#so you would go unconscious from your brain expanding long before you die | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wetbloodworm · 1 year

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i like thinking about mechanics and i’ve got a character with homebrew shit going on so under the cut i got some musings about how the dream-eating thing with zenith might work

as always, in an actual in-game scenario, DM makes the rules and gets final say on how things work. i just don’t have a framework for how all of this would go yet so i wanted to come up with ideas to give more bones to my daydreams lol i can’t not know. i need details. i need bones. can also be the scenario of like this is how zenith as a character i play with in my brain-space free of rules works vs zenith as a character i play with other people. idk it’s not that deep and it’s not set in stone, just having fun here!

talked about this a little bit previously in a big meta post but expanding some here

so first off, talking about zenith in three stages. there’s his starter stage just being himself out in the far realm, there’s the split stage where he’s half in the far realm and half in the material plane, and then there’s the merged stage when he moves entirely into the material plane.

starter zenith is full power and largely equivalent to his eventual lvl 20 self, so i use that sheet for reference re: stats and stuff.

split zenith is the character i’d be playing most of the campaign, who only has access to some of his power and gets more over time. i’m using his lvl 8 sheet for reference though the stats would obviously vary as he gets stronger

merged zenith is endgame shit, so back to the lvl 20 sheet. if he was able to get his full self into the material plane early he’d shoot up to lvl 20 upon merging anyway because there’d be no barrier to his full power anymore, but in a game setting i just figure he’s not going to get that chance until he’s actually earned lvl 20 to avoid skipping levels.

anyway, dream-eating! when he’s hunting, zenith basically sits himself down to meditate and starts reaching out psychically to find dreaming minds. he can’t sense the minds of those who are awake or those who sleep/trance without dreaming, they’re completely invisible to him, but if someone is actively dreaming he can smell it, or the psychic equivalent. i imagine that when he finds someone, it’s a wisdom saving throw to prevent him from accessing their mind. a successful save keeps him out entirely, a failed save results in zenith having free range to either straight-up eat the dream or project himself into the dream first before eating it. having a dream eaten causes psychic damage and wakes the dreamer up.

i’m not sure how much psychic damage it’d be, though i think it’d be a static thing. like it doesn’t matter how strong zenith is at the time, it’s the same number of dice across the board. it’s not an attack, he’s not TRYING to do damage, it just. it just happens. it’s a bad experience to have your dream ripped out of your brain while you’re actively experiencing it. i’m thinking 1d8 psychic damage? not a LOT of damage, though that really depends on your HP i guess.

i want to say that you can’t outright die from this damage, but i don’t know if that’s a mechanic i can control. if i had my way, it could absolutely bring you to zero, but you’d just be unconscious + stable. get 1 HP back in 1d4 hours without intervention. i wouldn’t be too bothered if i can’t swing that, it just makes more sense to me that you can’t straight up die in real life from dream shenanigans. if you can, though, oh well. zenith wouldn’t care if he knew.

notes on how easy/difficult hunting is for zenith based on what stage he’s in:

starter - incredible range, harder to access. the far realm and the material plane are very far away from each other, but zenith can reach it just fine. he has basically free range of the material plane as long as the dreamer’s mind isn’t protected somehow, though it takes him a while to actually get there. he has no idea WHERE in the material plane the dreamer is, he has no reference point, it’s basically just sticking his hand blindly into a bag and wiggling it around until he touches something. if he’s visited a specific dreamer before, he can sometimes find them again if they’re in the same general area, but it’s hard. the real problem that he IS very far away, so while he can find minds pretty easily, actually breaking in is more difficult. the save DC is WIS 19, but the dreamer has advantage even though they’re unconscious. the good thing for zenith here is that if he fails, he has basically unlimited attempts. he just has to find someone else and try again, and keep trying until he gets someone.

split - limited range, easier to access. being in two places fucks him up and severely limits his abilities while he gathers his strength. he can only reach dreamers within a certain range of his actual physical location in the material plane. not sure what’s a reasonable range, but i think it increases as he levels up? lvl 8 zenith might have like... a mile radius? since he’s physically in the material plane he has a general idea of where the dreamers he locates are, like oh they’re that direction near the edge of my reach. he can also find people much quicker than he could when he was fully in the far realm, though he only has a vague concept of that, since time in the far realm is a fucky thing. the save DC at lvl 8 is WIS 15, and i’m unsure whether it’d be a straight roll or at disadvantage b/c unconscious. i’d be good with either. the biggest problem is that zenith can only do this so many times before he tires himself out; he’s already split in two, reaching outside of both bodies when he’s not at full strength is hard. i think at lvl 8 he gets three attempts before he’s gotta stop, and if he fails all three attempts then he just goes hungry that day. attempts reset with a long rest. also, and i’ll touch on this more later, zenith can’t project himself into dreams in his split state, only eat them.

merged - best of both worlds! zenith’s back to being able to reach anyone sleeping on the material plane that doesn’t have their mind protected somehow. again, he only has a general idea of the direction and distance of the dreamer in relation to himself. he can find dreamers he’s visited before a bit easier, though if they wander too far from their previous location it can take a while. since he’s at full strength again AND has the upper hand of being on the plane he’s hunting in, the save DC is WIS 19 and it’s at disadvantage. he’s no longer limited in attempts he can make, though he’s likely to succeed faster anyway.

this is all assuming natural sleep, btw. i imagine someone being under the influence of magical sleep is easier prey. but listen, he might be helping, because when he eats their dream and it hurts them it might wake them up! you’re welcome!!

are people who are resistant or immune to psychic damage harder to break into or do they just take less damage from having their dreams eaten? not sure! i think less/no damage but he can still get ‘em.

if zenith pokes around in the dream first, i feel like there’d be different ways for the dreamer to wake up and spare themself the damage. they could just get scared awake if zenith shows himself/they spot him and they find him scary, or if they’re more lucid and want to get out of the dream they can actively try to wake themself up, or if they’re fully lucid and aware that this is an actual being in their mind they can try to force him out.

not everyone has the option to get scared awake because not everyone would find zenith scary enough to need to make that roll. not sure what kind of roll that would be? maybe another wisdom save? successful save actually keeps you in the dream, failed save wakes you up. DC could be custom for the individual. how scared of monsters are they. zenith can’t do anything about this, if a person is too scared of him he just gets kicked out. it’s one reason why he’s generally pretty friendly when he chats with dreamers; he figures if he’s nice they’ll be less likely to get alarmed enough to force him out. the eyes and the teeth and the claws and the size and the void of him are often too much to be overlooked by some friendly chatter, though shdkfj and like. his true voice can be unsettling to people too so there’s only so much mitigating he can do lmao

for lucid dreaming, i’m thinking there might be a check first to see if the person is aware that they’re dreaming? if they pass, then they get the option to try to wake up if they don’t like what’s going on. probably a wisdom check rather than a save since they’re actively trying to do a thing. not sure what the DC would be, maybe zenith’s save DC (WIS 19) to simplify things, though it could also be custom based on the person. again there’s not much zenith can do about this unless he can tell the person is trying to wake up and he tries to talk them out of it. he doesn’t have control of a person’s mind or body like this, if they’re gonna wake up they’re gonna wake up.

forcing him out of a dream is different matter, though, that zenith can and will fight. as long as the person is asleep, he’s got his claws dug in. i’d imagine it’d be a wisdom contest to force him out. on a success, zenith is kicked out. on a fail, zenith is just mad about it and likely to skip chatting and go straight to eating.

not sure if the difficulty of this wisdom contest would vary based on the stage zenith is in? my instinct is that it doesn’t. he might have to try harder to get into a dream depending on his circumstances, but once he’s in he’s in.

as i mentioned, zenith can only project himself into dreams in the starter or merged states. being split in two is difficult, and he can only stretch himself so thin, and he’s already reaching outside of himself enough as it is just by hunting. he is deeply annoyed by this, because he LIKES looking at people’s dreams! they’re fun to watch, he’s fascinated by them! it’s probably for the best since the longer he lingers the greater his risk of getting kicked out, and in his split state he can only make so many attempts, so he shouldn’t risk it anyway. but listen. it’s the principle of the matter. another upside though is that he doesn’t only get to socialize with material plane denizens through dreams anymore, he can just go anywhere and find them in person if he wants to chat. he misses actually getting to see the dreams, though.

i think when he eats a dream he gets flashes of the emotions tied to it, no visuals or details or anything, just vibes. like without actually seeing the dream he can tell if it was a nightmare, or an anxiety dream, or a happy dream, etc. this is basically the equivalent of different flavors for him.

he gets hints of those vibes when he’s hunting and catches the ‘scent’ of a dream, and can ‘smell’ it stronger if he actually enters the dream because then it’s everywhere. he thinks it’s funny when the flavor changes after a dreamer sees him.

outside of being able to appear in a dream and talk with the dreamer, zenith has no additional control. he can’t shape the dream or have any affect on the dreamer, can’t cast spells there, etc. if he doesn’t share any known languages with the dreamer, he can’t communicate with them either. he also can’t control how he appears to the dreamer beyond the limits of what he can actually do with his body. all he can do is observe, chat, and eat.

in terms of mechanical benefits, zenith doesn’t like... get anything extra from eating dreams. like it’s not that he eats a dream and then gets health from it or anything. it’s just food. he has to eat regularly to avoid the consequences of starving like anything else that eats. he also craves dreams intensely, but that’s just him being Hungry, not him looking for a specific benefit.

tl;dr mechanics summary:

starter - zenith can access any dreaming person who isn’t otherwise protected if they’re on the material plane. the dreamer has to make a wisdom saving throw with advantage (DC 19). on a successful save, zenith is denied access and the dreamer experiences no effect. on a failed save, zenith can chose to eat the dream at any time, causing 1d8 psychic damage and waking the dreamer. if the damage brings the dreamer to 0 HP, they remain unconscious but are stable, and regain 1 HP in 1d4 hours. zenith can also enter the dream to observe it and/or speak to the dreamer. if the dreamer is scared of him, they make a wisdom saving throw (undetermined DC); a failed save wakes them with no damage. if the dreamer is lucid, they can choose to make a wisdom check (DC 19?) to wake up with no damage on a success, or a wisdom contest against zenith to remain asleep and force him out of their mind. zenith can attempt this an unlimited number of times, though he can’t attempt to target the same dreamer if he’s already failed or been booted once by that individual already that day.

split - zenith can access any dreaming person who isn’t otherwise protected if they’re on the material plane and within range (1 mile at lvl 8). the dreamer has to make a wisdom saving throw (?with disadvantage?) (DC 15 at lvl 8). on a successful save, zenith is denied access and the dreamer experiences no effect. on a failed save, zenith can eat the dream, causing 1d8 psychic damage and waking the dreamer. if the damage brings the dreamer to 0 HP, they remain unconscious but are stable, and regain 1 HP in 1d4 hours. zenith can attempt this a limited number of times per long rest (3 at lvl 8), and he can’t attempt to target the same dreamer if he’s already failed once at that individual already that day.

merged - zenith can access any dreaming person who isn’t otherwise protected if they’re on the material plane. the dreamer has to make a wisdom saving throw with disadvantage (DC 19). on a successful save, zenith is denied access and the dreamer experiences no effect. on a failed save, zenith can chose to eat the dream at any time, causing 1d8 psychic damage and waking the dreamer. if the damage brings the dreamer to 0 HP, they remain unconscious but are stable, and regain 1 HP in 1d4 hours. zenith can also enter the dream to observe it and/or speak to the dreamer. if the dreamer is scared of him, they make a wisdom saving throw (undetermined DC); a failed save wakes them with no damage. if the dreamer is lucid, they can choose to make a wisdom check (DC 19?) to wake up with no damage on a success, or a wisdom contest against zenith to remain asleep and force him out of their mind. zenith can attempt this an unlimited number of times, though he can’t attempt to target the same dreamer if he’s already failed or been booted once by that individual already that day.

#zenith tag

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spencerscoven · 3 years

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— dreams of another

about ; Since that night in the office you wander onto Spencer’s mind at all times, like clockwork.

gif by saramichellesgeller

CONTENT WARNING: unedited, smut, oral sex (male&female receiving), choking, unprotected sex, cheating, angst

a/n: view part 1 here.

The second time it happens, it's only a week that passes before Spencer finds himself on the floor of the humid conference room, his limbs entangled with yours, while the cool air settles on the sheen of sweat coated on his forehead. In the corner of of the room, he watches the navy blouse discarded carelessly on the top of a chair, similar in color to the marks between your breast.

The third time it happens, he tells you it's the last time, with his back facing you and his eyes gazing at entirely nothing.

The fourth and fifth time, Spencer doesn't say anything in the tiny space of your bedroom as he overlooks the buildings surrounding your apartment, then all the way to the concrete foundation down below, studying how insignificant everyone looked. How unknowing they were to the moral wrongdoings happening all around them.

"You live so high up. I live four floors down from here in my own building." You listened as he said those fruitless words.

"What does that mean?" You questioned, lips pursing together while your finger nails caught on the creases of the cream duvet beneath you where he laid only minutes before.

“People like you are meant to fuck people like me.” He mumbles, smirking, the vibrations of his voice upheld by the enclosures of cheap plaster walls.

The only thing left to do was to watch as the muscles of his back contracted, dancing in the lines of the darkness with the patter of his feet coming towards you. You monitored the direction of his hand as it reached for the band of his briefs, the other already latched around your neck.

The sixth time it happens, it’s in the bounds of his own apartment where he presses peppery kisses along the sides of your face, assuring you in confidence that she wouldn’t catch the two of you there. And he reassures you the only way he knows how, his fingers plying at your zipper and kneeling like he would at an alter, guiding the arch of your hips closer.

Two weeks from then was when the phone calls started. You began to understand the pattern, laying awake until the sweet pinnacle of dawn where he’d whisper your name through the receiver, exhaustion tainted in Spencer’s voice when he’d ask, “how was your night?” before he began to speak. You’d listen to Spencer talk about the good and the bad. About his mother, vintage cufflinks, and the bookshelf he wanted. Sometimes about the glasses or earrings in the store had reminded him of you. Often about how pretty you looked latched onto his cock. You wanted him to want to keep you.

You wanted him to want you first, to touch you before you even had to lay a finger on him, to grab the back of your neck and kiss you first. Anything he could do to prove that he wanted this too. Something in your head told you it was wrong to long for such a furtive thing. But you found yourself willing to be second best anyways, head stuck below sub zero while you prioritized the taste of his lips along with everything else that made him, him.

So in the shadows this thing between the two of you remained.

And the team began to realize Spencer now had a thing with being late.

They also began to realize that you didn’t drink nearly enough coffee to warrant all of your disappearances.

JJ malignly embarked on the observation of the two of you during meetings, where you never met Spencer’s eye properly but unconsciously leaned your body towards him with each interaction. And all at once it made sense to her, why he was more drawn to his phone, departing from bed at night in preference of hushed ringtones, his growing fondness to late nights. They had never agreed to a proclamation of love, not even on the days she relaxed on his dingy apartment furniture. JJ figured it was his way of waiting on her to feel the same as he might’ve, when in reality it was Spencer’s way of making sure you still remained in his life.

It was a Tuesday when she let the structure of your sin unravel in the bleak corner of the hallway with Spencer, confessing “i know” and chastening him,

“How many people are you willing to hurt?”

With the unequivocal decision pinned to the front of his brain, Spencer told you he didn’t want to hurt anyone else during the last call the two of you shared at night. The words became lost from your ears as you feigned deafness, thinking about how stupid you were to take him in the only way you could, thinking one-third of him be adequate enough.

So you hung up before he said goodbye, and it was easy to do solely because if love couldnt suffice, hate would have to.

It was odd to overlook the call that came immediately after, your eyes unblinking at the white screen. The weeks after that only came to demonstrate that finding a home within someone was overrated, even if you knew who was behind the blocked numbers that caused your phone to viberate so often it would fall off your nightstand.

Little by little you figured you’d forget and move onto your own devices, exhausted by the ability that you still moved through life, yet experienced none of it without itching for him next to you. You lusted after the idea you’d wake up with the intensity of it all slipped from your mind, forgetting how his arms felt, skin, pulse, the sound of his voice, or the soft ringlets of his hair that continued to grow as you wilted.

A harder idea to get out of your head was if he was okay, followed by if he ever thought of you at the same time you thought of him. Did he know you wouldn’t have minded resigning to another team? Or that you considered doing it, even now?

Spencer spectated your life, the base of his throat becoming caught when he watched you get worse, speak less, become smaller. You’d shrunken within yourself. Months passed, with him having too many inquiries about you to Morgan, who always gave him a disappointing look, but told him about you each time. That you hadn’t been sleeping, internal clock stuck on keeping you up until the crack of dawn, your mind regressing backwards solely because of him. He gave up on leaving those stupid sticky notes in your books that said “call me!” or even the ones that asked if you were okay, asking if you able to stand on your own.

He watched you so long that he began to see you get better, more social as you expanded, becoming a part of the team again. You were different, but you were you again. It was a bitter pill to swallow when he took heed that your life no longer included him, keeping his lips sealed at any revelation that would show he was still devoted.

So it was dull-witted when he found himself outside the door of your apartment, swaying back and fourth because every night since the last call his world had been spinning faster and faster, trapping him inside as a prisoner. For weeks straight Spencer had awoken with the feeling of bile ready to rise out of his throat, your presence always lacking even if you controlled the beat of his heart.

He knocked. And thought about how angelic you looked when you answered, the confused expression not going unnoticed by him as a celebration sounded somewhere in his mind because you looked as if you weren’t expecting anyone else. And Spencer knows he’d collapse right then and there if you had been.

“I’ve been thinking— it’s not like I can really stop it— for months. It’s been around sixty eight days since we last spoke,” He began, taking you in, enstilling trust in his brain to get a photo of you so well that he could have it forevermore if you didn’t want him anymore. If that had ever been the case he’d leave. He’d leave the state if you asked him to.

“Why are you here?” You only had four words to say out loud, the rest buzzing around in your head safely, unauthorized to rise out of your throat.

“We never really said anything about it but I think we both knew how we felt.” Spencer leans closer just in time for his lips to land beside your ears, lighting a match inside your chest that had stayed extinguished for far too long.

“Speaking was never our strong suit, anyway.” You replied, your lips pursed while your arms took on a defensive stance, pushing him back gently.

You were shipwrecked inside, pushing him back again, this time firmly because you knew you couldn’t stop him from coming closer, even if you wanted to. You were at a standstill as his hands brought yours to his shoulders, drawing circles on your hip with the tips of his fingers. He was in your doorway asking if he was yours, not trying to eloquently wrap you around his finger.

Your limbs acted before your mind did, digits moving across his adam’s apple and holding tight, restricting his airflow like he had done to you so many times while he fucked you into the mattress. You gleamed at him with not much in your eyes, trying to remembering when you had tried to cross the thin line between love and hate for him. Spencer’s eyes were soft and adoring, a look which he had a tendency to give you. So you held tighter. And he did nothing, knowing you wouldn’t go far but willing to die in your hands if you truly wanted to.

“I don’t know if you deserve this anymore,” Your lips ghosted over his, reprimanding him that he’d forgotten that this had began in a game of adultery.

“I don’t.” Spencer’s voice came out as if he was parched and you had been refusing him of a drink. Your hands released his neck and instead grabbed at his jaw, allowing his lips to mend together with yours, unable to speak back.

“If I loved you any less, I’d be able to talk about it more.” He pulled away just enough to whisper those words.

“You love me?” You questioned, a bit timid in the way it came out.

“It’s more than that. I adore you. Worship, even.”

You felt yourself moving the both of you into your apartment, swapping the publicity of the hallway for the privacy closely afforded to you. Your bodies only got so far, pushing each other against the wall next to the enterence, Spencer’s hands helping to arch your body into his, hands pressing down the curve of your back.

You enjoyed feeling him subtly grind his hips against you while he let out little whimpers, remembering the way he was so vocal and sensitive, yet dominant when he laid between your legs. You drew in a quick breath as he bit down on your bottom lip hard enough to draw the red liquid that ran through your body, conflicted as to why it only drew you closer, want intensified.

“I missed you so much,” Spencer’s voice ghosted in the crook of your neck, kissing and sucking along your throat and collarbones, pushing the palm of his hand harshly against your damp cotton underwear, drawing a shiver from you. “Are lilacs still favorite flowers?”

His fingers played along your slit, the pads of his thumb pressing on your clit and rotating above the fabric, watching your hips jerk from the subtle pleasure.

“I think you missed me too,” Spencer held you, switching places so you now were encased between him and the wall, knowing that soon enough your knees wouldn’t be able to hold you up. His index and middle finger filled you up in a way only he could, the tips of them curving in his direction as he hit the bumpy ridge inside of you.

You held his shoulder, uncaring that your nails dug into the expensive button up he wore, admiring that he always preferred quality over quantity. Your face contorted in pleasure as his fingers only pumped faster inside of your vagina, only smirking at the sorry attempt of a nod you gave to answer him because he had rendered you speechless.

You felt the climb of your orgasm rise in your stomach, reaching all the way to the rest of your limbs, making them feel as if they were just static attached to your body until his fingers ceased, sensing how you clenched around them desperately. Your mouth opened, protests ready to fall out while he grasped the back of your knees, signaling you to jump so he could carry you to your bedroom.

“Why are you always such a tease?” You groaned, endearingly grabbing the hair at the nape of his neck.

“I can’t just let your greedy pussy swallow my fingers and cum from just that...” he tosses you into your sheets gently, leaning down to take your top off and throwing it somewhere to be rediscovered again.

He watches silently as you lift your hips off the mattress, panties sliding down your calves to your ankles, and finally off. Spencer gazes down at you, your jaw in his two hands, staring up with puppy eyes. He let a line of swears spring from his mouth, wondering why you looked so innocent when your hands were planted on his hips, licking the precum that made a wet patch on the side of his pants.

“Quite unfair that I’m the only one with my clothes off, don’t you think?” Your hands settled on his belt buckle, the jingle of metal filling the room as you undid the button to his slacks as well. Tugging him by the band of his boxers to lay on the bed with you, Spencer caught the cue and laid against the headboard. He trailed his left hand along your thighs, lifting you to straddle him as his right latched onto your breasts, squeezing.

“Please sit,” He said, taking a nipple into his mouth, “On my face.”

You sat in a slightly worried daze, Spencer catching the clue to just move you into the position. You found yourself facing the mirror at the foot of your bed, your ass in his face as he grabbed at your hips, trying to bring you higher and get a taste.

“Are you sure?” You apprehensively twisted your torso to eye him, taking note that the two of you had came across something you’d quite done before.

“Yes, I need you to.” Spencer reached his arm around, gently rubbing your clit, and feeling how your whole body relaxed from above him, as he repeated affirmations against your back.

You watched from the mirror, your ass propped up in his face and lips swollen. You could even see when you began the swivel of your hips into him. He didn’t need to say much else before you arched your back, planting your pussy right above his lips.

“You’re so pretty.” He whispered, before running his tongue flatly against your pussy.

Your hips jerked back and fourth, riding on the surface of his tongue that enveloped your clit, sucking on it harshly until he flatly ran it up. His fingers were back at work, touching the places where his tongue couldn’t reach. You determined that this position was now one of your favorites, your hands that were once placed on the tops of his thighs reaching for the bludge in his boxers.

You tried pulling them just far enough so you could begin to run your hands up and down his cock. Spencer’s tongue only assaulted your clit harder when you leaned down, allowing him a new angle so you could push him into your mouth, collecting the precum that had spilt, humming in delight.

