended for you. Urzikstan is no different.
You don't point out how Taim flinches when you raise your hand to look at the time, the watch face strapped to the inside of your wrist; some habits are hard to break.
The deal is supposed to happen at 3AM, and it's 02:57 already. "The seller's taking their sweet time." You say under your breath, lowering your hand. You have half the mind to call it off and tell Khaled to teach his suppliers punctuality. Hell, you've done it before when you had less surveillance on yourself and your employer. This just feels like tempting luck.
Taim looks at his own watch and glances your way. "I understand your frustration sir, but- but we just need to wait a bit more." He absentmindedly holds up three fingers to indicate the minutes left, starting the count from his thumb.
It wouldn't be so odd if middle eastern countries such as Urzikstan didn't start counting with the pinky finger. Americans count with the index. That just leaves the entirety of Europe. You hum a low sound at the back of your throat.
"They-" Taim quickly puts his hand down and grips his gun in both hands, apparently thinking you hadn't noticed his blunder. "They should be here any min- minuta." Another slipup; the hint of a different accent softens and shortens the last vowel of the Arabic word. It narrows down a couple countries, but nothing specific.
Taurus would have made you run around the base for days if you had ever made the same mistakes, provided you survived the consequences of getting caught.
What a fucking amateur.
But Khaled isn't paying you to get rid of vermin, so you let it slide. You catalogue this moment in case you'll need it later, concentrating on the present.
The radio inside your helmet sputters to life, a rough voice speaking quickly in Arabic. "Ship incoming."
Your gaze falls on the dark ocean, mana flowing to your eyes without even having to cast a spell. It's not the same as using a mana sensing spell, those leave your head feeling like you'd volunteered it to be used as a church bell in exchange for perfect clarity of the world around you. But your sight becomes significantly brighter and sharper, enough to see the ship sailing towards the docks. It's a medium sized fishing vessel, the lights inside turned off so as not to attract too much attention, but it meets the specifications Khaled had given you.
You reach up to activate the voice receiver of your radio, pressing the button hidden on the inside of your helmet just behind the gas mask portion. "Our seller's incoming. Get the truck, secure the perimeter and keep tight." You order into the radio, cutting it off again.
You motion for Taim to follow as you walk out from your cover. You had hidden yourselves between two warehouses, their roofs extending to the sides enough to hide you from the sight of drones.
You stop a few feet from the edge of the docks, listening to the truck back up behind you as the boat slowly sails up to the edge of the dock and drops it's anchor.
You don't recognize most of the men on the boat, except for one. "Ah, Ifrit, long time no see," Victor Zakhaev greets you in Russian as he steps off the boat first. You notice a new scar across his face, but otherwise he looks good considering last you've heard of him he'd gotten himself shot and left for dead by some monster taskforce. "I am not late, yes?" He asks in English, offering you his hand.
"Right on time." You say and take his hand in a firm handshake. You try to ignore the way the touch of another human, regardless of the fact you can't really feel his touch, makes your skin crawl.
"Good, good, from you, that is a compliment." He smirks and steps to your side, giving room for his men to unload the heavy weapon crates from the bowels of the ship onto the dock. "I assure you, you'll find the garden hoses and other peashooters are all accounted for." Zakhaev makes a motion with his hand, making his workers put a heavy box onto the ground beside you. "But I know you well, you want to check the goods, yes?"
Needles prick your skin and your mind kicks itself for becoming so predictable. But Zakhaev has known you since your stint with that warlord in Libya, it's only natural he would learn a few of your habits after so long. "You would be correct." You say, your voice betraying nothing.
Zakhaev just chuckles, his workers undoing the crate's top board with his company logo printed on top of it. Inside, nestled between a sea of white packing peanuts, lies one of many M134 miniguns Khaled has been keen on getting — people of your ilk call it the garden hose for the ridiculous amount of ammunition it can spit out in a minute.
Say what you want about the yankees, but their weapons are top notch. Having once been on the receiving end of that weapon, you know first had how useful it can be; both for tearing enemy combatants to shreds and for decimating their morale.
You look over the weapon, unable to find anything wrong with it. Zakhaev takes pride in the guns he sells, you've never had any problem with them. "Looks good." You nod your head at Khaled's men and stand up. "Load them up."
You reach into your pocket and pull out a flash drive. Khaled had paid half of the price up front, leaving you to deliver the second half. Inside the flash drive are wallets with thousands of dollars worth of crypto currency. This is a smart play on your employer's part; you don't need to lug around suspicious briefcases full of cash, and there's no wire transfer some nosy agent can trace back to Khaled.
"Rest of your payment." You say simply, handing the inconspicuous flash drive to Zakhaev.
"Thank you kindly." Zakhaev slips the drive into his pocket. You watch the men carry the heavy weapon crates and put them in the truck.
Zakhaev shuffles through his pockets and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, some Russian brand. He taps the bottom of the carton on the back of his hand, offering you the stick that partially sticks out of the box. "Care to join me?" He asks, taking it in stride when you don't react. With a shrug, he puts the cigarette between his teeth. "Help an old friend, yes?"
You don't particularly like being the personal lighter for anyone, but you acquiesce — powerful and resourceful men with fragile prides are better as friends than foes; The task is so simple you don't even need to form a magic circle, a single thought making the end of the cigarette smolder before vestigial flames spark up from nothing, catching on the tightly packed dried leaves and setting them alight.
"Impressive trick." Zakhaev compliments and breathes in the nicotine, unbothered when he receives your silence again. You expect the rest of the weapons exchange to pass quietly, you and him watching from the sidelines as the men load heavy crates into the back of a truck. Your presence here is only as a guard dog.
Zakhaev surprises you by speaking up again. "Ah, there was another thing I wanted to speak to you about."
Another crate is set by your feet. You tilt your head to look at Zakhaev before your gaze flickers to the worker who pries the top board open. Inside isn't a minigun or an automatic rifle Khaled had ordered, but a sniper rifle.
"What is this?" You ask, just about keeping yourself from tensing; This is unexpected, a surprise, and surprises can get you killed faster than playing patty cake with a landmine.
Zakhaev, as if sensing your unease, waves you off. "A gift, my friend." He says in Russian, the words easy to understand. "And a. . . taste, shall we say, of what I can offer you in the event you decide to seek other employment opportunities."
Ah. So that's what this is about — he's trying to bribe you.
Now that you think about it, it isn't too surprising. He knows what you're capable of, and mages of your abilities don't grow on trees. "Is that so?" You ask in Russian, playing along as you kneel down and pick up the gun.
Your fingers move with life of their own, gliding smoothly and confidently over the metal as if you'd been born with it. The barrel is straight as an arrow, the butt fits comfortably against your shoulder, the magazine locks into place with a soft 'click', the bolt moves back with buttery smoothness and gives you sight of the live round before it's loaded into place with a second satisfying sound. It tickles your brain, that violent thing in your chest stirs with interest.
"You like it, yes?" Zakhaev chuckles, the sharpness in his eyes momentarily lost as he observes you as one does a child opening gifts on Christmas morning. "It’s a .50BMG, semi-auto, 5 rounds every 1.6 seconds, 1,800mile range, 1,319 m/s velocity, and has a 5-round detachable box mag with a muzzle brake." He details, and you mentally whistle to yourself; guns like these cost a fortune. "It's a nice gun, no?"
It is a very nice gun.
Something at the back of your mind tingles; a smoldering coal is quenched, a string snaps and sends a single needle through your amygdala. Foreign mana, as subtle as a tank, traipses at the edge of your consciousness — a fly unknowingly vibrates the threads of a spider's nest.
It is a very nice gun.
And you just found a target to practice on.
. . .
"What is Zakhaev doing here? I thought we buried him in Verdansk?" Sergeant Garrick’s voice chatters quietly over the coms as Captain Roberts makes her way through the swamp, muddy water up to her knees and insects buzzing around her head. A few of her best mages trail behind her, the rest of her team mingled between the monsters on the other side of the docks.
"Turns out our matchstick's just a magnet for wankers." Sergeant MacTavish’s voice crackles. She doesn’t stop the scoff that comes to her lips. He just has a voice that’s easy to dislike, then again she never did like mutts.
"Our mission remains the same, get Zakhaev if you can but Ifrit’s a more dangerous target." Captain Roberts wants to argue with Price. Hell, she did for nearly an hour after the briefing was done just on the subject why everyone but him and the wraith had to wear gas masks. Captain Price is too paranoid in her opinion; after the terrorist attack there's no way their target's mana reserves aren't depleted to shit, Ifrit probably couldn't put up a fight tougher than wet tissue paper but nooo, Laswell just had to pick that lizard over her own kind.
"Took care of a straggler." The deep rumble of Lieutenant Ghost’s voice sends a nice shiver down her spine. He had broken off to go ahead, briefly giving her a nice look at his ass. At least there’s one sideshow in that freakshow of a taskforce that’s easy on the eyes. She bets he would look even better without that ugly mask, all those big muscles on display and quivering beneath her…
"Alfa team in position." Price speaks into the radio.
Roberts shakes her head, refocusing on the task as she kneels in the dark water. She's partially hidden behind a rotten tree stump, but the night is dark and there's enough critters and insects in the swamp to make sensing them with mana difficult. "Team Bravo in position." She says.
"Good, stand by, we only get one chance at this." That's probably the only thing she and Price agree on. Opportunities like this don't fall into their laps often, maybe she can even nab herself a promotion if she captures both Ifrit and Zakhaev.
Curiosity tugs on her mind as she watches the weapons deal go down. She doesn’t know what she expected but this isn’t it; The last time she had seen someone capable of similar destruction, it had been a teenager in the late stages of lichdom— mind eroded, body nothing but skin and bones, magic rotting the poor girl from the inside out until all that was left was an animal in human skin.
She expected something similar, maybe worse, not for Ifrit to look no different than every other criminal piece of shit she's seen.
Unable to hold back her curiosity she hunches her shoulders and takes off her gloves. Her mage marks are extensive and ugly; reach to the first knuckle of each finger, the dried coral like texture scratching her skin as she places one hand on her face to peer between her fingers, another resting over her chest.
Captain Roberts can at least feel proud for being so magically gifted she can shorten a 40 something word incantation to just 13 measly words: "Sister of steams, daughter of oceans, give me sight to see the hidden." She can feel her mana leisurely crawl through her veins as she murmurs the spell, like squeezing honey through a cheesecloth.
The world lights up in an array of colors like a broken kaleidoscope, shapes and outlines flickering in and out as the mana inside every living creature mixes and twirls with the dark backdrop of dead mana without rhyme or reason. The sight is something humans were never meant to see, and it stabs at her eyes for even daring to look, but she can stomach it long enough to catch sight of Ifrit's mana.
Captain Roberts is disappointed to see the mana surrounding you is nothing to write home about; orange mana cleanly outlines your entire frame, barely a couple of inches thick, not too bright and not even the barest flicker in the even surface to indicate mana suppression.
The disappointment morphs into relief as she deactivates her spell — at the very least she won't need to waste her time with this monster and terrorist nonsense longer than she has to. Shame, she had been looking for a challenge—
A violent shiver runs down her spine, her heart lurches and bashes against her ribs with the feral panic of a prey animal trying to escape, cold sweat breaks out across her skin and pain blooming in her arteries as mana rushes to her fingers—
A bullet strikes the rotten stump she's hiding behind.
Magic explodes on contact.
Violent flames race to devour those still living.
. . .
You count 5 seconds between the bullet hitting it's target, the magic you imbued it with exploding, and it all going to shit.
You throw a hand over Zakhaev's shoulder and force him to the ground as the first hail of bullets comes your way. You drop to your knee just in time to avoid receiving a lead injection, the concrete behind you exploding in small puffs of dust as the high caliber bullets hit the ground or bounce off Zakhaev's boat to tear through the meat shields that are Khaled's men. You try to take a few potshots, but your position is bad and you can't tell where the shots are coming from.
You catch large elongated sticks fall from the sky and clatter to the ground. You immediately screw your eyes shut, bending at the waist to put your face parallel with the ground and pressing your hands to your ears. You avoid the flash as the stun grenades go off, but the following bang! rattles inside your ears and makes you stumble as you straighten out.
But you know this is just a distraction: beneath the whizzing bullets and echoing shots you can feel the world groan, the air shivering with disgust as magic slowly gathers at the fingertips of enemy mages. They take every precious second given to them to build and strengthen their spells, the average cast time around a minute.
You need no such preparation.
The moment you feel their spells release, like a rubber band snapping against your skin, you summon your own magic. You have neither the time nor space to produce a proper counter spell when you haven't seen your enemies casting circles, so your offence becomes your best defense — glowing circles spark across the air to shoot out violent flames, burning heat and freezing cold colliding in the crisp night air. Your magic is far superior, turning the balls of ice and water into steam.
The boundless steam floods the area and rushes at you like a stampede of frantic beasts. You pull Zakhaev close to you, shielding his fragile body from the blistering mist as it washes over you, nothing but a mild inconvenience. Your stomach feels tight, as if mocking you for not listening to your body.
At least you can be certain this isn't just some group of Khaled's enemies or gangsters that stumbled on you. The fact they're using water and ice spells means this was preplanned, they have a specific target — you.
The thought makes something inside you stir. You feel your heart begin to beat a little faster, a little harder, a little louder, banging against your ribs in the slow start of a war march to rouse the slumbering beast in your veins. Enticing it with what it you craves.
You hear Zakhaev say something but his words fail to reach your ears, not that you'd be able to respond with how your tongue feels like it's made of lead. Your body always does this; jaw tensing to keep you quiet, muscles relaxing in preparation, the lingering vestiges of nervousness evaporating to clear your mind so you can focus. Something in that fucked up brain of yours makes you switch to the first language you ever learned — violence.
Your grip is ironclad as you throw Zakhaev over your shoulder like he's a sack of potatoes, summoning more spells for cover instead of listening to his cursing. Even more steam blankets the ground, joining alongside gunfire and magic to create a disorientating shroud you're very familiar with. You easily duck and weave through Khaled's men, catching glimpses of enemy bodies moving beyond the steam as you head to the truck, hoping to use it for momentary cover.
Throwing Zakhaev into the back of the truck with the weapon boxes you skirt to the front of the vehicle, the sharp bang! of your fist knocking against the metal door scaring the shit out of the driver. You meet the man's eyes through the darkened lenses of your helmet, giving a hand gesture for him to drive.
Hummingbirds peck at the back of your skull, giving you ample warning to jump out of the way even before a circle spreads beneath your feet. A shard of ice erupts from the ground where you'd just stood, thankfully avoiding the car and giving the driver further incentive to get the fuck out. Ants crawl down your spine in another warning, and you saw enough of the previous circle to disrupt the one that appears behind you, a few orange lines springing up in the neat blue circle to make it fizzle out and send the half built spell right back at the caster.
With the primary targets secured you can turn your full attention on the attackers, your gloves smoldering as hot mana rushes to your fingertips. You hear pebbles crunch under a boot while you summon your own magic circles, the return of that tight feeling in your stomach making you break concentration just enough to catch sight of one of Khaled's men in your periphery.
You notice the gun aimed at you a second too late.
Bang!
Pain flares through your shoulder, your body moving on its own as you throw yourself to the side to avoid another round. You don't need to think for your flames to burst beneath the feet of your attacker, using the distraction to retreat into the space between two warehouses, giving yourself better cover. Mana rushes to the hole in your shoulder, drops of molten metal leaking from your wound when you lean forward, your clothing greedily drinking up your mana saturated blood and sticking to your skin.
Your magic repairs your body as quickly as you're injured, pain rapidly fading away until only the dull sting of betrayal remains. Like a sacrificial lamb, it catches the deadly attention of the thing slumbering in your heart.
It wakes up angry and feral and oh so hungry.
Fangs of freezing heat tenderly grip your heart, ravenous nothingness once birthed by your desperation now begs and demands for your will to give it shape. How can you refuse?
Flames spark at your palms, burning away the thick material of your gloves to free your hands. A freezing chill gnaws on your burning fingers and harkens the arrival of something that slinks out of your heart like crude oil, bulging and molding itself to your veins as it crawls to your palms. Darkness consumes the orange glow of your magic, leaving behind little pitch black candlelight flames burning at your fingertips. 'Flames' is a bad word to describe them when they suck the light around them; it's like looking at black silhouettes in the approximation of fire, painted straight onto reality by a child's hand.
A magic circle spirals beneath you, glowing bright blue and stinking of enemy magic. You can just about hear the chanting of spells near you, more circles appearing on either side of you, trapping you.
"Beelzebub," You mutter under your breath, not out of need — you've long since mastered the art of wordless magic — but out of respect. "Devour."
2 measly words is all it takes for the black fires to shoot straight up like the fangs of a beast, leaping off your fingers in wide arcs and creating a quickly expanding perimeter around you, circling like sharks as they rush outwards. The meticulously crafted circles shatter like glass, hundreds of little shards of visible mana fluttering around you for a second before they're swallowed up by the black fires.
Beelzebub is a ravenous spell, lashing out at everything around you with the sole intent to consume, to devour every little bit of mana in an endlessly fruitless attempt to sate its hunger. Regardless, if said mana has already been made into a spell, of it's still inside a person.
You don't see it, but you know the exact moment Beelzebub finds the enemy mages, screams of horror and pain filling the air as black flames descend on them like bloodhounds. You can feel Beelzebub's freezing claws tear into them, leaving the flesh unharmed but tearing their mana out bit by bit, devouring it, syphoning the power back to you.
Once, long ago, the acrid rush of foreign mana through your system would have knocked you on your ass, now it just forces you to sway and lean against the warehouse wall. Long ago, the way stolen mana gnaws on your veins and claws at your chest for escape would have left you writhing on the floor, but now you can barely feel it. Your stomach cramps, the urge to vomit still as strong as it was back then, your senses registering all the rot; people don't think about how many forms rot can take — decaying kelp, festering flesh, acid rain, gangrene, moldy wall paper — hundreds of little deaths making up the very essence mages depend on.
Your body begs to use magic before you explode, muscles tensing, chest fluttering, ribs squeezing down on your lungs in an attempt to keep the stolen mana imprisoned. Sweet relief floods your mind as the searing heat of your own magic pushes the stolen mana through your veins, herding it into your palms where you can easily reshape it into something familiar to you: Ash.
Pushing off the wall you rush into the open, using Beelzebub's flames to burn the lines of the attack circle into the ground. The thinning steam lets you catch sight of enemies rounding the warehouses in front of you, likely human or monster since Beelzebub would have taken mages closest to you out of commission. You don't ponder this further, the second the final line is drawn you use Beelzebub as a transition point and push all the stolen mana out.
The docks erupt in a puff of disorientating ash. You don't waste time waiting for someone to fire the shot needed to ignite your magic, falling to your knee as you punch the ground. All it takes is for the chips of volcanic rock along your knuckles to scrape against the concrete for a spark to form.
The resulting explosion is never pleasant.
The sudden surge of light and the loud bang! leaves you disorientated for a few seconds, your skin dry yet clammy as if you has just got sprayed by a flash flood of boiling water. Tiny chisels pick at your bones as you stumble to your feet, trying to sculpt you into something holier than what you are.
But you can't complain when the same explosion tears through soldiers like they're paper, not even leaving behind blood to stain you when the harsh heat cremates the bodies closest to you. Your lungs struggle to get in a good breath, the stench of smog and burning meat passing through the filter and clinging to your tongue. You can hear your enemies coughing, you can feel them moving through the smog in search for you, but your ash is so thick it completely hides you, giving you a few seconds to think.
Thousands of thoughts roll around your skull, but one stands out — Khaled finally betrayed you.