Spencer couldn’t stop the thrusting of his hips upwards, burying himself deeper down your throat, both of your moans viberating off the atoms in your room. Your eyes wandered up as you watched, hypnotized at the reflection of you two. It made you wanna take his dick deeper, taking him to the back of your throat as you felt his cum ripple out.

Your orgasm only took a few more seconds to follow his, your moan muffled from your jaw expanded around his cock. Your hasty breaths harbored his while you saw stars. You were casted out of your stupor when you felt the palm of his hand rub circles into your ass, hand coming down in a smack.

“This fucking pussy has me whipped.” Spencer sighed, pressing a kiss exactly where his hand last struck.

When you positioned yourself back across his abdomen, you kneeled, kissing him. You felt him twitch under you from tasting himself on your tongue, reaching down to line up his cock to enter you.

Spencer stared up at you, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of you slowly descending your pussy on his cock. His hands traced the hickies that dawned on your chest, then to his on his lower stomach, watching how the two of you connected. These were marks of possession— ones that he could finally show off.

You rolled your hips against his, slowly circling them and allowing him to hit the most sensitive parts of you. You felt so much fuller than usual, the feeling taking your breath away. Nobody else could reach those heights that Spencer gave you. Maybe it was also because nobody else could occupy your mind like he could, either.

He pulled you down so the two of you could reunite your lips, wearing away at the callouses that had formed around your heart. His thumb drew slow circles on your clit, pulling your orgasm out so you could cum above him. It took a few more thrusts before he came inside you, continuing to fuck his seed back into you from below for just a while longer. When Spencer’s hips stilled, he kept inside, basking in the embodiment of you that wholly consumed him.

He silently traced the outlines of your features, your eye lids fluttering as he reached to them. His fingernails scratched your scalp im a rythem that lulled you into hazy exhaustion. You feel his stare on your face as it occurs to him that he was doomed from the start. You were a wonder to behold.

“Spencer?”

“Yes?”

“Did you forget all of the things I remember?”

“I don’t think I could even if I tried.”

masterlist

#spencerscoven #spencer reid #criminal minds fic #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #mgg #matthew gray gubler #spencer reid x reader #angst #bau #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfic

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bastillia · 4 years

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Innocuous (NSFW)

Read on Ao3

Summary: You’re a medical officer aboard the Steadfast, and you’ve found yourself caring for a gravely injured Kylo Ren. He seems to require some unconventional treatment.

Rating: Extremely Explicit

Words: 7.5k

Content warnings: Somewhat graphic depictions of injury, wound/bloodplay, burnplay, oral bloodplay, oral sex (f recieving), orgasm denial/delay, choking, inappropriate use of the Force (and of a medical device oops), rough sex, extremely minimal aftercare, Kylo Ren is a nasty fucking boy, LISTEN this gets a lil dark ok, so just please consider before clicking ok tysm

A/N: I scrapped and restarted this whole thing at least twice, but we finally got there my friends. Is this over the top? Maybe. Do I have a single regret? No. Please heed the content warnings, you may have a bad day if you don’t. This is pure unadulterated filth. Enjoy!

Strips of fluorescent light ribbed the vacant hall, white beams streaking reflections across the glossy black floor like a frozen lane of hyperspace as the urgent click of your boots perturbed the calm. The corridors of the Steadfast were all but barren this time of cycle, only disturbed by the occasional patrol of noc shift troopers trudging mechanically in unison. Devoid of the usual bustle of footsteps and orders, the static hum from the ship’s walls washed the air with a bassy din of ambient noise that might be calming, were your heartbeat not adding an anxious percussion to the silence.

You really had no reason to be awake, you should have taken your sleeping aid hours ago, but the endless scroll of patient files on your datapad had kept you up just long enough to see the alarm flash. Hardly a momentary blip, but the peculiarity of it was what propelled you from your quarters and heated your step with urgency now. Medical Bay: Intake - Officer’s Ward, it had flashed, and then disappeared just as quickly.

Tapping the access pad that led to the sequestered corridor, you waited for the door to slide open and slipped through. Needles crawled up your spine as your gaze shifted around the familiar yet eerily still hallway, which was making you nervous now for absolutely no reason. Each private room should be empty, you knew you hadn’t checked any officers in for overnight care, and you could recite your inpatient registry as if it were etched into the backs of your eyelids. Droids didn’t typically throw faulty alarms -- maybe your eyes had simply deceived you after a long and fucking exhausting day of post-mission damage control in the med bay. Echoes of that exhaustion now placed a terror within each shadowed room that you passed, something that your brain was convinced would surely jump out at you.

You stopped dead as you reached the final door, half-hoping this one was your imagination. He was still. Too still. Limbs sprawling over the edges of the cot, with haphazard bandages crossing his bare torso aimlessly. They were visibly soaked through with blood, contrasting the blanched sheen of sweat-drenched skin, a black mop of hair askew over the pillow.

A violent spike of dread lanced down your spine. You darted into the room, your medical instincts hot-starting and roaring in your eardrums as you alighted upon him with gentle precision. Two fingers flashed to the pulse point at his neck, depressing the slick, hot skin there as your frantic eyes fell to the broad rise of his chest. Pulse. Breathing. Both too shallow and fast, but present, thank the stars.

You released the held breath that was starting to burn your lungs. The alarm. What had sent it? You glanced around. Monitor wires lay scattered over the floor around the metal feet of the bed, not a single one connected. A fizzling noise behind you nearly snapped your neck as you whipped around. A nurse droid lay lifeless, crumpled and sparking against the far wall.

Oh.

You turned slowly back to the unconscious Supreme Leader, fear trickling coldly down your veins in a moment of consideration. He’d wanted to be alone.

Your mind suddenly supplied you with an image of yourself in place of the droid, bones crunched like scrap metal against the wall, eyes glazed, life flickering and dying in the fried wires of your veins. How easy it would be -- effortless, even -- For him to crush the life out of you with little more than a flick of his wrist. How… maybe that knowledge made you tingle, just a little.

You derailed that train of thought with a sharp shake of your head as your eyes flicked across his battered torso and up the column of his neck, settling on the tranquility of his face. Bruised and bloody as it was, he looked… peaceful. Freckles and moles dusting his skin like starry kisses to soothe the ache of battle. His features, always chiseled from the sternest isoform of marble, now softened in sleep. Suspended in a paradoxical state of youthful serenity even as his body worked in overdrive just to tether him to life. He was… just a man. And he was absolutely beautiful.

Maybe you stared at him, just a little longer than you should, before committing to your courage and snatching an antiseptic cloth. If one of you was going to die, at least you were the more replaceable option. And this was what you’d signed up for, wasn’t it? To serve the First Order, even perhaps at the expense of your life. For… the greater good, or something. Yeah. Higher purpose and all that. You were a good medic, and good medics were selfless. It definitely wasn’t because you, perhaps, didn’t mind entertaining the thought of those large hands around your neck, squeezing...

Fucking focus.

Expertly, delicately, you began to peel back the blood-soaked evidence of his attempt to self-bandage, baring the flesh of his torso. Stars, he was magnificent. Glistening skin lay taut over lean muscle, a finely-tuned war machine sculpted by years of hard training, evident even in the depths of sleep. The subtle ripple of his muscles expanding and contracting with each breath spread that insistent tingle through your lower belly as you meticulously swiped the blood and sweat from his body.

Your hands danced to the pace of your heartbeat. Quick and steady, as you tossed the cloth and fitted a needle onto a syringe tip. A light pinch of his skin here, so that he wouldn't feel the prick of the shot there. Pure habit, not that a small needle stick would hold a candle to his injuries in terms of pain. But you didn’t really want him waking up just yet. You pushed the plunger down to administer a microdose of bacta. Just enough to hotwire the healing process, without dulling sensation.

You'd mused privately to yourself on more than one occasion, that you thought he liked to feel the pain. Whether it was a show of control, or an exercise in self-punishment, you couldn’t say. But you'd learned early on, working here, never to bring a pain suppressant around the former Commander.

Maybe no one else had ever picked up on that, because it seemed you were the only person he ever allowed near him with a bandage. You didn't mind. Nor did you mind the way his eyes always followed you quietly as you worked, as you'd gently cleanse his wounds from the battles and conquests that he fearlessly led as the new Supreme Leader of the First Order. You certainly liked him better than the last one. You thought maybe Ren even liked the way your fingers would subtly worship his figure with every quiet and efficient pass of gauze. Maybe he knew where those fingers ended up later. Sick bastard. A smirk tugged the corner of your lip.

His arm was hanging over the edge of the cot, a cautery pen still held loosely in his bloodied fingers. You sighed, removing the device, and picked his arm up to lay it neatly by his side. The weight of it caught your breath in your chest, the solid and heavy cord of muscle dwarfing your hands.

You quickly shook away the distraction, seating yourself on the bedside stool and turning to your most immediate concern: The deep, ripped laceration that bled from his lower abdomen. Vibroblade, you’d wager. It was oozing around the half-cauterized flesh, ugly and red from where he'd clearly begun to try and solder himself shut. You gently placed the cauterizer on the bedside stand. A crude tactic, and not one you would settle for, you decided as you retrieved a sterile suture pouch instead. Preparing another antiseptic cloth and gauze for the blood, you hovered back over the wound.

A realization started to echo along the tunnel of your focus, and the walls crashed away with a thump of your heart as you stared at Ren's flank beneath you, where his breathing had notably deepened and steadied. Your hands froze as your eyes shifted up the planes of his torso, cold spines gouging your chest as you reached his face. His eyes were open, fixed calmly upon your own stare, a flush restored to his full, pouted lips. Ice shattered in your veins.

"S-supreme Leader, I-” You dropped your materials onto the mattress, “You- you want to b-be alone, I'll j-just-" you were stammering, pushing your seat back, brain vibrating with panic. This was it. You escaped now, or you were joining the droid.

You made it about halfway to standing when a hand cinched on your wrist, arresting your movement. Your breath halted as you snapped back around, your heartbeat slamming in your throat.

Something boiled up behind his irises then, trapped so fiercely under the tempered surface of his eyes that his jaw locked tight and his chin quivered slightly with the strain of it. Your brain began to scramble. The look held an unmistakable need, a plea that said, so deafening in its silence, Stay.

You carefully held his gaze as you began to sink back down onto the small seat beside the bed. Your hand was trembling under his grip, every drop of air evaporating in your lungs as his pleading eyes burned through you. You slowly let yourself sit until your weight rested fully on the stool again.

Ren’s body slackened, releasing the air back into the room, and his head dropped back onto the thin pillow in a flutter of raven locks. His eyes drifted shut as a breath rolled through his nose and deep into his chest.

His grip had eased around your wrist, enough for your brain to now register the pleasant warmth of his enormous hand as it softly enveloped the lower part of your forearm. The sensation dumbfounded you for a moment as you stared between your arm and your Supreme Leader's face. The muscles in his brow twitched over his closed eyes as several more controlled breaths seemed to forcibly banish something from his body.

You came back to yourself as a trickle of dark blood drew your gaze back down to his abdomen, where it painted a river over bruised flesh before falling down his side to soak crimson sunbursts into the white sheet. You cautiously twisted your wrist free, and he let his hand drop softly back to the sheet without resistance. Hesitantly, you ran a hand across his skin, next to the gaping wound, inspecting the separated flesh. Firm muscles bunched under your touch, tugging at the ragged edges and inspiring another pulse of fresh red. You studied his face as his lashes lifted open again to meet your eyes. It took you a moment to find your breath.

"I... need to close this," you breathed, tracing a featherlight and completely instinctive touch of reassurance over his intact skin near the wound. He chewed the inside of his lip.

"Do it."

Your belly fluttered at the low command, his eyes never wavering from your gaze. You swallowed. Standing slowly to bend over his abdomen, you studied the open section of the wound. The edges were relatively clean, and it didn't look like the blade had made it deep enough to hit anything vital. The bleeding was nasty though, despite your meticulous cleaning job. His skin here would naturally be taut over firm abdominal muscles, a high tension area, you noted. You’d need to place dermal sutures if you wanted them to hold. Your brow knitted in preemptive sympathy.

“This is going to hurt.” You muttered.

Well, perhaps that was obvious. But stitching up conscious patients was not exactly your area of expertise, so maybe in a way, you were preparing yourself more than him. You were surprised at how well you managed to withhold the tremor from your hands as you quickly cleaned the wound again. It steeled your resolve slightly.

You tossed the soaked gauze, and plucked a curved needle and sinewy thread from the sterile bag. You readied your hand over the cleansed wound and flashed your gaze up to Kylo Ren’s eyes, waiting for... well, you didn’t know. Any kind of final approval or declination, maybe. He said nothing, but his eyes burned you steadily as his jaw locked in place, making the tightness in your chest flutter and twist. Swallowing, you turned back to the half-closed gash. You quickly threaded the first set-back stitch with nimble precision, and tugged the edges closed.

Ren’s muscles locked up with a full-body grunt, and a broad hand shot up from where it lay on the bed to grip the inside curve of your thigh. A jolt leapt through your body, setting your heart at a wild pace. Surely that was just a reflex. Surely he would let go. Blinking, you tried to find the voice in your chest.

"You… you have to r-relax." It came out more breathless than you intended as you fumbled only slightly with tying and cutting the thread. You paused to steady yourself, ignoring how warm your skin felt under his hand. A deep breath rolled through the Supreme Leader, and to your utmost shock, his core slackened obediently.

His hand did not leave your thigh. You took a breath and forced yourself to continue, fingers curling to pierce and thread the next suture through the tender, deep layer of skin. A lower, longer vibration left Ren’s nose as his large fingers gripped tighter into the soft pillow of your flesh. Your breath came shallow as your brain ignited, trying not to file that noise away under the category of pleasure. No. Stop that. You refused to indulge the thought, or the warmth that it shot through your lower body, as you refocused on your work.

You fixed your eyes firmly on your target, not letting yourself meet his gaze again. The next few sutures were accompanied by sounds from Ren that you diligently ignored. If you acknowledged what they sounded like, your focus would be obliterated. It already half was. But the growing hum at the apex of your thighs could not be indulged, could not break your concentration, even if it was just above where his hand… Oh.

Oh.

His thumb traced the slowest line along the crease of your groin.

It was impossible not to notice the stiffness that was beginning to tent his pants, close to where your face hovered over his lower abdomen. A shiver caressed your spine at the sight, as all of the heat in your body began to gravitate to the heartbeat in your cunt. You swallowed thickly. Stars help you, the sight of him. Supreme Leader Kylo fucking Ren, laying underneath you, his cock getting hard as you caused him excruciating pain. And you… you fucking... liked it.

His hand shifted then, sliding upwards to press a single, precise stroke along the concealed line of your heat. “Oh-” The soft moan came unwillingly from the bottom of your chest, and you braced one hand out on the mattress as your knees turned to liquid. Your body responded so automatically that it made your head spin, your thighs shifting wider, inviting his touch. You could have passed out when he curled his hand to pet another slow stripe over your clothed slit.

Panting now, you lifted a pleading stare to meet his eyes. They were hooded black vats of desire, and your heart dropped right through your cervix as they drank you in. Your face tingled hot. Your brain wobbled along the line between finishing your task, and the primal need that was erupting through your belly. Either way, you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him to stop.

“Supreme Le-”

"Off." He interrupted lowly, pinching at the fabric of your pants. You weren't sure why you obeyed so fucking immediately, but before you could think, your thumbs were hooking into your waistband, and then you were stepping out of your boots, trousers, and underwear, kicking them carelessly across the floor. The tails of your white coat tickled your exposed skin as you positioned yourself back over his wound, wet cunt bared and leaking down your thighs. Cheeks burning with a heat that reached all the way down to your chest, you pointedly avoided his eyes. You tried to steady your hands, and you swore you could feel his gaze stoking a wildfire at your core. You swallowed, staring detachedly at your fingers.

No, the medic instinct in you wouldn’t allow you to leave your work half finished. If you had the wherewithal to think about it, you might have concluded that he knew this, but that didn’t mean he would hold back in making it as difficult as possible for you now that you were, well, in this state. Taking a breath, you threaded another stitch. This time he shamelessly groaned, and his fingers slipped easily through the silky heat of your slit. You gasped, almost doubling over again as you tied off the suture.

You finally looked at him. His nostrils were flared and his throat bobbed, as he watched his own long fingers collect the wetness that leaked from your core. Pleasure and shame waged war across your skin, and your knees went weak as he met your eyes again.

“Keep going,” he stated calmly, gesturing with only his eyes towards the wound that was now nearly shut.

“Fuck,” you whispered, eliciting a hiss of breath from the Supreme Leader as his fingers passed in a slow arc around the top of your stiff clit.

How you managed it, you had no idea, but in very little time you were looping the last thread over itself, tightening it, and cutting. You blinked, looking back along the neat line of sutures as Ren continued idly stroking at your slit, sending shocks down to your toes.

“D-done.” You stammered as you shuffled your supplies together and started to step back.

With a flash of rippling muscle, Ren sat up and captured the back of your neck, pulling you in just inches from the strong curve of his nose. Your materials clattered to the floor as your legs nearly buckled from the sudden weight of his proximity, his gaze pitching you in an inky black tide of lust.

“Gentle little thing,” he pondered, running a thumb under your jaw. Your lungs simply didn’t function any more, you decided, as heat chased the air from the bottom of your bronchioles and out into the space between you. “I’ve wondered about you.”

Your voice hiccuped dumbly in your chest. “Ab-bout me, S-supreme Lead- oh.” Your question hung unfinished from your slack jaw as the pad of his finger shifted wetly across your clit, shooting a liquid flame up your spine that burst in your brain.

“Mm,” he supplied in acknowledgement, his lust-blackened gaze all but swallowing you whole. “Such a pretty thing...” Heat flowered in your cheeks again. “So unassuming.” He slid two fingers down your slick folds towards your entrance, and the delicate stem of a whimper crawled from your throat.

“You want to let go.” He stated in a deep, near-whisper. “Don’t lie to yourself, officer, I can feel your need for it.” You shuddered. Absolutely you wanted to let go. You wanted to do a lot of things, but mostly anything that would elicit those sounds that he was making before, while you punctured his dermis with a curved fucking needle.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” Your voice seemed far away in your own ears.

The hand around the back of your neck curled slowly until it tightened into the hair follicles at your nape, and the pinpricks sent a thrilling voltage through your nerves that made you gasp.

"Just as I thought," he hummed, the smallest hint at a smirk twitching on the corner of his mouth. “Your desires are far from innocuous.” The lust that thickened his voice had you clenching.

He held your hair tightly, the pain scraping down your spine and feeding heat into the coiling, writhing need that hummed above your thighs. He began to lean back and pull you with him, until you had to shuffle your knee onto the mattress to keep from falling. His hand abandoned the wet heat between your legs, and a solid arm slid impatiently around your waist instead, pulling your hips firmly over him until you straddled his lap on the generous cot.

The feeling of his clothed, straining cock nestling against your folds chased a whine over your lips, and Ren caught it in its tracks, drinking down the sound as his plush lips claimed your open mouth. Fire exploded through your body and your hands flew to his chest, sliding up over hot, bruised skin until your nails were dragging up his neck and into the inky softness of his hair. A deep growl quaked in his chest and his tongue slid greedily across the roof of your mouth, coaxing your jaw wider for him.

You felt his hands slide to grasp the lapels of your coat and yank them over your shoulders. With a thrill of excitement, you threw your arms back to allow him to shuck the garment roughly from your body. Your shirt followed over your head, forcing you to surface from the depths of the kiss with a vulgar wet sound. The second you were free, his massive hand trapped your wrists behind your back, and you gasped at the sudden feeling of immobility. Kylo Ren pinned you under his dark gaze, pulling your arms to arch your back and press your tits up towards him, his eyes devouring the bareness of you that he displayed for himself.

Then he lunged. His hot mouth latched into your neck and worked down to your chest, his strong grip arching you further until his lips pursed around your pebbled nipple. Your jaw fell open in a gasp as he slid his tongue across the bud and drew it between his teeth, pinching just hard enough to leave it aching, and mirrored the action on your other breast. He hummed as he moved back up to lick wet, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, sliding along your skin until you felt hot breath flood the sensitive hollow of your ear.

“I wonder how you taste, pretty thing.”

The sound that left you was fucking obscene, his words dissolving every bone in your body. You instinctually ground down on his swollen cock, seeking pressure lest your cunt actually rupture with need.

He began to lay back, his hands releasing your wrists, and your strained muscles flooded with relief. Clutching your thighs, he pulled your hips insistently to follow his face back to the head of the cot. A nervous tremor wracked you as he guided your thighs over his shoulders, the realization crashing over you all at once. You were about to sit on the face of the most dangerous man in the fucking galaxy. He closed his eyes and pressed his nose to your mons, inhaling deeply and releasing a growling moan that vibrated right up your body.

A deep magenta bruise flowered his temple and cheekbone, decorating the seam where the flesh of your thigh now ended and his face began. Your core clenched in anxious anticipation, and he turned his face to sink his teeth into the tender flesh of your thigh. Remnants of fear were still paralyzing your chest, but the bolt of pain that flashed up your body pierced through it and into your brain for a moment of blissful clarity. You moaned as you suddenly registered just how much pulsing heat was settling inside your walls, aching now to be soothed by his tongue. He ran his hands down your sides and gripped your hips, and he leveled a dark look up at you that liquefied your bones.

"Please…" you began to whisper.

In a flash, he took your hands and pinned them to the small of your back, then thrust his warm, flat tongue against your cunt with a low groan. Your mouth fell open in a silent cry as he licked a wide stroke up the length of your slit, parting your folds and dragging the flat of his tongue across your swollen nub. Tingling pleasure erupted through your lower body, the feeling of him warm and divine and utterly unbelievable. He moved slowly, almost lazily, lost in the taste and scent of you as he began to work that beautiful mouth over every inch of your cunt.

You shifted your hips in desperation, trying to ride his face and gain more friction on the ache that was coiling in your clit, but he locked your arms up roughly, immobilizing you with one of his huge hands around both of your wrists. You whined and he resumed his torturous pace, lapping at you indulgently, rolling his nose across your clit, building a hot pressure in your core that cried painfully for release.

When his lips finally pursed around your bud, his tongue sliding across it in a way that shot light behind your retinas, it was enough to send you reeling. “Oh, fuck-” you groaned as you felt your orgasm start to pull up tight and hot, your body desperately grasping at its relief. But then it was plateauing, ebbing, as he slowed and slid his silky tongue away from that epicenter of pleasure.

“No, pl-please, please--” you wailed as you felt your impending orgasm slip away down your spine.

Ignoring you, Ren closed his eyes and swallowed with a grunt, sucking down the arousal that had gushed from your entrance, and you felt it travel through his whole body as he went rigid. He shuddered in consummate pleasure then, and your brain suddenly shifted from grieving your denied orgasm to wondering where his other hand might be. You imagined it wrapped around his own cock, and the thought tightened heat around your spine.

You craned a glance over your shoulder, but the sight that met you paralyzed your brain. His cock was free of his trousers, beautifully hard and leaking a bead of precum onto his stomach, untouched. His fingers were instead plunged into the neat line of sutures that studded his low abdomen, fresh crimson welling around his pressure-whitened fingertips as his body trembled. A protest shot instinctively through your chest.

“Don’t-”

Two huge hands hooked over your thighs, smearing you with red, and yanked your ass back onto the warm, broad expanse of his chest, cutting off your objection with a breathy yelp. You had little time to bemoan the absence of his mouth at your center before your world was spinning, as Ren flipped you underneath him in a shockingly strong, fluid motion that inverted your senses.

You flailed an arm behind you for balance, but before you could get your bearings, he was hauling you effortlessly down the thin mattress by your hips. A squeak escaped you as your shoulders met linen, and then you were wailing as he devoured you again, his eager tongue sliding hot and heavily down your folds.

He groaned and slipped two blood-drenched fingers into you, pumping and scissoring them slowly as he massaged your clit with his mouth. Shock and pleasure quaked in equal magnitude through your body, every instinct clashing in a spectacular array as your brain fought against itself. You wanted to be horrified, sickened even, but every nerve ending was screaming in nothing but wretched liberation.

In a wash of euphoria, you submitted to it, let your fingers find and lock into his sweat-dampened hair, let yourself sigh and clench around his warm, wet digits as they stroked against something devastating inside of you. He built you up like this again, higher, tighter, but before you could reach the apex of that perfect ache, just when you were whimpering with the promise of shattering into bliss, something began to coil around your spine. An invisible force -- the Force -- squeezing dark numbness down every nerve below your lumbar spine.

No, no, fuck. Tears rushed to your eyes and you choked out a sob, as you trembled in excruciating bereavement. Your wrists were wrenched to your side and tacked to the bed with that same invisible power while Ren continued to indulge himself in your numb cunt, sucking and lapping steadily at your wet heat. Your insides blazed with need and neglect as you watched him slide his fingers out of you and into his mouth, humming in satisfaction as he savored the mixture of his blood and your slick. That was it. You couldn’t keep quiet.

“Kylo, please-”

His eyes locked onto yours, lips still pursed around his fingers. You did not mean to call him that. You quailed suddenly, in your state of helplessness, at the sight of the large man as he began to crawl over you. He kicked off his trousers, looming until you were caged underneath his powerful body and staring helplessly up into the wicked excitement that roiled in his irises.

“Poor, poor thing,” He taunted as an electric current of sensation shot back down your legs, causing you to yelp. His hips rocked to part your slit with the velvety weight of his cock, his swollen and weeping head dragging moisture across your clit as it tingled with renewed feeling.

“So desperate to cum that you’d forget all respect for me.” The words dripped from his lips to pour over your neck as he nipped above your clavicle, seeping into your blood and heating it tenfold. He felt heavy and inviting and perfect, and you clutched your nails sharply into his sides as a crippling wave of need crashed down your spine. He hissed in a breath, letting it out in a nearly inaudible “Fuck.”

A tear spilled down your cheekbone. He was right, you were absolutely fucking desperate, coiled painfully tight after being ripped back from the edge twice. This was his particular brand of mutual torture, denying your release and losing himself in his pain. You needed to do something, anything, to fracture that infuriating, adamantine control. Anything to break the endless cycle of torment.

Your eyes were drawn down to a river of crimson that streaked into the valley of his hip, welling from the fresh spring of your sutures. A writhing, dark desire slithered up your brain stem, burning with some foreign audacity, and it moved your hand almost on its own. Fuck it, you could play this game, too.

“Please, Supreme Leader,” You corrected yourself, letting your voice thicken through your tears to a noxious sweetness. “I’ll do anything.”

Your palm slid to his low abdomen, collecting the warm blood with your thumb and sliding it back up towards the neatly closed wound. You slowly ran your slick digit along the raw edge, your breath catching in your chest as you flicked your gaze back to his eyes, just inches in front of yours. His lips hung open slightly, in disbelief, in want, it was impossible to say. But his pupils were blown wide and hungry as he stilled, the smallest twitch of his eye daring you, pleading you, to continue.

“Anything…” you emphasized in a whisper, holding his stare through your damp lashes as you pressed your thumb into the bruised, inflamed skin, crushing your finger straight into the raw nerves. You dug down, down, watching his lips slowly pull into a wild snarl of pain, his thick cock twitching against your folds as a ragged groan tore through his teeth. You were panting now, watching his eyes as they filled with liquid black fire, unblinking, burning through you.

Heart pounding, you pressed further, building a pinpoint of pressure over the closed wound until you felt the fine strand of a suture give way under the pad of your thumb, popping open with a soft shift of flesh. A choked roar ripped itself from Ren’s chest as his hand came down on your throat. His eyes were glazed with a terrifying need, inches from yours, strands of hair beginning to mat on his face as sweat decorated his skin.

His hips began to sink heavily. The head of his cock pushed past your folds, pressing insistently at the tight heat of your entrance. You whimpered, pulse racing under his grip, and braced your hand involuntarily against his abdomen as your walls began to stretch, the wet sting reverberating up your spine. Your eyes shot to his, pleading, but found them fiendish.

"You’re going to take all of me, pretty thing." His voice was barely above a ragged whisper, caged behind rusted bars of restraint that were slowly splintering across his eyes as he broke you open. “And you’re going to cum around my fucking cock when I tell you to.”

It was all you could do to simply whimper and nod, his words paired with the intense stretch effectively wiping your brain blank now. And the stretch kept coming, endlessly, filling you completely, until you thought you might crack in half. When he finally sheathed himself, his body flattened down heavily on top of you, pinning your hips wide open. You couldn’t move your hand, his sheer mass was crushing your thumb inside the wet, raised flesh of the wound as you felt it leak warmly around the base. A sound caught in Ren’s throat, and a shudder wracked his whole body.

He laid there for only a moment, crushing the air from your lungs, bathing in the pain, before he lifted his torso and began to thrust. Still slowly, still so controlled, breath rolling hot and rabid down your neck. You pulled your thumb from beneath his skin with a sickening squelch. Trembling, a morbid urge had you bringing the hand up to your mouth.

You moved to flick your tongue out over the warm, coppery liquid that was now coating your thumb and beginning to run down your forearm. In an instant, Ren snatched your wrist and pinned it beside your head. Something utterly feral played across his eyes that made your stomach squirm.

He panted through his teeth, eyes drifting across your face to the hand that he had pinned down. “You want a taste, whore?” His tone was somewhere between incredulous and eager, only fueling your desire to pry further at the seams of his restraint. You bit your bottom lip, lifting a pleading look into his eyes, and nodded with a whimper.

“Yes, please, ple-- Ah!” He slammed his cock into your cervix, making you cry out.

He snatched your wrist up with a grunt and enveloped your thumb with the heat of his mouth, swirling his strong, silky tongue around your knuckle to collect the liquid. Your head spun as he drew his lips up and off of your digit, slamming your wrist back down to the mattress and crushing his mouth to yours. His tongue pushed ravenously past the guard of your teeth, and your palette lit up with the sharp mix of metallic blood and the remnants of your cunt on his lips.

It was deafening, the rush that cascaded between your ears and crashed down your body at the visceral taste, the sensation of his hot tongue swiping across yours, passing the grotesque mixture back and forth. You moaned into his mouth and he shuddered, gripping your jaw muscles to force your mouth open as he drew away, resuming the rhythm of his thrusts. He spat a thick emulsion of blood and saliva into your open mouth before releasing your face, shoving your jaw closed with the heel of his palm. From this angle he could see your neck ripple as you swallowed, and the sight had him deepening his thrusts with a low groan.

Yes, yes, finally. His cock stroked fire along your walls, the sensation of fullness making your eyes roll into your skull. Drunk from deprivation, you wanted more. You blindly reached down the contour of his obliques and drove your thumb back into his wound, finding the slight firmness of another suture and digging into his flesh until you felt a sinewy pop. Kylo Ren roared, his hips stuttering as his body locked up in a rippling wave of tension. Eyes wild, he gripped your throat again, yanking you roughly as your eyes flew open and met his.

“Fucking filthy slut.”

He slammed into you at a merciless pace, hurtling you past any possibility of orgasm and straight into overstimulation as your body burned around him. Your vision swam, your ears beginning to ring as he pounded you relentlessly. Blood struggled to reach your brain under his grip, building a pressure in your skull that made your face vibrate.

He slowed his pace suddenly, and heat sparked to the tips of your nerves again, alighting on every inch of your quivering skin and fuck, you were close. Oh, fuckfuckfuc--

“Cum. Cum for me. Fuck!”

Ren wildly snatched the cautery pen from where you left it on the bed stand, lit it, and plunged the glowing tines straight into the flesh of your thigh. White hot pain fractured your vision, locked every muscle down tight with a scream you couldn’t hear as your orgasm eviscerated you.

Breath stuttered back into your lungs in hazy, broken sobs. Euphoric pain was weeping from your nerves, flowing across your skin to rival the tears that now ran free and hot down your face while razorblades of pleasure still flayed your veins open. The ringing in your ears finally began to give way to low grunts breaking over the fragmented tide of your sobs.

“Good girl, g-ood, fuck-- shh... pretty fucking thing.” Ren’s deep murmurs faded into your eardrums, the words slurring and thickening through his teeth as he pried the tool from your sizzling flesh. He set it aside, pace unrelenting, and dragged a hand over your cheek. Sticky blood mixed with your tears as his fingers fastened into the flesh of your face. He watched your eyes come back into focus, his own glazed in primal rapture.

He propelled a few more slamming thrusts into the depths of you as the death throes of your orgasm withered on your skin. And then you were empty, gasping, and he was flipping you over so easily you didn’t know which way was up any more. Your breath was muffled by a pillow, and you turned your face just in time for a massive, dirty hand to come down on your cheekbone.

He crushed your face into the fabric, wrestling your hips upwards with his other forearm until your knees reluctantly shifted up to support them. You whimpered at the pressure on your skull and the throbbing pain that radiated from your thigh, but the sound deepened in your chest when you felt the blunt head of his cock graze along your swollen lips. Stars, you needed him to fill you in any way, your emptiness now entwining with your pain to send a cry of grief through your shuddering bones that could only be soothed by that voice, those hands, that perfectly thick cock in any part of you. Overcome, you moaned for it.

“Fuck,” he rasped, dragging his tip back and forth over your clit, adding skittering jolts to the ache that might as well be burning away your peritoneum like paper, causing your organs to pour out over the floor in gruesome mercy. He slid his hand back along the curve of your spine, releasing your face, and you gasped in the acrid taste of copper. His palms smothered your ass, fingers splaying wide and squeezing, pulling your cheeks up and apart for his view. It was filthy, the eroticism of it, but shame was a faraway song in the tempest of your need, barely heard as you clutched the sheets and arched in presentation for him. You heard a hissing intake of breath, which he let out in a slew of unintelligible filth as the fat head of his cock slowly split you again.

Even after just moments of vacancy you had to readjust to the size of him, but the stretch was utterly demulcent this time as he gradually sheathed himself in your aching walls until his head was grinding down against your cervix. Your eyes flew wide with a gasp as you clawed the sheet, streaking it redder, willing your body to relax around the merciless presence of his cock. He pumped his hips once, slowly, powerfully, and your eyes rolled back again as your muscles turned to warm jelly.

“Kylo…” You barely heard yourself moan out, and you had no idea whether he heard you either, as a loud groan suddenly kicked up his pace and the decibels of his rambling.

“Ffffuuck, feel sofuckinggood, so tight…. fucking perfect little cunt…”

You could die, you could actually fucking die from how it felt to lose yourself in this, how possessed you were by the repulsive freedom of it, of him, spitting filthy nothings into the thick air while you entwined yourselves in the dirty rut of shameless pleasure and pain.

You felt hot liquid trickle into the seam between your flesh and Ren’s with the next few smacks of his hips against your ass. His pace faltered, and he fell over you like a snarling carnivore, palms slamming down on the backs of your hands and pinning them beside your head. His breath tickled hot in your ear, and you shuddered, clenching around him.

“I’m going to make you cum again.” He snarled, before yanking you back sharply by your hair until you were nearly upright on your knees, your shoulder blades meeting the warmth of his chest. You caught a flash of blood-coated fingers as they reached around you and began to rub hot, wet circles over your clit.

“Like the filthy fucking whore you are. That I- fuck- knew you were.”

Your muscles gave out as he spoke, your body supported only by his overbearing strength, as euphoria wrapped your nerve endings in white flame. You were keening, though you could hardly hear yourself, as the pressure on your clit started to pull a second orgasm outward from your bones.

His hips pounded ruthlessly against your ass as he brutally fucked you, the force of it knocking air from your lungs with every impact. A glow began to erupt from your spine with the next few passes of his fingers over your clit, and then you were cumming, hard, sailing into an abyss of ecstasy that swallowed your sight. When you resurfaced he was roaring, his arm a vice around your ribs, his cock slamming deep and slow inside of your quaking walls and pulsing with his release.

Ren collapsed on top of you, flattening you into the mattress. Dizziness swam through your blood, intensified by his weight crushing your lungs. He felt warm, sated, absolutely sublime as your spent hole fluttered around his cock, the sensation of his damp breaths on your shoulder easily overriding your need for oxygen. You were perfectly content to lay like this until you blacked out, if that’s what it would take to keep him there.

But then he was rolling off of you, a soft groan rumbling through his body as the cold air of the room kissed the sweat on your spine. It sobered you like an ice bath and you shifted away from him, suddenly feeling the weight of a needed distance between yourself and the Supreme Leader. You dropped your legs to the floor to stand, and pain ricocheted up your body from your thigh. You winced as your leg buckled in a blatant refusal to support your weight, catching yourself on the edge of the bed frame.

You instead sank back onto the small stool, and felt it become slick with cum as you grabbed wads of gauze from a drawer in the bed stand. Blood was gushing from his abdomen again, joining the sheen of bright red that mottled most of his skin as well as the sheets, and you began to work mechanically to staunch the flow once more. Kylo shifted onto his back and let you do it, his eyes falling shut as panting breaths oscillated through his chest. You were filthy, you registered, as you looked down at the red-brown crust of half dried blood that was smeared on your hands and all the way up your forearms.

You gently dabbed at his skin, slowly cleansing the mess and wrangling the bleeding back under your practiced control. The edges of your skin practically cried out in neglect, the dull pain that thrummed through your body begging to be soothed by even the smallest of tender touches that you didn’t dare ask for. The pain seemed to catch up to him as well now. He breathed through it, but you saw it lock up in his exhales, in the tense pull of his brow over his dark lashes. You let the pass of his skin under your palms soothe you both until his bare skin glowed clean and the bleeding was no more than a steady trickle.

Staring at his comparatively clean body under your blood-crusted hands, you suddenly felt disgustingly exposed in your nakedness. You stooped quickly to grab the leg of your pants where they lay on the floor, but Ren’s hand gripped your arm roughly, yanking your elbow back onto the stained mattress.

"Oh, pretty thing.” He growled. “We're not finished, yet."

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren #kylo ren smut #kylo x reader #star wars fanfiction #smut #darkfic #innocuous #my works #this was incredibly exhausting and challenging to write #i would love any and all feedback #masterlist

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

Note

yuri with yandere prompt number eight? i feel like thats the most accurate for him

This ask is old but I’m never gonna quit these yandere prompts. Try and stop me. (aka, here’s 5k of unhealthy pining and Yuri “I want to confess my love but I don’t feel like I deserve you” Leclerc)

A sharp, frightened gasp was what pulled you awake. Terror gripped your thoughts as a memory overrode all rational thought —the scent of tread packed filth and chalky, tangy, sharp stone filling your nose with each shallow, bloody, gasping breath. Cold, cutting gravel scraping against your cheek, your scalp, the sharp pebbles embedded into your skin with the force with which you had hit the ground. You couldn’t move, couldn’t fight your collapsed chest into expanding for air to fill your lungs. Escape, you had to escape, that was the only real, solid understanding in your dazed brain as you struggled against the blankets.

But then you blinked a few times, your eyes rolling as you focused them, and realized that was nothing more than a dream. You were safe. Sore, uncomfortable, in an unfamiliar bed and wearing unfamiliar clothes, but safe. And confused, still entangled in the cotton fog of unconsciousness.

You had been… Where had you been? Your head was foggy, your thoughts blurry, almost enough to convince you that you were dreaming. If only you weren’t so uncomfortable. Something was wrong, more than just being sick. There had been… Blood? Pain?

Agony. A blunt, overwhelming ache that had slammed against the entire right side of your body when you hit the ground. A whine had escaped your mouth alongside a glob of bloody saliva. The pain was all-consuming. You could remember that in the same second the pain registered so did the panic of knowing that you were going to be sick right there on the street. Nausea had seized your stomach and you had been helpless to its violent, urgent, undulating undertow. Rocks cut into your palms as you wrenched yourself up to avoid choking as you sputtered and heaved and coughed out the acidic bile. When you blinked, your sight clearing from a dozen fragmented frames into a single dizzy, tear-blurred picture, all you saw was blood. Blood in the watery puddle on the ground, scarlet staining your side, oozing up between your fingers as you pressed a panicked hand against the slash across your ribs as if that would force the blood back where it belonged.

But there was no blood now. No wounds to validate that terrible living nightmare.

Everything came flooding back into your mind as your thoughts cleared up. You remembered accepting Lev’s offer to ignore Yuri’s orders and perform a secretive strike on an opposing gang. You remembered going along with the plan and taking the dangerous role of getting everyone into the Vanargand base despite the risk. You remembered nearly died in the escape.

You remembered thinking that you were dead. In that moment of laying on the street in a puddle of your own blood, you had clung to the pathetic thought that you didn’t want to die. Even though you already had, you didn’t want to betray Yuri in this way, too. He didn’t want you involved in any of this, he did everything he could to keep you out of it. He promised your brother, he made a vow. But even that tragic, horrible thought had become cloudy as cold disseminated ice throughout your body, piercing all the way into the marrow of your bones and numbing your limbs, pulling you closer into the creeping void. That was the last of what you could remember.

Now, the only remaining evidence of your brush with death was the bruised shades of puce plum and rotten currant covering the entire right side of your body. Someone had used white magic to heal the direst of your wounds. Presumably, the same someone who had saved you. You were pretty sure you knew exactly who that someone was, too.

Your hero.

Yuri Leclerc with his violet eyes and smiling mouth and sweeping, dramatic cape who came to you after your brother’s death and told you of the promise he’d made as his boss and friend. Yuri Leclerc, the nearly mythical Underground Lord, the unaging Savage Mockingbird. Your hero, your knight in armor of shadow and subterfuge. He promised that he would protect you. And he had saved you. Again.

With a soft groan, you turned from laying on your back to your mostly uninjured left side. The bed was comfortable enough, better than your own. The room was smaller than yours, however, easily lit up by just a single lamp. By all standards, it was far from lavish, but you were covered in a thick comforter with two pillows plumped beneath your head. The four-poster frame was made of an attractively dark solid wood that matched the bedside table, writing desk, and chair. It looked an awful lot like the impersonal room of an inn, although there were clear signs that someone lived in here. Books and paper and feather pens were stacked on the desk, a glass rainbow of bottles lined up on the shelf above, a colorful swath of clothes on the rack.

Most telling was the way that the room, the bedding, and the clothes you wore all smelled like Yuri. An intoxicating embrace of spring rose and lilac, plush amber musk, and heady sweet vanilla. Achingly familiar, desirable, wonderful. Now it just made you sick. While the previous day’s actions could make a case for your intellectual deficiencies, it didn’t take a genius to figure out where you were. You groaned softly, closing your eyes.

Yuri was going to be mad. You had justified following Lev before by telling yourself that if the job went off without a hitch, Yuri would be so impressed with your skills that he would have no choice but to recognize you as a member of his gang and stop coddling you. Now you realized that it was and always had been an act of petty rebellion. Yuri would never respect your reckless disregard for his orders and your own life, not even if it had gone well.

Which it hadn’t. You had no idea what had gone wrong, you had performed your task without any problems, getting the small group of men into the compound without alerting any guards. Your brother had done well in teaching you to sneak around. But then there was complete and utter chaos and they all came running back as the compound was eaten up by flames, your so-called friends leaving you stranded on the top of the wall with a group of Vanargand men. So you jumped.

Even your vague recall of that particular agony made you wince, your stomach churning unhappily.

The sound of someone outside the door made your heart jump, your eyes instinctually closing to feign sleep. Maybe if you seemed like you were sleeping you could spare yourself a lecture. Or worse, his disappointment. The doorknob turned, the wood creaking, the metal hinges making the faintest squeak as they were pushed. You held your breath.

But nobody came in, stopping in response to the approaching sound of another, heavier set of footsteps. “Glad to see you back in one piece,” Yuri greeted whoever it was. With the door cracked the way it was, you could hear him quite clearly. His voice was friendly, matching the smile he must have been wearing, but it was sharp, too. You knew that tone, recognized the danger it hid. “I figured it would be you who led this little rebellion.”

“Rebellion?” Lev asked. “I acted for all of us. The Vanargand boys won’t be an issue anymore.”

Yuri laughed. Although the sound was oddly genuine, nobody could miss the fact that he was making fun of Lev. “You really believe that?” he asked, his voice lilting with disbelief.

Lev grunted, you could imagine his scowl. He scowled a lot. “If you knew what we did to them, you wouldn’t laugh.”

“All you did was kick the hornet’s nest,” Yuri said, unimpressed, “while ignoring my orders to standby.”

“I came here to tell you that I think things should change around here, I think-”

“I don’t actually care what you think,” Yuri said, cutting him off calmly. His tone was deadly smooth, dripping with the unique threat of his friendly malice. “I expect you to be out of here by the time the sun rises. That gives you, what, four hours? Plenty of time.”

“What?” Lev asked, his bravado faltering.

“Leave my city,” Yuri told him. “And pray that I never see you again.”

“You can’t kick me out,” Lev said. “Not after all I’ve done for you, for the gang.”

“No?” Yuri asked. “You directly disobeyed my orders and put my men at risk for the sake of your own ego. I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to lose any and all trust I ever had in you.”

“The Vanargand Street Gang have been a pain in the ass for too long,” Lev told him, his tone growing combative. “I decided to do something about it.”

“I had them under control,” Yuri said. “without stooping to such boorish and dangerous methods.”

Lev responded with a mocking bark of a laugh. “Nah, this is about the girl, isn’t it? You should know that she all but begged me to take her along. If you wanna talk about trust, maybe consider why your precious little pet would disobey you.”

You froze, a cold, nervous sweat beading up at the nape of your neck, anxious nausea once again closing in your throat. Either unfortunately or fortunately, Yuri breezed right past that comment as if it didn’t affect him in the slightest. “This has nothing to do with her,” Yuri said without missing a beat. “If you don’t think I’m a fit leader, challenge my authority directly. But I’m warning you. Think carefully about what you do next. Right now, I’m relieved enough that nobody was seriously hurt by your incompetence that I’m willing to let you go with nothing more than a warning.” His voice lowered dangerously, forcing you to strain slightly to make it out. There was no playful teasing injected into these words, no way to interpret them as anything other than naked intimidation. “Don’t mistake my benevolence for weakness, you won’t live to regret it.”

A long moment of tense silence passed between the two men. You could imagine Lev’s storming rage, Yuri’s cool demeanor. You didn’t dare move, afraid that either would hear and unsure which was worse. The moment was broken only by another set of thumping, rhythmic footsteps cresting up the stairs. There was only one man who could possibly make that much noise.

“I heard shouting. I’m not missing the party, am I?” Balthus asked. While there was nothing directly antagonistic about the man’s voice, there was no mistaking the threat he posed. There was a reason he was Yuri’s right-hand man.

“No,” Yuri said. “Lev and I are simply having a… Disagreement.”

“Oh yeah?” Balthus asked. “Anything I should weigh in on?”

“That depends,” Yuri said. “What do you say, Lev?”

“Damn you, Leclerc.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Yuri asked, a hint of a smile in his voice. “I’m already damned.”