Fire shoots out from beyond the ash at you. Your body moves instinctively as you throw your hand up to guard your head and turn away. The hot flames lick harmlessly over your skin, too similar to the heat inside you to harm you, so all it can do is burn your outer clothes until your shirt and bulletproof vest peek out beneath the large smoldering holes.
You get a second to catch sight of sharp curving horns and predatory blue eyes staring at you from the ash, the smog shifting around a rapidly approaching figure. Next thing you know something hard hits you right in the stomach, fast and unyielding like a truck.
Your skin and muscles ripple under the fist, you feel and hear your ribs crack! under the immense strength right before the punch flings you back like a ragdoll.
You crash into a warehouse wall, the metal denting in the shape of your back as more bones crack. Pain flares through your body, your tongue, caught between your teeth, bleeds peppery acrid blood into your mouth. You gasp for breath as much as you're able to, chest weakly fluttering like a butterfly's wing as you find yourself unable to take in a deep breath.
Then a sickening crack! rings right behind your eardrums as your magic pulls out the rib piercing your lung, pushing on it until it fully expands and you can breathe again. Heat slithers through your body to glue together broken bones and torn muscles, repairing you as if nothing ever happened. You're on your feet in seconds, the ripple in the ash giving you enough warning to lunge out of the way before another stream of flames can wash over you. You send your own in return, a magic circle forming in front of you before spewing out a beam of concentrated flame. The force behind it causes the lingering ash to disperse, giving you better sight of your opponent—
Dragon.
Of course your luck has to be so dogshit you'd get a fucking dragon sicked on you. What's next, a damn stone-skinned goliath? Maybe a leviathan to really fuck you over?
You bend your knees as you summon a magic circle beneath your feet. The ash erupts with such force it sends you careening through the air, launching you into the ash free air above you. You're close enough to a warehouse to grasp the jutting out metal sheet of the steel roof, your muscles tensing as you haul yourself up.
Quickly wiping away the ash stuck to your helmet lenses your eyes instinctively look up to search the sky, the bright spotlights of the docks making the night so much darker. If a dragon's after you then there's a high likelihood there are more monsters, and those rarely come without at least one flyer in their team.
The subtle, unnatural, flutter of distant stars across the dark sky gives you enough incentive to throw up a fiery shield, retreating further back onto the roof. Feathers sharp as knives burn to cinders in your flames, some stragglers imbedding themselves near your feet, easily slicing through the steel roof; Harpy.
You can't tell what kind it is, probably a common variety, but it doesn't really matter so long as you can clip the bird's wings.
Mana floods into your eyes as you use a mana sensing spell. The sky lights up like an aurora borealis, the ground below explodes in all sorts of nauseating colors that makes a headache pound against your skull. But it's worth it when the body of the harpy lights up like a lightbulb, contrasting sharply against the sky, it's wings making for the perfect target.
You know harpies are fast fliers. It forces you to give up some firepower in exchange for a homing ability. Changing a spell is an easy thing to do, mentally erasing and adding a couple of lines in your circle before you summon it. You disable your mana sight so you don't blind yourself and let your magic loose, firing off 4 tightly packed balls of fire in rapid order.
You don't stick around to see it try to dodge your magic, turning to your heel to race across the roof after you flood the earth bellow with even more ash. You need to escape; you could try to kill the monsters, you doubt they have anything worse than that dragon, but you have bigger problems — you can't let an enemy like Khaled live.
Something catches your leg like you're a rabbit in a snare, an unforgettable cold creeping up your skin to gnaw on your brain. Ethereal shadows curl like ropes around your ankle and pull you down before you can burn them away. You tumble to the steel roof and blindly summon flames around you, rolling to your side the moment you get yourself free and just barely managing to avoid your own shadow trying to skewer you.
You burn away the shadowy spikes sticking out from the ground, flames flaring up around you to momentarily distract your opponent as you get to your feet. Your eyes settle on the one that tripped you; big fucker, tall and wide, half wreathed in shadows, a skull mask peering at your from the darkness. Your spine feels like it wants to crawl out of your back, the silence of the grave ringing in your ears when you go to sense his magic and pick up nothing.
The same nothing that makes up Beelzebub. Furious. Hungry. Dead.
Wraith. You are facing a Wraith.
Not a goliath, not a leviathan. Worse. Much, much worse.
You have no shot at outrunning that thing when your own shadow can betray you, not to mention the wraith's range is far larger than yours in the dead of night. You have no choice but to charge at him, a circle forming beneath your heel and ash bursting out to launch you forward, your magic burning hot and bright to produce as much light as you can in an attempt to limit the shadows he can use.
Flames wreathe your fist as you throw a punch to his side, your sudden advance taking him off guard just enough for you to hit him, fire eating away at tactical gear to gnaw on the dead flesh. It forces a grunt out of him before shadows spew out from where you hit him to engulf your arm, leaving you open for a sharp knee to the gut. Your hands flare up, volcanic stone melting into active lava to burn away the shadows holding you. A pillar of flame erupts between you two to force him back, but whips of shadow shoot through the fire in quick retaliation. You duck and roll, adrenaline rushing through your veins like a feral hound as you charge at him again.
Shadows and flames are both volatile and taxing, making you two employ similar tactics: rush and overwhelm your opponent. You have to admit, the wraith is fucking good; he's not an oaf despite his size, using it to his advantage and giving you no reprieve from the constant jabs, trying to bully you into a position where you'd be open for his shadows to pierce your flesh.
But you're faster, ducking and weaving between his blows, mana pulsing through your blood and strengthening your muscles when they think of failing you down. You can almost hear Jackal shouting at you for being too slow.
Your flames are an extension of you, you trust them to clash with his shadows so you can focus purely on the Wraith. You can tell he's getting annoyed when you duck under another swing and jab your elbow into his ribs, the un-melted rocks covering your joint much more painful than actual bone. And that's before magic shoots out from your elbow, flames burning away both of your clothes and creating a sizable blistering wound on his side.
"Fucker," His shadows flare out to put out your flames, "Stay still." You catch a hind of a British accent in his rough voice, unable to get any more as liquid shadows roll of his shoulders and shoot out at you. You're forced to stumble back in an attempt to avoid the shadows trying to claw your face off, your heel ending right on the edge of the roof.
There's a small space between the edge you're standing on and the start of the roof of the warehouse adjacent to this one, the space big enough for you to fall through if you're not careful. The fall itself wouldn't be pleasant either. Your jaw clenches harder and you swing your arm down in an arch, summoning dozens of palm sized circles and shooting out bolts of concentrated flame through the shroud of darkness. Some of them hit him and force black smoke to fizzle out from the wounds you inflict on him, his shadows repairing the walking corpse the same way your magic does to you.
That's not good. While you could go hours, you'll run out of the mana you'll need to take out Khaled if you continue this attempt to put the wraith down. Beelzebub's cold flame simmers in your heart, begging to be set free. You'd rather not use it again when the closest mana source is a wraith — a dead thing full of unfiltered rot — god forbid it triggers the only spell you've sworn not to use, but you don't think you have many other options.
Just as Beelzebub readies to crawl from your heart something else grabs your foot, sharp claws digging into your skin and jerking you down. You buck forward and nearly fall face first, throwing your head to look at the thing that's caught you. A man has half hoisted himself up on the roof, clothes torn and barely hanging on to his frame, a gas mask obscuring his face, one clawed hand gripping the steel to keep himself up as the other has your leg in an iron grip that leaves your bones groaning.
You notice the man's elongated ears and gleaming blue eyes as those of a werewolf. Those blue eyes widen to the size of dinner plates when you summon a magic circle point black with his head, the reflective orange glow of your magic swallowing up all the color his eyes.
Shadows shoot out into the space between his head and your circle, devouring the ball of flames you shoot out so the worst the wolf gets is a face full of smoke and singed hair. You turn your body back to face the wrath, throwing up both hands to summon different circles to take both out, but you're too slow. Whips of shadow shoot out and hit you dead center in the chest. The force sends you crashing back, the dumb wolf holding onto your leg pulled down with you.
You crash through the window of the other warehouse and straight down to the ground. The fall forces a loud wheeze from your lungs as large glass shards embed themselves into your back and shoulders where the bulletproof vest doesn't reach. Your ribs crackle like popcorn as magic heals them, but the pain from constantly getting them broken and repaired is starting to linger.
Dark brown fur flickers in the periphery of your vision, the sensation of a heavy body bearing down on your own snapping you back to action. You throw your arm up, the sharp fangs meant for your throat biting down on your forearm. You don't feel pain there, but a sick sense of satisfaction bubbles in your stomach as you get the first row view of your assailant registering the blistering head of your mage marks against the tender flesh of his mouth.
He yelps like a kicked dog as he releases your forearm. With a grunt you grip his shoulders, the patches of fur there smoldering the few brief seconds it takes you to gather enough strength to throw the heavy mutt off you. You stumble to your knees quickly, forced to dampen your healing abilities. The glass shards dig deeper into your muscles as you move, but the threat of them exploding from the heat of your magic prevents you from doing healing your wounds; the best you can do is dull the pain.
The warehouse is dark, but the mana in your eyes gives you a rudimentary night vision, letting you see the werewolf scramble to his own feet, spitting saliva and curses at you, "Aw ye fockin' bawbag! I-"
The rest of his words fail to reach your brain as you register the ignited remains of your ash blanketing the ground, making it impossible to see your feet bellow your knees. The scent of melting steel and smoke invades your nose, your mind taking this as the most opportune time to replace the metal ceiling high above you with hundreds of feet of rubble. Your chest tightens, the wide walls of the warehouse closing in until you feel like there's no space to move.
You're trapped. Again.
Your eyes flicker around in search for an escape, flames sparking from your fingers to burn all the way up to your shoulders, your mage marks burning hot and bright in the darkness. There! — at the very back of the warehouse you spy a motorcycle, your way out. Only a werewolf stands between it and you. It's true what Taurus used to tell you: freedom is a rope and God wants you to hang from it.
Steeling yourself, your hands reach out to grasp the knives you keep strapped to your shins, a subtle shift of the handles in your palms letting your magic flow freely into the steel.
Let him try to stop you.
. . .
Soap 's hackles raise, his fur feeling like it wants to leap off his tail. Such a deep and strong stench of rot permeates his senses his mind thinks he's the one decaying for a second. His eyes focuse on you as flames coat the knives in your hands and artificially extend the blades to give you better reach. Laswell's voice replays in his mind, telling him not to get close. Hell, he swears he can he can hear his ma's voice call him a bloody idjit for thinking of rushing at the fucking demon.
But his body still shifts further, bones snapping and reforming, muscles growing and the tattered remains of his shirt snapping off his torso as his body doubles in size. He can see his glowing eyes reflect in the tinted lenses of your mask before he rushes at you, body low to the ground before he leaps, claws bared.
You sidestep at the last second and raise your arm, the artificial blade of flames licking a blistering cut across his side. Pain shoots up his spine, his blood literally boiling as the fire both cuts him and cautarizes the wound.
"Focker-" He yelps and drops to all fours to dodge a second slash, leaping up and swinging his arm in an uppercut. His claws cut into the Kevlar as they scrape against the bulletproof vest instead of your skin, snagging on something around your neck and pulling it with him as you lean down and duck back to create distance.
Johnny doesn't get to check what it is when you immediately retaliate by throwing your knife at him. He quickly pockets what he got off you and tries to avoid the weapon but it still hits him in the shoulder, hot flames burning at his skin to let the metal slide in deeper. "Bastard-" He snarls but before he can do anything you're next to him, ripping the knife from his shoulder as you duck past him to slash at the back of his knee.
Soap yelps from the pain as he tumbles forward, turning his body as he falls to roughly swipe at you with his superior reach. The force behind his swing makes you stumble, giving his body the few seconds it needs to regenerate. He rolls to all fours, muscles tensing to lunge again— a sense of wrongness shoots down his spine, forcing him to pause.
A pillar of flames erupts from the ground where he would have been had he lunged at you, the bright light blinding him. When he can see again, he catches your form on top of one of the shipping containers, magical circles appearing as you run across the container to pelt him with balls of concentrated ash. The balls explode in large puffballs of ash as they hit the ground, his mind urging him to move to avoid getting a face full of ash. "Aw no yer fockin' not." He mutters under his breath, taking a few quick and wide steps before he leaps onto the shipping container to escape the suffocating smog, racing after you on all fours.
This proves to be a mistake as you suddenly turn around, thrusting your hand out to cast a giant circle right in front of his eyes. Claws digging into the metal Soap throws himself to his side just as a beam of flames shoots out, singeing his furry tail and forcing a strangled gasp out of his lips as a bit of his thigh gets caught in the blast of fire.
He crashes to the concrete ground, the scent rot curling in his nose as the ash swirls over him, but can't reach his lungs thanks to the gas mask. Johnny's leg muscles twitch, his though skin blistered and red like a tomato, the tattered remains of his pants partially burned into his skin. He struggles to get to his knees, pain stabbing his skin as his body tries to heal, watching through blurry eyes as you reach your target — the motorcycle.
The engine revs to life and you get on it without wasting a second. A violent sensation rushes down his spine as you summon another circle, this one so big it stretches across the entire back wall of the warehouse. In a second the metal heats up to the point it's glowing, solid steel turning into molten slag and dropping to the ground like melting snow. Soap's mind stutters when you flip him off before racing away, shouting and gunfire audible but quickly growing quiet as you get away.
Fucking Bastard.
"So- Soap! H-ghr!- ow co-kghr-ppy?" Price's voice crackles through the radio, barely understandable thanks to how much magic is floating around him.
He groans, sucking in a sharp breath. "Still alive." He grinds out. Rapidly approaching footsteps make him stumble to stand, a threatening growl erupting from his throat.
"Just me." Ghost's voice makes him instantly calm down. His body presses against Johnny's and Soap lets himself put his weight on Ghost. "You broken?" Ghost asks, slipping Johnny's arm over his shoulder and gripping his waist, easily holding him up despite Johnny being nearly twice his size currently.
Johnny tries to breathe in deep with the gas mask restricting his lungs, "Just me pride." He glances down to his leg, the wound glistening with clear fluid and still blistered, his healing factor not even making a dent in it. "Fucker got me good." His ears twitch,
"We'll track 'em down." Ghost grunts as he helps Soap limp out of the ash filled warehouse, safe from the magic as he doesn't need to breathe. "I stuck a tracker, they're not getting far."
"Fockin' hope so, ah got a score to settle an' the bawbag flipped me off for fuck—" A thought comes to him. The tattered remains of his pants have pockets high up so he doesn't tear them when he transforms. He reaches into the pocket and pulls the thing he'd accidentally nicked off you. Johnny lifts it up so both of them can see the chain hanging off his fingers, a little more than a dozen dog tags dangling from it.
Even with the gas mask obscuring part of his face, Ghost knows Johnny's smirking. "Bet you Laswell will love this."
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Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii
Masterlist; Chapter 1 <- Chapter 2(you are here) -> Chapter 3
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clanwarrior-tumbly · 30 days
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hi there, could I get poppy playtime (if that is to many characters then just catnap and dogday are fine) with a reader that has pica (if you don't know what that is it is where a person can tend to eat or bite on things not edible, like paper, erasers, eca)
I can do a few!
.....
Huggy (saved/rescued) + Poppy
While in his "idle mode" on the podium, he sees you munching on a piece of paper like lettuce and then plush stuffing like it's cotton candy.
And then you just snatch the key from him and move onto the next puzzle, and he goes "???????"
Why did you eat those things? Did they somehow sustain your hunger?
Huggy only gets to learn more after you save him from falling (and tame him with an actual edible snack you brought along), taking a breather after freeing Poppy from her box.
When he grabs one a random paper, you assume he wants to draw something as a way to communicate...until he starts chowing it down.
In his mind, humans DO eat paper and he's been starving and cannibalizing toys (and trying to eat you) for nothing...
But then he spits it out, picking shredded bits out of his teeth, before glaring at you as if you told him to eat that.
You're a little scared and confused until Poppy explains that he was only trying to mimic what you do, and she asks why you eat such random little things.
Eventually you explain to the pair of your condition called "pica".
You've had it most of your life, with an official diagnosis to boot, but it never really hurt your digestive tract.
Over the years you've cut the habit, although being stuck in this factory meant you had to find other sources of food...even those not even considered food at all.
Some of your coworkers knew about it, and their only complaint was the occasional eraser going missing thanks to you (which you deny stealing...most of the time).
"I always joke about having a cast-iron stomach," you tell the toys. "Food is the least of my......"
But you pause and look at Huggy, realizing he might be offended by you shrugging off food as negligible to your survival.
No matter what, though, it's not gonna stop him from trying different non-food items and seeing what tastes good.
He might've eaten pieces of clothing and plush fabric/stuffing over the years, albeit none of it was delicious by itself.
Dogday
"They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away at you bit by little bit--fill what feels empty inside themselves."
"Jesus, that sounds horrific." You say as you crunch on a piece of chalk (one of several that you got from the schoolhouse) nonchalantly.
Dogday takes immediate notice and is rather concerned. He knows the chalk and crayons here are made to be non-toxic, but insists they're not safe for human consumption.
He fears it's gonna kill you and begs you to stop, saying you needed to live.
Before you could fully explain your condition, the mini-critters are closing in, so you free him and haul ass out of the playhouse of horrors.
After making it somewhere safe where you could patch him up, he presses you on why you continue to eat all these foreign objects.
But he jumps to the conclusion that you got desperate after running out of food, going mad from hunger like the other toys did...
He recalls Picky Piggy going through something similar, and he gets a bad flashback to the Hour of Joy when he had to stop her from eating Crafty's paint....and the corpse of a Smiling Critter -
"Dogday? Hey stay with me..it's okay. I'm here, I'm here.." You console him, calming him down from his panic attack. "I'm not going crazy, alright? I just have this small condition called pica."
"...p-pica? Oh. I thought...kids grow outta that.." He mutters, finding familiarity with that term.
He's had his fair share of toddlers putting things in their mouth that could be choking hazards.
You shake your head, explaining that it stuck with you, but it doesn't cause your stomach any pain as long as you're careful about what you eat.
Dogday's relieved you're not losing it.
Even so, though, he's gonna feel nervous if he catches you eating another piece of chalk.
But it's just his instincts as a child caretaker, so you couldn't blame him.
Catnap
He hangs out in the shadows for the most part, watching your every move...and he does pick up on your strange habit of eating non-food objects.
It's something orphaned toddlers in the playhouse often did, and he'd see the other Smiling Critters hurry to take the items away from them before any emergencies happened.
But those memories mean nothing to him.
All he's doing is waiting for you to eat the wrong thing and keel over.
Unfortunately for him, you just keep trudging on, munching on a crayon like it's normal before throwing your gas mask back on.
He doesn't know how you manage to stomach so many things, and honestly is kinda envious.
Why can't he and the others sustain their hunger like you did?
It does make for some rather..amusing situations, though. Such as when you're in the smoke factory and use the elevator to escape him.
You just stand there as the doors close, eating some chalk and crunching it loudly without breaking eye contact with Catnap's horrific eldritch form.
Obviously, you're stress-eating at that point, but he doesn't have to know.
Miss Delight
The schoolhouse was like a cafeteria for someone with pica, aka you.
While looking for generators, you just pick up whatever you find: erasers, chalk, crayons, etc. and start biting them, or even chewing and swallowing them.
It only succeeds in angering Miss Delight right away, as she sees you doing all of this and snaps at how "childish" you are for eating things you shouldn't.
But you when shout back that you have pica, the PA system suddenly goes quiet.
Like Dogday and Catnap, that definitely triggered some memories for her, which she dwells on for a while before realizing you were still in the school..
And seeing you eating stuff makes her howling stomach grow louder.
"Barb" says you're mocking her own hunger, especially since she notices you gathering the notes she left around the place, and insists on killing you.