There was another moment of silence, almost long enough to make you wonder if the trio had somehow disappeared, before Lev swore under his breath and retreated past Yuri and Balthus, his feet pounding a cadenced thump, thump, thump as he stalked down the stairs.

“Balthus,” Yuri said when Lev’s footsteps were completely lost. “Would you mind making sure our friend makes it out of the city without doing anything reckless?”

“Think he might?” Balthus asked.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Yuri responded, his voice was more honest than with Lev. He sounded tired. “I sure as hell didn’t think he would make a move like this just yet.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Balthus paused. “What, uh, should I do if he tries anything?”

“Take him to the Vanargand. I’m sure they’ll be hunting him down regardless.”

Balthus whistled. “That’s pretty cold, boss.”

“It’s far better than he deserves,” Yuri said, his voice dark. “If she died, I…”

“No need to explain. I get it, pal,” Balthus said, saving Yuri from having to continue. As badly as you didn’t want to know what Yuri was going to say, you very desperately did, too. “I’ll make sure he stays in line. You look like you could use some rest. Or a drink.”

Yuri laughed, the sound a bit lighter than before. “You might be right about that.”

“Of course I am,” Balthus said. “You don’t live as long as I have without catching wise to these things. I’ll be off, then.”

“Good luck,” Yuri said, “and don’t do anything stupid. There’s only so much I can handle in one night.”

“Hah!” Balthus called, trampling right back down the hallway. “That big brain of yours will burst into flames if you keep on worrying about everything, pal. Better call it quits before you ruin that cute face with wrinkles.” Yuri laughed.

Realizing that Balthus leaving would mean Yuri would finally enter the room, you threw the blankets off of yourself and sat up. It hurt like hell, it felt like every single inch of your body was bruised, right down to the bone, but it was doable after the sickening dizziness passed.

You didn’t particularly want to get up, but you didn’t want to stick around and have the conversion you knew Yuri would start, either.

The way Yuri worried made your chest clench. You didn’t dare name it discomfort, but the feeling was awfully close. It was Yuri’s growing intensity that you noticed first. The way he’d get when other men got too close to you, the pointed questions he’d ask about your interactions with other people. How he worried when you had to travel or interact with people he didn’t trust, insisting that you tell him every single detail about what you were doing. Worse, the times when he seemed to know things he shouldn’t, things you didn’t tell him.

It was because of the promise he had made to your brother, he said, to keep you safe. Yuri valued the men under his command, and your brother had been a close comrade of his. And you bought it at first because your brother had always been protective, but Yuri’s behavior was different. He wasn’t your brother, but neither did you get the impression you were friends. Friends weren’t suffocatingly overprotective. Not friends, but not anything more, either. He never flirted with you as he did with everybody else, as he had before. Not even in a playful, teasing way. The tighter hold he kept on you, the more and more he maintained a distance.

Lev called you Yuri’s precious pet, and that struck too close to home. You hated it. You weren’t a child —you weren’t even a teenager anymore— and yet Yuri acted like you were made of glass. Like you couldn’t be trusted to look after yourself, like you were… Like you were a pet.

That’s why you had agreed to Lev’s job in the first. You wanted to change the dynamic the two of you had. You figured that if he saw that you weren’t as weak as he feared, that you were just as capable as the men in his gang, that he’d stop being so intensely and oppressively protective. But if he was willing to give Lev up to the torture the Vanargand gang would inflict on him for the sin of endangering you, you didn’t think it had been at all effective. Actually, it made sense that your near-death and horrible failure would have the opposite effect.

Steading yourself, you searched the room for your shoes. Someone, and you didn’t dare to think of who, had changed you into what you were pretty sure were Yuri’s clothes. While it made sense considering your own were probably nothing more than blood soaked rags, you weren’t incredibly comfortable with wearing his things. The smell alone was nearly overwhelming, but the level of intimacy it implied was something you didn’t dare consider. Even worse that you should wake up in his bed. His bed that was obviously big enough for two people, a bed that he had probably had company in because he was attractive and desirable and… And you couldn’t find your shoes.

“What are you doing?” Yuri asked. The door shut behind him, the metal latch clicking.

It occurred to you that while you’d been having a micro-meltdown, Yuri had probably been standing there watching.

“Leaving,” you responded, trying to maintain a neutral expression despite the way your voice cracked. That brave attempt fell apart with the way you burst into a coughing fit a moment later, hacking up sharp bursts of air against your scratched up throat, each breath sending aching pulses of pain against your bruised side.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Yuri scolded, rushing to the bedside table to pour you some water. So considerate, always. Guilt rose up within you. After he saved you, how could you be so rude and ungrateful? You knew he cared. He was your hero.

You averted your streaming eyes and took a few slow, careful sips from the cup as Yuri took a seat on the desk chair, sitting the wrong way with his arms draped over the chair’s back.

“Drink this, too,” he said, handing you a vial. You uncapped it to take a sniff it, wincing at the astringent scent.

“What is it?” you asked.

“It’ll help with the pain,” he said. You nodded, grateful for the idea of that, and pinched your nose to down the vial. It was exactly as disgusting as it smelled. At the very least, it wiped the smell of Yuri from your head for a spell. “You should lay back down,” he recommended. “Magic can only do so much to heal your wounds. Not to mention that you’ve had a hell of a shock. Honestly, after what happened, I’m surprised you managed to get upright. You’re full of surprises tonight, aren’t you?”

The implication, the reminder of what you’d done in such a banal tone, made you wince. Guilt or shame or embarrassment, you didn’t know. “I’m fine,” you said, staring at the floor rather than meet his eyes.

“It’s cute that you can say that with a straight face,” Yuri said. “Seriously, you look terrible.”

“Thanks,” you mumbled sarcastically, an instinctually petulant reaction to the way he treated you, “But I really am capable of taking care of myself.”

He didn’t even grace that with a serious answer, rolling his eyes. “Obviously.”

“I can’t stay here,” you said.

“You can,” Yuri told you, “and you will. You’ve lost a lot of blood and I don’t need a dead body on my doorstep. It’s bad for business.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Yuri said. You met his eyes, frowning as you tried to figure out what he was thinking, what he was feeling. He sighed, likely reading the further arguments you were going to make in the way you looked at him. “I’ve had a long night dealing with your mess. Stop being a fool and do what I say.” “Or what?” you muttered, looking away again as you fought against the guilt. He didn’t own you, you weren’t even one of his men. He couldn’t order you around.

“Or I’ll make you,” Yuri said bluntly. “I doubt that’ll pleasant for either of us.”

That answer sent a shiver down your spine, whatever complaints you had been trying to maintain drying up on your tongue because you kind of believed him. His cold, cruel tone of voice when dealing with Lev was still all too clear in your mind. Besides, he was right. He was usually right. That didn’t help the terrible sensation of being treated like a child, like an invalid.

Avoiding his eyes, you set aside your cup and did what he said, tucking your feet back under the covers, leaning down against the pillows. It was a lot easier on your aching side, better for the splitting headache gathered up behind your right temple.

“Did you save me?” you asked after a moment, staring at the quilted pattern.

“Yeah,” Yuri responded, his voice unreadable.

“And you healed me?”

“What do you think?”

It had been a dumb question. You couldn’t imagine Yuri letting anyone else see that much of your bare skin to heal those wounds. All the same. “You don’t have to be rude, I was just clarifying,” you told him with a frown.

“Right, right, sorry. I just about forgot myself,” Yuri said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “What I meant was that I was the one who rushed to your rescue and healed your wounds, fair maiden. Is that better?”

You frowned, refusing to be amused by his antics. Despite the joking tone Yuri took, those words set you on edge. He hardly ever teased you like that anymore, now it just felt off. “Who changed my clothes?”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Yuri asked. Was there amusement in his tone? At your embarrassment? You could feel that your cheeks were hot and hoped desperately that he couldn’t tell. “Well,” he shrugged apologetically, “it’s not like I had much of a choice and I couldn’t put you to bed in dirty clothes…” Yuri looked up to meet your horrified eyes, smiling. “Kidding. I do have some honor. I asked the landlady to help me out. Your virtue is intact.”

Virtue. You swallowed hard on that word, drinking the last of the water. Your thoughts were beginning to fuzz, becoming less clear. It made it harder to refocus after being caught off guard by his teasing. The pain wasn’t as crisp, more of a background ache rather than an insistent thud. That was distracting, too. You knew that, for some reason, he wanted to fluster you. But you couldn’t let him distract you, nor could you let your embarrassment deter you. So, clenching your fists, you looked up and met his eyes.

“Thank you for saving me,” you said carefully. “I’m… I’m sorry for inconveniencing you.”

Yuri didn’t answer right away, staring you down in his unnervingly piercing way. The intensity of his eyes was uncomfortable, but it was undercut with the swirling storm of concern amidst the individual strands of purple pigment, the void-like pool of pupil. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said carefully. And that was honest, genuine. He looked so tired. He sounded tired.

“I owe you. Twice, for saving me and healing me,” you said, forcing the words out in as business-like of a tone as you could manage. They were slurred, slightly. Had he given you a sedative? Or was this just normal exhaustion finally taking you out? “So tell me how you would like to be repaid, and I’ll see that it’s done.”

Yuri’s head fell to the side in confusion, like the question threw him off guard. Good. “Excuse me, what?”

“That’s how it is in your world,” you replied. “Our world. Right?”

“Our world?” Yuri asked, his expression retreating into a mask.

“The real world. Altruism doesn’t exist. When someone does something for you, there’s always a price. If I want to be taken seriously, I can’t keep being naïve about that.”

“That’s pretty cynical of you.” Was it just you or did he sound sad about that fact?

“You taught me well.”

“Not well enough,” he said, frowning as his eyes lingered on the bruises. He sighed. “So, I take it that that’s why you went? You want to be taken seriously?”

“Yes,” you said slowly, surprised that he’d be able to cut to the heart of it so quickly. Then again, it shouldn’t have been that surprising. Yuri was all too good at that.

“Word to the wise,” Yuri told you. “Never act unless success is guaranteed. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to have results to show for it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you said.

“And another thing,” Yuri added. “Never give out open ended favors. Not even to people you trust. You might not like it when they call to collect.”

“But I know you wouldn’t want anything bad from me,” you said, frowning and unsure if he was implying what you thought he was. He couldn’t be, not Yuri. Not to you.

“Is that a fact?” he asked. “I could be helping you simply to get one of those incredibly enticing open favors. Now I’ve got two of them, I wonder what I could ask for…”

“I’m being serious,” you said.

“You think I’m not?” Yuri smiled at you like he knew all the secrets in the world, like you’d never catch him without the trickster’s mask or even guess at what he had hidden beneath. But then your reply was eaten by a mostly stifled yawn that tugged hard at your sore jaw and all pretense fell away to the concerned expression you knew so well from him. “Alright, enough of that. You look like you’re about to pass out. Get some sleep. I’ll watch over you, yeah?” he offered, flipping the chair around so he could sit directly at the bedside.

You couldn’t argue with that, yawning again. It hit you all at once, it seemed. You were passing out, the need for sleep becoming more and more pressing with each breath. “Next time,” you told him, your words slurring like a drunk as you settled further down into the bed. Your body felt so heavy, the colors of the room smoothing out like butter, the smell that clung to the bedding and the clothes filling you with warmth. “Next time for sure, I’ll show you. Then I won’t owe you-” you yawned, again. This time you just gave up. He definitely had given you a sedative. Unfortunately, you were too far gone to be mad. Sleeping would be nice anyway. You were so tired.

“There won’t be a next time,” Yuri told you. There was something absolute in his tone, a hard edge that wasn’t to be questioned.

“Why?” you asked, trying to clench your fists to remain lucid for a moment longer. This question was important, important enough for you to fight against your heavy and scattered thoughts. “Why do you care... so much?”

“I don’t know,” Yuri said, his voice threadbare and exposed. He really looked so tired, so beautiful. He had more masks than anyone, but right then you didn’t think that it was a mask.

He didn’t know either.

Where did that leave you?

Floating, it seemed. Lavender and milk and shadow blurred in your vision, the colors of Yuri. Your eyes fluttered shut, filled with a kaleidoscope of him. The pain was gone, you couldn’t even find the passion to argue or to be mad or afraid or upset. It was enough to be safe, to be with him, to be warm.

Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow you would get answers.

“You remind me of something I lost a long time ago,” Yuri said after a moment. It would have been too much to open your eyes or respond, so you just listened, marveling at the way his voice created the words, the way it caressed them. Had you really never noticed how delicious his voice was? You could lose yourself in it, you thought. “Something even I can’t steal for myself,” Yuri continued, “something more precious than a Heroes Relic. As long as I can preserve that, I can live with the consequences.”

You didn’t fight when he grabbed your hand from where it had fallen on the comforter, pulling it up into both of his. Yuri’s hands were rough, his fingers narrow and long and nice. They were scarred and bloodstained. They held yours gently, tenderly.

“Heh, maybe I’m a coward to tell you now. I doubt you’ll remember this by tomorrow.”

“I’ll remember,” you mumbled mindlessly, your eyes remaining closed. How could you forget this warmth? The beauty of the colors in your head, the feeling of his touch.

Yuri pressed his cheek against your hand. The skin was soft, warm. “Maybe you will. You certainly deserve my honesty. But after tonight... Maybe it’s too late to anyway. I tried so hard to protect you, even from myself.” He laughed, a humorless puff of air against your knuckles. “Especially from myself. Sometimes I can’t help but think that it’s inevitable that everything and everyone who becomes close to me will be stained by the association. I didn’t want to see that shine in your eyes become dull. This cruel, cynical world destroys everything of value, but not you.” He paused, thinking. You drifted, the words rolling over you without sticking, without meaning. His voice was so lovely. “But you’re wrong, you know,” Yuri continued after a while, pulling you back. “Things done out of love don’t have a price. You don’t owe me anything, you never have.”

Yuri’s lips brushed over your knuckles, a kiss over each ridge, before one of his hands untangled itself. You leaned into the feeling of his calloused fingertips on your warm cheek, pushing your hair out of the way as they caressed your face. Even in your vague stupor, the touch was enough to make your eyes open. Half-lidded, your sight hazy. Yuri glowed in the candlelight.

A smile tugged at the corner of his pink lips, a melancholic expression. So sad. Did he always look so sad? So beautiful? It made your heart ache, a hollow, faraway feeling.

“Hey,” he said, meeting your eyes. You attempted a smile in return, a dozing, drunken, delirious smile. “If I told you tomorrow that I loved you, would you take me as I am?” You hummed. A yes, maybe, no. He was still stroking your face, holding your hand. You couldn’t recall the last time you’d been touched like this. Not since you were a child, you didn’t think. So nice, so soft. “That’s the problem, I don’t know. And I… I don’t act unless victory is assured. If I make a move and lose you for good…” He squeezed your hand, his eyes closing. “I don’t want to lose you. Not to the whims of the cruel world and not by corrupting you with my black heart.” Your eyes closed again, his words becoming lost in your fascination with his voice. Yuri’s fingers left your cheek, returning to wrap around your hand. “Even if can never have you,” he said, a soft resolution in his voice, “it’ll be okay as long as you’re safe. And I know that you’ll be safe as long as you stay with me.”

#dimitrimidim #yuri leclerc #fe yuri #yuri leclerc x reader #fe yuri x reader #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #my writing #yandere //#yuri #yuri x reader #whoops hope y'all like this #as the kids say #yeet #uh if there's issues just pretend they're not answering the phone

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the-silentium · 3 years

Text

Bloodhound

Masterlist - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Fors is an Original planet. I do not give permission to people to use it for their own fics, the planet, the animals, the Nightmares, the lore or anything related to Fors. Thank you.

Pairing: Bad Batch x Reader

Words: 5172 words

Warnings: Blood, gore, curse, monsters, ANGST.

A/N: Yessss two chaps in two days!! Thanks to every single one of you who left comments and kuddos on the previous chap. You're all awesome 💜

**Also! Words in bold are words said in French, which means the clones can't understand it. I stopped writing the French in actual French for you guys, it'll be more useful in the future.**

Taglist: @haloangel391 / @lightning-wolffe / @cherrydemon5 / @and-claudia / @clone-rambles / @mandaloriandin / @lackofhonor / @gaymasonjar

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//25 minutes earlier//

"That's not him! Guys!" You yelled in the comlink you fished in your pocket in a haste, almost making yourself trip when you pulled on the fabric of your pants at the same time.

The gap separating you from them was increasing more and more with each step they took. Damn their long legs and commando training, you weren't made to chase this kind of prey!

"I know his voice Y/N! That's him!" Wrecker was too damn sure of himself, his confidence affecting his brothers' judgment as well.

It didn't take long for rule number one to be thrown overboard and surprisingly it wasn't by the one you expected, no offense Techie.

"Stay under the trees!"

This couldn't be happening. They were all running headfirst to their deaths. According to the lore, Venustes didn't affect more than one person at a time. You couldn't know for sure if the lore was reliable or if the other three were following out of concern for the fake 99, but they had to snap out of their own mind trap soon or else they would all be dragged down.

"H-" A clawed hand appeared inches from your face, cutting short your attempt to call out for your sergeant.

Instinctively, you threw your body to the ground to avoid getting grabbed by the head and ultimately being crushed like a berry in its grasp and crawled to continue running. Alas, the Algax wasn't as dumb as you thought, his other hand swiftly reached forward to stab your right thigh with one of its fingers, preventing you from escaping.

Your screams of pain were muffled by the hand pinning your face to the dirt, waiting before your lungs were empty of any air to lace its long sharp digits around your torso. The feeling barely registered through the thick fog of pain coming from your thigh.

Your first instinct was to yell at the top of your lungs for help, maybe your distress would get them out of their haze, saving their lives as well as yours, but you quickly found out that your lungs were empty and unable to expand to receive more oxygen.

The lack of air in your system mixed with the agonizing pain from the retreating talon in your thigh almost knocked you unconscious. You could feel your blood escaping your wound to drip down your legs and nourish the ground under your suspended form.

It leaned closer, a low crackling sound escaped the slits on its temples. With considerable efforts, your good leg moved up to push against its torso to keep its horrifying face away from yours, the up-close view causing more tears to gather in your eyes.

Fear and the lack of oxygen quickly took over your body in the form of violent shivers shooking your whole frame. The building pressure encompassing you once more was excruciating, your bow laid on the ground out of reach while your arms were pinned down along your sides, keeping you from stabbing your way out of the situation.

All you could do was scream in your head out of pain and fear, waiting until your bones gave up under the tightening grasp to pierce your organs and kill you slowly. The boys seemed way too entranced to come to your aid, leaving you to feel as miserable as when you were hunting for the village, without back up and entirely alone. If you were lucky, you'd die alone without another beast feasting on your still alive-but-unable-to-move self. This would be a nice death, as horrible as it sounded.

You hoped the boys would survive though. Even if they apparently totally forgot that you were there. Not that this came to you as a surprise. People who gravitate around you for some time always tend to go away on their own, leaving you behind just like the clones. But you couldn't hate them for it, your heart already knew it was coming and had prepared itself for this right moment.

After all, they had to lie to their chain of command and train a primitive idiot how to fly a ship, they were trapped on this infernal planet once again because you nearly died and they hadn't seen the Shinehorn sneaking its way into their ship, being too busy fussing over your comatose self. Oh and let's not forget that you ended an innocent's life right in front of them without warning. It was only a matter of time before they left.

Plus, if they were so desperate to meet this 99, it surely meant that he was highly special to them whereas you were the newbie, so no you weren't mad. You merely wished you had someone who could make you forget everything around like this 99. It seemed nice to have someone that important.

And finally, if you died maybe you would find a way to come back to haunt them. This could be fun, you could mess with Crosshair's rifle, disturb Tech while he was tweaking with his prototypes, pushing Wrecker around to your liking because he couldn't possibly defend himself against you anymore and most important of all, you could mess with Hunter by constantly untying his goddamn bandana. It would drive them all mad, you knew it.

After some thoughts, you knew they would make it off this planet alive. Together they had a good chance. Hunter's acute senses along with their brains and elite commando training gave them an advantage the natives never had. Hopefully, they would stay in these parts of the jungle until daylight, where they knew how to deal with the monsters living around.

Yeah... Good luck guys.

Eyes closed, you waited for the inevitable snaps of your bones. It resonated between the trees, sickening and disgusting you to the core, but you weren't flooded under any more pain than the one radiating from your thigh. Instead, you felt nauseous for a whole second when you were once again thrown away, landing on the ground harshly.

Your body rolled on the dirt, bouncing a couple of times under the force of impact. For as far as you remembered there wasn't a single time in your life when you've been thrown around as much as tonight. This was getting tiring and it’s been dark for only a bit more than two hours. Lucky you.

Still laying on your back, you breathed erratically to provide the much-needed oxygen to your organs, watching upside down the Algax receiving a second arrow to the head, effectively scaring it away.

A hunter. You were saved. You were fine.

Huffing, your body went limp at the lack of imminent danger and talons menacing your life. Maybe you could rest-

"Shit. She's really alive?" A hunter you recognized as Farlan walked out of the shadows to slowly approach your form like you were a trapped animal.

"So it's true then. It's your fault they're back." Another Hunter spat, literally, missing your face by an inch. Kerth never liked you, obviously.

You would have liked to say that those were the hunters you desperately wanted to come and rescue you, but then it would be a lie. None of them appreciated your presence even slightly so they all meant the same thing. This will be a drag.

"Now, who's back? And why is it always my fault?" You pushed on your forearm to sit straight, grunting at the pain in your right leg.

Shit. The hole left by the talon wasn't big, approximately two inches wide, but it was bleeding profusely. It was sickening to be able to see the ground through your flesh so you opted to keep pressure on the wound with your hands, camouflaging the hole like it wasn't even there. If only the pain could disappear as easily...

"The nightmares. They're back because you're still alive." Kerth pulled a piece of gauze from a pocket on his belt, the sight of the medical supply pulled a relieved sigh out of you.

Wait what?

"So the council wants a word." He said with so much venom that your heart skipped a beat. This wasn't good. At. All.

Before you could react, the gauze found its way in your mouth, quickly followed by an irritating rope that despite your weak thrashing around got attached behind your head.

You were brutally pushed onto your belly, hands pulled behind your back to be attached tightly with skillful fingers. A muffled scream escaped your mouth when a knee pressed onto your wounded thigh, tears joining your blood on the dirt.

"Because of you, I've lost friends tonight. I'll make sure to pay you a visit once the council is done with your stupid ass." He growled in your ear.

Oh, you were so dead. Your bet was on the council, but if by some miracle they weren't the one to put an end to your life, then Kerth was the next bet. Maybe you shouldn't have sabotaged his weapons the day of the hunt competition. Or put some poison ivy in his hunting clothes. Or laugh whole-heartedly when he got shit on by a Furant during his ceremonial speech in front of the whole village. Or… one of the numerous pranks you pulled on him for payback of his daily shitty attitude towards you.

Farlan was the one to pull you up and push you forward, leaving the job to spot the monsters to Kerth. The thought of running or fighting was completely futile. You wouldn't run very far with your untreated leg, there was the possibility that they would shoot you down out of spite too. They seemed very fed up at you for some reason. How could you be the cause of the nightmares reappearing? Also, they were gone? Since when?!

This was getting weirder and weirder.

_________________

//Present - 10:48 pm//

"I got her position. She's close” The corners of Wrecker’s lips lifted slightly. They could track you, everything would be fine from here. You weren’t lost. “and unmoving." The whispered last words rang loud and clear in all the clones' ears.

Wrecker's breath wasn't the only one to abruptly stop.

The smile quickly left his face, as well as a majority of his blood. You couldn’t be dead. This couldn’t be happening.

“Where?” Hunter’s hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly around his blaster,

“700 meters that way.” He pointed deeper into the jungle, where they all came from.

A weight fell on his stomach and he had to force a deep breath in. You hadn’t made it out of the jungle with them. They had outrun you and left you behind on your own.

Without a word Hunter took the lead, Tech following right behind with Crosshair on his heels. Wrecker took a single second to gulp down his guilt and shake his arms lightly to regain feeling in his body and not worsen his wounds. He followed silently behind the group, squinting attentively to discern the shadows with his half working equipment.

“300 meters.”

You were resourceful. You knew your planet like the back of your hand. There was no way you were dead.

“100.”

Please 99. Don’t let her be dead.

Crosshair stumbled on Tech as the brown-haired clone abruptly stopped, looking around like he was searching for something. With a step forward, Tech crouched to grab a small object on the ground to show it to the rest of them.

“Kriff!” Hunter punched a nearby tree, exhausted by this succession of ill-fated events. There in Tech’s hand was your comlink, their only way of locating you on this living prison that was this planet.

Wrecker held onto the last hope he had. There wasn’t any blood, you could still be fine. Maybe you’d dropped your comlink while running away.

“Hunter.” Crosshair’s voice was unsettling. His usual dry snarky self was replaced by a more small and scared tone that the soldier hadn’t heard in a while. “That’s a lot of blood.”

And it was. The puddle was big enough and it looked like you'd struggled quite a bit in it too.

The world was spinning. He knew battalions lost men every time they went out on missions. It was a common occurrence for soldiers to die and the remaining ones had to suck it up ad continue the fight. But Wrecker wasn’t used to this. From the very beginning, they were the four of them, surviving each mission thrown their way to fight another day. He never got attached to anyone out of his Batch but you and losing his first comrade in the field hit him hard.

Sure, the death of 99 left him in crumbles but with you it was different. He was supposed to have your back just like you had his. You saved his life and he didn’t save yours.

As his eyes fell to the ground in shame, he noticed a small object at the tip of his boot.

“Tech.” He called, as he raised back up with your earbud in hand.

“So we can’t contact her, she can’t contact us, she’s unarmed and wounded.” Crosshair resumed the situation, your bloody bow, and quiver in hand. "If she's not dead, she'll be soon."

"There's no way she'd run deeper into the jungle wounded and without her bow. It's suicide." Hunter tore his gaze from the large puddle at his feet to follow sparse dark spots staining the grass to their right. "It could be a new critter that doesn't kill right away or she found someone or something else to protect her."

So there was a possibility that you weren't dead. Wrecker felt relieved that his brother came to that conclusion, his own mind was working in slow motion, too distressed at his feelings to allow him to concentrate and think.

"Whatever it is, we'll find her."

Even if the words weren't meant to reassure him, Wrecker felt more at ease knowing that they had a way to track you and that you were possibly safe with someone or something. All he hoped now was that you were alive long enough for them to find you and that ultimately, you'd forgive him.

Wrecker rushed behind his brothers who followed the trail, jogging at a steady rhythm, slow enough to be able to detect the monsters that might target them but fast enough that they would catch up to you at some point.

It didn't take long for the first Algax to cut their road, the shy creature poking its terrifying head from behind a large trunk as soon as it heard them approach.

Wrecker tensed, already gripping the handle of his blaster with his left hand despite the knowledge that his weapon was useless against them. Having his blaster in hand, even if it wasn't the right one, gave him a sense of security.

The dark blue creature didn't have time to lift its hand to reach for them that an arrow flew right into the trunk next to its head. The beast hissed, its long fingers hitting the arrow in anger before moving out of its hiding spot to engage the group.

"Damn thing." Crosshair growled, at the bow in his hand or at the beast, Wrecker didn't know. All he knew was that he almost cheered when his brother managed to scare the beast away with two arrows piercing its chest.

"Nice work." Tech approved, light sticks in hand instead of his blasters.

"You were right. It is primitive." Crosshair growled, following Hunter who resumed the tracking of your blood on the ground.

"I'm always right." He chirped, eyes scanning the shadows.

"Debatable." His brother scoffed back.

"Wrecker." Hunter called from the front, eyes quickly darting forward when he caught his brother's eyes. "Let your blaster. Take your blade."

"Okay." Against his best instinct, the clone let go of his DC-17, letting it fall on the jungle floor to grab his vibroblade in a firm grip. The blade felt weird in his left hand but it would do. Knives worked on those things, he was still safe.

The surroundings were calm for a while, and the more time they spent no crossing path with any monster, the more the tension built between them. Apprehension kept them on their toes, eating away at their nerves slowly.

The next Algax they encountered stood tall in their way like he was challenging them to jump at it. Maybe they were used to being at the top of the food chain, just like the clones were used to being at the top of their game. Regrettably, the clones were in way over their head on this planet but they would make sure that they weren't the only ones.

Instead of slowing down, Hunter charged at the Algax, stopping only when the sharp metal of his vibroblade was deeply set into the monster's chest.

Wrecker waited for a screech, for the creature to start thrashing around or flee like the one that fell down a tree with you. Seconds passed and the Algax lifted its arms like nothing happened, like there wasn't a long knife jabbed in its thorax and made a move to grab the sergeant who swiftly jumped away, blade still in hand.

"What?!" Hunter exclaimed, facing the creature once again.

An arrow in the head managed to get the desired effect, the tall beast running away in its signature hiss.

"Why didn't it work? Her knife worked on them!" Hunter was getting more and more on edge.

"Maybe it could be because our technology is too advanced or because our equipment is not native." Tech remarked. "It is logical in a sense. This planet created its own rules to protect itself from invaders, so it may have created a sort of protection against anything exterior to its own resources."

"It is possible?" Wrecker found it quite hard to believe. A planet controlling what could kill or not? Blasters could kill anything!

"The planet changes beliefs in the real thing. Yeah I think it's possible." He deadpanned with an eye roll.

Suddenly, the vibroblade in Wrecker's hand didn't provide the same sense of security as before. All their hope resided in Crosshair and Tech's hands. 7 arrows and 3 light sticks. Talk about limited resources. If only he had his backpack containing all his explosives, he could get something done.

Too deep in thought, Wrecker didn't notice the wall of dirt right in front of them until he almost rammed into it. They were back to their landmark.

"We missed each other." Hunter growled in frustration at the sight of the blood splatters leaving the safety of the trees to disappear under the waterfall.

Wrecker understood immediately, his own frustration building in his chest. They entered the jungle and you got out of it. Maker knew Wrecker was used to bad timing but this was a new low. Fate was laughing right in their faces.

Cautiously, they left the dense vegetation to venture into the open area where Wrecker almost became bird food. His eyes were fixed in the open sky, some stars were visible through the small clouds. The bright moon wasn't at its highest yet, Wrecker estimated that there was another hour before the satellite reached its peak.

The provided light allowed him to relax the muscles around his eyes. He hasn't been squinting for long that the beginning of a headache started to form in his skull.

As they neared the wet dirt, three sets of footprints were easily distinguishable in the wet dirt. The spacing told them that none of you were running. If nothing was chasing you, then why weren't you patched up?

"We have to find her quick." Crosshair spat what every brother thought quietly.

If you were with people that didn't patch you up and had plenty of time to do so then they weren't on your side. Even without medical supplies, they should have been able to stop the bleeding one way or the other.

"Stay close." Hunter called, venturing closer to the waterfall where your blood disappeared.

With each step forward, the sound of the waterfall hitting the river below became more and more deafening. The sound was assaulting his ears to a point where he almost ripped his helmet off to cover his ears. He managed to hold on, focussing instead on his leader who clearly had more problems than him.

Hunter had removed his own helmet to pass it on to Tech in hope of covering some of the uproars with his hands. The relief must not have been enough for his arms began to shake, his hands pushing firmly against the sides of his head.

If only he could reach for his brother and take some of his pain, Wrecker would do it in a heartbeat.

"Let's make this quick." Crosshair took the front, his steps taking him behind the waterfall where a tin border of rocks formed a path to the other side.

Tech nodded his head towards Hunter, his hands already full with the sticks and the extra helmet.

"Got him." Wrecker confirmed. His left hand reached for his brother's pauldron right after sheathing his blade.

With practiced movements, Wrecker bent to carefully set his pain down, now wasn't the time to listen to his body.

With slow steps the tank walked on the wet trail of rocks behind the roaring wall of water, his arm tightening slightly around the body on his shoulder. If Hunter reacted Wrecker couldn't hear it.

The rocks were flat enough that he didn't slip once. The problem appeared on the other side, where the blood trail ended abruptly a couple of feet away from the bank.

"Where to now?" Wrecker asked, still supporting his limp brother.

"No fucking idea." Crosshair grumbled, visor moving from right to left where the jungle extended as far as his eyes could see in both directions.

Hunter's feet returned to the ground when soft pats disturbed the tall clone carrying him, his hands were at his sides, fingers clenched into fists as he grounded himself through deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Wrecker dared to ask, his worry for his family finally escaping him.

Hunter usually took more time to recover from an overwhelming episode like this one and it was apparent that he still needed time, but he opened his eyes nonetheless, ignoring Wrecker's question to grip onto Tech for support and deeply breathe in, brows furrowed in concentration.

His head turned in a different direction as the three remaining clones scrutinized the line of trees for signs of a threat.

"It's faint." Hunter whispered, still deep within himself. "Blood. That way." He pointed at their right before reaching for his helmet in the engineer's hands.

"You're good to walk?" Tech questioned, watching his C.O. warily. His hands lifted slightly in apprehension that Hunter may faint under the pressure he was forcing on his body.

"Yes." It was weak but firm, leaving no place for discussion, not that either of them would have said anything. They knew what you meant to the sergeant so it was better for their sakes to not put themselves between you and him.

Back in position, clone force 99 advanced through the trees, their pace building at each passing second. They were almost running when finally they stopped, their boots almost slipping under them in a sticky substance.

"Karkin' fuck." Hunter cursed, his hands tightening around his vibroblade, eyes glued to the corpse lying at their feet.

"That was you smelled?" Crosshair pushed the eviscerated loth wolf with the tip of his foot.

"Ye-"

Screams resonated in the distance, cutting Hunter off. Wrecker's heartbeat loudly in his ears, almost covering the yells of pain under its incessant percussion against his ribcage.

Every single one of the soldiers breathed out in relief at the lack of a female scream. However, they tensed in apprehension as the screams faded and howls filled the air in their place. A new beast was around and they didn't have any idea of how to react to it. Run? Hide? Would the knife work this time? Or the bow?

"There were two distinct voices. Males." Tech stopped his recon of the surroundings to catch his batch's eyes. "Maybe it's them."

"Worth a shot." Hunter nodded, already moving in the direction of the screams, although this time he kept a slower pace, fully conscious that they were in unknown territory, charging at unknown beasts.

The screams weren't too far, but they obviously came from the opposite direction Hunter initially pointed them to. Hopefully, they would find you there, wounded but alive, and he wouldn't beat himself too much for his mistake.

Despite knowing that they were useless, Wrecker retrieved his vibroblade from its sheath. The need for a weapon in his hand was too great to ignore, every cell of his being felt the danger ahead and wanted to be prepared although he could never really be prepared for anything this planet threw at him.

He cringed every time a twig broke under his boots, the soft sound resonating in his own ears like the grenades he liked to throw on the battlefield, resonating into the silent jungle to scream their position at anything that dared to listen. Maybe it was paranoïa slowly creeping its way into his brain, using the aftereffect of the corrupted hallucinations he suffered to play around with his senses.

Just like right now, the more he concentrated to decipher the shadows with his half working helmet, the more strange the forms became. At first, it was spots from his constant squinting, then he saw small blue lights on the horizon, dancing haphazardly around. After a couple of blinks, the pale lights disappeared as fast as they arrived, leading the bald clone to shrug them off as his eyes playing tricks on him. The constant stress was definitely getting a toll on him, and let’s not talk about the two dives into a strong current. Once this night was over and they get back at the Marauder, he’ll sleep for two weeks straight.

Softs whines could be heard over unnerving growls and occasional barks, quickly catching the group’s attention.

“Blood.” Hunter informed them over comm, his whisper almost blending with the rustles of leaves in front of them.

The group halted in their tracks as Hunter raised his fist, Crosshair already had the bow cranked, ready to shoot at whatever alerted their leader. Carefully peeking over Tech’s shoulder, Wrecker craned his neck to the side to see what was happening around the boulder they used as cover.

He could see the posterior of a large animal, jerking successively like it was pulling at something. Disturbing yelps filled the air and the animal fell backward with its prize tightly encased between its teeth. It rolled near their position but was too preoccupied with the bloody arm in its possession to detect the clones observing it.

Wrecker knew Tech was recording, there was no way he wasn’t. Not when the monster before them had no skin whatsoever to cover its bones. The canine-like monstrosity easily reached Tech’s waist, had no external skin, leaving its bones to shine under the green tint of their night vision, muscles were observable between the ribs and along the joints, but that was it. No skin.

"If only we could capture one." He muttered to which Hunter answered with a glare under his helmet.

As it ate, Tech’s appreciative whispers filled the comm, muttering about the extra smaller ribs that circled the abdomen of the monster, keeping its intestines from falling all over the ground and marveling about the movement of each muscle, totally bare for his curious eyes to see and analyze at will.

"Fine fine. We won't be getting one of those perfect study specimens." He grumbled, reporting his gaze to the organism that crunched the humerus with only moderate difficulty. "Fascinating."

"No, it's not." Crosshair elbowed Hunter who redirected his gaze to a hollow tree where a figure was shivering, hidden in the darkness.

"That's her." He confirmed, the sniper's impeccable sight was not to be doubted.

"Why aren't they attacking her?" Wrecker questioned, puzzled.

Two other beasts were walking only steps away from your poor hiding spot, ignoring you totally despite acknowledging your presence with occasional glances towards you.

"I have some theories but they are all shots in the dark." Tech answered when he realized that they were all waiting for his highlights.

"That's just perfect." Crosshair growled.

The tall clone counted 4 of them, walking between two bodies to tear at the flesh and stain their white skulls with fresh blood.

He wondered if his brute strength would be enough to smash their bones if needed when he noticed you slowly standing up, hands behind your body to steady yourself against the trunk.

"Maybe she could come here instead of us going there." Wrecker pointed out. If only he could catch your attention without catching theirs. "Tech. Do you still have your laser?"

The toy they kept around to annoy Crosshair whenever he was too relaxed on leave could be more useful than its original purpose.

Wrecker was amazed at how unafraid of the canines you were, standing next to one of them to pull at the bow on one of the beheaded corpses with your foot.

"Good idea." Tech walked to the other side of the rock where he could have a clear view of your limping form, slowly making your way toward one of the dead bodies.

"She's tied up." Remarked Hunter, his voice merely above a whisper but frightening nonetheless. Your aggressors should be glad that the dogs got them first.

Crosshair had the creature in his aim, an arrow already pointed at its head if it dared to make a move in your direction.

At one point the bow got stuck, the snapping mouth of the monster next to you was deeply buried into the open chest of what once was a man, blocking your progression toward the shoulders.

Wrecker's breath blocked in his throat and Crosshair cursed under his breath as they saw you tentatively poke the skull of the monster with a very shaky foot before almost falling on your ass with a muffled yelp at how quickly you moved it back when the big bony dog jerked its head up to look at you.

Your wide eyes stared back at it until it lost interest and moved further down the body to nib at some abdominal organs. Quickly you pulled out the bow with your foot, head tilted down to your chest to look at your work.

Tech used this moment to point the red laser at your chest, immediately catching your attention by moving it from side to side. Wrecker grinned as your head lifted in their direction, eyes wide in surprise. You spotted them in seconds, maybe because Wrecker was waving.

Words were muffled by the rope around your mouth, but the wild shaking of your head was clear. Even with only a half functioning helmet, Wrecker could read the fear in your gaze.

Tech couldn't close the light fast enough. One skull turned at the source of the small brightness. As soon as it spotted them, earsplitting yaps covered the snarls of the feasting animals, catching the pack’s attention simultaneously. Soon 4 pairs of predatory red eyes stared at them, their maws chattering in anticipation.

#bad batch x reader #wrecker x reader #tech x reader #crosshair x reader #hunter x reader #sergeant hunter #clone force 99 #star wars #clone wars

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ladyfawkes · 3 years

Text

Eugene Appreciation Week | Day 6: Protect and Sacrifice

Desiderium by @Ladyfawkes and @trekkiehood

Current Chapter 10: Never Surrender

Current word count: 18868

Rated T for graphic descriptions of violence, physical torment, events during a POW setting

Chapter Summary: For the first time since being attacked and abducted, Eugene wakes up.

Chapter 10: Never Surrender

The first time Eugene awoke, he had been turned on his side. Someone had placed the tapered part of a large syringe in his mouth. He gagged on the warm stream of saltwater being actively injected and immediately began vomiting, which in turn yanked and pulled and twisted up all of the severed and injured muscles and tissues just below and to the right of his stomach. It felt as if his guts were on fire and actively trying to push themselves out of the wounds that cursed sword had given him. He tried to bring his arms down to fold them around his wound in front but he’d found his wrists were tightly bound with ropes instead.

“It huuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrts,” he howled mournfully, in earshot of whomever was near. Or at least he would’ve howled, had his cry not cut out halfway through. Only then did he realize how stupid he was to have used his voice. Instantly, he became so drained he started shaking. For he not only unwittingly revealed this weakness to his enemy, the action induced Eugene to use the most injured, raw parts of himself. His reaction, however, had at least been visceral, instinctive, and utterly involuntary; he had no control over it. However, if Eugene thought he’d felt nausea and pain before, that was almost nothing compared to how he’d felt in the here and now.

After Eugene had fallen unconscious, he’d clearly and repeatedly aspirated what little stomach contents he possessed into his lungs and sinuses. A pained groan escaped him regardless; His raw throat and sinuses pulsed with a dull throb in the back of his head every time he tried drawing a breath.

“Believe it or not, I am trying to help,” said a tiny voice beside him. “Sometimes, though, it’s gotta get worse before it can feel better,” continued the voice. Gradually, Eugene’s top half was raised at an angle. The old cloth beneath him soaked with blood and vomit was removed and replaced; the fresh one was folded over several times and placed underneath his nose, mouth, chin, and neck. He was still on his side but was given a bolster to put under his ear and top half of his head as further support at this new elevated angle. His shaking slowed slightly. However, in the back of his mind, Eugene still recalled how precarious was his position. Therefore he could not bring himself to trust this mystery medical person. The captain was still bound at the wrists and ankles, after all. He assumed his boots were long gone. There was no way they’d leave footwear accessible for a prisoner -- especially not one they’d have no intention of ever releasing.

Rather than finding any comfort in what had just been said or done by this funny-voiced person, Eugene stiffened as the syringe wielder injected even more saltwater into each nostril. Though Eugene still choked, coughed, and gagged very violently, the entry-and-exit wounds through his midsection were simultaneously given moderate compression from either side until he’d cleared out the last of the salt water. The compression action alone had diminished his pain, nausea, and the nasty sensation that his guts were spilling out by about 30%. And he didn’t throw up again either. For the time being.

“I would cut your bindings, as they’re so useless and even cumbersome,” mumbled the voice, “but Regis would have us both hanged immediately….” Though Eugene struggled valiantly and tried to become an active information-gatherer like his training demanded, nothing proved to him that he was too far out of his element more than the traumas of this particular interaction. Even his own weakness shocked him. Though the name “Regis” had instantaneously provoked distinct emotions from within.

The mystery person again mopped up Eugene’s face from the deluge of saltwater. “I know that was awful,” commiserated the individual, “but I’m betting your throat and sinuses are no longer killing you. That it’s much less painful to breathe, at least from your neck up?”

Eugene said nothing….and only scowled until he did gingerly test breathing…. and it was indeed far easier and less painful now that the aspirated stomach acid had been cleared away. Buuuuuut he had this permanent stitch now, this ache below his right lung….Eugene seriously wondered whether he would ever breathe deeply again.

“Well, that’s all right, playin’ possum,” said the voice. Can’t say as I blame you, nosiree, captain in the enemy camp and all….” and the person bustled about, chattering aloud to Eugene but mostly to himself. “Oh, and my name is Clarence, my designation here is ‘apothecary’, although my duties compass a great deal more.” Was it just Eugene, or did ‘Clarence’ sound a little bitter? Could this be a rift Eugene could press to his advantage? “This possum skill is good,” the Clarence person rejoined, “because the more ill and unconscious you are, the more put-off Regis will be…..I know since he already walked away once due to being so disgusted by the state of you. You were supposed to have been brought whole and unharmed….and Javeen, Regis’s 2nd, truly learned to regret his actions.”

Eugene’s shivering persisted and worsened although it was clearly a warm day outside. He had no earthly idea how much time had passed since he was first abducted nor how long it had been that he’d worn anything from the waist up due to being stripped down by...Javeen, was it? He guesstimated it had been at least two days since he’d eaten or drank anything...but it felt more like 6 or 7 days because of his injuries. As an orphan, Eugene knew well the ravages of starvation. He’d faced it many times as a child and youth and young adult. And this was….not like that. At all. It was infinitely worse.

Though this small apothecary minding Eugene clearly couldn’t match him in size, he removed and shared his tunic nonetheless. Or at least he attempted to share. “I’ve got on several layers,” mumbled the little man….

“Curse it,” the apothecary finished, as he realized Eugene couldn’t possibly be dressed in normal clothing while still bound at the wrists. And a few seconds later, very abruptly, Eugene’s wrists were blissfully cut free of the ropes that had bound him.

In another wholly involuntary action, Eugene automatically turned from his side to his back, his arms fully separating so his chest could expand and he could breathe in the air his oxygen-deprived body so desperately needed.

The apothecary seemed to have anticipated his needs and again gave Eugene compression so as to minimize the sensation his guts were falling out as he greedily sucked in more and more shuddering lungfuls of air. “Oh deary dear, no wonder that was so difficult for you,” the little apothecary fretted. “Broad chests and large arms do not do well for one’s lung capacity when they’re all mashed together. I can’t imagine Adonais himself could handle his wrists being bound in such a way….”

Breathing in as if it were going out of style was exquisitely painful but this pain was also infinitely worth it. Then Eugene coughed and….it was chunky style, i.e. some of the leftover goodies the syringe hadn’t been able to remove earlier. He turned his head to the side and spat it out. “Good!” said the apothecary. “That’s even better than you getting more air. We need you to cough up all of that junk. And breathe as deep as you can, at all times, even when it hurts.”

Unexpectedly Clarence seized Eugene’s hand and placed it around the cushion he’d been using. “Anytime you need to sneeze, cough, or what-have-you, press the cushion against your midsection. It will help a little. Regis’ll just have to hang me then, he can’t very well have me heal you if you’re gonna go off and die of aspiration pneumonia, nosiree…..”

Heal me in order to hurt me, ugh, thought Eugene. Talk about mixed signals. Now that he was laying on his back, Eugene’s head near the base of his skull started throbbing with the renewed pressure. In spite of himself, Eugene reached up with his left hand and felt the back of his scalp.

Clarence continued bustling about. It was registering through Eugene’s pain-haze that this is the same apothecary that had just given him full use of his hands. Even handed him a projectile. Maybe this guy isn’t what he seems? Eugene considered. Nope. NO. Don’t get lulled by a false sense of security. Considering his wounds and the fact his ankles were still bound, Eugene was basically still immobile anyway, even with full use of his hands and arms. Well, almost full use. If he moved his right arm in a certain way, it tugged all the way down to his worst wound and made him see twinkly pain stars in front of his vision. He determined to keep that arm closer toward him at all times to avoid triggering that horrible lightning twinge. And this meant he couldn’t reach down far enough to slip the ropes off his ankles even if he’d tried. Eugene realized the physician knew exactly what he was talking about by deeming the binds “useless”. His prisoner was going nowhere and this little man knew it.