When you finally do encounter her, she is visibly disturbed by you crunching on a piece of chalk and throwing it to the ground to distract her, buying you time to break eye contact and flee.
She calls you "crazy", but you're not the one chasing her with a weapon made of a ruler and colored pencils.
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lksvi · 9 months
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love him and let him love you
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𝆹⭒ re6!leon kennedy x gn!reader
⏜ ‎ ◯𝆹⭒ synopsis — meeting you in raccoon city was a blessing. now, you've become the light within leon's darkest hours.
𝆹⭒◯ ⏜ content — fluff, probably some angst?, no uses of [name], i love leon kennedy, focuses on leon, a lot of leon reflecting
⏜ ‎ ◯𝆹⭒ word count — 2.2k
𝆹⭒◯ ⏜ note — the mischaracterization of leon kennedy makes me Sad so i wrote this. also requests r open js as a reminder!!!! enjoy this work!
𝆹⭒ masterlist
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Leon is a graveyard of empty promises and bloodied corpses. Too many times has he promised what he cannot uphold, given what he shouldn’t– At his core, he is selfless. His heart beats the same direction of Ashley’s veins and his breath is remnant of Luis’ cigarette smoke. Those things kill, you know, he had said, not yet understanding what Spain had in store for him.
If there was any test of loyalty to his country, it was Spain.
He can’t tell you what he went through. The government holds him on a tight leash, never straying too far from the D.S.O. headquarters. Your home is a temporary peace; a light in the dark. Soft cushions and open windows, moonlight filtered through glass. Tranquility is not often felt by Leon, but whenever he is with you, at your home, with the gentle light of the moon brushing over pale skin, it buries itself into his bones. Carves into the marrow, makes a home of his ribcage.
Peace has never felt so free until he met you.
He thinks of that time often: Surrounded by the groans of the undead, brain matter sticking to the soles of his shoes. Yet, in the darkness of Raccoon City, laid a savior in the shape of you. Leon, a rookie cop who had yet to experience the weight of the world, thought you were an angel. He thought your purpose was to guide him out of the shadows, rescue him from the grime and filth that was Raccoon City.
Instead, he rescued you. Adrenaline pricked at his skin, shot through his veins. He remembers the sight of you: All-consuming fear swimming deep within angelic eyes, covering you head-to-toe. His gun did not feel heavy, nor did the bullet sound loud. All he could focus on was you, you, you.
He did not hear himself ask you, “Are you okay?” He simply saw you nod, and without a second glance, reached out to touch you. Fate intertwined your paths, brought you to him and him to you, for this moment. For Leon to gently grasp your wrist, flesh marred with dried crimson and flakes of dirt. For him to guide you to the police station, luminescent lights flickering overhead.
Underneath the fake lighting, he saw beauty personified. Breathless from running or from the sight of you, he did not know, but even if he wasn’t already panting, he would’ve started at the mere glance of you. He’s seen beautiful women, ones who turn heads and capture the lenses of cameras, but he thinks any lens would’ve shattered upon your grace.
Ever since Raccoon City, Leon has had a sworn duty: Protect the country and protect you. Helping has always been second nature for him, ever since he was six-years-old and standing up for the bullied kids housed in the orphanage, but for you, it’s his first. He helps you before he thinks of helping himself. Even with mundane tasks such as unscrewing the lids of jars and reaching something on the top shelf for you come natural to him.
He’s always helping you. So, he doesn’t know what to do with himself when you help him instead.
It’s long after midnight. Moonlight seeps through panes of glass, illuminating your living room. Tonight is cold and lonely. You reside by yourself, the glow of the television the only source of light within the home. A blanket drapes over you, shielding you from the cold, and a hot cup of tea sits on the coffee table. You’re about to go to bed when there’s a knock at your door.
You weren’t expecting anyone tonight. Confusion knits between your brows, teeth digging into your bottom lip as you stand up. Cautiously, you undo the locks and open the door, surprised to see Leon there. His sleeves are rolled up, dirt and grime stuck to the surface of his knuckles and inside of his nails. Turning up at your house with bruises and scratches are common for Leon, but he looks particularly rough tonight.
“Leon!” You gasp, moving to the side to let him in. A crooked smile plays on nude-colored lips as he steps inside, a shiver racking his frame. Dark blue fabric does little to shield him from the cold. The first few buttons are undone, revealing an array of yellow and purples peeking out from beneath it, along with a few cuts along his collarbone. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be back for another two weeks?”
A light chuckle escapes him. He’s grateful to be back in your home, the comfort already making a home within his beating heart. “Got back a little earlier,” Leon responds, raspy timbre not giving away his exhaustion. You don’t miss the hitch in his breath when he steps, or the way he tries to conceal his pain. “Thought I’d swing by, pay you a visit. How’re you holdin’ up?”
You don’t answer his question, too busy eyeing the unusual color against his skin, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re hurt,” You say instead. He offers a small sigh, a tug at the corner of his lips. “S’The job, sweetheart. What can you do?”
Gently, you lead him to your bathroom. It’s small, barely able to fit the two of you, but you make it work. You treat him as if he’s made of glass, even if you know he isn’t. Although you don’t know what happens in his line of work, you see the aftermath of it. The angry splotches against his skin, dark bruising and crimson-dried cuts. “Was this one of the rough ones?” You ask softly, even if you know the answer.
Leon can try to lie. He can attempt to conceal the truth behind vague words and shifty eyes, but he doesn’t. He sighs, watches you get out the first aid kit, and nods. “It’s always rough,” He mutters, eyes cast downwards. Talking about work isn’t something he enjoys. He doesn’t like to bring his work home, even if it infects certain aspects of his day-to-day life subconsciously.
He doesn’t trust anyone. He eyes down any suspicious looking person while getting you both coffee, always takes a sip of yours before he gives it to you, just in case. You don’t know he does these things– He’d rather deal with his paranoia himself. He doesn’t want to make you paranoid. Leon keeps you close to him in crowds, a hand splayed out on the small of your back or an arm wrapped around your waist or your hands intertwined. Touching you in some way is a must. If he can’t physically feel you, he thinks you’re going to disappear.
And Leon understands it’s silly. The things he does, the precautions he takes, he knows it’s coming from a place of anxiety. Humor me, won’t you? is what he asks every time, accompanied with a playful click of his tongue. Yet, he’d rather be safe than sorry. Risking your safety in any way is the greatest sin of all, one he refuses to even chance.
You try your best to cheer him up. His job is dangerous, that much you know, but you try to be a beacon of light for him. He has a mansion of his own, but you always welcome your quaint home up to him. A place of safety. At first, he didn’t take it. Showing up at your home was rare, if he came at all. Truthfully, he was worried about infecting your home. Plaguing the air with his anxiety, worries, and fears; somehow shifting the quiet environment to one of chaos.
His own house may be tainted, but he didn’t want to risk yours.
“Take off your shirt for me,” You instruct him. The first aid kit is laid out on the counter, gauze and bandages and band-aids littered about. He’ll never admit it, but he always looks forward to your band-aids. You always go for a colorful theme of some kind. Last time, your bandages were space themed, littered with stars and galaxies and asteroids. He secretly loves your themed band-aids.
This time, they’re Hello-Kitty themed. One of the characters, who you’ve told him is My Melody, takes up the space of the band-aid. His lips quirk in a smile. “Hello-Kitty this time, huh?” He says as he unbuttons his shirt, letting the fabric fall to the ground. Scars litter the expanse of his chest and abdomen, taut skin stretched across muscles. Chasing down Bio-Organic Weapons for a living gave him the physique he dreamed of having as a young boy (with several scars added, too).
He doesn’t say it out loud, but the themed band-aids remind him of Sherry. The young girl you two had taken care of for a short amount of time, who Leon sacrificed the rest of his adult life for. Getting recruited as a government agent was his part of keeping you, and her, safe. In exchange for his recruitment, you and Sherry got to live a normal life. Although Sherry was much more grown up, now. Seeing her in China had been whiplash for Leon.
She was a young woman now, different yet similar to the little girl you two had rescued long ago. He was different, too. No longer a bright-eyed rookie cop who blindly protected in the name of justice. He thinks back to Ada’s words– “You haven’t changed. You just think you have.”– and ponders on if he really has changed. In a way, he has. Gruesome sights and ungodly terrors have plagued him, shaped him into a man of battle. But in a way, he still helps. He still offers a hand to those in need.
Helping people has always been what he wants to do. It sits at the core of his being, flowing through his blood. He thinks of Ashley, Luis, and Sherry– All the people he could and couldn’t save. He will never be okay with not being able to save everyone. It keeps him up at night, infects his dreams until they morph into night terrors.
But he has saved people. Like you.
You nod your head, cleaning the cut on his collarbone and decorating it with a band-aid. He doesn’t tell you that he saw Sherry– Not yet, anyway. He doesn’t want to disturb the serene silence. It brings forth tranquility, a type he only feels when around you. It’s quiet as you continue patching him up, save for your delicate humming (a quirk about you that he loves– Silence often scares Leon, makes him await when the next B.O.W. will find him or when an enemy will come out of nowhere. Your humming doesn’t interrupt the silence, instead making it more peaceful) and the sound of gauze and bandages ripping.
Sleep tugs at his eyelids. It isn’t often he gets the pleasure of falling asleep, but he hopes he does tonight. Even so, he’ll get to lay with you, and that’s enough to relax him.
When you finish, you smile at him. “All done,” You tell him. You card a gentle hand through his hair, brush through the knots with nimble fingers. Luxuries such as brushing his hair aren’t often thought about during his missions. Typically, he comes back with his hair in knots. He hates the feeling of you brushing through them, but he enjoys sitting on the floor in front of the couch, your legs over his shoulders. Leon will turn his head as you’re combing through his hair simply to press a kiss to the inside of your thigh, leaving you to complain about having to start all over.
It’s the domesticity that kills him to be away from you. Thoughts of you persist even when he’s on a mission. Close calls have led to him thinking if leaving you, gentle kisses and exchanged laughter, would be the last time he saw you. A few times he’s picked himself up, even when an ache settles itself into his bones and he’s lost blood by the liters, because the thought of leaving you tears him apart. Never getting to see you making breakfast for him or your tongue sticking out when you focus or the blotches on your lips after anxiety-ridden days would break him.
He never wants to leave you. The image of you sobbing, tissues piled high and comforter up to your chin, makes his heart ache. He’s getting up before he realizes it, tugging you close. He hopes you can feel his heartbeat and understand that it beats for you. Leon’s never been good at expressing his emotions, but he hopes you know how much he loves you. How he would die and kill and tear apart flesh a thousand times over just to come home to your sweet smile.
“C’mon, sweet thing,” He murmurs into your hair. Rough fingertips gently scratch up your back, caressing the soft skin. He pulls away, just to see you look up at him. In this moment, he memorizes your eyes and your smile. He memorizes the feel of your skin, the smell of your perfume, the veins that map out a river beneath your flesh. He memorizes you and your love. “Let’s get to bed.”
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boxofbonesfic · 1 month
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Title: Tonality [5]
Pairing: Prince!Geralt x Princess!Reader
previous Chapter
Summary: “The white wolf wants you. He’ll have no other.” As you grieve the loss of your father, your mother marries the king. Whilst you struggle to acclimate to your new life, you begin to suspect the interest your new brother has in you is less than familial.
Warnings: 18+ Only, Dark Fantasy, Darkfic, Step-cest, Medieval/GoT inspired AU, Genre Typical Violence, Mild Descriptions of Violence, (Future)Smut, Dubcon/Noncon, Manipulation, Gaslighting, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, MINORS DNI!!
A/N: OMG I’M SO SORRY. this chapter was so hard to write and it kept getting away from me, because i really wanted to pivot hard into some of the main plot points. i really hope you enjoy it, please drop me a comment and let me know even if you didn’t.
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“Come.” Your mother’s voice is firm. Her mourning veil just barely outlines the shape of her face, as her lips move beneath the fabric. It billows behind her as she walks down the darkened line of empty pews toward the front of the little chapel, a flickering candle held steady in her gloved hand. 
Your father is to be buried tomorrow. 
You know his grave is already dug—a fresh square cut out of the dark earth next to his father’s. The thought of him alone in the dirt is enough to make your throat tighten, though no tears come. You have cried them all already; a veritable ocean. Even so, your dry eyes ache for lack of them.
“W-wait, mother, I—” You do not want to see it, the vacant thing your father’s soul has left behind. At the end, you could barely recognize him in the fragile body decaying in his sick bed. You catch at her sleeve with numb fingers, lowering your head in shame. “I do not want to see—” Her icy fingers wrap around yours, long and thin, her jagged nails digging into your skin. 
“We must each place a stitch upon the shroud.” You wince as she presses the long needle into your stiff hands. “It is our duty.” Only when you accept it does she release you, and for a moment, you see her lips quirk cruelly beneath the veil. You tremble as your mother steps aside, your breath catching as you see the shape of the body on the altar. 
Just behind her is your father, his shroud dotted with the shapes of dead flowers and bare trees. It does little to quell the horror you feel to behold him, though, his thin outline visible through the shroud, limbs folded and delicate like a baby bird.  You remember what he looked like two nights prior, his rheumy eyes dull and deep set into his skull, skin thin and sallow. He looks small now, too, beneath his shroud, and you find it hard to believe this withered corpse had once been a great mountain of a man. A good man, a strong man, now reduced to the barest scraps of skin and bone. 
“Stitch.” Her command fills every inch of space, in the chapel and in your head. And though you want nothing more than to close your eyes and be gone from this place, your body will not obey. You raise the needle. 
“Please, mother—”
“Stitch.” Her voice is like iron nails in your skull. Blood drips from your nose, and you taste the warm copper of it on your lips. You pinch a corner of thin fabric between your fingers, and push in the needle, pulling it through until the knot at the end of the thread catches. You lower your hand to the shroud as you sew another stitch, and as you do so, your fingers brush your father’s sunken cheek, and you retch. 
You cannot stop—
She will not let you. 
You look down at your father’s body with tears in your wide eyes, and as you do, a scream builds in your throat. You pinch his lips together between your forefinger and thumb. Delicately; like you would the hem of your gown for a curtsey— and sew another stitch through the meat of them. He is beginning to rot, now, you can smell it over the cloying scent of incense.
“Mother stop!” Your scream is swallowed by the heavy darkness of the empty chapel. Your mother sighs, her breath curling against your ear. 
“How else can we make sure the dead don’t speak?” She threads her fingers through yours as she pulls your hand toward his sunken eyelids. You pinch the stiff flesh between your fingers, holding it taut for the needle. 
“Now close his eyes.”
You wake with a start, sitting up in bed as you cover your mouth with one hand, fingers searching for the thick black funeral thread—but of course, you find none. The dream clings to the edges of your vision like spider silk, the taste of decaying things still heavy on the panicked air you draw in. A ra sob wrenches its way out of your throat as you press the heels of your palms against your closed eyes. 
Perhaps I am mad, after all.
Ain’t supposed t’see the dead ones. Maybe Madge’s old superstitions had borne fruit in your own mind. You recall the symbol she made with one hand, finger on thumb, finger on thumb, before spitting down into the dirt as you left your father’s burial. She’d shaken her head then, some the silver-gray locs piled on top of her head coming loose. Ain’t supposed t’see them. They stay when you see, them, Lady. 
They stay.
“No!” You throw the blankets off of yourself, lurching out of bed and stumbling towards the wash-bowl on the dresser. The thought of that day fills you with the same cold dread you have come to know too well. You’ve little choice in your dreams; the specter of his burial hanging over you like overripe fruit. But here, in waking, in the chill autumn daylight, you have the power to turn your thoughts to other things. 
At least, you try to. 
The water is shockingly cold, but you are grateful for it, staring down into the porcelain bowl. A knock at the door startles you, and you jump.
“W-who is it?”
“Kassandra, Majesty. Might I come in?” 
“Yes,” you sigh. “You may.” You pat worriedly at your swollen eyelids, and you frown at your reflection as the door swings open. Your mother has an effortless sort of beauty, one that needs neither rouge nor powders to enhance—a trait you certainly do not share. Your disturbing, sleepless night is written plainly on your face. 
Kassandra sets the tray down in the sitting area, before turning to you with a worried expression. 
“Her Majesty hopes you are well,” she says, nervously tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear with dainty fingers. “As you were not at break-fast this morning.” 
“I was… I did not sleep well.” You shake your head. “I trust my mother made her displeasure quite clear.” She stifles a laugh. “She’s good at that.”
“She did.” Kassandra gestures to the tray, porridge and an assortment continental fruit cut into bite size pieces. “You should eat, Lady. While it’s hot.” You pick uninterestedly at the porridge until it is mostly gone, along with the tart green grapes and sweet winter melon. At the very least you do feel better for it, or at least, more present—more grounded in this world, not the dream one. 
You clear up the remains of your breakfast, piling the dishes neatly back onto the tray. In the armoire, you note that more Rivian style gowns have been hung, your light Redanian dresses folded neatly and shunted off to the shelves on the side. Your mother’s thin excuse makes you wrinkle your nose in distaste as you finger one of the heavy sleeves. “Much too light for these Rivian winters, Dear,” she’d said, patting the neatly folded dresses. 
“You won’t need them.”
The truth remains unspoken, but you know it still—she does not want you to need them. You pull a heavy crimson dress from its place and begin to undo the lacing. Kassandra clucks her tongue at you. 
“Highness, please. Allow me at least one task.” You roll your eyes in response.
“I believe you are capable of more than dressing me—and that I am more than capable of dressing myself,” you reply. You change into a fresh shift before shrugging into the dress. You twist around to reach for the lacings, but Kassandra shoos your hands away to do them herself. 
“You’re doing them wrong.” She chides you gently. “Up for lift, down for compression, my Lady.” Kassandra nods at you in the mirror and then positions your body so that if you crane your neck just a little, you can see her hands as she easily threads the thick ribbon through the eyelets. “Opposing sides. Like this.” 
You purse your lips. “We don’t wear these dreadful things in Redania,” you mutter, your breath hitching as the corset tightens. She laughs before stepping away, brushing loose lint from the folds of the heavy fabric. 
“Even so, our fashion does suit you.”  You can tell she wants to say something else, the way her mouth opens and then closes, her lips pressing into a thin line. 
“You’ve another correction?” You ask, gesturing at yourself with a chuckle, but she shakes her head. She glances at the door, as though reassuring herself that it was still shut.
“No, no, I—I do not mean to be insolent, Highness,” Kassandra begins, “but I do not think I have ever heard you say you have rested well within these walls.” Your smile turns brittle and tired. 
“No. I have not. And your concern is not insolence. I am grateful for it.”
“Healer Janna—her draughts have not availed you?” You hesitate, wondering if you should describe the shape of your demon, give it form and substance outside of your mind. You shake your head, steepling your fingers together to stop them from trembling. 
“It seems the dreams that plague me require more than nightroot and dried frogspawn to satisfy them.” I see my father. I see him dead a thousand ways. 
“Healer Janna’s draughts for sleep and pain are as close to magic as they’ll allow in the White Keep, you know that.” Bastard’s magic. You do. You think of Father Rame’s disgusted expression. He does not seem the type to suffer a witch to live. “But I have… there is another. A woman—they call her The Dock Hag.” Her voice is a low whisper, as if she fears the good Father ears will ring with her heresy, even here. 
“And she can… she can rid me of these dreams?” The prospect is a tantalizing one. “You know her? You have visited this woman?”
“I—yes. I met her. Once.” Her smile is sad. “When I was small, and the older Ladies had need of her.” Kassandra’s words are aged, heavy with the weight of years that both do and do not belong to her in equal measure. “And then again, for the memories.” 
“She…” You cannot bring yourself to say it. Kassandra nods, the smile going brittle and crumbling from her face.