The physician (Eugene had already substituted ‘apothecary’ in his mind) took note of Eugene’s movements. “Ah yes, I see you’ve discovered the other little 'present' Javeen and his men left for you: that nasty goose egg on the back of your head. I advise against making any more sudden movements? I’d hate to see you vomit again.” Fanfriggentastic. Here was yet another thing that explained to Eugene why he was in such rough shape….Javeen’s men had brained him earlier. Although he couldn’t recall when it happened along with why he’d felt so beat-up and bruised all over, everywhere….those things were still a mystery to him.

The physician did his best to dress Eugene in the too-small tunic of his. Again, he apologized -- APOLOGIZED!! -- for it having been all he’d had on-hand. Ill-fitting though it was, Eugene had finally stopped shivering. Once again, Eugene found second thoughts about this strange little man creeping into his consciousness. Next, the physician had grabbed what looked like a Coronian saddle blanket and draped it around Eugene’s shoulders, offering another layer of warmth. It finally caught up to him regarding what that meant; the physician had handily kept him from slipping fully into shock.

He’d also made dang sure that Eugene could breathe as well as could be expected…..by cutting his binds….and whatever that syringe debacle was…..although the process itself was nightmare-ish, it couldn't be denied that everything had worked as intended. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can feel better. Not to mention the man had gone out of his way to ease Eugene’s pain with that cushion compression trick. Already Clarence had engaged in at least two things that were probably directly against protocol by doing just a tiny bit more than the bare minimum.

Clarence steepled his hands and considered Eugene’s positioning. “I’m gonna need better access to that wound on your back,” he said. “Don’t use any of your own power to help me turn you; I’ll do all of the work. Is that clear?”

Eugene shrank a little at such intense scrutiny paired with the direct order….yet said nothing. It was the most demanding Clarence had been thus far. The apothecary sighed shortly, clearly not taking silence for an answer this time.

“I mean it, Mr. Tough Guy. This is one instance where you must be like a living ragdoll and let me do all the rest. Do you think you can handle that?” Clarence paused briefly, appearing to consider something. Eugene simply stared at him. “You can communicate by whispering. Actual whispering, not sotto voce style. It requires far less lung capacity and is unlikely to cause much pain. I say again, do you think you can trust me? Because if you try to ‘help’ even a little, you could cause those wounds to push outside what’s meant to remain inside.”

“Yes,” Eugene whispered without hesitation. He didn’t know exactly what it was about this interesting apothecary that elicited his trust. And then it occurred to him as Clarence very slowly turned his patient's legs to his left side, encouraging Eugene to breathe through the pain: Clarence cares.

Not to mention….Clarence was right; whispering barely hurt Eugene at all….in complete opposition to when he’d shouted earlier upon first waking.

When Clarence went to turn Eugene from right to left by grabbing his right arm, however, they ran into a semi-unexpected snag. This arm, it appeared, could not be pulled...lest it trigger that nasty stitch Eugene had experienced earlier. So the apothecary took the saddle blanket and refashioned it into a type of jacket-sling so Eugene’s right arm was held secure against his chest; now his patient didn’t have to worry about his right arm being at the mercy of whatever gravity felt like doing with it.

With his free arm, Eugene lightly held the cushion against his gut. Then Clarence managed to carefully and successfully roll Eugene’s upper half onto his left side without any additional complications. Eugene was allowed to rest after all the additional activity. His side without the wounds was naturally far more stable and for the first time since awakening, the mere act of breathing didn’t make him wanna pass out from too much pain. Although it was still comparably arduous and taxing by trying to breathe deeply as instructed. The last time Eugene could recall feeling this helpless was when he had a nasty case of typhus around age 5 or 6 that had nearly killed him.

“Right now, I’m preparing an anesthetic for that wound in your back,” murmured Clarence. The apothecary was using medical terms that until that point in time for which Eugene had had very little use. It made Eugene wish he’d read and paid more attention like Rapunzel.

And mentally conjuring his beloved sweetheart so easily within such a natural context suddenly sent unbidden shockwaves of loneliness, hopelessness, and despair crashing through him. Regis would never release him and Eugene knew it. He’d gone to far too much trouble convincing others that Eugene no longer existed amongst the living. Past the end of his needfulness for this prisoner, the mad king might eventually attempt to use Eugene as bait at a later date. But until then, Eugene was still being secretly held here, wherever ‘here’ was...which had to mean that it was becoming more likely with each passing hour that Javeen’s decoy ruse had worked. That whatever was left after the fire the enemy troops had started, and after Corona’s soldiers watched their own captain get struck down, it was practically a given that nobody from his kingdom was out searching for Eugene right now.

In spite of himself, the back of his still-raw sinuses welled up and started dripping with these instant pent up emotions. He sniffled softly at first but when Eugene pictured himself back in the nursery, rocking Kleisonne and singing their special song….considering that Rapunzel has to sing it now….it was more than he could take. It had already been over two months since the last time he had left them to take up arms at New Old Corona and even though he could see Corona Island from the top of the mountain pass, as captain, Eugene felt as if he might as well have been a million miles away. With so few fighting men, with so few soldiers who’d actually experienced prior sustained combat much less led through it, such inexperienced leadership, and only a rather ancient stockpile of weaponry….(Corona had been at peace for hundreds of years, after all...) Eugene simply could not leave his station under any circumstances….not even to see his family. The kingdom’s needs had been too great….still are too great. Had his father’s battalions arrived yet from the Dark Kingdom? Probably not. Eugene had a feeling he’d be hearing all about it from the apothecary, chatty as he was. But then….but then -- one shining light of realization cut through the pain haze and fear fog….piercing its way through his overwrought mind and body. Rapunzel was actually queen now and thus not at the mercy and whims of what others thought or felt anymore. Not really. And Eugene could sense with absolute certainty that Rapunzel would not rest until she had found identifiable remains by means of incontrovertible proof. And once they found the only clue Eugene had managed to leave behind, Rapunzel’s resolve in finding him would become dang near indestructible. He’d just have to try and find a way to escape -- or more practically, considering his woeful state of being, somehow get word out ASAP so that Corona would still be performing a rescue, not a recovery.

Eugene hissed rather loudly at the sudden harsh stinging sensation emanating from around the wound in his back. The sharp intake of breath had in turn disturbed everything else within Eugene’s predicament. “My apologies,” Clarence spoke out, “I’m usually accustomed to patients who are already unconscious by the time I get to them,” he explained with a hint of nervousness.

Aaaand he’s apologizing again. For unintentionally hurting me. Truly this guy was proving over and over he really wasn’t Regis’s mad scientist henchman. After Clarence was finished with the stinging stuff, he grabbed some type of salve that Eugene was sure he already knew pretty well. Tallow, the same stuff used as a base for candles, also made a great healing and moisturization agent. It sealed the wound away from everything else including dirt and further abrasions.

It was basically how Eugene had avoided having too many scars for so many years, and the one main reason why he appeared completely unscathed, despite all of the bar fights he had been swept up in, and the smaller now invisible wounds he’s had. Although he currently rolled his eyes at his own past vanity by trying to achieve physical perfection with flawless skin. Eugene was certainly gonna have some gnarly scars after this….provided he lived long enough to actually heal from his open wounds and captivity….Eugene inwardly admonished himself to stop thinking morbidly. And to instead be grateful for Clarence and his incomprehensible kindness in such a morbid setting. And if Eugene weren’t already laying down, he would’ve been bowled over by what the apothecary did next. Clarence not only carefully cleaned and applied tallow to every inch of the abrasions those ropes had caused, he covered the red welts on Eugene’s wrists with long knotted-off strips of floursack cloth. It was such an unexpectedly….kind thing to do, to tend to wounds caused by a prisoner’s restraints…..Eugene was momentarily taken aback….and currently lost in thought. And this is when Clarence figured he’d had as good a time as any to crank up the hallucination juice.

Somewhere behind Eugene, something that smelled vaguely of incense and oil started burning nearby and he started coughing. Clarence reminded him about the cushion trick and the coughing sensation eased off and Eugene began to feel oddly and unexpectedly relaxed. His cognitive body functions had largely gone dormant and he was floating in a soft white haze. He felt….groovy. Every once in awhile, lightning streaks of pain might interrupt his dreaming as Clarence, who was not only a good apothecary but a well trained surgeon, worked on sewing up Eugene’s wounds.

Clarence couldn’t have Eugene eat or drink anything prior to surgery so that effectively eliminated anything taken by mouth when it came to easing his patient’s pain at this time. So the apothecary took the one safest route left to him; the psychoactive one. The main problem was that psychoactives didn’t technically knock you out….at least not the ones of which he was in possession.

The surgeon was distinctly worried that even if Eugene had tried to ingest any medicine or even water, it very well would have triggered pain so agonizingly distressful that he wouldn’t be able to stop screaming once it got started. Based on the prior blood and reflux content he’d seen so far, (as well as how his patient had reacted during his first few seconds upon waking) Clarence strongly suspected part of Eugene’s problem was a nasty duodenal tear and that meant high-intensity stomach acid was busy slowly seeping itself out everywhere it wasn’t intended to be, both inside and outside of his patient. Unneutralized stomach acid pouring itself into one’s abdominal cavity was indeed Not Good at All, especially since that includes everything else that regularly accompanies stomach acid. Clarence's plan was to be as hands-off as possible. He'd witnessed far too many patients die of resulting infection directly caused by a surgeon's brash (and yes, stupid) tendency to just dig around in open wounds. Clarence still didn't know if his patient needed to be sewn up all the way or if drainage sites needed to be packed as he healed.

All things considered, this “enemy” captain shouldn’t even be conscious. Eugene had to be practically dying of thirst and yet he wasn’t complaining. Here he was, on this makeshift exam/surgery platform, high as a kite, tripping aloud about fluffy purple bunnies wearing watermelon hats. Or was it purple watermelons wearing pink bunny hats? Whatever that meant, thought Clarence, with some amusement.

Clarence seemed to have an internal immunity against the “incense oil” he was burning for his patient’s sake. He was both annoyed and grateful for said immunity. He also fervently hoped this patient would stay distracted long enough with pleasant hallucinations in order for Clarence to do what he needed. It wasn’t like him to operate on a patient without explaining everything thoroughly, but he was hoping against hope that by subtracting another layer of self-awareness, it might somehow help Eugene stay distracted even longer. Besides, you can’t rightly swallow much of anything when it’s just going to…..leak back out such a nasty hole in your vital organs. Above all else, the young captain needed that tear repaired as quickly as possible.

Real things about world history discovers/innovations: When 'syringe' is mentioned here, it's not like a hypodermic needle or even an oral medication syringe. The size of syringes in the 18th century were more the size range of a can of spray deodorant on up to a large can of hair spray.

“Okay, Captain Fitz-Humpty-Dumpty, let’s try and put you back together again, shall we?” murmured the surgeon to himself, as he took one last glance at his overstocked supply of incense oil.

@gleamful-lanterns @kingreywrites @autumn-ravenclaw

A/N: In order to keep this an element of realism in this historical setting, you can imagine the amount of research that went into building this single chapter. Medicine was taking some monumental strides starting in 16th century (1500s) onward.

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be-ace-write-crime · 4 years

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Lovely Bride - Third Wedding Night

Only one pillarman left who's trust you'll have to win more than any other. Unfortunately Kars may be your greatest challenge yet. You woke up having no idea how much time had passed, but you knew for sure you weren’t in the same bed. The single candle by your bedside was on a different table and these black silk sheets were not the ones you had buried your hands in when Esidisi made love to you last night. Also the light of the candle only reached the one wall the table and the bed were set up against, meaning this room had to be bigger than Esidisi or Wamuu’s rooms.

“You’re finally awake.”

The level, indifferent voice of Kars breaking through the quiet darkness made you jump, sitting upright in the bed, sheets pulled up to your chest.

“It’s only me,” he remarked, stepping into the light so you could see him. That put your mind at ease a little, but not completely. Of all the pillar men, Kars still scared you. He had a calculated coldness about him that overshadowed his more human side, which you had only caught glimpses of.

“Good morning,” you murmured, for lack of anything better to say. “Lord Kars,” you quickly added, bowing your head.

“It’s evening, actually,” he said, giving you an amused smile as he came to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning in close. You naturally pulled back upon having him enter your personal space, but with practically nowhere to go you just pulled the covers up until you were almost hiding like a child. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

You considered the question. You weren’t hurting anywhere. You considered how you were feeling emotionally and your barely awake self quickly dropped that hornet's nest and decided to ignore it for now. “I feel fine, master,” you answered.

“Good. You may go out if you wish. You may sleep here as well. I rarely do. I have no intention of consummating our marriage with you tonight. Enough damage has been done to you already,” he said.

You felt a slight sting upon his dismissal and couldn’t keep your mouth shut. “What do you mean by damage? You were the one to suggest Wamuu be my first…”

“I did, but I didn’t expect him to be so careless I would be asked to abandon my work in the middle of the night to rearrange your insides after you had fallen unconscious. Nor did I expect Esidisi to bring you into his bed and do the same thing,” he answered, sounding and looking obviously annoyed. Your eyes went wide and he chuckled dryly. “What? Didn’t you find it strange to awaken without a hint of pain after laying with a pair of gods, little one?”

“I did… a little… I didn’t know you’d had to…” you trailed off, cheeks burning.

“Esidisi brought you here, covered in blood, which thankfully turned out to be his, at least mostly,” he said, cupping your cheek and looking into your eyes as if he were searching for something. You held his gaze, like a deer facing headlights, until he spoke again. “He asked if I would consider giving you the antidote now,” he said, which made you perk up, but his expression remained unreadable. “I will not allow you to die, but you won’t receive the antidote from me just yet,” he answered, which made your heart sink.

“M-May I ask why…?” you whispered.

“As it stands that ring is the only thing binding you to me. I am not prepared to give it up. Not yet,” he responded.

“You have my word,” you said, clutching your sheets a little tighter. Kars shook his head, unmoved, but his eyes softened somewhat.

“Perhaps I could present you with something else to show you my trust? Stand up,” he ordered, standing up himself. You could feel your face burning with embarrassment as you stood before him, naked as the day you were born.

He gently tipped up your chin and kissed your lips and you relaxed thinking that was it. You should really know better by now.

“Don’t flinch, just breathe,” he ordered softly, and before the meaning of those words could register in your brain you felt a stabbing blow right to the center of your chest, knocking all the air out of you. Your eyes went wide and you fell into his arms, trying to push him off at the same time as if it might give you more room to breathe.

Your husband stood over you, studying your reaction and drawing back his hand. He’d just about stabbed you with his pinky, forcing all the muscles in your chest to contract, and you couldn’t fight this reflex, desperately attempting to force breath into your aching chest to no avail.

Teary eyed you fought to draw air into your lungs, all your strength focused on the singular task until you were finally rewarded with the blissful feeling of air flooding your lungs, chest expanding and your extremities tingling as your oxygen was finally replenished.

Kars reached for you and on reflex you slapped his hand away, once bitten, twice shy. To your horror your hand striking his left a large, blistered mark, like you’d shaved off the skin with a burning hot razor. He looked as surprised as you that you’d done it, looking at you with wide eyes. He regained his bearings more quickly than you, smirking and licking his wounds before they healed completely, as if they had never been there.

“I’m glad to see you so lively, but try not to do that again,” he warned you.

“I-I’m sorry, lord Kars! It won’t happen again!” you declared, bowing your head. Still the warmth like sunlight shining from inside kept radiating from within you.

“I studied the scrolls you brought back. Much trivial history and things we had already learned firsthand about your tribe, but this here struck my interest. A means to awaken one’s latent Hamon abilities,” he explained, taking a pitted grape from the basket Esidisi had collected for you and placing it in your hands. The pit sprouted in your hands in the complete darkness of the catacombs. “If the sun is half as bright and wonderful as you, my love, then every second we spent in darkness will have been worth it,” he whispered.

You looked down, awestruck. You’d seen some warriors forcing already budding flowers into bloom to impress girls before, but this seemed far beyond that. Probably since Kars just awakened your powers, you assumed, but you were glowing with excitement nonetheless.

“Get dressed. You are free to practice in both your healing and combat as you see fit. I have much left to do and as night falls Esidisi, Wamuu and I must depart in our search for the stone,” he instructed, tossing you a small bag from the side table behind your basket.

“Y-Yes, thank you, lord Kars…” you said, quickly taking the clothes from the bag and figuring how to put them on. You were surprised to find the soft, black garments to be a two piece set in a similar style as what your husbands preferred to wear. It provided solid covering for every part that really needed it, with translucent silk draped lavishly down your legs like a loincloth, giving the illusion it was only a dark shadow protecting your modesty underneath, as it left your legs clearly visible.

You combed your hair and arranged the jewelry Kars had added to the bag to match, blushing madly. A prostitute would not have dressed so daringly in your little village, and you could feel Kars’ eyes on you like a predator watching its prey. Thankfully Esidisi had left you your dagger and its sheath, which you attached to the waistband of your new attire.

“I wanted you to have this, as you are one of us, but I trust I won’t have to tell you not to let any humans see you like this,” he said, taking the last item from your hands and placing it on your head. It was an elaborate piece of gold chains, coming together around your forehead with a teardrop shaped diamond charm.

“I won’t, master,” you said, face red, yet feeling oddly beautiful. It struck you that he could not have stolen or bought garments like these anywhere and they seemed to be fitted to your form perfectly, meaning either he commissioned this specifically for you, or he had made you these himself. The thought made you shiver, right as his fingers carding through your hair found the shell of your ear, tugging lightly at the lobe.

“If you’ll allow me, I would like to pierce your ears. Perhaps somewhere else as well?” he purred, making the shivers intensify tenfold. “Hmm, but not tonight. I have kept you here long enough and I have things to do before night falls.”

“Yes, master,” you said, taking your candle and your basket. Kars turned around to retreat back into the darkness, most likely to some kind of workspace you couldn’t see. Hopefully you could spend some time with him just before dawn when he returned. For now you would enjoy the sunset and a little snack, one of your private pleasures which you unfortunately couldn’t share with your husbands.

You weren’t sure where you were, but you noticed you were more sensitive to the vibrations around you as you wandered the underground halls. You slowed to a stop and rummaged through the basket, picking up the bottle of wine and a silver chalice cup, pouring to just below the rim and studying the ripples in the vessel carefully.

You also fully planned on drinking this later. Never mind you had just woken up, it was evening and you had reasons to drink. The more you watched the surface, the better you were able to read the ripples as it were. You could sense Kars in the room behind you, heavy footsteps of Wamuu and Esidisi above you, and several things… skittering all around.

One was getting closer, approaching, but hovering just outside the light of your candle. As you moved, it moved with you, stalking you almost.

“I know you’re there,” you called out to it, now a good ways away from Kars’ room, but not knowing if you were any closer to the stairs or not.

“It’s a bit early to be drinking, isn’t it, (Y/N)? Though I suppose it doesn’t matter when you plan to live as a spoilt, drunken wench, just like your mother,” a raspy vampire voice sneered, dropping from the ceiling and stepping into the light.

“What the…” you muttered, less fazed by the insults than you were by this vampire speaking to you, let alone speaking to you like that! You were their superior, although you had yet to put that claim to the test. This one didn’t seem too impressed by your status.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Debauching yourself for the monsters that murdered our kind?!” the vampire hissed, prowling closer to you.

“I am doing what you people asked of me. Meanwhile you are one of the monsters that murdered our kind,” you responded, backing away slowly. You had the candle holder in your dominant hand, the chalice in the other. If you dropped the candle, you’d be in the dark, but you could reach for your dagger. If you dropped the cup, you’d still have the light, but you’d fumble with the dagger in your nondominant hand. You could cry out for help, but this vampire was close enough to be in the light of your flame and it would only need a split second to rip your throat out. It didn’t have to drain you of blood. It wasn’t cornering you just because it was hungry. This one had a grudge against you.

“Don’t provoke me, you disgusting little witch,” he sneered, still coming closer while you backed away. You prayed someone heard you. Your husbands, some other vampire looking to get in their good graces, but you could sense nothing. You weren’t sure how far their supernatural hearing range was, but clearly underground it wasn’t far enough.

Fear was messing with your breathing, making it shallow and weak. You hadn’t trained your hamon, barely knew how to use it at all, and even the faintest sparks of it died as you were almost hyperventilating.

“I don’t even know who you are,” you murmured, looking him up and down. His youthful face and physique were decidedly unfamiliar to you, but he must have been someone from your tribe or maybe some frequently passing merchant, but you drew a complete blank.

“I spent my entire life defending our tribe. I raised warriors by the dozens. I was the reason you had a home, only for you to whore yourself out to the monsters that killed the men who fought and died for you,” he growled under his breath and finally you recognised who you had in front of you and you couldn’t hold back a snorted laugh.

The ‘general’ of your village. He’d been old as dirt by the time you were born, and now he was older still, but the stone mask had restored much of his youth. He didn’t give a damn about the warriors he raised, and he sure as hell didn’t respect them the way your husbands did. He became a vampire by choice, betraying your people, eating them, to save his own skin.

“Right… You abandoned our tribe and begged for mercy, at the cost of their lives , but you call me a traitorous whore?!” you demanded, feeling a flare of vindication at the furious look on the bastard’s face. He was going to murder you, but knowing you got under the self-righteous bastard’s skin was worth it a dozen times over

You were out of time. With the vampire exactly one giant leap away from you, you dropped the candle, the little flame snuffed out by the fall. In a fluent motion you grabbed your blade, catching the gleam of the monster’s teeth right before all went dark around you. He tried to trick you, waiting a split second in the dark so that your reflexive swing would miss and he’d have a clear shot at your throat. What your bloodsucking enemy hadn’t realized was that you had been reading his movements with the ripples in your cup this whole time.

That brief little taste of revenge over the proud bastard looking down on you pushed down your fear enough to get your breathing under control, loading your dagger up with hamon and slashing with every ounce of strength you had.

For a moment you thought you missed, feeling no resistance, waiting to feel claws and fangs shredding your flesh, letting out the blood curdling scream you’d been choking on since that glorified leech first stepped into the light of your flame, but nothing happened.

You were breathing hard, and finally your scream seemed to have drawn your husbands’ attention. Kars was the first to catch up, Esidisi and Wamuu flying down the stairs at the end of the long hall. Esidisi’s flaming aura bathed the stone hallway in light, and you could see what you’d done as Kars locked his arms around you and jumped back with you held flush against his chest.

Your knife had gone through him like he was made of paper, burning him up with hamon. One of his arms hung charred and shriveled up at his side and a massive, smoldering gash had opened up from his shoulder, burning up his throat and going all the way across his chest.

“Are you alright, (Y/N)? What happened?!” Wamuu demanded, a stiff breeze coursing through the underground halls and the wires of his headgear dancing around his temples.

You swallowed, looking down at the vampire who’s eyes were now wide with fear, trying to shake his head, a plea for you not to tell them. As if you would treat him any more kindly than them.

“Please let go…” you murmured. Kars shook like letting go physically strained him, but did and tried to check if you were injured in some way he hadn’t noticed and was hurting you, but you shrugged off his concern. “Thank you, my masters… for the freedom and power you have given me… so that I can kill this hypocrite whore myself!” you yelled, landing a near perfect hamon kick against the side of the vampire’s skull. It exploded like a bag of dust being kicked, the rest of its body falling limp on the floor.

“Did it attack you, (Y/N)?” Esidisi asked. It was hard for them to believe. Their vampires were obedient, but it wasn’t impossible, and certainly more likely than their bride going haywire like this.

“No, it was coming in for a hug! Yes, he attacked me. He said I was…” you sniffled, still instinctively wanting to hide your tears, even in front of Esidisi and Wamuu. You looked back at Kars, who you could only guess was shaking with rage, and you regretted being a smartass with your comments again. “I’m sorry for my outburst, but…” you weren’t sure what else to say.

Without exchanging another word, Esidisi torched the corpse and Wamuu scattered its ashes as if it had never been there. Kars dragged you back into his arms, hugging you tight enough that some joints in your back popped.

“They can’t be trusted…” the eldest of the pillar men muttered, his glare focussing on his two companions. “Get rid of any vampire that was once a hamon user. I will not have our bride endangered within our own home,” he said, with barely restrained rage as he hoisted you into his arms and turned around to take you back to his room.

“Master… There are so many. It’ll be next to impossible to-”

Esidisi was cut off when his master half turned and screamed loud enough to hurt your ears. “THEN KILL THEM ALL!”

You were trembling like a leaf in his arms. Esidisi and Wamuu looked conflicted at each other before bowing and responding in unison.

“Yes, lord Kars!”

Kars took you back to his room and the oppressive darkness was less frightening in his arms, but in the dark you could hear his fangs grinding together, his frustrated, snarled breathing, and the distant screams of his vampire army being slaughtered in the pitch black caves.

“What happened?” he eventually asked. “I let you out of our sight for two minutes…”

“I’m sorry, lord Kars…” you whispered, wiling your voice to stay calm. “I guess it held a grudge towards me for… marrying you and being allowed to live…” you tried to explain.

“I understand that,” he responded tersely. “But WHAT. HAPPENED?!”

“I was able to sense him stalking me in the dark. I called out. He insulted me, my mother and the warriors of my tribe and I responded in kind… He leapt at me and I cut him with the dagger Wamuu let me have… I dropped the candle and lost control of my breathing, so I couldn’t pinpoint him in the dark and screamed and… You know what happened after that…”

“Stupid fragile human…” he muttered, making you cringe. He laid you back down on his bed and laid there with you, keeping you locked tight against his chest. “I won’t allow you to die. I will conquer the sun, the earth and all its wretched creatures if I must. I won’t let you be taken from me.”

You shivered, hiding your face against his chest. The soft mattress dulled the vibrations and this deep into the temple’s catacombs you could scarcely hear the dying screams, the crackling flames and roaring winds.

Without the vampires, who would search for the stone? How could you possibly uncover the treasure they had searched for all these centuries without the hundreds of undead that made up their army to act as their eyes and ears? Was this your fault? Would you be forced to part with your beloved in a month’s time because they could never find the stone at this rate?

It felt like an eternity, but in less than an hour it was done. Kars seemed to know when it was over, picking you up and cradling you gently against his chest as he carried you back, through the halls, up the stairs and eventually into the cool evening air. You could see the ash stained clothes of vampires who would rather take their chances against the sun than die at the hands of their masters. You remembered vividly the general’s face as your foot collided with his skull, skin burning up like a paper mask, flesh tearing and crumbling like burned up charcoal, before the impact splattered the ash like remnants into the air. You could visualize it in slow motion in your mind.

You felt proud. What you’d done was incredible! You’d never imagined you could achieve something like that, and just in the nick of time. At the same time you felt guilty. Not for the act itself, but for feeling proud of something that would inevitably snowball into such a mess.

“It is done, lord Kars,” Esidisi said. You could tell he was every bit as tense as you were, hanging back out of his master’s striking range, although he still smiled to comfort you, and so you smiled back.

“Well done, both of you,” Kars said, sitting on his throne, still holding you as he looked out over the valley. The lights of your village were still dark, and the stars were so much brighter for it, but even their twinkling was of little comfort to you right now.

“If I may say so, my lord. Our dear bride defended herself admirably,” Wamuu said, your smile widening into a grin. Wamuu admired strength above all things. Even if fighting a vampire might have been a small feat to him, he knew you had done something truly incredible in defeating such a powerful opponent.

“She shouldn’t have had to defend herself in the first place…” Kars remarked, dampening your mood again.

“You said I was free to train in combat as I saw fit just minutes before it happened…” You pointed out. Your stomach was in knots already and had been for the better part of an hour. By then you’d rather get it over with and have him snap than to endure his quiet, simmering rage.

“I meant for you to practice, perhaps spar with one of us or some of those pests who would actually obey and protect you. You realize you were inches from death?!” he demanded, fisting a hand in your hair, making you wince.

“I have been inches from death since you and those pests came here! I could have been eaten weeks ago and every second I have been here! I killed the only pest that mattered and you just-”

“Enough!” he yelled, striking at the cracked armrest at his side, shattering it completely. There was dead silence all around. “Be more mindful… of your mortality, little one…” he breathed. His eyes were blazing red and his mane seemed to bristle like that of an angered beast. You nodded as best you could with the iron grip on your own hair, which he eventually released. You didn’t need to be told to get off his lap, you got the hint, watching with teary eyes as he shook off the strands he had pulled out of your scalp.

“We’ll be back by morning,” Kars announced, disappearing in a flash. Esidisi helped you stand, and Wamuu pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“You truly fought as brilliantly as the shining dawn, beloved. We shall be with you again before the first light of sunrise,” your first husband whispered, before they too were forced to depart. You nodded and bid them good luck in their search, waiting until you were sure they were out of sight and earshot before angrily kicking the ash stained rags and pebbles around.

“As if that ring you forced on me does too little to remind me what an untrustworthy little mortal I am, lord Kars! I am thoroughly humbled by your gracious gift of conditional mercy! I shall happily bear the weight of my bastard father’s deceit of thee, great and all knowing gods!” you rambled, heading down the mountain with a torch, since there was nothing left to harm you now. People knew not to tread near your village and the monsters haunting it and all the vampires were now gone. At worst you might encounter a wild animal, but those were easily chased off with a torch. Your village lay abandoned still. You felt a wave of guilt as some pets your people held flocked towards you upon seeing you, in search of food and care. Determined to be a better master than Kars and swallow your anger for now, you went around tearing open pantries and food stores. It wouldn’t last them long, but before the time on your ring ran out some humans would realize the structures had been left uninhabited and most of them would find new homes with new owners. Your food back at the temple had gone to waste in a cloud of corpse you kicked up, so for the first time in days you cooked yourself a proper meal.

Releasing the livestock would kill them, so you dutifully went around feeding them too. The sheep and the pigs and the handful of goats and cows and eventually the horses.

Many warriors kept magnificent horses. They were a point of pride and you found them just in time as many were ready to hurt themselves on the fences or stables enclosing them in search of food.

One that caught your attention most was Aries, the big black war-horse that had killed two people in the marketplace once. It was known to be an absolute nightmare, held in check with sharp spikes on its bit and sharper strikes from its master’s whip.

It was a beautiful horse, but it seemed to bristle at your very presence. You laid out food for the huffing and sputtering creature and opened the stable door, jumping aside as quick as you could. It would be both cruel and dangerous to try to herd it back into the stable again, so you decided he might as well roam free. If someone more daring or less cautious than you tried to tame it later, that would be their concern.

You did the same for any other stabled horses, hoping they would be able to live the long and healthy lives they deserved in freedom.

You gathered a new basket of supplies and with a sour expression you headed back up the mountain to await your husbands’ return.

For a while you were able to ignore the steady hoofbeats behind you, though they were easier to sense than any vampire, but after a while it got too close to be a coincidence and you searched the darkness with the light of your torch, which was nearing its end. You could just barely make out the gracefully trotting black mass, its fur shiny in the firelight.

“Aries, no. This is for me. There’s more food down there,” you said, noting the behemoth was more calm now that it had eaten. “Here, last little snack, then go run,” you said, feeding him an apple, which he took without biting or fussing.

It was obvious it was following you and you tried to stop an obvious idea from forming in your mind, but it was too late.

“The moment I put a saddle on you, you’ll kick and stagger, injure me and enrage lord Kars. You were not made to be ridden, and you were most definitely not made to pull a cart,” you told him sternly, only to have him rub his giant head against you like a massive cat.

“I chose you,” the bastard seemed to say. “I chose you, so deal with the consequences.”

“Terrible, awful, murderous demon baby you are,” you muttered absently a while later as you were cautiously brushing down the massive horse, unable to keep the affection out of your tone. “Almost as bad as the terrible, awful, murderous demon husbands I married. I love you and I love them, but they talk about as well as you do,” you said. “I would have gladly helped look for the stone. I’d have gone out during the day and actually searched, asked people, anything. Instead I’m… Well I probably spent more time on my back than anything,” you noted, red faced as you dragged the heavy saddle out for Aries to see. He neighed and you slowly put on his blanket first. Then the saddle.

“Maybe I won’t be there to wait for him come morning. Make him worry while he hides in the shade another day,” you said, laughing at the stupidity of it. You weren’t going to do that. It’d be suicide. “More likely you’re about to throw me and break my limbs and then after Esidisi is going to laugh at me for being stupid, Wamuu will carry me around like a wounded bird and Kars will mope around sneering about what a stupid, fragile human he picked up,” you said out loud, taking a deep breath and using your hamon to boost your strength as you hoisted yourself onto his back.

“So far so good…” you whispered, stroking his neck. “I wonder where they are right now. The capital, or some port city, no doubt. You know I’ve never seen the ocean before, have you?” you mused, daring to spur him into a trot with a light squeeze of your calves. You had no reigns. He’d snapped and backed away when you only just approached with a headpiece, so that was out of the question. You’d ridden an old little pony without reigns as a child, though this hardly compared. “The ocean is less than twenty miles away. You could make that in a day, couldn’t you, Aries? Or a night… We’d ride past the capital too. We could search for lord Kars’ dumb stone,” you said, steering him through the desolate streets of your hometown with light kicks and tugs on his mane.

You really weren’t dressed for riding, but you had some proper riding clothes in your old home. You wouldn’t be back before sunrise, if you made it at all, and you had never traveled this far outside your village before. It was madness, but a heady mixture of fear and spite was urging you on.

You already had that cursed ring that promised you a swift ending. Why should you spend thirty days as a plaything if Kars wouldn’t commit to sparing you now?

You were already putting on your hardiest clothes over the more delicate ones you had been given and mounting your horse again when you realized you probably wouldn’t have been able to mount Aries in the first place without your hamon. The gift Kars had given you to show his trust and how he never showed the barest hint of anger when you struck him.

He wasn’t mad at you. He was almost forced to face an eternity without you and it distressed him to the point of lashing out.

“Maybe I’ll ask Lord Kars to accompany us to the ocean when he comes home this morning.”

“Good morning,” Kars’ calm voice still startled you and your reaction startled Aries, who stomped and huffed angrily.

“Good morning, lord Kars,” you said, trying to shush the horse. Kars watched you quietly while you calmed the giant you had brought back to the temple.

“You’re quite good at that,” he noted, coming up behind you. You quirked a brow and looked back at him, waiting to see if there was something more to that statement or if it was some kind of joke you didn’t understand. Yesterday he wouldn’t acknowledge an expert kill you made, but now he was complimenting your skills with a horse? “You have a calming air about you. It puts me at ease. Your animal compatriot senses it too. I feel a sense of contentment when you’re near that nothing else brings me,” he explained and you bit your tongue to hold back another snarky remark pointing out he didn’t exactly seem calm last night.

“Please forgive my behavior last night. I meant no offense by my words and I realize your aspirations have now suffered on my behalf. You destroyed your army to keep me safe after one soldier threatened me and your search for the stone-”

“Ssshh, my sun. No sacrifice is too great for you,” he assured you, pulling you close. “The thought of being helpless to protect you while you’re out in the sun vexes me to no end. Tonight I almost lost you when I let my guard down and I could never forgive myself if I… we had lost you forever due to my carelessness…” he explained, enveloping you in the same desperately tight hold that kept you pressed firmly against him while his army was slain. “My frustration was never directed at you… and tonight gave me some time to realize that the only reason you are alive, was because I gave you the freedom to fight back and to keep you as a caged bird at my side would not serve to keep you safe,” he went on, pressing a small vial into your hand. “The antidote.”

You smiled and reached back, carding your fingers through his hair. Gods, it was beautiful enough to make you jealous.

“Thank you for trusting me, master. I shall keep it with me, until you find the stone,” you said. He exhaled sharply, taking the hand that was combing through his hair and kissing it.

“Let me take you to bed, beloved. I cannot wait any longer,” he breathed.

“Let me take care of Aries. The sun is almost up. I shall join you shortly,” you said, releasing a rather undignified noise when you were picked up and thrown over his shoulder instead.

“Wamuu, tend to our beloved’s new pet,” he ordered. You saw Wamuu appear from the shadows in the pale of dawn, smiling at you and his master, then full on grinning at Aries.

“You have chosen a magnificent steed, dear (Y/N)! I shall be glad to assist in its care,” he announced. “I am also glad to see you and lord Kars have reconciled.”

“Ah, wait! He can be quite violent, but he’s good to me. Don’t hurt him!” you called out as you were carried away.

“Is she talking about Wamuu?” Esidisi asked, only just arriving as you were carried past him.

“She is talking about a horse she brought back. Get inside, Esidisi,” Kars answered, walking faster when Esidisi snorted a laugh.

“I have not seen you retreat to your sleeping quarters with such urgency in millennia, dear Kars,” he called after you two.

You were thrown onto his bed again. It had to be his, because it was so soft and also you bounced twice without falling off the other side.

“How dare you wear so many clothes?” he asked. Now you were not familiar with their language in the least, but you were fairly confident this roughly translated into: “You have until I am on top of you to get those clothes off and whatever is still on you is getting shredded.”

“I needed something to wear when riding Aries,” you explained, getting your old clothes off, as well as the silk bottoms of the two piece attire he’d gifted you, which you were still wearing underneath. You could sense some movement a little ways away from you, then a bright rain of sparks as Kars dragged some kind of blade against the stone of a fireplace, lighting a fire inside that grew steadily until you could finally see around the dark room. There was a dragon’s hoard of treasure laid out between the stone fireplace and the bed, glimmering in the dancing light of the fire. On the walls were enormous maps of places you had never even heard of before, some covered with pins and strings, detailing impossibly long journeys. In the corner was a desk that had to be as heavy as your newly acquired warhorse, covered in fine tools, rocks and white sand. No doubt he had been carving more stone masks, but didn’t he have enough of those already? You had a hundred things to ask about every corner of the room, but you were stunned silent and motionless at the most dazzling sight of all.

Kars usually wasn’t very fond of clothes, be it yours or for himself, but for tonight’s occasion even the minimal clothing he usually wore was too much. Bared naked except for his jewelry, he stalked closer to his darling prey on the bed, the smirk on his face telling he knew exactly what your awestruck expression was for.

“Those clothes might suit you for riding Aries, but you’ll have no need for them when riding me,” he purred smoothly, sharp fangs glinting as brightly as the jewelry adorning his regal features while he grinned down at you.

You gripped the soft, black sheets, wanting to touch, but unsure if it was allowed, like hovering by a priceless artwork. You weren’t sure if he meant it, or if he was just teasing you. He always preferred to be in charge with everything. Why would he choose a position that let you take the lead now?

“Y-You wish for me to…” you trailed off, not daring to repeat the phrase. He silenced you with his lips against yours, guiding your hands to comb through his hair and caress his perfectly sculpted form.

“Ride me. Take your pleasure and serve me as your lover and master. Give yourself entirely to me as my bride,” he reaffirmed, he was already hard when he guided one of your hands to stroke him. You were a bit more sure of yourself by now, knowing no amount of strength from you could seriously hurt or injure him. It helped that Kars wasn’t as monstrously thick as Wamuu had been and gripping as firmly as you could without impeding the slide of your fingers on his skin you managed to work your master’s hard cock in a way that made his painted blue eyes flutter shut.

“Yes, lord Kars,” you agreed breathlessly, coaxing him to lie back and let you get on top with just a small push. He looked up at you with a mixture of reverence and cocksure amusement, guiding you into another languid kiss before whispering his next command in your ear.

“I want you to use your mouth on me, beloved. Let me see your pretty, pink lips wrapped around my cock while you choke on it,” he said, his words making your stomach tighten with excitement. For any human men you might have found the act far less appealing, but for Kars you would happily oblige.

Your master’s dick was as unnaturally perfect as the rest of him. It was long, straight, the plump head flushed slightly darker and glistening with a smear of pearly white fluid. Your godly mate lacked all the smelly, hairy and sweaty human traits that might have made this unpleasant, leaving you with only the challenge of how you were going to fit something so massive down your throat as he intended.

You weren’t sure how to go about this, simply doing what felt most natural and awaiting more guidance. Licking up the salty, savoury drops of precum that had gathered at the tip and continuing to stroke his length, it occurred to you this was your first time doing this. Not just sucking him off, but this was the first time servicing one of your husbands. Wamuu and Esidisi had both taken charge and been the ones to pleasure you throughout the nights you spent with them, claiming and treasuring you.

Kars desired you no less than either of your previous lovers and would not be opposed to serving you in any way you liked, but this was what he truly wanted more than anything. To be the one being claimed and treasured and worshipped. Knowing that you desired him enough to take him and obey his every command was intoxicating to him and it showed in his adoring, half-lidded eyes, clouded with lust.

He tangled a hand in your hair and pulled you down, forcing you to take more and more into your mouth, and despite your best efforts, his pushing against your gag reflex on every stroke had you choking and sputtering, struggling not to use your teeth, even if it wouldn’t hurt him.

“Finding it hard to concentrate, my dear morning light?” he asked, licking his lips as he watched you. Even without touching you much more than a few kisses and petting your head, you were starting to get wet, squeezing your thighs together to hold out against your own needs until your master was satisfied. “Your hamon can numb the pain of your muscles stretching beyond their usual limits and restore any damage that might cause. I will make sure you are able to breathe. Stay focussed now, little one,” he ordered, bracing his legs more firmly against the bed and giving you a few seconds to breathe in deep through your nose and try and get your hamon under control before forcing you down all the way to the base of his cock. He moaned heavenly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes to revel in the feel of you. By all accounts this should have hurt, but you felt nothing aside from the slightly uncomfortable pressure of his throbbing length down your throat and the slight sting of him pulling your hair. Clutching his strong thighs for balance, you could feel the faintest tremble to them when you reflexively tried to swallow around the massive intrusion.

“Centuries I thought no creature aside from us could ever be truly perfect… How wrong I was, my beautiful sun… I may be immortal, but it is you who is truly divine…” he praised, stroking your cheek with his thumb. “So good for me, my dear… Hmm, but I did promise to let you breathe, didn’t I?” he mused, letting you come up for air, pulling back to gasp for breath with threads of saliva connecting your pretty mouth to his dick.

“I know it’s a little overwhelming the first time, but you’re doing so well. You’re so wonderful and tight,” he praised, wiping tears of exertion from your cheeks and letting you breathe until you were ready to continue.

With their immortal bodies and stamina, the pace and strength levels humans fucked at were rarely sufficient for your husbands, who preferred to ravish you at their pace. Kars was taking this slow though, savouring the feeling and the sight of you sucking his cock all the way down, shyly meeting his gaze from behind teary lashes between his thighs.

“I’ll have Esidisi teach you properly sometime. You’re so eager to please,” he cooed, stroking your cheek as you tried your best to bob your head and take him down all the way. Honestly if the men from your tribe had even considered this use for hamon, you were sure all women would have been made to master it. Not that you would have cared to do this a second sooner or for anyone else.

The smooth glide of your master’s cock against your tongue, his hands in your hair, the subtle tremor in his voice when he spoke to praise you, all of it only served to drive you mad with want.

“Mhmm, so good to me, my darling,” he said, his voice a deep rumble that sent a spike of arousal straight through you as you were pulled up into another kiss. His cock, slick with your spit, brushed almost teasingly against your warm folds like a whispered promise of the pleasure you had come to crave. Pleasure you knew only your husbands could provide.

“Lord Kars… I can’t wait anymore. Please~?” you pleaded shamefully, grinding against his hard length and feeling it pulse in time with the instinctive rutting of his hips against yours.

“I gave you my permission to serve me, my precious (Y/N). I’m not stopping you now,” he said, gesturing at his flawless body with a smirk. “You will take your pleasure from riding me like the voracious mortal bitch you are. You will worship me with every whimper and cry from your lips. You are mine to cherish and adore until the end of time itself,” he purred, pulling you close and tipping your chin up like he was posing you for some erotic masterpiece.

You swallowed and looked down. You could scarcely imagine getting all of that inside yourself smoothly, let alone riding him the way Esidisi and Wamuu had taken you. Whining about that wouldn’t get either of you off though, so with another deep breath you lined up the head of his cock with your entrance and aided by the new trick you had just learned you dropped back down into his lap in one movement.

You were rewarded with the sight of your master throwing his head back, groaning and squeezing your hips hard enough you’d have bruises with his fingerprints by the end of your rendezvous. Good healing practice, he would likely tell you, though you wouldn’t mind showing them off.

“Perfect… Just perfect for me,” he growled, licking his lips while you adjusted to his size and steadied your breathing. “You are so good to me, my sunshine…” he praised, biting his lip while his hands wandered across your trembling thighs. “Oh, don’t stop now, my darling. I know you have so much more to give me,” he said, edging you on to move already. “Worship me on your knees like the first night you came to me. Ride me like your precious stallion~”

“My stallion isn’t even this big. You must be joking!” you huffed, already bracing yourself on his chest with both hands for support as your legs were shaking. Kars looked surprised for a moment, fighting a smile tugging on his lips and quickly covering his mouth to hide a genuine laugh.

“Cheeky little thing,” he chided, clearly amused and slightly smacking one of your cheeks on his lap in reprimand. Well, lightly for him. It was like a whip strike to you, making you clench down hard on his cock where it was buried deep inside you. “I suppose your inexperience is the price of your innocence. It doesn’t matter when I’ll have eternity to teach you how to serve me properly,” he said, flipping you over and pushing your knees back until they almost touched the sheets.

“A-Ah! I’m sorry! P-Please be gentle with me! I’ll learn to serve you, please!” you cried out, already worried you were in for a punishment far more brutal than a little spanking.

“I gave you power, little one, but you have shown your only rightful place is underneath me. It is too late to beg for mercy now,” he taunted, grinding his massive dick so deep you were seeing stars. “Focus on your breathing now. I won’t repair you once I leave you broken and used. I’ll mold your insides to the shape of my cock and you will remember exactly who you belong to,” he warned.

You’d try. You’d try with all your might, but with Kars’ silver tongue whispering sweet promises in your ear and the head of his cock rubbing so tantalizingly deep inside your dripping pussy, breathing was becoming less and less of a priority.

He picked up the pace gradually, with you fighting to consciously breathe in a way that could keep the god between your legs from completely ruining your tight little cunt and keep you from passing out from the pleasure that had long since overpowered your common sense.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? What a hopeless little whore did I take for a bride. Just aching to be fucked by any one of us, aren’t you?” he asked, his hungry red eyed gaze sweeping over the sight of you taking his cock deep enough he could see it in your stomach. “I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll fuck you till your body is in ruins and your sweet, broken heart is content,” he groaned, losing himself in your sweet cries and tight heat until he felt your hand on his cheek.