“Not many Lords will claim their bastards, Highness, if you will forgive my candor.”
In your mind’s eye you see a small Kassandra, attending her own mother, most likely, or perhaps even an older sister or cousin who… had need of this woman. The witch who had taken their babies—
And then burnt their dreams out. 
“What did it cost?”
“Nothing special. Gold.” You let out a relieved sigh at her words. That, at least, is an easy enough problem to solve. Kassandra cuts her eyes at you. “Are you going to go? To see her?”
Perhaps Madge was a superstitious old northern goat—But maybe she was right too: the living are not meant to mingle with the dead. Perhaps it is some guilt that drives your father’s image to the forefront of your mind, some secret thing that the specter of his death clings to—you cannot know. 
But the witch might. 
The east stair is narrow, cut roughly out of the stone as if it were an afterthought. The iron railing is pitted and mottled from the salt in the air, and it rattles dangerously as you grip it. The stairs themselves are uneven, still slick from the inconsistent rain that had stopped only hours before. Every step feels as though you are lurching forward, being pulled down the long winding stair to the paving below. 
There are more ways to enter and exit this keep than the main gate, Majesty. 
The east stair wound around the back of the White Keep like a snake, the steps hidden in the stone like a secret. As you take another cautious step down, your foot slips and you gasp, the railing shaking as you cling to it. You steady yourself, locking your trembling knees tightly as you recite Kassandra’s instructions. 
You will take the east stair down from the parapets over the chapel. Through the gap in the wall is the city. Go straight to the docks, ask for the Hag.” She had not wanted to stay behind, though you had convinced her with a stern look and an order to send away any who came knocking at your door till you returned. You would need her to provide a believable excuse in the event that anyone came looking—and an empty room would be cause for alarm, especially with you… “ill.”
Below you, the city glitters with light even as the dark begins to deepen. Beyond it, the sun sinks into the sea, lingering on the horizon before disappearing completely. Like Kassandra had said, near the foot of the stairs—twenty feet back, and behind a column, but near enough—is the gap in the wall. It is overgrown thick with dying ivy, the orange leaves already turning spotty brown at the edges. 
Crushed leaves litter the hood and shoulders of your cloak as you start to squeeze inside, the stone catching at your clothes. You push your way through the narrow passage, panic coiling in your gut at the feel of the unyielding pressure at your chest and back. Your fingers meet open air at the next push, and you practically drag yourself out into the streetlight, fingers digging into the stone. 
The misty street that greets you is practically empty, and what few people there are do not seem to have noticed that you have joined them from nowhere on the wet cobbled street. Hurriedly, you brush dirt and discarded leaves from your cloak before you adjust your hood, angling it down over your eyes. You keep your head down, your hands clenched into trembling, nervous fists. Every heavy step you take away from the keep sets the warning bells in your skull to ringing, as gooseflesh rises on your arms. 
It isn’t too late to go back. It isn’t. Not too late to turn around, slip back between the ivy covered crack in the east wall and seek your mother’s counsel once more—and go to sleep, knowing that you will see beyond the veil again. 
The thought spurs you onward. 
The streets are even more unfamiliar in the growing dark, and as you watch the lanterns flare to life to chase it away, you swallow nervously. There is so much to see, here—too much. As you approach the city centre the market is still bustling with activity, the shops open and windows bright.
You spare yourself a few moments to watch the people. A woman buys bread, her son playing in her skirts, a man pulls shut the door of the tavern across the way, a blacksmith’s hammer falls rhythmically like a drum, the chapel’s bell rings for evening prayer—there is so much here, the sheer amount of everything almost dizzies you. A woman bumps your shoulder as she passes by, and it stirs you out of your reverie. By the time she turns to apologize, you are already gone, hurrying off through the square. 
The air turns salt with brine the closer you get, and you lick your dry lips, tasting it. The night had been thick with sounds in the city center, but the further you travel from it, the more quiet the streets become. It is eerie, the stark difference between these silent, empty streets and the lively square only moments ago. 
The last time you had been to the docks was when you’d stepped off of the ship, in the scant few days before your mother’s wedding. Now, the narrow streets look different, unrecognizable from the snatches you remember through the carriage windows. You look in one direction, and then another, frowning.
“You’re lost, Sweet.” There is no question in the old woman’s voice. You see her then, standing beneath the street lantern in a pool of pale light.
“I—I am looking for—”
“Me, Sweet. You’re looking for me.” The shadows fall away from her face without her moving, like the light has only just decided to accept her. The Witch’s white hair is wild about her face. And her face… she is a severe beauty, like wind whipped ocean waves. The years define her jaw, sloping in gentle strokes down around her eyes, and her ears slope upward into gentle points. She is older than your mother, though you know this not by sight but because you simply… know it. An uncanny feeling that has grown in the back of your mind that she is like you, but… un-like you, too. 
She is an elf. 
It is not just the ears, but the air about her, an ethereal quality that surrounds her as thickly as the shawl about her shoulders. It is in the delicate set of her jaw, perhaps, or the distinct lack of canine teeth in her amused grin. You take a halting step forward, and then stop, wary.
“You are the W—you can help me?” The Witch wraps her shawl tighter about her shoulders, and fixes you with a hawkish look. 
“Don’t know that yet.” She purses her lips. “Shall we do this in the street? Or will you oblige me my own roof?” You nod hurriedly, and follow her as she turns quickly on her heel down the street. You are close enough to the docks to hear the water as she approaches a small house, pushing open the door. You follow her inside, halting briefly at the doorway. There is dried heather inside, hanging in a braided bushel on the arch. She watches you step inside, her dark eyes narrowed. 
“Shut the door behind you,” she snaps, flicking the edge of her shawl over her shoulder. “Never met a Princess raised in a bloody barn.” You brush aside the bushels of dried herbs hanging from the low ceiling as you make your way inside. 
The Witch rounds the other side of the table, where you see the evidence of her unfinished work. A grindstone, laying on its side, with half-ground herbs lying in the bowl. 
“How did you know?” You ask as she picks it back up, the sound of stone on stone filling the room as she resumes. “That I was looking… for you.” 
“I always know,” she replies, somewhat exasperated. “Like a rabbit knows a fox.” Her sharp eyes find yours once more. “What ails you, sweet Princess?” There is mockery in her tone, though you dare not take umbrage at its presence. “A suitor you wish to beguile? A fair maiden you wish to remove from his eye?” Her gaze drops down, and then darts back up again. 
“Or perhaps an unseen consequence?” 
Your throat tightens. 
“No, I—my dreams.” You say. “I dream the most terrible things, and I—I want you to take them away.” 
The stone stops. 
“Come here, child. Into the light.” The Witch holds out her hand, beckoning you forward. “And take down that stupid hood, you’re not hiding from anyone here.” She clucks her tongue at you as you approach, fingering the edge of your hood reluctantly. She already knows who you are—though you are not quite sure how she knows. With one hand, she reaches for your face. You do not flinch away from her—you do not fear her, though perhaps if you were smarter, you suppose you would. Her touch is gentle as she tilts your chin up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. 
The fire crackles in the hearth, louder for the silence. 
“And what do you dream?”
“I see…” You swallow. “I see dead things.” She peers into your eyes, her pupils wide. “I see my father.” You tremble as she steps away, your mouth suddenly dry. “These dreams, these-these nightmares, you can stop them, can you not? You can—”
“I’ll not hear more about what I can and cannot do from the maid in the high castle,” she snaps. “And they are not dreams, though you walk through them in yours.” With her other hand,  she reaches beneath her collar, producing a thin leather cord. There are all manner of things tied to it—feathers, beads, and small, clean animal skills that shine dimly in the firelight. There is a long black needle there, too, hanging by its’ eye. 
“There is a spirit tethered to you.” She turns your hand over, stroking her fingers over the lines in your palm.  She snaps her fingers, motioning for you to give her your other hand. “By great sorrow—” The Witch squints, bringing your hands closer to her face. “Or rage.” She drops your left hand, holding onto your right. “I can no more remove it than I could your shadow.” 
“Tethered?” You repeat. “These are—they are dreams, they are not real—” You sputter in protest, but the Witch merely looks at you, orange firelight dancing in her dark eyes. 
“If they are only dreams, why do you fear them so?” You cannot answer. “They are messages. You should be grateful for them, there are few feats quite as great as bridging the divide between us and those who have gone before, Little Queen. Your father cannot watch over you forever.” 
“I am a Princess.” The Witch smiles. 
“Is that right?” She grasps your hand, gripping your index finger hard and watching as the tip reddens. You flinch as she pinches the needle between two thin fingers. “Come now, Sweet. Mustn’t be afeared of a little pain.” She jabs it into the meat of your finger, and you yelp, tugging uselessly at your hand, but her grip is iron. 
“Ouch!” With a twist of her hand she swipes the fat drop of blood from your fingertip and flicks it into the fireplace. It does not fizzle out, but instead lands on the topmost log, bubbling until it turns black. It smells like ozone—not copper. You do not know why, but you tremble a the sight of it. You have come here to have something taken away, but as you watch your blood crack and burn, you feel as if perhaps something is being given instead. 
“What does this mean?” You turn to her. The Witch rubs your blood between her fingers, sniffing the residue for a moment before wiping them clean on a rag. She does not answer you right away, staring thoughtfully at the thin line of black smoke curling from the fireplace. 
“Please, I—”
“It means, Princess, that we are kin, you and I.” She tilts your chin back as you stare at her, wide eyed. She runs the tips of her fingers over the narrow curve of your left ear—not pointed, not like hers, but… You push her away before you can stop yourself, clutching at your chest with your other hand as if to calm your racing heart. 
“This cannot be true, it—it cannot!” 
“Less than half,” she continues as if your sputtered refusal had never been spoken at all. “Less elf blood in you than I could hold in my hand, but aye, kin we are, still.” The Witch looks you up and down, and this time, there is pity in her gaze. “I cannot take your dreams.” Cold spreads through your trembling limbs. “You must release them yourself.” 
“Release them? How?” She cups your face, and the movement of her thumb over the swell of your cheek is almost affectionate, though the words she speaks next send a cold chill down your spine. 
“No fear, Little Princess. No fear.” For a moment, you swear her eyes go gold, and Geralt’s voice echoes again in the space between you. Before the Witch can say more, you quickly dig the gold out of your pocket, tossing the coins down onto the table as you flee. You do not register her cries to stop, to wait as you barrel through the door, throwing it shut behind you. 
It is raining again, hard sheets of cold water pouring down from the dark, angry sky. You can hear the sea raging against the docks, water crashing in thunderous waves up against the harbor’s weathered stone. Your head is spinning, full to bursting. You are elf-kin—perhaps? Maybe?
Your mother had never seen fit to mention that minor detail—and for that matter, neither had your father. You tug your hood up roughly over your head and turn your face down, away from the cold rain pelting against your skin. Had he even known? 
Would he have even wanted to?
Perhaps I can just ask him myself.
The thought makes you shiver, wrapping your cloak tighter around your shoulders. I can no more remove it than I could your shadow. You do not know which is worse—having left your father behind alone in the dirt, or the restless specter of him living in your dreams. Your finger aches from the point of the dock witch’s iron needle, and you clutch your hand to your chest as you make your way back towards the White Keep. Above you, a white hot arc of lightning splits the sky, throwing up stark shadows against the row of dark houses. 
It is by that grace alone that you see the man. 
You stop short, your heart leaping into your throat. He stands in the shadows beneath the sagging eaves, his stony face surprised as your eyes meet. He steps forward with a heavy sigh, a gloved hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his hip. 
“Highness.” Your throat tightens, and you take a cautious step back as he comes into the meagre light offered by the street lantern above you. “Please don’t make this difficult.” His cloak is drawn over his chest, but you can see the shape of the armor underneath, jet black. 
Nilfgaardian.
 You turn—and run straight into a hard, armored chest.
“Good evening, Your Highness.” Duke Emhyr’s long fingers dig hard into your shoulders, hard enough to bruise. His black hair is slick with rain. He was waiting here… waiting for me. “I shall have to inform Lady Kassandra of your whereabouts,” he sneers. “She seems to think you are asleep in your bed.” You lift your heel and grind it hard into the top of his foot, and the Duke curses, his grip loosening. You pull away, but he manages to catch the edge of your cloak, pulling hard until you fall backwards. 
The impact knocks the wind out of you, leaving you gasping and dizzy, staring up at the dark sky. 
“We did not get to finish our little chat, in the garden.” He says, squatting down over you as you struggle up to your knees on the wet street. “I think we should do that now, Princess.” 
Your heart pounds heavily against your ribcage as you stagger to your feet. 
“No.” 
“It is not a request.” He motions to the guard behind you, and he grabs you as you struggle, wrenching your arms behind you. 
“Filthy witch,” he hisses, and you flinch. “You and your whore mother.” 
“Gavin, your manners.” He tuts mockingly. “I would be honored, Majesty, if you would accompany me for tea.” You stare at him in silence, the rain soaking through your cloak. “If you would, Ser Gavin.” He forces you forward, and you stumble. 
“It is late for tea, Lord Emhyr,” you snap, dragging your feet against the paving stones. “Perhaps a discussion with Her Majesty herself—” Ser Gavin grunts with irritation at your resistance and shoves you, hard. You stumble as the Duke makes an angry noise deep in his throat. 
“I’ve little stomach for lies.”  
A cold shiver winds its way up your back. You hear the threat though the words remain unspoken. The streets are deserted, and you cannot tell if it is the weather or the hour. Behind you,  clears his throat. 
“Here, my Lord.” 
The faded, splintering sign hanging above the door reads Madam’s Tea House, though by the riotous noise coming from inside, you suspect they serve a few things little stronger than tea. Ser Gavin places a rough hand on the back of your head, forcing it down as he steers you through the doorway. Your stomach drops as your eyes adjust to the dim lighting.
The air stinks of ale, sweaty skin and something more pungent and sour that you cannot identify. There are people everywhere, draped across tables, lounging on pillows and pinned against walls in various states of undress. Your throat goes dry, at the sight of the bare-breasted women sprawled over the tables, their dresses rucked up around their waists. A woman with white painted cheeks and cherry red lips steps quickly out of the way as you are shuffled through, her eyes lowered and lips pressed into a thin line. You understand their choice of venue now—
No one will even remember you were here— and no one will remember when you are not.
As if sensing your rising panic, Ser Gavin’s hand tightens on the scruff of your neck, and with the other hand, he grasps your shoulder. On the raised dais in the center of the dim room, a woman twists lithely, scarves gripped in each of her dainty hands. Gold rings dangle from her bared nipples, matching the one in her nose. Your eyes meet and for a single moment, for a single step, she falters.
The crowd at her feet turns on her in an instant, jeering and spitting. The same men who had watched her dance with silent awe now mock her openly, insults dripping from their lips along with stray drops of ale. 
“Let’s get a new girl up here. One who can remember her bloody steps!”  There is no end to the praises of men when one is perfect—nor an end to their venom when you are not. The truth of it is as plain as the room Duke Emhyr and Ser Gavin force you into. There is a bed with a bare, stained mattress upon its dilapidated frame, and a wooden chair stands between it and the weak fire in the hearth. 
“Sit.” Emhyr instructs you with a bored gesture, and when you do not  comply, Ser Gavin squeezes your shoulder hard until you gasp from the pain of it. You lower yourself reluctantly to the chair as the Duke watches, and you get the feeling that he enjoys it, watching you be forced to heel. If not my mother, then me. Through the silence, you can hear the muted noise of the brothel outside. As uncomfortable as it is for you, you hope it is doubly so for them. 
The Duke stares at you, his eyes narrowed. 
“You wouldn’t see it, not at first,” he says. The disgust drips from every syllable, like he is speaking of something unsavory. “The way you favor them.”
Your heart pounds even as you feign ignorance, schooling your features into shocked offense at his words. He cannot know that this is the second time you have heard them this evening, that you are already itching to get to a mirror to confirm these revelations for yourself, because you do not even know if they are true. The memory of black blood curdling in the hearth is enough to set the uncertainty in your lead filled stomach rolling. 
“I know not of what you speak, my Lord.” The words feel fragile, like they are made of glass. “There—there is still time to let this be nothing but an unpleasant misunderstanding—”
The duke stands in front of the hearth, his hand resting on the mantle. The curve of his back speaks to his weariness, and you wonder if he has been looking for you all night. 
“You and your whore mother have upset the order of things quite a bit, here. Whatever other things you may be, you are not unintelligent enough not to have seen so.” He turns, the fire reddening his cheeks and setting the whit es of his beady eyes ablaze. “Two seasons of talk and courtships undone in a month—and for a woman who is too old to bear a new heir.” 
“His Majesty has an heir,” you remind him. “Or have you forgotten? If you disagree with your king’s decision, you are more than welcome to challenge it before the court a second time, though Their Majesties might not be so prone to leniency given the circumstance.” His jaw tics at the reminder of his position—and yours—but the sly upturn at the corners of his mouth do not disappear. 
“So the Witch does inspire loyalty in you.” He squats in front of you. “Do you know what we do to witches, in the North?” He asks, fingering the dagger at his belt. “Father Wolf is the devourer of all things. Even savages.”
 “Ever since I stepped from boat to shore I have heard that word, and I cannot help but wonder,” the words pour through the gaps in your gritted teeth, and you hope he chokes on the broken glass of them—“if you have ever uttered them looking in a mirror.” 
He raises his hand, as if to backhand you across your face, and you duck down hunching your shoulders to prepare for the blow. It does not land, however, and when you look cautiously up at the duke, he is staring behind you, locked above your head. There is a fourth presence in the room now, one you feel pricking at the back of your neck. 
“No, no, continue.” The drawl that fills the empty room is both shocking and achingly familiar. “I would see the treason with my own eyes.” Geralt stands in the doorway, filling it to the brim with the width of his shoulders. Water drips from his sodden silver hair, though he makes no move to push it back from his face. His hand rests openly upon the sword hanging at his hip.
“That way it passes fewer lips on its way to the king.” 
Duke Emhyr’s eyes go wide, and then angry. 
“I protect the crown, and you call it treason,” slowly,—almost regretfully —the duke lowers his hand. “Can you not see? Can you not see how they twist—” Geralt turns his gaze to you, and somehow his golden eyes seem darker. Harder. 
He came for me.
Ser Gavin fingers the pommel of his sword nervously, playing at the thought of unsheathing it, but too craven to commit. Still, he stands between you and the prince, and does not move. The duke’s rambling of treason and bewitchery continues behind you, rising to a fever pitch as you approach the door. Briefly as you turn, you see him, his face red and lips flecked with frothy spittle as he flings a long, accusing finger towards you.
“They will poison this empire, it’s people! You cannot allow them to sit the throne, it is treason to do it knowingly, you must act!” The fire burns bright in his wide eyes, and you see reflected in them the same vicious zealotry that burned in Father Rame’s. “That which is rooted in rotten soil cannot grow! I will not stand idle while we are destroyed from within.”
In the spaces between his words you can see the calculation. He’s chosen death, you realize. You taste it in the air before he speaks, the power of his decision already shaping the world around it, like chaos—but not the kind they shunned. It tastes like the air inside the chapel; the still, thick air, perfumed so that the smell of his body would not leak further than a few feet beyond his corpse. 
“You know the truth of what I speak, Majesty, you must see that His Highness is not himself! He pants after the elf-bitch, like a man possessed! It is unnatural, you must—you must see it!”
Geralt’s mouth creases with anger. “I see your distrust in your King has bred treasonous discontent. I see your desire to rise above your station would have you slavering after my father’s throne like the dog you are.” He steps into the room then, and you watch as the Duke’s hand closes about the grip of the dagger strapped to his waist. “Your dedication to this fiction will cost you.” 
You had not been able to see Geralt’s other hand, positioned behind him, his arm taut as though he were dragging something heavy. He steps aside, and your heart leaps into your throat as you see why—
A dead Nilfgaardian soldier lies behind him, dark liquid pooling thickly underneath his armor. The duke sees it too, his body tensing. 
“If you will not serve your people, if your father will not protect them, what choice have you left me?” The duke murmurs, the words underscored by the quiet ring of steel as he unsheathes his blade. You jump up, knocking the chair over in your haste to get away from him. You trip over your skirts, stumbling forward as Ser Gavin grabs for you, his hand knotting in your cloak. 
“You will let her go.” Geralt delivers the instructions as truth—no ultimatums. 
“Oh, aye,” Emhyr, nods, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. “On that we agree.” You expect him to lunge for the prince, to hear the sharp clash of steel on steel, but you do not. Instead, his face fills your vision. “You may go wherever you wish, now, Lady.” 
You taste death on his words and in the air, and when he steps away, his hands are empty. There is a strange coldness in your belly, and slowly, your hand drifts up to investigate. The leather grip of the dagger is warm, but the steel is cold, so cold you can feel it all the way inside. It’s strange, the way it doesn’t hurt, the way the blood does not feel hot on your trembling hands but cold—
The death Emhyr had chosen was neither his own, nor Geralt’s—but yours. 
Dimly, you are aware of Geralt, of your body tucked tightly against his, the sound of steel on steel, the feel of cold rain on your face. Weakly, you lift a hand to your belly, your fingers slipping on the handle. Geralts hand closes over yours.
“You must leave it, Doe, you must. I know it hurts.” It doesn’t. You want to tell him, but you cannot find the will to move your lips. You feel your grip slacken on his cloak, your fingers releasing themselves without your permission as your vision tunnels. Geralt tells you not to close your eyes, and the words echo far off in the encroaching dark. 
I have to, you think that perhaps the words escape your slack lips in a low mumble, but you cannot be sure. 
Just for a little while. 
to be continued…
256 notes · View notes
milksnake-tea · 7 months
Note
I´m the latest anon,with Blade please.
❀ ˎˊ- prompts: When they wake up in the middle of the night, and you aren't by their side. + "Please, stay. Just… stay." ❀ ˎˊ- 1k followers event ❀ ˎˊ- character: blade ❀ ˎˊ- warnings: angst ofc :(( but primarily hurt/comfort, implied violence, mentions of death (its blade whatd u expect), nightmares, ends in happy ❀ ˎˊ- a/n: i might change up the wording of the phrase bc blade doesn't strike me as the person to actually say this out loud, but it'll be in thoughts !!! also the ending is eating at me but ITS OKAY I DID IT SO YIPPEEE
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It's well past midnight when Blade is ripped from his sleep.
His chest heaves with shuddered breaths, his eyes blown wide with something akin to fear. His eyes crinkle as he silently groans in frustration, taking in deep breaths to steady himself. But it doesn't work.
Gingerly running his fingers over his neck, he recounts the nightmare. The sharp chill of ice still lingers where he'd been struck by his former comrade, phantom pains where her blade had slashed him. Blade had never feared death before - on the contrary, he'd always welcomed it. But it was different with her. With Jingliu, he…
Her blood-red eyes, as cold as a corpse and with the liveliness of one as well, seared into his memory like an iron stamp.
Blade sighed to himself, blinking up towards the ceiling. At this rate, he'd barely get any sleep at all. Even worse, it would cause his mara to act up once again.
Raising his hand, Blade clicked his tongue when he saw it shake, the tiniest tremor running through it.
He hated this. He hated the trembling of his fingers. He hated the rapid thud of his heart, which still hadn't stopped. He hated how even a distant memory of that woman could make him so weak, so… afraid.
Closing his eyes, he rolled over, reaching over to your side of the bed. Whenever the nightmares came about, you were his anchor. If in the morning, you woke up, and Blade was clinging to your side, head buried into your neck, you would know what had transpired that night.
Only you weren't there tonight.
His hands close around empty sheets, his arm wrapping around a pillow rather than your body. Instantly, Blade's eyes shot open. He sat up, a sliver of shock slipping onto his face as he carefully observed the area.
Realistically, he knew that you had gotten up out of your own accord. There were no signs of a struggle, and no one would be idiotic enough to steal you right from Blade's arm, especially in the midst of the Stellaron Hunters' base. If you had been kidnapped, he would know.
But that didn't stop the anxiety that gnawed at his heart. If you weren't here, then where would you be?
His question was soon answered, though, when a small glimmer of light caught his eye. The door leading out of your shared room was outlined in a soft glow, indicating a person on the other side.
Blade let out a sigh, almost laughing at his own foolishness.
Slowly, he rises from the covers, letting the blankets drop off his body. He rolls back the soreness in his body from yesterday's mission, massaging his shoulder as he heads off to the kitchen.
The bright lights leave dark spots in his vision, but he can still see the general shape of your body as you fill a cup of water. He rubbed at his eyes as he came up behind you, still drowsy with sleep.
Surprised, you turned at the sound of his footsteps, a cup of water held in your hands. "Blade? Sorry, did I wake you?"
Blade shook his head, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling into your shoulder. He didn't say anything - he rarely needs to. You can hear the words he wants to say in his actions, in the way he pulls you tightly against him and refuses to let go.
Please, just… stay.
You hum knowingly as you feel him breathe into your skin, setting down your cup and reaching up to pet his head. His hair is soft against your fingers as he leans into you, closing his eyes as he immersed himself in you.
"Again?" you ask gently. Blade nods, propping his chin onto your shoulder. You leaned your head onto his, softly rubbing at his scalp with your fingers as the man hums in content. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you."
Blade shook his head. "It's fine. You're here now."
"I'm here," you agreed, turning in his embrace. You held his face in your hands, kissing at his face where tears would've been, had he ever cried. Blade let a smile slip onto his face for a moment, before kissing you on the forehead.
"Why did you leave?" he asks softly, but he doesn't really expect you to answer. You both know that he's aware of the reason, it being quite obvious in your hands.
"I was just getting a little water," you reply anyway. "I'll be back in bed in a few, so wait for me, okay?"
"I can wait here," Blade assures. "Do what you need to now. When we return, I won't be letting you go so easily."
You laugh at his statement, leaning against him with a crinkle in your eyes. "Alright, whatever you say, mister."
And Blade smiles back at you, only happy to have you back in his arms.
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reblog w comments are appreciated !!
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celeryb1tch · 8 days
Text
how you and spencer meet!
receptionist!reader starts a new job at the BAU, and a very handsome coworker shows her around!
content: meet cute, fem!reader, pov you’re an idiot who’s sensitive to blood, fainting for the plot and not in the way it works in real life lol, confident-ish but pretty canon compliant mid-seasons spencer!
the FBI certainly isn’t the place for squeamish little pansies…
at least, that’s what you were told in your interview. and you had nodded diligently, ignoring the lump in your throat as you thought about how you almost fainted the last time you had bloodwork done. but as a secretary, how bad could it get, right? you tried to assure yourself of this when you got the job offer.
on a brisk friday morning, you were wandering through the FBI Academy campus in an attempt to find your office. everyone around you seemed to be in a hurry, and no one had given you the time of day when you attempted to ask for directions. so fifteen minutes before your first day started, opposed to the promised half hour, you entered the NSAVC building with your tail between your legs.
the bullpen was empty. you had expected to be met by a trainer, or perhaps the person whose job you would be taking over, but you instead faced a grouping of empty desks. as you peered around the open area, your eyes landed on a conference room with large windows, allowing you to see a group of agents. with a sigh of relief, you headed up the stairs and knocked on the door lightly before letting yourself in.
before you was a circular table seating five people, all with their eyes trained directly on you. “hi!” you chirped. “i was looking for-“
“i think you’re lost, miss. students shouldn’t be allowed access into this department,” demanded a man in a full suit, who seemed to be in charge.
your smile faded as you saw the various displeased faces looking back at you. “oh no, i’m not…” in an attempt to avoid eye contact, you raised your sight to the opposite wall, projector casting images of open wounds and a dismembered corpse. and in only a second, your vision was going black.
the white of fluorescent bulbs seared even through to the inside of your eyelids, but despite this you still blinked a few times to shake the disorientation and open your eyes.
your legs were eased up in the air with a chair, brand new pencil skirt hiked slightly up your thighs. you felt the texture of carpet against your back through your blouse and the cool of ice on your forehead. your first instinct was to sit up and reorient yourself, which you tried to no avail.
“hey, hey, easy,” an unidentifiable voice said soothingly. you scanned your surroundings, finding a man with chin length chestnut hair in your periphery who couldn’t be much older than you. he was crouched beside you, apple juice box in hand and concern in his eyes. god, his eyes were pretty, you thought. like pools of dappled sunlight.
it took you a few seconds to recognize him as one of the displeased members of the conference room, and the previous events rushed back to you, bringing a flush to your cheeks. “i am so sorry, sir. um, agent. detective? there was a misunderstanding, and that was so unprofessional of me.”
he had a small smile playing on his lips as he scanned your face. he seemed to be entertained by the fact that you were so flustered, letting you finish rambling before he replied. “doctor spencer reid, and no worries at all. a freeze response to gore is a fairly common reaction. while you were unconscious we were able to identify you as the new front desk secretary, we thought you were starting next week so we weren’t expecting anyone.”
you visibly relaxed at his explanation. it seemed possible that you wouldn’t be fired on the spot for this. you took the hand he outstretched to you, helping you up from the ground slowly. he offered you the juice box, to which you shook your head. “i’m okay, but thank you.”
“i would recommend it. after fainting it’s likely that your blood sugar is low, and fruit juice is packed with natural sugars that will allow you to feel better almost immediately.”
“doctor’s orders, huh?” you joked, to which he cracked a smile again.
“i’m not exactly that kind of doctor. but yes, i do strongly advise it.”
so you took the juice box, and spencer walked you down the few steps from the office you’d been laying in toward the bullpen. suddenly you were filled with anxiety once again as the faces you had seen minutes ago holding inconvenienced stares now looked on with concern.
the man from before who was so clearly the leader of this operation approached, offering a hand to shake. “supervisory special agent aaron hotchner, i apologize for the misunderstanding.”
you winced away from him slightly, worried that any further mistake would result in you losing the position you had yet to start. “thank you, sir. i am so sorry for interrupting a meeting like that, and fainting. that wasn’t exactly the first impression i wanted.”
he had an easy smile, that of a reassuring father. “i can assure you that no punitive action will be taken, if that’s what you’re concerned about. if we knew you were coming today we would not have left graphic case evidence up on the screen.”
oh, thank god. you exhaled deeply, feeling the tightness in your chest subside. you stepped back toward spencer, whose gaze had never left you. “what should i be doing now? i was never informed of what my training would be, not to mention where my desk is.”
“linda’s out sick today, which is why we thought you weren’t coming until monday,” said the woman sat in the desk rightmost of you. her hair was pure black, with straight, blunt bangs that suited her well.
“we don’t exactly have training for you today without your predecessor here, so i thought you could shadow my agents to familiarize yourself with the office. and i’m happy to show you to your desk, but since you’ll mostly be seeing our faces daily, we should get introductions out of the way first,” agent hotchner said.
you glanced at spencer beside you almost unconsciously, in search of reassurance. despite knowing him for about three minutes, he was the closest thing you had to a friend or ally so far. and seeming to sense this, he shot you a smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes. you felt your anxiety melt a little, and you realized that everything was going to be okay.
by lunchtime, you had your things at your desk and nothing to do without a computer login or training. you remembered that hotchner had suggested shadowing someone, but the idea of asking one of the agents made your stomach churn. they sat only a dozen feet away from you, laughing and bantering as if they’d known each other all their lives. who were you to butt into their dynamic? so you sat twiddling your thumbs for the rest of the lunch hour, peeking at the group occasionally to confirm that you hadn’t spontaneously gained the confidence to approach.
spencer specifically appeared to be deep in thought once he got back to work. you thought that it would be best to shadow him if possible, given you were most familiar with the tall brunette, but you really had no business to interrupt his work. still, you worked up the courage to advance to his desk.
“would you like some more coffee, dr. reid? i could go get some for you, you seem pretty busy,” you offered in an attempt at nonchalance. but uncertainty and regret crept up quickly when you received no reply.
emily prentiss, the previously unnamed woman with dark hair, noticed the interaction. with a slight grin on her lips, she interjected. “don’t take it personally. he gets so into his case readings, it’s hard for him to pick up on anything else.”
“hey, pretty boy,” cooed derek morgan from another desk. “someone’s trying to talk to you.”
spencer lifted his head reluctantly, eyes following a moment later. he looked dazed, not quite focused on anything in particular. “sorry, what?”
“i noticed your coffee was almost empty, would you like some more?” you asked meakly. it took everything in you not to run and hide of embarrassment.
he finally registered the question, shaking his head fervently. “no, i couldn’t ask you to do that. i’m perfectly capable of refilling my own coffee, but while i do i could show you the kitchenette? it’s crucial to the operation of the office.”
and with a nod, the two of you headed to the tiny kitchen adjacent to the bullpen. you stood slightly out of the way as spencer placed his mug on the counter, refilling the drip coffee maker for a fresh batch. you watched him card his fingers through his hair, looking around casually.
“so, the kitchen is important why?” you inquired, head tilting slightly to emphasize your interest.
spencer finally met your eyes again, letting out a little breezy laugh. “oh, it’s not. i noticed that you were having trouble potentially asking one of us to show you around, so i thought this was an opportune moment.”
you flushed slightly at the confession, apparently caught red-handed in your effort. “wow, you’re pretty good at reading people. or was i just that transparent?”
“is that a joke?” his eyebrows knotted as he looked at you, no air of humour on his face.
you stared back, equally confused. “am i supposed to know that? do you have a particularly well known judgement of character?”
“well yes, you’re in the behavioural analysis unit.”
and with that, you were sure that you had damaged your ego and reputation in this job position irrevocably.
after a brief explanation of the lack of background information provided when accepting the job, spencer assured you that he wouldn’t tell the others. he expressed his surprise that the FBI hadn’t been as diligent as they usually are, and you had to agree.
“i mean, i told them that this was my first job after graduation. i was doing my field placement two months ago, and that was in a law firm!” you stifled a giggle, feeling at ease leaning against the kitchen counter with spencer taking occasional sips of his coffee.
“that’s astounding. they hired me young, but i’d argue that i was overqualified for the position,” he admitted. “you, however…”
you gasped in feigned offence, rolling your eyes. “hey, i learned a lot in that law office! i can photocopy anything you need me to, and schedule dry cleaning for same-day pickup.”
it had been well over a half hour at this point, with you and spencer getting gradually closer until your clothed elbow rubbed against his. no one else had come in, until mid-reply spencer was greeted by agent aaron hotchner himself, who happened to also need a fresh cup of coffee.
“reid, i see that you’ve taken it upon yourself to let our new team member shadow you. but maybe you should show her some places other than the coffee counter?” he suggested with a raised eyebrow.
spencer looked caught, eyes flitting from you to his boss. your boss too, you supposed. “of course. sorry hotch, we got a little caught up.”
“i can see that. as long as you get your files finished by end-of-day, it’s really none of my business.”
“yes, sir,” spencer yelped. he gestured rapidly for you to follow him, exiting the kitchen to return to his desk.
you watched him put his mug down and shuffle some papers around before his eyes lit up in recognition. “i actually do need you to photocopy this for me,” he admitted shyly.
“of course!” you replied, just before your smile dropped. “you actually never showed me where the copier is.”
spencer chuckled with you, getting up from his chair once again. “no problem, i’ll show you.”
and as the two of you began walking down the hallway together, the others laughed upon hearing, “by the way, would you like to go for dinner with me once we clock out? i have a lot more to tell you.”
derek grinned. “i didn’t know that kid had the balls.”
(hi guys!! thank you for all of the love on my first spencer post!! i’m having so much fun writing these! psa tho: as i said before, i’m a lesbian i just have a weird thing for this one particular fictional man- so if u follow me, pls expect woman-centred content mostly!!)
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uhlunaro · 2 months
Text
BONE-CHILL
ghost!leon kennedy x gn!reader // 6.1k words
summary: Leon doesn't come back from his last mission, and you try to cope with the shadows that soon go bump in the night.
warnings: horror, brief description of gore, death, mentions of suicide, ambiguous ending
> read on ao3
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The days drone long and monotonous after your recent shift to a home-work-home-work lifestyle, bland but necessary change given… recent events. The stagnation of limbo between reality and your own morality-fearing pessimism.
If only grief were tangible—a thing you could grasp between your fingers and rip apart. Something you could take your anger out on, sink your teeth into, hold when you cry. You think sometimes about chewing your own fingers off just for the stimulation of it. Maybe the bleeding wounds could finally bless your sadness with a chance at freedom.
After his last stint overseas, Leon failed to return. Three months gone by with no contact—a blaring red siren given his penchant for frequent calls or emails or anything to sate your worry. You kept your long-term relationship under lock and key, a decision ultimately hinging upon your safety in regards to the danger of his profession, a sacrifice greater than your need to hold his hand in public. But now the lights in your home tend to flicker, and the shadows in each room feel like the vacuum of a blackhole, and the buzzing silence might one day consume the grey matter of your brain.
What a stupid idea. A curse of hindsight.
There's been no knock at the door, no unknown number calling your phone. No government official announcing his passing, no news articles—you say this as if you would even know where to look. He kept his flights abroad tight to his chest, left details to the wolves. I work for the government was all he said, as if he owed you no explanation. As if you don’t chew your nails bloody to the thought of his corpse rotting in some far-off corner of the world with no way to bring him home.
Shit, you're unsure if he is dead, but you always preferred catastrophization. Better to accept inevitables than hold out dwindling hope. He talked in length about the danger of his job, emphasized importance that nobody ever knew you existed in his life. How lonely it was—for both of you. He loved his paranoia more than he loved you, but he also knew a lot of things you didn't.
Every homecoming brought him back to you a little less whole, a little less him. A little more angry, a little more tired.
In hindsight, you can't remember the last time you saw your Leon.
The winter wind bites at your cheeks when you step through the front doors of your office, building up to a jog on the way to your car, anticipation of full-blast heat pushing you farther. The weather spares none this year, blooms ice crystals between the layers of tissue and fat and muscle within your body. Snow still clings to rooftops, ice crystals stick to overhangs and metal and ledges. Everyone is miserable, but the weather suits your mood. Empty and dead. A shell of its summer counterpart.
The coworker you closed with calls you over to wish you well, reminds you of the upcoming pizza party that possesses all the appeal of ripping out your own teeth by brute force (something you choose to keep private). Heat pours from her window and you lean down to defrost your cheeks as she complains about her husband and her kids and the fast food she has to get on the way home.
The ring on your finger settles a heavy weight inside your chest, stalling the thump of your heart. But you smile and nod and laugh when she says something you perceive as a joke, grateful that she's perfectly content to talk at you and not with you. Exhaustion wrings you dry of energy these days.
After the five minute, one-sided conversation ends, she drives off with a wave, leaving you to glance around the parking lot: a concrete shell of ice sheets and empty spaces and shadows that defy the laws of light. You turn your head toward your car at the far end. The chill of each inhale burns your lungs, makes you expel a heaving cough, and the bright, full moon shines down on you. The maker of tides, of fate, bright enough to light the remaining hundred feet to your car. Mocking in its own right. If that's even possible. Anything seems possible these days.
Home is lonely. Quiet and dark and solemn when you step through the front door. The air stagnates, fills your inner ear with a dizzying static, a chill that bleeds through your coat. Frost smears across each window you pass to turn on lights and adjust the thermostat, and—
Wait. You shouldn’t be seeing the glass of the windows. You keep the curtains drawn to protect your privacy. Such an odd little detail that tightens your shoulders until you remember that, no, I opened the living room curtains this morning to look out at the snow. Just forgot to close them. Maybe that's what happened with the others.
And maybe it's the loneliness, or the darkness that permeates every corner of this place, but you stay on edge the rest of the night. A simple, odd detail, but you swear by routines, and leaving the curtains open is not one of them.
But you've been stressed lately, left on autopilot. You unlocked the front door to get inside and nothing else appeared tampered with.
Still. Your gut shifts and gnarls, alerting you to other, less realistic explanations.
Ultimately, you blame a bit of forgetfulness. Home is impossibly colder without Leon here. You miss him until you can't anymore and then you miss him again. It's natural to be a bit out of it.
At work, your coworkers sniff out a problem, express their concern, implore you to think about yourself before pulling another double shift, but home is not home anymore, and you prefer exhausting yourself so extensively that you barely make it to the couch every night. A better alternative to staring at the cold, empty side of your bed.
You hadn't seen Leon smile in ten years. Really, truly smile: all teeth and full cheeks and a scrunched nose. But you dream of it. A younger version of him you recall only through pictures at the bottom of a shoe box. But here, amidst the wispy fractals of sleep, he smiles. Says you worry too much, that he's fine, that he's here.
You wake the next morning with tears wetting the pillow. An emptiness claws, taints, scars the tissue of your lungs. Each breath feels like rotting.
After readying for work, you dig out the shoe box and look through each photo. Some of them are bent, torn at the edges, yellowed on the back. All of them marked with the year, most accompanied by a short sentence for commentary. At the bottom of the pile, you find the one that started the search. Taken two years after his military training, the first time you had seen him since he left for Raccoon City. He came back changed, a lot less himself, but still. He smiled for you.
You leave the box open and the pictures scattered all over the floor after rushing to leave for work, and when you arrive back home, the pictures are put away. The box tucked back into the closet. You dig through the contents, now a mess of scattered images, a haunting in and of itself. The smiling picture of Leon nowhere to be found.
It’s the first time dread overtakes you.
Your method of rationalization goes as follows: I've been stressed from work, had to rush, forgot I put the box back up. A justifiable, realistic explanation. No signs of break-in, no other tampering. Just the messy intestines of the box and the missing photo. Your coworkers were right. Gotta take it easy.
But the incidents continue.
A few days later, you startle awake to the pitch-black darkness of the living room, curled up on the couch. The television is off, everything lay quiet. A cold sweat sticks your shirt to your back, sharp spikes of fear lingering in the pit of your stomach. Your breathing stutters, leaves your mouth in loud huffs.
You can't move. You try to sit up, to curl in on yourself, to adjust the blanket, but your body refuses to comply. Can't even twitch a finger. You hold your breath, close your eyes—please snap out of it please help me please—and that's when you hear it.
Something hovers just over the back of the couch, a presence suffocating, almost tangible in the air, like sulfur in the back of your throat. The sound of its breathing strikes you as unmistakably human. Fear-filled, panic-induced huffs.
Your heart might actively give out, might break a rib with its hummingbird beat against your chest. But your eyes never open. This is a bad dream. Sleep paralysis. A fucking nightmare.
Something frigid—a finger, has to be, oh god—touches you at the elbow, trails a path up your arm, back and forth and back and forth. Your eyes clench tighter, breath mirroring the thing's: a sharp panic, acidic on your tongue, each muscle squirming against your brain's inaction.
After a moment, the longest moment of your life, either a half-second or three hours, the thing pulls away. The huffing stops. Your thumb twitches, then your wrist moves, then your head twists deeper into the pillow.
You never understood the phrase ‘frozen from fear’ until now, and although your body is your own again, you can't bring yourself to move off the couch. You want to run to the bathroom and switch on the light and lock the door and curl up inside the shower. But you can't. Can't settle the worry that the thing still watches you, remains at the back of the couch just waiting for overwhelming curiosity to turn your head.
You lay there for an unknown amount of time, until sunlight bleeds through the curtains and triumphs over darkness. You've always felt safer during the daytime.
Sleep paralysis used to feature prominently in your life a few years back. Always catalyzed by stress, worse when laying in bed. But it seems the past has followed you to this couch and brought some demons along with it. Nowhere is safe now.
Leon always knew what to do. Always shook you out of it, talked you through it, blotted out the visions with his voice and his face and his touch. And you wish—
(you call your friend in tears, inconsolable as you recount the events of the past few months)
—god, you wish he was here.
You pack a bag for the next few days after an internally waged war about rock bottom and how far you can reasonably cope like this. Your friend offers a way out, a vacation stay for however long you need.
You leave that night.
Truly, the hallucination didn't scare you. In the moment, yes, of course, but you knew the cause. Sitting with the aftermath alone, in the cold, dark, silence, unsure of the trust you place in yourself? Questioning your own brain? That broke something within you.
Maybe the events leading up to the incident didn't help, either. The curtains then the picture that you failed to find and all the grief and worry added to such an oppressive bout of fear that you had no choice but to flee.
You don't tell your friend that, though. Instead, you twist the truth to recount a more rational version of events: haven't been sleeping well, grieving, misplacing objects, memory loss, sleep paralysis. You can't tell them that a war wages on inside you between earthly realm and ether. That you might be going insane.
By Wednesday, you sit on the same couch that chased you away, bag dropped at your feet, holding the lost picture of Leon in your hands. Found on the coffee table upon your return. His smile taunts you in a way indescribable to your brain. He would know what do, make you feel better, but where is he now to banish the darkness from this house?
You shove the picture into one of your drawers beneath a wrinkled mess of clothing. That isn't how you remember him anyway.
The next morning, you shower with invisible eyes watching, a gaze that soaks you in hot oil, that no amount of scrubbing relieves. Five separate times you peek out from behind the shower curtain and prepare to meet the gaze of… something. The subject of your fear doesn’t matter. You still wish to crawl inside your skin and curl up at the bottom of the tub.
When you step out, the familiar smell of Leon's cologne freezes you in place. Your hand remains outstretched toward the towel folded up on the toilet. The bottle sits on the sink, untouched, but you smell it. You smell it. Hints of musk and sandalwood, and against your better judgement, you inhale deep and home feels like home again.
If only for a moment.
When you spray a spritz or two, it's a reclamation of your space. A decision made with intent. You spray another on your chest for good measure (not at all because you wish for his smell to follow you around the house).
The chill of the kitchen floor helps calm your heartbeat. You flipped every light in the house on, but the curtains refuse to stay closed. A direct portal to the outside world and the darkness that threatens to overtake your haven, but you’re too afraid to close them, to look at your own reflection (and what might stare back).
Things escalate shortly thereafter.
You arrive home a bit clumsy on your feet, fresh out of the bar after a drunken evening with your friends. Can't remember the last time you had so much fun, allowed yourself to forget about the shadows haunting your home.
Dread settles like a lead weight in your stomach, a common sensation nowadays made worse by the alcohol. Eyes always watching, a presence lingering just out of the sight. The whole house feels cursed.
But you shake it off. You've had your best day in months. Can't let the cage of the walls collapse in on you.
You remove your shoes, drop your belongings on the table beside the door. Start to sing the song that played in your friend's car before you pause, hair rising on the back of your neck.
Even through the darkness, the poor adjustment of your vision, you recognize the silhouette sitting on your couch. The strands of hair, dark blond offset against the color of blue-tinged shadows. You should run to him, ask where the fuck he's been, but something keeps you locked in place, swaying on drunken feet.
It's Leon but it isn't. You know it, your brain knows it, your gut knows it, your heart knows it. You accepted his death long before this moment. Knew down to your bone marrow that he was gone for good.
And now something wears his skin.
The figure doesn't move, and you glance back toward the light switch. Just a few feet away, close enough that if you really stretch, you could reach it. You look at the couch to find the silhouette still sitting there.
You take a step and the floorboard creaks just as a finger finds the protrusion of the switch. Behind you, the couch groans.
You shouldn't look back. You shouldn't look back. A bad fucking idea—one of your worst—but blood-curdling curiosity leaves you turning your head.
Staring at you over the cushion are two shadow-logged pits where his eyes should be, the suggestion of his hair blotted out and cloudy. Too dark to make anything else out, but that same feeling from the shower soaks you in a bucket of cold water.
You can't move. You need to, should grab your keys and bolt out the door, but the communication between your brain and feet misfires. You hold your breath.
“Please don't,” the thing says, so quiet and pitiful and hoarse that you almost listen. Still, you flinch at the sound, the familiar words. The whisper goes off like a gunshot.
Something eats at you, deep down inside your belly, that this thing doesn't wish to hurt you. Let it in. Let it stay here. Let it warm your bed.
The thing stole Leon's voice.
You flip on the light switch and the thing disappears.
Over the coming days, you consider the possibility of a psychotic break. What hallucinations entail. How deep the paranoia punctures. What is real and what is a byproduct of your degrading mind.
You shower with the curtain open. You safety pin the window curtains together. One day, you spend three hours deciding which lights are necessary to keep the darkness at bay, and you never turn them off. You stop drinking. You park closer to the front doors at work.
Sometimes you cry in the car on your way home.
And still yet, the thing reappears. Your safety pins sit in a neat little pile on the kitchen table. You find blown bulbs after spending too long away. A bottle of brandy and a glass wait for you beside the sink.
After spotting a splotch of blond hair in the fogged-up bathroom mirror, you cover it with a sheet only to find that same sheet folded neatly on the end of your bed the next morning.
After your late shift, you spot a figure occupying the passenger seat of your car. Pinpricks of ocean blue in the rear-view mirror. You drop your keys one morning underneath your car and they skid back across the pavement before you can crouch down to fish for them (you were fifteen minutes late for work that day).
You don't get it. Can't understand why you're haunted by the memory of your dead love, why the grief manifests only to terrify you.
The days are lonely and the nights are horrifying. Even if you could tell somebody, what would you say? ‘Listen, I know this sounds unbelievable, but something is wearing my dead husband's skin. I can't sleep or eat or think straight anymore. I need help.’ That is a one-way trip to a mental hospital—the last thing you need right now. Nobody would believe you, and you can't even blame them. Can't trust your own senses these days.
You use your lunch breaks at work to nap. At your most exhausted, you consider sleeping under the desk until your morning shift. You consider couch surfing for the unforeseeable future, or sleeping on a friend's porch in the middle of winter.
But you think in inevitables. Going home happens to be one of them.
Winter turns to spring, bringing longer days and balmy weather and the occasional thunderstorm. The incidents go on and on, but they don't escalate.
After a week-long stint with the same friend as before, you return home bright and early on Sunday. The curtains in the living room are drawn shut, but you never shut them. You know that for certain. Stopped fussing over it after the tenth time you walked into the room to find them open again.
On the kitchen table sits the photo of Leon. Smiling, arm curled around you, eyes crinkled at the corners. You pull out a chair and sit down, and you think you want to die.
A fleeting yet comforting proposal. An end to everything, a perpetual nothingness. Maybe your souls would find each other in the aftermath, between the empty space of atoms.
You miss him.
Whatever lurks beyond the realm of possibility that resides within your home views this picture as important. It wants you to look. To remember.
You grab a photo album from the side table in the living room and switch out the picture (already a shot of you two) with the Smiling Leon.
“Okay,” you say, setting the frame on the kitchen table. “I'm leaving the picture out, so just…” A gnawing part of you knows this crosses some sort of line. Never interact with the scary thing haunting you, “move it wherever you want, I guess.”
You haven't yet tried appeasing the thing, communicating with it. Maybe it's lonely, same as you. Maybe it needs a friend, stuck in your apartment twenty four hours a day. Maybe that's why it watches you, likens your presence to a hamster on a wheel, a bird in a tree, a zoo animal. Entertainment.
Maybe you do need to go to a fucking hospital.
The picture frame turns into a little game. You wake each morning and come home each evening to find it moved, and spend the next few minutes searching for it. You find it under your bed, beneath a pillow, on the sink in the bathroom, between the couch cushions, in one of the closets.
The more you think about it, the deeper unease roots into your stomach. A ghost with free reign of your house, tangible proof of its existence. It journeys around your bed when you sleep, at your most vulnerable—the most horrifying thought of all.
You could capture the activity, but your ghost seems too smart for that. It watches you sleep and shower and watch television. Surely it would watch you set video cameras up. As if you have the money for them anyway.
Unfortunately, your plan backfires. The ghost grows more active at night. Footsteps echo from the kitchen, you wake to find furniture moved, it hides your keys. One morning your front door sticks while you already run late for work, as if a body leans against the wood.
As if the ghost doesn't want you to leave.
You're forced to squeeze yourself through the living room window, a prickly bush breaking your fall. When you get to work, a coworker plucks a leaf from your hair, asks about what activities you got up to this morning with a jesting laugh.
Nothing much. Just that the ghost haunting my house tried to hold me hostage.
It's an isolated incident, and you scold the ghost after you get home with all the intensity of an owner housebreaking a puppy. Ridiculous, all things considered, and you take the rest of the evening to reflect on how the fuck things got to this point. If you're in denial about your own mental state and you truly do converse with thin air or move things around without remembering. Maybe this is all one big scheme conjured up by a fractured mind to cope with the loss of your husband.
You aren't sure when the footsteps in your kitchen went from horrifying to comforting.
But even that changes.
You fall asleep on the couch during a rerun of some eighties movie you've seen half a dozen times. The dreams are vivid, fleeting, fragmented in execution. A loud, ragged death rattle wakes you, the water-logged image of a man with an unhinged jaw and a concave skull imprinted on your retinas when you open your eyes.
An infomercial for a cookware product plays on the television, and the air stagnates thick and buzzing, as if the house itself holds its breath.
You sit up to leave for the bathroom but a sudden cold blankets you in hesitation, turns your muscles sluggish and weary. It's so late and you're so tired, and maybe you don't have to pee that bad.
But you get up and pass by the kitchen and turn the corner into the hallway.
You don't believe it at first. Blink your eyes, dig the heel of your palms into the sockets, and yet. A figure remains stood in the doorway of your bedroom at the far end of the hall. A shroud of darkness outlined by the pitiful bloom of light from your bedside lamp.
This is not a thing, but a man. Flesh and blood. As real as yourself. If you look close enough, his lungs expand with breath. Blond hair catches on the light.
Fear collapses your legs, and you land hard against the wall. The thing—a man, a man, a man—takes a step toward you, swallowed up by blackhole shadow, and you pitch backward, hands dragging you toward the kitchen. Toward the sight-breaking safety of the island and the corner you know well.
This isn't like the other times. You were fine, okay, content when your ghost appeared as nothing more than a figment, a blink-away darkness from the corner of your eye. Present only in the aftermath of its hijinks. This thing is real, tangible.
You curl into yourself on the floor, shrinking toward your knees as heavy, stilted footsteps grow closer. Thumpthump… thump, thump… thump…. thump….
From your spot in the kitchen, you look toward the front door. Both locks are turned. The man is not an intruder in the literal sense, but that makes your predicament worse somehow.
You can't fight a ghost.
The footsteps stop somewhere in the living room, and your body shakes so hard the cabinets at your back threaten to creak. You bite the hem of your shirt to quiet ragged breathing.
A bloated silence drags on, and on, and on. Like that night on the couch, you fear moving, making noise, breathing too hard. You're sure the beat of your heart is audible, trapped in your ears, lightheaded as it makes you.
But you have to move. Gotta get to your phone on the coffee table, run outside, call a friend to help you pack your shit tonight because you're done. Fuck this house.
You glance around your corner of the island to find the path clear. A relieved breath chokes from your lungs. You shuffle toward the other, peek your head around the edge, and—
“Please don't,” the thing croaks, crouched down on the other side of the island, blue eyes wide and piercing as its head tilts to stare at you.
A phrase said once before, the first time it revealed itself.
Those eyes bore a hole into your chest, through bone and muscle and flesh already swallowed up by the rot of grief. If you compared a picture of the eyes you remember and the eyes you witness now, they would undoubtedly shine the same shade.
A wailing sob rises up in your throat, chokes off wet and reedy at the base of your tongue. Your chest squeezes tight with each inhale, halting the relief of a full breath.
It—he—moves back behind the island, and after a long moment, heavy, arrhythmic footsteps fade into the hallway where you found him.
You hide the rest of the night in the bathroom, sobbing so hard you cough then gag then vomit into the toilet. You shake and shake and shake, teeth suffering such a fierce chatter they risk cracking and breaking off.
Throughout the night, something knocks on the door in slow, regular intervals. You wonder for a moment what might happen should you answer, what manner of horror you would face, but your hindbrain forbids you from finding out. The noise stretches on for hours, until you finally use his words against him—please don't!—and the house falls into a solemn silence.
Only when hunger claws at your stomach do you emerge from the sanctuary of porcelain and tile, your home swaddled in shadow and melancholy, though the morning sun attempts to shine through the curtains. The lamp from your bedroom reflects off the glossy sheen of scattered pictures on the floor before your nightstand.
You hesitate to cross the threshold into the hallway, unsure of what lurks behind each corner, as if the four walls of the bathroom ensure protection. But you spot the open door of the bedroom closet, and the tipped-over box of pictures now empty.
Against every working cell in your brain screaming for you to run, you creep down the hallway. A shiver racks your spine, gooseflesh rising on your arms as you near the open door. It's cold here, impossibly so. Like someone bottled up a snowstorm and shook it loose within this place.
You step into the room and turn on the ceiling light, the mess of pictures coming into clear view. No harm has come to them, but they look as if someone violently slung the box. A few scatter across the bed, a few landed inside the closet.
The picture frame sits on his pillow.
Your ghost's breaking point, it seems. No coincidence that the picture scattered around all feature him in some form or another. He’s telling you something.
He's—
You really, really, really didn't want to believe it. You didn't. Fought this conclusion since the activity started because acknowledging the possibility means confronting your worst fear.
But it's not—
It is a he.
He is not a mimic.
He is Leon.
Your ghost is Leon. Has been this whole time. Which means—
Fuck. Fuck. You knew. You knew this whole time that something was wrong, that he died when the calls stopped.
And he tried to tell you. He showed you the picture you loved so much. He kept the curtains open so you could look outside at the snow like you did every winter. You smelled him. He tried to comfort you on the couch (god, you felt him). He didn't want you to leave.
You blink, and the image of his eyes peering from behind the island sears into the darkness of your vision.
Please don't—
be scared.
You sink to the floor, thoughts a scrambled, incoherent mess, and busy yourself with putting the pictures back in the box. All your tears ran out last night. The numbness pulls you down, suffocates you, cloys and thickens in the space between your organs. It's better this way, you think. Easier to find an explanation without emotion clouding your judgement.
But you know better. You know better.
“I get it now. It's you, isn't it?” You take a seat on the edge of your bed and the bed dips on the opposite side, facing the window. Perhaps he doesn't wish to scare you again. “Leon, I—” your voice breaks, shatters like the glass inside your picture frame, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
Saying his name carves resignation into your chest, right where all the love resides. That chamber of your heart is bloated, fit to bursting, stretching apart each woven sinew. It hurts. Everything does.
Maybe that's why, despite every atom in your being yelling for you to flee this place and never look back, you stay. Something broke inside you a long time ago, and you lost the energy to piece yourself back together. Leon's still here, still with you just as he promised in your dream. You'd be crazy to leave now.
As an effect of your loyalty, he appears to you more often. The first few times startle you: you wake one morning to find him stood just outside the doorway of your bedroom, where light fails to reach; he rides home with you in the backseat after a long shift at work, face turned to gaze out the window; he paces back and forth around the island as you lay on the couch watching a movie, footsteps ever off-rhythm.
But he never allows the light to touch him, finds safety in the brooding maw of darkness. And you leave the lights off to encourage his presence, to catch glimpses of his eyes peering from closets, around corners. A mess of pretty hair in the mirror.
You open the living room curtains for the first time in months and see him standing over your shoulder in the reflection. The thing that stares back at you.
You talk to him daily. Fill him in on work, share the latest gossip around the office. Warn him of long shifts or nights out with friends. Ask him about what movie to watch, or what you should cook for dinner (one knock for yes, two for no).
It's crazy. You're self-aware enough to recognize this. Keeping one-sided conversations with a dead man is no doubt categorized as a blaring-red-flag symptom in the DSM. You just don't care.
The first time you touch him is when real transitions from metaphorical to earthly.
You wake from a nap to find nighttime in its infancy, fresh after sunset. Your ears buzz, alerting you to a nearby presence, and you glance around to find him (a new game of his that you fail to see the humor in). He stands before the window, facing away from you, following each car that passes by.
You greet him with a quiet, “Hey,” and his head tilts toward the sound of your voice.
He rarely speaks, but you don't mind. The familiarity of his presence comforts you enough. You would prefer the alive Leon, always, but you cling to him any way you can. Can't let him go when you just got him back.
“Is this what you do when I'm gone all day?” you ask, sitting up with a slow creak of the couch. “Maybe I should leave the TV on, or buy a radio. That's gotta be boring.”
He knocks twice on the window (”no”) and a laugh bubbles up in your throat. When your lips spread into a smile, the muscles almost ache from disuse. Can't remember the last time you truly experienced happiness, but this is as close as you're going to get.
You approach him from behind, the need to feel him, skin-to-skin, so overwhelming you almost choke on it. Fingers brush against the back of his hand, relaxed at his side, and you swallow down a gasp at the chill that consumes each point of contact. Frostbite, gangrene, the preservation of a fresh corpse buried beneath snow. So cold your nerves ache, threaten permanent damage, but his skin remains soft as you remember. Callouses scar his palms (you remember the way they held you, caressed you, the thickness of his fingers). But you'll never experience those things again.
The realization ruins your sunny mood like a grounding thunderclap.
“What happened to you?”
Still, he doesn't respond, and you slot your fingers between his. It's easy to pretend like this. He's just come back from an overseas trip, extremities still thawing out after all the cold he suffered through.
Easier still to pretend when your eyes are closed.
Over the next few days, you weigh your… options. The price of mortality. What living truly means to you. If chasing his ghost around would be worth it in the end.
“Are you staying behind for me?” you ask one night to the shadow sitting at the end of the bed. His weight dips the mattress, wrinkles the bedding, reminds you that he's no longer a figment of your imagination or a result of grief-triggered psychosis.
He remains silent.
“I mean… say I died for whatever reason. Would you come with me?”
He remains silent. The outline of his figure curls in on itself.
“Is there even anything after this? Somewhere else to go?”
He remains silent. You grow restless, agitated. Shoot up in bed at the sound of his sigh.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
The silence burrows holes into your skull, gaping and deep. He turns his head, a pretty, piercing eye staring over his shoulder.
“Don't.” He hisses out the word like it burns acidic on his tongue. As if he knows the goal behind your questions, the contemplations that keep you awake far outside your normal schedule.
“I—” you swallow thick, throat clicking as a warning buzz charges the air, “I wasn't.”
“Don't.”
Don't—
even think about it.
“I wasn't, Leon. I swear.”
As if he would let you go through with it anyway.
257 notes · View notes
gleamingyu · 9 months
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hits different.
part I of the midnights series. inspired by taylor swift’s midnights. part II
pairing: music-producer!seungcheol x lawyer!fem!reader [exes-to-lovers]
genre: romance. slight angst. drama.
warnings: she/her pronouns for reader (but no specific physical characteristics). mentions of a pretty rough breakup. slight angst. some light cursing. mentions of death (jokingly though). terrible knowledge of law stuff (thank my brief interest in htgawm). yearning. loads of miscommunication. slow burn. cheol & reader are both stubborn. mentions of drinking. alternating povs. lower caps intended [if there’s anything i missed, please let me know!]
word count: 4.7k
notes: this is the first part of a new series i thought of! this is also my first time writing (or more like, finishing writing) something, so please be kind! any comments, reblogs or likes are welcome. and thank you to whoever decides to give this a chance :)
summary: still recovering from a not-so-fresh breakup, seungcheol leans on his friends to get back on his feet. it turns out to be much easier said than done, especially when his record label recruits the help of a law firm to deal with a recent scandal, which just so happens to be the same firm his ex works at. just his luck.
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if anyone could see the scene in front of mingyu, they’d be severely concerned, much like he is at this very moment.
seungcheol is quite literally buried under a pile of blankets on his bed, the only visible part of his body a tuft of his dark brown hair. the floor of his bedroom is covered in clothes and empty food containers, and the air feels so stale and hot, it’s taking everything in mingyu not to gag. there is no light coming into the room except from the lightbulb shining in the hallway where mingyu is standing, and… is that… phoebe bridgers he can hear playing from somewhere?
mingyu glances down at his feet where kkuma, seungcheol’s devoted dog – and only girl who’s ever truly loved him, according to him – is sitting staring right back at him, a look on her fluffy face that mingyu swears looks just as depressed as her dad.
“this is way worse than i thought,” mingyu sighs, finally stepping into the bedroom. “okay, enough of this!”
mingyu grabs the blankets on the bed and pulls them away, revealing a very aggravated seungcheol. “what the hell are you doing?!”
“i’m not sure yet, because this,” mingyu gestures around the room, “is a lot. but it starts with you getting your ass out of bed and into the shower. immediately. this place smells like there’s a corpse somewhere in here.”
“yeah, it’s me. i’m the corpse. or i wish i was, because that would mean i’ve finally died,” seungcheol groans, turning away from mingyu and effectively shoving his face into the bed.
mingyu sighs, turning around to start collecting some of the dirty clothes on the floor. he finds himself regretting not calling jeonghan or joshua to come with him, because seungcheol might have been more easily persuaded to stop moping with them around. the reality is, they all thought seungcheol was doing better; he was back on his grind at work, finishing several albums he had been producing for, he was making progress in his jiu-jitsu classes, and he even joined the rest of the guys on their trip to australia last month, with minimal persuasion from his friends.
looking at the shell of a man laying on the bed in front of him, mingyu realizes he should’ve asked. he should’ve asked his friend how he was really doing, what he was feeling, what he could actually do to help him move past this.
better late than never.
“listen,” mingyu starts, going to sit on the edge of seungcheol’s bed but reconsidering. who knows when he last changed these. “i’m sorry if we haven’t really been there for you. i know a thing or two about breakups and heartbreak, so i guess i should’ve figured you weren’t alright, not like you said you were. you don’t have to keep all you’re feeling locked up. you can talk to us.”
seungcheol’s head moves slightly to the side, peeking at mingyu from the corner of his eye. he sighs, and turns on his back. mingyu tries not to cringe at seungcheol’s sullen face, his eyes red and still wet, as if he was still crying when mingyu arrived at his apartment.
“don’t beat yourself up, gyu. believe it or not, i was actually doing better. but a few days ago, i … i was cleaning around the closet by the entrance and …” he pauses, and mingyu thinks he might burst into tears. seungcheol breathes in however, closes his eyes, and continues. “i found one of her old hats. you know, the yellow crochet bucket hat she always used to wear in the summer? i bought it for her birthday when we had just started dating and … i don’t know, i just broke down. it hit me again that we’re over. like really.”
you and seungcheol broke up … four, five months ago? seungcheol shakes his head, he feels like time hasn’t passed the same since. days pass him by where he just goes over and over your last conversation – which was more of a fight, really – and he always ends up regretting everything he said that day. regrets resenting you for always working late, for never asking him to accompany you to firm events… regrets accusing you of some unspeakable things.
looking back, he can’t believe how big of an idiot he was. no wonder you left and didn’t even bother to come back to get your things. you left everything behind, all your clothes that still smelled of the lavender detergent you used to buy, your makeup haphazardly thrown into one of the bathroom drawers, the cooking books you always bought “for inspiration” but never, ever actually opened… and the yellow bucket hat you got from seungcheol for the first birthday you spent together. seungcheol had left everything where it was, a tiny part of him hoping you two would work this out somehow. but weeks went by with no word from you, and when he had tried reaching you, he came to the grave conclusion that you had blocked him on all platforms, cut him off from your life like a dead limb. back then he thought he deserved it. he still does.
“i’m sorry, hyung. i really am,” mingyu shakes seungcheol from his reverie, reaching a hand to pet his shoulder. a beat passes between them. “have you tried… calling her again since?”
“no. i don’t know what good it would do,” seungcheol sighs. “even if she answered, i doubt all the apologies i could offer would fix anything. i said some pretty fucked up shit.”
“yeah, i know. if you remember, i was there the next day ripping you a new one,” mingyu teases, desperately trying to cheer up his friend somehow. he swears he can see seungcheol’s lips twitch a bit. “but who knows… now that you both had some time to yourselves, you might actually be able to overcome this calmly. and if… if it doesn’t work out in the end, at least you’ll both have some closure.”
closure. that’s a funny word, because seungcheol wants the furthest thing from closure. he wants you back in his bed and your arms around him, he wants your indie artists he’s never heard of playing around the apartment in the morning, he wants your laugh echoing in the halls. he wants you.
he knows that the only way this ending could even be a possibility would be if he actually took mingyu’s advice and called you up, but another part of him is terrified of the other possibility: the one where you pick up and tell him to go to hell and fuck himself and never call you again or show his face around you. so for now, seungcheol opts for a third option: emotional limbo, with a side of trying-to-move-on.
he gets up from the bed and asks mingyu if he could help him straighten out the place. mingyu, bless his sweet heart, of course says yes and gets to work after sending seungcheol to clean himself up. just as he’s about to close the bathroom door, he hears mingyu’s exasperated voice.
“oh, for the love of god, where is that god-awful music coming from?!”
seungcheol can’t remember the last time he laughed so heartily.
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the bar you find yourself in is bustling with people, laughter and cheerful conversations filling the space. you’re only half listening to whatever topic your two best friends, yunjin and chaeyoung, are discussing – something about “that bitch” in yunjin’s department at work that’s been giving her a hard time – instead reveling in the pleasant buzz of the champagne you’re nursing.
it had been a while since you were able to enjoy a nice evening with your girls. the past few months had been filled with endless meetings, client-induced headaches and sleepless nights, but thankfully, today you had managed to finally strike a deal for one of the firm’s most important clients (to be read as filthy rich), which you had been working towards all these months. naturally, upon hearing the news, chaeyoung and yunjin had begged you to join them at a bar in the city, “to celebrate your newfound freedom.”
you splurged on a bottle of champagne for the three of you and decided that tonight, you were going to have fun. you were going to relax, enjoy some drink, and catch up with your friends who you hadn’t seen in weeks.
and you will not, under any circumstances, bring up seungcheol.
you like to believe that in the last two months you had gotten better at shutting out any thought of your ex-boyfriend. in the days – more like weeks, if you were to ask chaeyoung and yunjin – following the ugly breakup, you were quite the literal mess. finding yourself alone and with nowhere to go, considering you had left the apartment you shared with seungcheol with nothing but your work stuff (how on-brand for you), it wasn’t surprising that your mental and emotional health had taken a massive hit. thankfully, at the insistence of yunjin, you agreed to crash at her place while you put yourself back together and took time off from work – something you had never done before.
to the surprise of your friends, it only took you two weeks to go back to work and start looking for your own place. two weeks after that, you were moving into a new apartment and claimed that you were feeling much better since the breakup. or at least starting to. chaeyoung and yunjin didn’t want to argue with you on this – even thought they 100% believed the front you were putting up was a load of crap – but in the end, they didn’t even have to, because the first time you went out with them again since the breakup, you had your first meltdown.
but was it really your fault that the man sitting two seats down the bar from you had ordered whiskey neat, just like seungcheol always used to? and was it really your fault that he was wearing a maroon leather jacket similar to the one seungcheol always used to wear in the fall, which you absolutely adored?
could they really blame you for bursting into tears right then and there and wailing about how much of a jerk seungcheol was for never understanding your dedication to your work? how much of a hypocrite he was for expecting you to just dip from the office when he suddenly had some free time, when he had never done so for you?
that night, chaeyoung and yunjin quite literally dragged you back to chaeyoung’s place and held you while you cried yourself to sleep, and in the morning, when you had embarrassingly admitted that “no, you weren’t really doing fine,” they held you again and offered soft-spoken words of support, opting to keep the classic we told you so in their thoughts.
four months passed since that incident and now, you could confidently say that you were truly feeling better. you weren’t quite over seungcheol per se; there were nights when you still thought about the smell of vanilla that filled the room whenever he was fresh out of a shower, the way he always got so giggly when you brought home a tray of cherries… yeah, you still found yourself missing him terribly sometimes. but the more time passed, you realized that seungcheol hadn’t tried reaching you at all in the months since the breakup, and so you thought he might be moving on as well.
it is true you had blocked him on all social platforms for weeks after you stormed out of your place. but on a particularly bad day, when all you did was cry and cry and cry after him, the thought of calling him up and asking him to go back to how things were crossed your mind, and you unblocked his number. unfortunately, your pride had set itself in your way, convincing you that it was seungcheol that needed to make the first step, considering he was the one who quite literally cornered you into a fight. so you didn’t call and instead prayed to whatever forces exist in the universe, that seungcheol would try your number again.
he never did.
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“soooo, cheers to the lady of the hour! finally free from the clutches of corporate law!” yunjin cheered, clinking her glass against yours and knocking you out of your reverie.
damn it, seungcheol, i said i would not think of you tonight!
“yes, cheers!” chaeyoung joined in. “how do you feel? are you going to get a big ass bonus for the amount of time you put into this asshole?”
chaeyoung was probably right, you probably did deserve a huge ass bonus for the deal you pulled for the client you were handling. when you were in law school, you had never imagined yourself working for sleazy, corporate pigs who behaved like none of their actions would bite them in the ass eventually, and expecting others – like yourself – to clean up after them. but, as your boss grimly explained to you the day you had complained about your client, everybody has to start somewhere. “and junior partners don’t get to choose cases, sweetheart.”
life at the firm wasn’t always terrible. you were lucky enough to be part of an amazing team, and the firm worked with plenty of influential and big personalities, so you almost never had to worry about your income. but sometimes, some of the people you were asked to represent brought you to the brink of just quitting your job altogether.
“i just feel relieved,” you say. “if i had to hear the incessant whining and nagging of that idiot for one more day, i might have gone insane!”
“well, thank god you’re a stellar lawyer and managed to get rid of him,” yunjin teases, taking a sip of her drink. “do you already have anything else lined up?”
“god, no! i have a few days off just to take care of paperwork, maybe help out some of my colleagues around the office… but nothing big for now, thankfully.”
“oh, that’s amazing! which reminds me, this means you can actually join us on that weekend spa trip we were talking about last week,” chaeyoung happily suggests, as she’s already pulling up the website of the spa retreat.
“i guess a spa day would be nice,” you say, looking over at chaeyoung’s phone. you feel your body already going lax at the thought of a hot stone massage.
“oh, that would be so nice!” yunjin pouts. “we haven’t gone on a girls trip in so long! i miss going away, just the three of us… do you guys remember that trip we took to croatia two years ago? that was the best one we ever did, i swear!”
while chaeyoung joins yunjin in reminiscing about all the trips the three of you took over the years, you feel your phone buzzing in the pocket of your dress paints. pulling it out, you see an email notification…
“oh, no…” your voice trails off, reading over the email you had just received.
“what? what’s the matter?” yunjin asks, her conversation with chaeyoung coming to a halt.
“my boss just emailed me. he wants me in the office tomorrow morning. some big case that just came in,” you explain, already feeling a headache coming in.
“but tomorrow’s saturday,” chaeyoung frowns.
“i know… i know.”
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when monday rolls around, seungcheol really wished that he had died before mingyu had found him the week before.
the day started normal enough. he woke up at 5 a.m. and took kkuma for a walk in the park near his apartment building, just like every morning. by 8 a.m., he was already set up in his studio inside the PLEDIS building, ready to work on the tracks he was supposed to finish mixing by the end of the week. seungcheol liked the buzz of the label, people from all different departments running around trying to stay on their schedules; it motivated him to also do his part diligently, and reminded him that he was extremely lucky to be doing one of the things he loves most: music.
seungcheol should’ve guessed something was up today the moment the clock struck 11 and jihoon, the other in-house producer of PLEDIS, and one of his oldest friends, hadn’t come by his studio. he and jihoon had known each other since their college days, having met in an audio engineering class they apparently shared, and had been friends for 8 years now. during their last year of college, they were recruited by a record label that was just starting out (which became the PLEDIS of today), and despite all warnings from their families, they decided to take a leap of faith together and join the company. it all worked out for the better, it turned out, as PLEDIS only grew and soon became a household name in the music industry.
as the only producers that have stuck around PLEDIS since the beginning, they developed several… traditions, or rituals over the years, one of which was jihoon’s 11 a.m. coffee run, which they’d spend sharing ideas and notes over each other’s work, and, if jihoon was in a particularly good mood, engage in some office gossip (not that either of them would ever admit it). today, however, jihoon is a no-show and seungcheol can’t help but wonder what his friend is up to.
when he shoots jihoon a quick text, asking if he’s alright, his friend only replies with a “just busy,” and tells seungcheol not to wait up for him at lunch, as he’ll probably be stuck in the studio all day. this doesn’t surprise him that much, seeing as jihoon might be an even bigger workaholic than he is, but he still can’t shake the feeling that something must be up with his friend. he decides that instead of going out for lunch, he’s gonna pick up some takeout and join jihoon in his studio. he wouldn’t be able to rest easy knowing his friend will go a day without eating anything.
once lunch hours begin, seungcheol takes a quick walk two blocks down the street to the restaurant mingyu works in, who’s already waiting for him with the food seungcheol had requested for him and jihoon. on his way back to PLEDIS, he texts jihoon again, just to make sure he’s still in the studio, but there’s no answer, and now seungcheol is seriously starting to get worried. he jogs the rest of the way until he’s back inside the building, and takes the elevator to the 6th floor where jihoon’s studio is stationed.
walking up to the door that reads UNIVERSE FACTORY, he stops in his tracks when he hears more than one voice from the other side of the door. he easily recognizes jihoon’s voice, but the other voices – two other men and a woman – are harder to make out. except… except the woman’s voice is eerily familiar, and without a second thought, seungcheol grips the handle and swings the door open, four pairs of eyes whipping in his direction.
his eyes land on jihoon, who looks like he wishes he was anywhere else in that moment, and then scan the rest of room, recognizing mr. han, their CEO, and… you. it’s you.
seungcheol feels like he’s going to faint. mr. han does not look the least bit happy about seungcheol’s intrusion, and he really wishes the man would slap him just so he can know for sure if he’s dreaming. if you’re surprised to see seungcheol, your face shows no sign of it, and seungcheol can’t help but stare at you. you look so beautiful, so put together; your make-up is soft, almost unnoticeable, your hair pushed behind your ears, and you’re wearing a dark green suit… oh, how he loved you in green.
you were the picture of grace and professionalism and he was… not. he really wishes he hadn’t come to the studio in sweatpants right now.
“mr. choi, what a… surprise,” mr. han exclaims, standing up from his seat, you and the other man – who seungcheol has no idea who he is, but he knows he doesn’t like the way he’s standing so close to you – following suit. “i didn’t know mr. lee was expecting you,” mr. han continues, glancing towards jihoon, who turned red as a tomato.
“i wasn’t, actually,” jihoon squeaks, avoiding both seungcheol and mr. han’s gazes.
“i apologize, i was… i was just bringing jihoon some lunch. i didn’t know there was… a meeting happening,” seungcheol says, looking towards you, and he’s almost thrown back by the way you’re just… staring directly at him.
mr. han sighs, but remembering the situation, he quickly puts on a polite smile as he turns towards you and the other man. “mr. choi is one of our other in-house producers. mr. choi, this is mr. jeon and miss L/N. they’re helping us with some… legal matters.”
so that’s why you were here. and who the other guy was. but what legal matters? and why was jihoon involved? and why didn’t he tell seungcheol?!
before seungcheol can ask more questions, mr. han gestures towards the door he came through and says “now, if you don’t mind, you can come back in a few minutes, mr. choi. we’ll be done soon.”
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soon. soon, his ass!
seungcheol had been pacing the hallway outside jihoon’s studio for the past 20 minutes (he checked, he wasn’t exaggerating!), trying very hard not to eavesdrop through the door, and thinking of every possible reason why jihoon would need legal help and why you would be here.
jihoon was definitely in some kind of trouble. for the CEO to be involved as well, it for sure must be something that could affect the whole label. seungcheol just can’t understand why jihoon wouldn’t tell him if he had any kind of problem. they were colleagues, but most importantly, they were friends. he would’ve dropped everything to come to his aid.
now, when it comes to you… seungcheol knows you’re a lawyer, obviously he does. he met you when you were halfway through law school, and he was there for every failed and aced exam, for your graduation (he was so proud of you that day, it was the first time you’d ever seen him cry), for every measly job you had before finally securing the one you currently held at one of the top firms in the city. he also knows you’re a damn good lawyer, seeing how hard you work and how dedicated you are. he supposes it’s not surprising you were chosen to represent jihoon in whatever mess he got himself in.
he feels bad now that he remembers how he held these things above your head during your last fight. how you were working late so often, how you never asked him to join you at office parties, despite how eager you always were to go out with your coworkers for drinks, how you always asked him to wait for you outside the office building, as if you didn’t want people to know you had a partner...
he knows that both of you were to blame for how things went down between you, but since he started the argument in the first place, he thinks he could’ve brought all this up in a better way, at a better time.
his thoughts are interrupted when the door to jihoon’s studio opens again, and he finds himself regretting waiting in the hallway because now he has to face you again and he’s not ready and he doesn’t know what to say and he still looks like a hobo and –
“mr. choi!”
he looks up to see who he imagines is your colleague – mr. jeon – step towards him, as you and mr. han step out after him, discussing something. you glance once towards seungcheol before turning back to the conversation, and seungcheol feels his heart clench.
“mr. jeon, i’m sorry once again for interrupting your meeting,” seungcheol says, extending his hand to shake mr. jeon’s.
“don’t worry, no harm done at all. i’m actually glad you stuck around, because i had something to ask you. seeing as you and mr. lee are close, would you be available for a short talk with us, sometime in the next days? we’ll have to build a strong case for mr. lee and, well, some insight from his colleagues would be very helpful,” mr. jeon explains, fixing the thin-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.
seungcheol is taken aback by the man’s soft tone. his sharp eyes and cold look on his face made him look pretty intimidating, but his voice is the complete opposite, putting seungcheol weirdly at ease.
“o-of course, anything for jihoon,” seungcheol quickly replies. “can i ask, though, what exactly does he need help with?”
“plagiarism.”
“PLAGIARISM?!”
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“you’re being sued. for plagiarism.”
“yes.”
“and you just found out last friday.”
“yes.”
“last friday when we all went out for barbeque and you didn’t even think to mention it? not even once?!”
“will you stop pacing and sit down? you’re making me even more nervous than i already am,” jihoon sighs, dropping his head in his hands.
seungcheol sighs as well, muttering a sorry, and sits down on the couch opposite jihoon’s chair.
jihoon continues. “i didn’t mention anything because i didn’t want to piss on everyone’s good mood. it was joshua’s birthday… besides, i didn’t know all the details of the situation at that point. i thought it was another baseless accusation, you know? but they’re serious about it. they wanna take me to court.”
“what? that’s insane,” seungcheol says. “i feel weird even asking, but did you even plagiarize?”
“no! of course not! i don’t even know the people!” jihoon exclaims, flopping down on the couch next to seungcheol. he lets out a long groan. “this is just what i needed.”
seungcheol pats his friend’s back, thinking of some encouraging words. jihoon was the most talented and creative guy he knew. to think that someone would accuse him of using somebody else’s work was a concept seungcheol couldn’t even entertain.
“don’t worry. that jeon guy looks like he’s already got a game plan.”
“and Y/N,” jihoon says.
silence falls around the two of them, until jihoon stirs from the couch, sitting up to look at seungcheol.
“are we just not going to acknowledge her or what?”
“no! that’s not what i…” seungcheol sighs, hanging his head. “i just wasn’t expecting to see her. i don’t know how to feel.”
“that’s understandable. you guys haven’t seen each other in a while, right?”
seungcheol shakes his head. “did she… did she say anything to you?”
“oh, no. she was super professional, went straight to business. but…” jihoon trails off, debating whether he should say what he was thinking.
“but? but what?!” seungcheol grabs jihoon’s shoulders, shaking him a little.
“but i think she was just as rattled to see you as you were. her hand kept shaking while she was writing, after you left. i guess she was just better at hiding her surprise,” jihoon continues. “now let go of me, you animal!”
seungcheol sighs. could it be that you were just as much of a mess inside as he was? the hopeful part of him thinks you might have thought of him all these months, just as he thought of you. the other part of him thinks your hand might as well just have been shaking from anger.
“you know, this might be a good thing,” jihoon says, getting up and sitting back in front of his computer.
“what, you getting sued and her being around?”
“yeah. maybe this way you’ll finally grow some balls, put your pride aside, and actually fix things,” jihoon deadpans, and seungcheol knows the conversation is over.
yeah. easier said than done.
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lanasblood · 9 months
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VIVID DREAMS | neteyam x reader
dedicated to @andraga12​ just because she’s el amor de mi vida who always inspires me to be better, and I wanted to give back some of the love she generously spreads in this fandom with her personality and her writing! 
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neteyam artwork by my talented @cinetrix​ (click here to see more) 
pairing: neteyam x female reader (wc: 1.2k)
summary: what do you call the phenomenon, where you cannot control the longing in your eyes or the fire in your loins, where you consistently fall in love with someone every time you see them? as for neteyam, this someone is you. (proceed with caution, his thoughts are unhinged, 18+ mdni)
Being the son of the clan leader had its benefits, but it also came with its downsides. There was immense pressure to be the best in everything, pressure he put on himself, so much that for quite some time — too long for him to admit — he was accompanied by intense stress and sleepless nights. The days blended together, no longer offering a sense of overview, no longer dividing day and night for him. He was a breathing, working mess, alive but barely living, like the remnants of a walking corpse, whose reflexes still functioned. His body was accustomed to it, his strong physique, sculpted by years of discipline, was used to worse actually, but slowly the burden was taking its toll on his mind for he began to see things, hallucinating, as Lo'ak had called it. It had reached such dimensions that his father had sent him on forced leave, a decision that was infuriating in such critical times, but protest was not tolerated, because deep down Neteyam knew his father was right; some days — the most exhausting ones — it was difficult for him to distinguish his dreams from reality as it all blended together, and that was the last alarming sign for him to know he had to fix his work-life-balance, especially when it came to you.
she's a celestial inferno in his mind  the flames consuming him cannot be denied   as every carnal desire burning his skin  raw illusions rise, awakening divine 
The mere thought of you already numbed his senses, consumed him whole, so looking at you right now how you danced along with your friends, your body effortlessly swayed to the rhythm, accompanied by the traditional instruments, did things to him he did not dare to say out loud. There was an undeniable connection; he was longing for you, needing you in ways that couldn't be described. 
Watching you from afar as he leaned against a rock, originally trying to avoid the festivities following the victorious war party he hadn't been allowed to participate in, it was mesmerizing to him how you moved your hips with such sensuality, it took his mind to places. His eyes aglow like molten gold, were glued to your body, followed your every move, refused to leave your enchanting features even for a fleeting moment. The forest immediately dissolved around him into a big blur of dark green, slowly fading into a hushed background, leaving only you as the focal point of his existence, as if completely bewitched by your presence. And for the first time in his life, despite the unyielding strength he commanded in battle, he found himself powerless, absolutely disarmed and vulnerable against the allure you possessed.
He couldn't control the vivid imagines that flooded his mind in the next second when you bend down to gather the empty bottles from the ground so that no one would trip on them, his hidden wants messing with his reality in an instant. His hands on your waist, the rhythm of your bodies in perfect synchrony, the rolling motion of your hips against his, skin on skin, teeth clinking, lips smacking with each hungry kiss. He couldn't help but picture the way you'd respond to his touch, your soft flesh yielding by the firmness of his grip, your head thrown back in ecstasy, your eyes rolling in pleasure, the breathy moans escaping your lips like a siren's call, pulling him closer to you, deeper and deeper into the depths of desire. 
Wishful thinking. 
He knew that he couldn't resist the gravity of his passion any longer. With every breath, every beat of his heart, he discovered a truth — he was falling, falling, falling, and he couldn't deny it.
Neteyam's breath quickened even more when you met his eyes, only for a second before you quickly looked away, his heart pounded in his chest like the loud drums next to the table with drinks, as he fought to control the raw desire that surged within him. The fire in his loins burned brighter as he felt the energy radiating from you, a magnetic pull even, that defied reason, defied control, defied the chaos raging within him, that became a force he could not contain. And even if the yearning in his blood vessels and the longing in his eyes spoke volumes, his lips remained silent for he had not once dared to confess.
That was however until he heard your laugh a second later when one of your friends said something to you; the combination of eye contact and your melodic laugh gave him the courage to approach you, start a conversation, he had done it many times before, so he could do it again, he was good at small talk, he was Neteyam, it was nothing but child's play for him, he would talk to you and— 
"Does Neteyam have any idea how ridiculously gorgeous he is?"
His heart skipped a beat as he overheard your words, spoken with a touch of wonder and followed by a dreamy sigh. The corners of his mouth curled into a soft smile, and his cheeks felt warm as he chuckled to himself, shaking his head slightly. He had never imagined that you would see him in such a light, let alone voice it aloud. It filled him with pride, and he couldn't help but feel a mix of joy and disbelief that he quickly hid with his newfound confidence as he walked the last steps to approach you.
"Well," he said with a playful smile on his lips, "I wouldn't say ridiculously gorgeous, but I do try my best."
Immediately, your eyes grew wide as you opened your mouth to say something but then closed it again, and he thoroughly enjoyed observing the play of expressions on your face. He felt great, his self-doubt vanished in an instant, it was as if a veil had been lifted, revealing a version of himself he had never fully embraced before. With his arms crossed in front of his chest and a smug grin on his face, he watched your every move, every flick of your gaze, every tremble of your finger, the color of your cheeks slightly darker than the rest of your skin, every subtle gesture teased his imagination, fueling his fantasies, like your eyes, big and beautiful, a mix of innocence and surprise in them, he couldn't help but imagine the taste of your lips as you nervously licked over them, those lips, oh, those lips looking as sweet and plump as… he gulped and reminded himself to get it together.
And when you turned around, away from him, without any word, quickly leaving the celebrations, vanishing between the thick leaves of pandora's flora, he kept staring at that place and he smiled, accepting the truth that could not be denied any longer: He was consumed by an insatiable hunger for you, a hunger that only you could satisfy, and he swore to himself, in that exact moment, that he would do anything — no matter the time and costs, even if it meant to put the night sky into chains and conquer all the stars — to make you his, for you were his star, his very personal wishing star.
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note: thank you for reading, my loves, please don’t forget to leave feedback (I appreciate any form of it, be it likes, comments, reblogs, or just an anonymous message in my inbox) to let me know you enjoyed this 💕
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l1vchuu · 9 months
Text
resentment. part three
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!! warnings: slight mentions of sh, angst, slow burn, strong language.
And Simon stood there, in silence. The slight yellow rays of the rising sun filled the now empty room- well, half empty. The walls- before filled with your favorite music artists and films, your bed- once piled with your fluffy little animals from Ikea and sheets- once warm and packed with your scent. Now everything was empty and dull- just like the way he had treated you the past few months.
His mind went blank- was he hallucinating? Were you there?
He looked around again, his gaze had sharpened. Did you request to have your own room? Where the hell were you? Why didn't you tell him?
Ghost closed the door behind him, making his way to Price's office- maybe he will tell him.
As the elevator closed its' doors behind him, he strode to the Captain's door, knocking three times before entering.
"Good morning, L.T."
"Good morning, Captain."
Price looked at the sight in front of him- a tall, masked, tired man. He knew what he was going to ask him- and he knew damn well how to answer.
Simon stood there, quite hesitant to ask the thing he had been thinking of- actually, he hadn't prepared the question at all- so the silence filled the room again until Price spoke up.
"She took a break- you will have your own room for a while."
A break? Ghost thought to himself.
"How long?"
Price took a sip from his coffee.
"A month. For now."
A month? A week or two- fine- but a month?
"Is there a particular reason-"
"No reason included."
Price turned to face him.
You and Ghost made quite the pair ever since they introduced him to you. You were always his sparring partner, and so was he. He only ate food if you were around, and so did you. You only accepted a mission only if he was there, and so did he.
After years of being friends and colleagues, you two became inseparable- which meant that absolutely everyone on the team knew that something was wrong. And only one person was to blame, right?
The Captain sighed, nodding his head slightly- a habit of his.
"You don't know, do you?"
Simon's head perked up.
"Know what?"
"She fainted yesterday. She was on the bed for a long time- and she basically looked like a corpse."
Price put his mug down.
"Look, Riley. I'm not the one to get into this mess- but I'm sure the others won't tell you, so I will. The nurse wrote that she fainted out of exhaustion- but that won't explain the cuts and bruises on her body, right? Did you even notice her change in behavior?"
Simon gulped.
"No, I didn't."
"You didn't notice anything? Nothing?"
"No."
Price massaged his temples.
"Our job is to make sure that our soldiers are in good shape and health, Riley. And she is one of our best."
Simon sighed. His mind was blank. Truly. Blank.
"I know, Captain. I've been on night shifts a lot and-"
"We all know what the real reason is, Lieutenant. Drop the excuses."
Price interrupted him, his tone was stricter now.
"Again, what I was saying was- You can't keep doing this. We can't let this team break the trust we have built for years. If one person goes down, so do the others. Understand?"
"Yes, Captain."
"I don't know what happened, and it is not my place to do so. I'm saying this as a regular person- try to fix whatever the fuck is going on."
Simon stayed still and silent. His eyes looked tired, but his gaze was strong.
Price sighed again, motioning him to the door.
"This is not a good thing, son. You have a month to figure it out."
As Simon stepped to the door, Price followed behind him.
"And you better pray she won't fucking quit in the meantime."
These were the last words Price had said before Simon left the office.
-
You arrived at the airport, a place you hadn't seen in a long time. You didn't notify anybody of your arrival because you needed to be alone- you wanted to be alone.
You took a ride to your college apartment, glad that it is still for rent. As the taxi passed through the streets, the trees danced to the wind and the sunlight flew through the air. It was about 8 am and the shops were just opening their doors to the public.
The taxi stopped in front of the apartment complex. You paid the driver and got your things to your old apartment without any worries.
You finally had time- time to think everything through and manage your feelings, time to heal.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, it was the first time you paid any attention to your appearance and you barely recognized it. Your eyes were swollen and empty, your skin was pale and dry, your arms were scratched up- a habit you had when you felt nervous, and your thighs had bandaids.
You had forgotten about it- you hoped you never remembered it. A few weeks ago you almost began an argument with Ghost, but it just ended up with you staying alone in the bathroom, your tactical knife in your hands, and a whole lot of tears and physical pain. You never resolved problems this way, never. Self-inflicted wounds are something you hadn't done to yourself ever since high- school. So you thought about it- Why did I react like that?
You cleaned and stitched up your wounds after you had showered- your skin was hot and soft from the boiling water. It was quite frankly the first time you had taken such a long shower- but it helped you calm down.
Laid in your bed, bags scattered all over the place, you looked at the ceiling and thought about the upcoming month. What were you going to do? Well, you had money from your last paycheck- so you didn't need to worry about that, you need to do something to get you out of your mind, just like the old high school times. What did you do in order to forget about everything? Oh yeah, you joined the military.
There were many other things you could do- maybe go to see a therapist. No, not a good idea. Why? What will I say to them, I don't know what I'm feeling. We'll figure that out.
Jokes aside, you genuinely didn't know how you felt. What was it that bothered you? Why did you feel like that? Absolutely. no. fucking idea.
You hated everything around you, about you, including you. You felt like crawling out of your skin and existing without being perceived as a living person. You felt like a piece of flesh, slowly rotting into the ground, hoping for the bugs to come and consume you whole. You wish to be buried deep into the earth's core, maybe the warmth will be enough to comfort you. You prayed that one day people would walk through you as if you never existed. You prayed that one day people would say your name and not have you in their minds. You didn't want to exist.
But on the other hand, you wanted people to think about you and notice you. You wanted to be taken care of, to be perceived as a human with feelings. You wanted to be held and have sweet things whispered into your ear. You wanted people to smile as you passed by, people to remember little details about you. You wanted people to think about you when you weren't around.
Everything was so confusing to you at the moment. You stared at your empty phone, looking at all of the names of people who you used to talk to before. You weren't allowed any contact with your teammates if you were away- no calls, no messages, no emails. The only way they could possibly make any contact with you is through letters. Will someone write to me? you thought to yourself. Yeah, you said to Price that you didn't want him to notify anyone of your leave- but surely someone would've noticed by now, right? Will someone notice my absence?
But you were away. You were away from the base, away from all of the oils and gunpowder, away from the ink and the papers, away from the tablets and computers, away from the stingy coffee and oatmeal, away from the ripstop and the uniforms, away from the steel and guns. Away from everything.
The first thing that you could try to fix was your eating habits. You barely ate a meal a day for a month and your body was begging for it. But it wasn't going to be easy, of course. You still couldn't bring yourself to have any type of appetite. You still felt the salty taste of your tears on your tongue, and you could feel shivers down your spine. Maybe you could go grocery shopping? Maybe that could help.
You lazily stepped out of your bed, put on casual clothes, and headed out the door with nothing in mind- you'll figure it out.
-
It was a normal day at the base. Everyone was doing their daily routines and their assigned work, training, or planning any new missions. It was the quiet season- there wasn't anything crazy going on, which meant that the atmosphere was lighter than usual. It was everybody's favorite time of the year, except Christmas or Halloween.
Simon was sitting in his shared office, his desk being next to Kyle's. It wasn't a normal day for him though, his mind wandered all around you.
Ghost has suffered through most of his life, given the fact that all of his family was murdered because of him, and he has been imprisoned and tortured by a Mexican cartel. In papers, he is often marked as dead and he constantly wears a mask in order to protect his identity and uses it to cope with his traumas. He often has nightmares and hallucinations, which you used to help him with- would it be staying all night talking or maybe distracting yourselves with movies. He has a long history of disorders, which was the reason why you and he got so close. You coped together, you brought comfort to each other. He was the first person on the team that you got comfortable enough with to share your past, and so did he. It wasn't pity that brought you guys together- it was genuine coping and the need to get better, you healed together.
And there he sat, knowing the fact that he had possibly ruined all the progress you had made.
.⋆。⋆☂˚。⋆。˚☽˚。⋆.☆.。.:
Heya! This part was short, for which I apologize- it's supposed to be more of a 'filler', in order to get the emotions flowing in. But don't worry, part 4 will come shortly after, with more action and sadness! (just kidding, or..?) If you liked this part, make sure to like or reblog <: See you next time, lovelies <33
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