“N-No… Lord Kars~” you whined, the faintest smile painting your lips. There was only one thing you truly desired. One thing, which he could give you that would leave your heart eternally content.

“ Worship me… ”

The words had just barely left your mouth before you could feel your lover seize up, legs pressed all the way back as he bit down harshly on your shoulder and flooded your insides with his release.

Gasping a final breath, you screamed to your lover, the gods and whoever else was left to hear it. Your precious mortal body constricted around him, milking his cock as if demanding more. Maybe he had been right about what you truly craved. What your body craved, at least.

You were exhausted, floating in the fuzzy post-orgasm bliss that would usually lull you to sleep quite quickly, but Kars’ warning rang clear in your mind. You could rest once you were sure he was satisfied.

In the meantime, you were still too exhausted to move, so to be let down and pulled into a hug was a pleasant surprise.

“Don’t you know I already do, my love?” he whispered. Your mind was still swimming in a tide of pleasure, making it hard to connect those words to the correct context. “You have served me well. You may rest now,” he said. That was all you needed to let the siren call of sleep pull you under, cuddled up safely in your master’s arms.

You woke up many hours later as the sun was just setting, but Kars had already carried you to the shaded side of the mountain where he was safe. You weren’t quite sure how he’d gotten you there, but you figured there were likely some tunnels in the catacombs you did not know about. You’d have plenty of days to explore at your leisure without vampires there.

Kars leapt swiftly around the steep hillside, and up the steep cliffs of the much larger mountains lining the valley.

“Where are we going?” You asked with a soft yawn, drawing Kars’ attention.

“You’ll see,” your husband told you with a small smile.

“I want to go to the ocean,” you said, only half awake, earning a chuckle.

“Close. But if you want, I can take you there. Just not tonight,” he said. You looked up the mountain you were ascending, growing slightly worried when you saw smoke rising from the top.

“Is this safe?” you asked, clinging to Kars’ shoulders. It was getting colder. These mountain peaks were tipped with snow, even in the summer months, and you were only wrapped in a sheet you recognised from the bedroom you shared.

“You’ll always be safe with me, my dear,” he assured you, slowing to a stop by the source of the smoke. Wait, not smoke, just steam. A small spring on the uninhabited mountain top had been heated to the point of steaming on the freezing summit.

Wamuu and Esidisi were already waiting for you, with Aries in tow. Wamuu had by some miracle tamed him to the point he stood resting peacefully in the shallows, letting your first lover pour water down his back to continue keeping him warm. Esidisi was half asleep, up to his chest in the clear spring water and before you could ask anything else you were unceremoniously thrown in, sheet and all.

You screamed and kicked to get back up, glaring at Kars.

“Never do that again!” you yelled, glad Aries had taken a shine to the wind god, as that obviously startled him.

“If you want to see the ocean, learn to swim,” Kars responded, casually taking off his clothes and jewels and putting up his hair before joining you.

“I can swim. I just don’t appreciate being thrown,” you argued, pouting. “And if the spring is heating up, doesn’t that mean this is a volcano?” you asked worriedly.

“It just means Esidisi is here,” Kars answered, handing you a comb and turning his head, the implication obvious. You wanted to huff and refuse, but no amount of pettiness could make you pass up a chance to play with his hair.

“I don’t like the cold,” Esidisi explained, the water near boiling where he sat a few metres away.

“A cold bath strengthens the spirit,” Wamuu interjected.

“Well you’re welcome to go roll in the snow over there,” his master responded, splashing the younger with a wave of hot water and soaking whatever clothes he was still wearing.

“Can you two stop behaving like children?” Kars asked, when Wamuu used his winds to splash him right back.

“Says the one who can’t be bothered to comb his own hair,” you teased.

“I’ll have you know, this is a privilege and not a chore. If you don’t want to, go play with your pet. Normally we’d have sent vampires to fetch clean water down the mountain, but now circumstances have forced our hands,” he explained.

“Ah, so that’s why,” you murmured, the black silk dancing unconcerned in the warm water around you.

“Don’t blame yourself, dear (Y/N). They would have become food eventually and we can look after ourselves and you,” Esidisi assured you, sitting up and stretching. You were momentarily distracted by watching the water run down his rippling muscles, following a particular drop run from his forearm, down his bicep to the swell of his pecs and a half amused scoff drew your attention back to Kars, who stood up to form a similar display.

“Unless that isn’t what’s distracting you?” he asked, smirking down at you.

“You have my full and undivided attention, my lord…” you said quickly, red faced due to more than just the water’s temperature. Although you couldn’t help but notice he had caught the attention of your other mates as well as yours with his little show.

“As it should be,” he said, letting his hair down and shaking off the excess water that caught in the ends. “The absence of our army is negligible in our day-to-day lives, but will greatly hinder our search for the stone. The last lead we have to go on was that the raw gem was brought down to Rome, where it was cut and sold,” he explained. “I’m not sure if the hamon tribe believed to be in possession of the correct stone, or if they meant to trick us, but our time was wasted chasing a smaller cut of the same gem.”

“They were wiped from existence, save for (Y/N) and her sister’s family. Seems like an awful long way to force a bluff,” Esidisi pointed out.

“What if the rest of the stone has been cut too small?” you asked, worry making your chest feel tight. You could sense your wedding ring still there, though it felt less oppressive now. Not nearly as oppressive as the deadline approaching.

“We interrogated the man who cut the stone. He said every time the light shone directly on it it nearly killed him or destroyed his tools. He cut a large flawless stone from the raw gem and two smaller ones. He did not dare cut them any finer. He sold them for a fortune to a merchant he did not know, as he wanted to be rid of the stones for good. He did not live to enjoy his fortune,” Wamuu answered, stroking Aries’ ears more to calm himself now.

“There is only one Aja that will suit our needs, but since being sold in Rome it could have been taken anywhere,” Kars said.

“The Aja draws attention. Not just for its looks. It’s ability to refract light makes it dangerous. Anyone trying to sell it would garner attention,” Esidisi said.

“If it refracts sunlight, they wouldn’t try to sell it at night. Especially if it got out what you’d done to my tribe,” you reasoned.

“Which is exactly where you come in,” Kars said, cupping your cheek. “You can embrace the light of day. You are human. You can help us search for the stone.”

You didn’t hesitate for a second.

“Yes, my masters.”

#kars x reader #kars #kars jojo #pillarmen #jojo's bizzare adventure x reader #wamuu x reader #esidisi x reader #chapter 3 #not sfw #reader insert

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dharc16 · 4 years

Text

ASTRAL PROJECTION TECHNIQUES

hey witches! been a while! So i decided to throw this subject here, in hopes most ,or all, can benefit!! Blessed Be!

There has been a lot of confusion about Astral Projection, so I figured I’d explain what it is and how to do it. Dreaming is an unconscious astral projection. When you sleep, your conciousness leaves your body. It literally leaves our 3D physical reality. This is caused by your pineal gland (the most important part of your brain) releasing Dimethyltryptamine aka DMT. DMT is what propels your conciousness out of the body when you sleep, and when you’re about to die or have a ‘near death experience’. The thing is, you do not have control over what your consciousness does when it leaves your body while you sleep … Your subconscious controls it.

The difference between normal sleep and astral projection is, when you astral project, you are able to consciously control your conciousness, and where it goes. Astral projection is basically just Conscious Sleep. When you start to fall asleep but wake up right before it happens, you can literally feel your conciousness coming back into your body. That is why you sometimes feel like you’re falling. The ‘head exploding sensation’ (as some people describe it), is the first step to starting an astral projection. That is one of the signs you know that you’re doing it right. You feel pressure in your brain, and your body starts to tingle. Then, your whole body goes limp, and if you can control it, your conciousness will leave your body shortly after.

Let's put it this way so it’s easier to understand. If I were to astral project, and I wanted to communicate with someone that is sleeping, it would be difficult for me to do so. I could easily find that person in the ‘spirit realm’ aka 4th dimension, but I wouldn’t really be able to have a deep conversation with that person because they would appear drunk to me. That’s because they’re not really conscious. If I spoke to them, they may remember me being in their dream a little bit, but they wouldn’t remember most of it. However, if two people are astral projecting at the same time, they CAN INDEED meet up in 4D, have a conversation together and both people will remember everything that happened.

Through astral projection, you can do many things. You can speak with friends and family that are living, your spirit or animal guides, beings from other dimensions, or you can just fly around and see the world like Superman. I realize this probably sounds crazy to people who are new to this concept, but I have done it myself so I know you can do it too. Nothing has expanded my awareness and my consciousness like astral projection has. I hope you give it a try.

Before we get into techniques, you should know that there are hundreds if not thousands of different techniques to get your consciously out of the body. We are all unique. One technique that works for some people, may not work for others. I recommend you try one for a little while and move on to a different one if you don’t succeed.

1. THE ROPE TECHNIQUE

This technique has been formulated by Robert Bruce and is one of the most effective techniques around. A key ingredient to this projection technique is an invisible, imaginary ROPE hanging from your ceiling. This ROPE will be used to exert dynamic pressure at a single point on your astral body to force its separation from the physical.

Reach out with your imaginary hands and pull yourself, hand over hand, up the strong, invisible, imaginary rope hanging above you. You will feel a slight dizzy sensation inside you as you do this. This feeling of vertigo will intensify the more you pull on the rope.

Keep climbing, hand over hand, ever upwards, and you will feel the vibrations start. Your whole body will seem to be vibrating and you will feel paralyzed. Concentrate single-minded, on climbing your rope. Don’t stop.

Next, you will feel yourself coming free of your body. You will exit your body in the direction of your imaginary rope and will be hovering above your body. You’re free at last

2. SLEEP TECHNIQUE

Lie down comfortably on your back, facing the ceiling. Relax your body and clear your mind of unwanted thoughts. Relax even more.

Tell yourself that you are going to watch yourself in the act of going to sleep. You must be very clear about your intent. You’re going to let your body sleep while your mind will remain alert throughout the entire process. Tell yourself you will retain consciousness even while your body is going to be in complete “trance”.

As you relax completely, you must learn to recognize the rather strange, distinctive sensations you feel as your body moves into the sleep state. You MUST stay aware as this unfolds. At a certain point, you will feel that your body is feeling heavy and numb. You are on the right track! Pay close attention to all your bodily sensations. You may feel yourself swaying or floating. You might even find certain parts of your body tingling. There might be vibrations running from your head to toe. You might even hear a strong buzzing sensation in your ears. Whatever the sensations, do not panic as these are very good signals that you are on the verge of experiencing an OBE.

You have to then visualize that you are rising up from your bed and floating towards the ceiling. How would it feel if you could actually float? Try to make the experience as real as possible. Hold this image for as long as you can. If everything goes on well, you might suddenly find yourself outside the body, floating near the ceiling!

3. THE MONROE TECHNIQUE

Dr. Robert Monroe, one of the foremost authorities on Astral Projection devised this method. You have to first relax your body. This is a very important step.

Then try to go to sleep, but don’t fall asleep. Maintain your awareness between sleep and wakefulness. This is known as the hypnagogic state. Then deepen this hypnagogic state and start to clear your mind of unwanted thoughts. Simply look through your closed eyelids at the blackness in front of you. Then you must enter an even deeper state of relaxation. The next step is to induce vibrations throughout your body and intensify them. These vibrations have to be controlled and intensified further. This is the moment when the Astral body will separate from the Physical body. You then simply have to “roll-over” and you will find yourself out of your body.

4. THE STRETCH OUT TECHNIQUE

Lie down, shut your eyes and relax your body. Imagine your feet stretching out and becoming longer by just an inch or so. Once you have this picture in your mind, let your feet go back to normal. Do the same with his head, stretching it out an inch beyond its normal position. Then, get it back to normal. Then alternate all between head and feet, gradually increasing the distance until you can stretch out both your feet and head to about two feet or more. At this stage imagine stretching out both at once. This exercise will make you feel dizzy and often start the vibrations.

After some practice, you will experience floating sensations and you can then tell yourself to rise up towards the ceiling. You are out!

5. THE HAMMOCK TECHNIQUE

Visualize yourself lying in a bright white hammock, stationed between two palm trees on a secluded beach. Imagine the feeling of swaying in the wind, and recreate that feeling now as you visualize yourself swaying from side to side in the hammock. Repeat this visualization for as long as it takes to bring forth the vibrations, and when you feel the vibrations, just “roll-out” of your body.

Whichever technique you choose, you are unlikely to get a result on the very first night, or even on the first few nights – so take your time with them and try not to get frustrated when nothing happens at first. I promise you will soon start to see some results. If you don’t experience results with a week or two, don’t let it frustrate you. There could be mental or physical blockages preventing you from getting out of body. (Such as undealt with past trauma, an unhealthy pineal gland due to excessive sodium fluoride and bad diet, etc. It could be many different things.)

#witches #astraltravel #christian witch #christian witchcraft #male witch #astral projection #witchcraft #witchery #witchyvibes #witchblr

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hrtiu · 4 years

Text

My contribution to day one of Rexsoka week. It’s a little bit of a bummer given the prompt is ‘hope,’ but I like where it ends up!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703133

Ahsoka had been in love with Rex for about a year when she told him to leave her on some desolate Outer-Rim skug hole of a planet.

A year earlier the epiphany had been like punching a hole in a piece of flimsi—easy and weightless but completely irrevocable. He’d come back to Coruscant to speak at Dogma’s court-martial and to give his report on the Umbara debacle, and she’d been so relieved—so overjoyed—to finally see him healthy and sound that it just clicked.

She didn’t say anything, of course. Even if he reciprocated her feelings, there wasn’t really any way either of them could act on them, and she didn’t want to deal with the heartbreak. She also didn’t feel ready for those kinds of feelings, and doubted Rex was either. Rex was both a grown man and a being who had only experienced twelve years of life—all of them spent as a soldier preparing to sacrifice himself for the Republic. And as many adult situations in which she’d found herself and as much as she liked to think otherwise, curled up in the dark of her room at night Ahsoka was forced to admit to herself that she was still a child in many ways.

Thinking about it as little as possible was Ahsoka’s best defense, and she channeled all her affection for Rex into a fierce loyalty to him and all the clones of the 501st and an unshakable determination to win the war. Maybe after the war… she found herself thinking in her weaker moments. After the war what? She’d become a knight, and his legal status would be uncertain. There was no future.

Things didn’t change much after she left the Order. In theory she was no longer bound by the Code and could seek out personal relationships if she wanted to, but she couldn’t just switch off her entire way of being so easily. She also had no way of knowing if she’d ever see Rex again. She was unlikely to be allowed back into the GAR, and he wouldn’t be able to go looking for her even if he wanted to. She put her head down and tried to move forward with her life, but when her teenage mind decided to take off on flights of romantic fancy, her partner always had brown-golden eyes, stern posture, and light hair that contrasted against his dark skin.

When Ahsoka finally reunited with him for the Siege of Mandalore, she felt the stirrings of hope for the first time. Nothing about Rex was soft, but somehow the modest smile he gave her when introducing her to the 332nd was heart-breakingly tender. She’d worried somewhere in the back of her mind that Rex would have moved on, would not have carried their friendship with him like she had. But she’d returned to find the same disciplined, loyal, brave, true man she’d come to consider her dearest friend.

How quickly things change, Ahsoka thought as she watched the reddish sunlight of the dwarf sun filter through the tiny, rank room she and Rex had rented for the night. The Venator had crashed on some unnamed moon six months earlier, and they’d been on the run ever since. Ahsoka turned her head towards her fellow fugitive, asleep on his own narrow bed across the room from her, and she wondered how he always managed to coax his brain to unconsciousness no matter where he lay his head. Ahsoka hadn’t slept well in months.

In some ways she felt closer to Rex than ever. There was a heavy burden of sadness they shared between the two of them, dragging it from system to system as they tried to erase their tracks, and it tied them together like two prisoners on a chain gang. In other ways she’d never felt more distant from him, not even after she’d left the Order and didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

I did this, the familiar voice of guilt played in Ahsoka’s head. I took everything from him.

She’d replayed her escape from Order 66 over and over again in her mind, trying to understand where she’d gone wrong, what she could have done differently to save all those men. Try as she might, she didn’t see any way out without either giving herself up, which she could not accept, or letting Rex go, which she would not abide. But she must be wrong. There must have been some other way, there must have been something.

Rex stirred in his sleep, and Ahsoka watched the broad planes of his back expand and retract with each breath. It was exactly the same back as his brothers, the ones she’d let die. Did he wish that he’d died with them? Did he wish she’d left him in blissful, brainwashed ignorance? Did he… did he wish she’d just let herself go down?

The sunlight fully peaked through their window and Rex’s restless movements turned to a real awakening. He opened his eyes and greeted the day with a groan, then rolled out of bed and got dressed with typical clone efficiency.

It was still strange to see Rex in civilian clothes—almost like that time she’d seen a holo of Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor. The faded trousers and stained tunic never seemed to fit him quite right.

“Well, it’s a new day, Commander,” Rex said, and Ahsoka winced. He still always called her that, and she hated the title more with each passing day.

“Not much different from the last few,” Ahsoka said.

“We’ve been here too long. That patrol yesterday was too close a call—we need to move on.”

Ahsoka had to agree, though it pained her to admit it. She was getting so tired of running. She nodded her head wearily.

“So? Where to?” Rex said.

Ahsoka studied Rex for a long moment, then looked within herself and realized that today she finally had the strength to say what she’d been thinking had to be said for a long while.

“You need to check out the tip we got about Wolffe,” she said evenly.

Rex’s brow furrowed and he rubbed at his eyes, as if Ahsoka’s words could be chalked up to his drowsy state. “He’s supposed to be on Kamino. We can’t go to a planet full of chipped clones.”

“I can’t,” Ahsoka said pointedly.

Rex narrowed his eyes at Ahsoka. “What are you suggesting, Commander.”

Ahsoka sat up in bed and gathered her scratchy blankets around her. “He somehow managed to get a message to us that he wants out—you can’t ignore that.”

“We can’t ignore that, I agree.”

“He’s going to be on Kamino for the foreseeable future, and if I go there I’ll only hold you back.”

“Ahsoka-”

“I’m not going to take you away from your brothers again, Rex.”

Rex’s stern brow twitched and he pursed his lips. A long, weighty moment passed between them, then Rex spoke. “I won’t abandon you.”

“It’s not abandoning if I’m asking you to go,” Ahsoka said.

A look of deep hurt flitted past Rex’s face. “You’re ordering me away?”

“No!” Ahsoka said, getting to her feet. “That’s exactly the pro-” she cut herself off and sighed, taking a moment to collect herself. “Before, on the Venator. I made the decision for you.”

“No you didn’t. I all but asked you to take the chip out.”

“Maybe, but I put you in a position where you had to choose between me and your brothers and… it really wasn’t much of a choice.”

Rex huffed in frustration and threw his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t blame you-”

“Don’t you?”

The question lingered in the air between them, and Rex looked away. “No, I don’t,” he said. His voice was firm, but Ahsoka could see the doubt in his eyes.

And that was the crux of it. This awful tragedy hung between them, and would always be there unless they could find a way past it. If Rex was always stuck with her, always following her orders and watching her back, she knew their connection would remain poisoned by guilt and unbidden resentment. He needed to forge his own path, to find his independence. Then, maybe… Maybe many years in the future…

Ahsoka walked up to Rex and put a hand on his cheek, turning his head gently to face her. “I’m done issuing commands. Stay with me if you want. But I’m going to pay for a few more nights here, and I’m going to sleep here tonight, and I hope that when I wake tomorrow morning you’ll be gone.”

Rex met her eyes for a few seconds, then his gaze fell to the floor. Ahsoka held her breath as she waited for him to come to his conclusions. He swallowed a tense knot in his throat, then nodded, all uncertainty gradually draining away.

Pain and relief flooded Ahsoka’s heart in equal measure, and she reached for Rex’s hand, daring more physical affection than she’d ever shown before. “Let’s go out to the market,” she said, giving his fingers a squeeze. “It’s a nice day.”

Rex squeezed her hand in return before letting go, and together they left the seedy hotel for the marketplace in the center of town.

It truly was a nice day—the first pleasant, relaxed, uncomplicated day either of them had experienced in years. They ate a breakfast of hot caf and fried nuna eggs in a tiny cafe and watched the sun gradually bathe the dusty town in reddish light. They went to the open air plaza and dug through piles of the vendors’ wares until they found a newish, non-stained shirt for Rex. Rex picked out several blumfruits from the fruit stand, insisting that Bariss had once taught him a foolproof method for picking the ripest and sweetest, and as Ahsoka ate the red fruit she had to admit it was the tastiest she’d ever had. As night fell the daytime vendors closed up shop and other folks came out, some setting up games and other minor pieces of entertainment for the modest crowd. Ahsoka won Rex a small stuffed convor with a perfect game of ring toss, and though Rex complained that using the Force was cheating, he kept the plush. They ate dinner back at the hotel, whose food was actually somewhat passable despite the rundown building, then went to bed feeling restored.

Ahsoka pulled the covers up to her chin, her bones still steeped in the unfamiliar happiness of the day. She hadn’t felt this close to Rex since the crash, hadn’t enjoyed anything with Rex since then. She knew she’d made the right decision, as much as it would hurt to wake up alone the next day.

“‘Soka?” Rex’s voice carried through the darkness across the small room.

Ahsoka turned towards him, just barely making out the familiar angles of his face through the dim light. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Ahsoka’s lips turned into a smile even as her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed. “You’d do the same for me, Rex. There’s no need for thanks.”

“All the same…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“May the Force be with you, little’un.”

“May the Force be with you, Rex.”

---

The next day Ahsoka woke and looked across the room from her to find an empty bed. The dingy bed had been made to military precision, and Rex had left no other evidence behind. The tears Ahsoka had held back the night before would no longer cooperate, and she buried her face in her hands and cried.

She gave herself permission to cry for a good long while, and after an hour her tears were spent and her heart worn thin. Her sorrow had run out of her along with her tears, and all that was left was a stubborn, insistent sort of hope. Ahsoka closed her eyes and imagined Rex going to Kamino, somehow sneaking into the base and finding Wolffe. She imagined the two of them figuring out how to remove Wolffe’s chip, then going on a crusade to free more of their brothers. She imagined Rex becoming more and more the person he was meant to be, the person his servitude to the Republic held back. And at the end of it all, that foolish, optimistic hope imagined him returning home to her.

#rexsoka #rexsokaweek #fanfic

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fireheartfaery · 3 years

Text

Day 7: “You’re a bad liar did you know?”

masterlist; my links

college AU

TW: panic attacks, mentions of anxiety

Yrene is late. Again. In her twenty three years of life she has strived to be as punctual as her aunt, early by exactly three minutes. But in the last week, with finals looming over her like the death towers they used to sneak into in their teens, she has pulled all-nighters that haven't quite managed to turn into all-dayers. In short she's exhausted, and so is her alarm. Which is why, at 8:02 in the morning she stands in the line at their university café, waiting rather impatiently for her turn at the counter. Her foot taps on the ground, unconsciously, fingers drumming on folded arms. Calculations and anatomy are spinning in her brain as she visualizes the huge whiteboard covered in notes above her bed. Strategically placed their in case gaining information by osmosis may suddenly become a thing and she can actually get smarter in her sleep.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket and with an irritated frown she whips it out.

How are you feeling? Chaol's name flashes across the screen.

She smiles as she slides the screen open and types out a reply to her best friend. Like if i don’t get a liter of coffee i’m going to keel over and die.

He sends wide eyed emojis, please don't drink a liter of coffee. You will die.

hey, She laughs at his worry. Always worrying. who's supposed to be the doctor here? Me or you?

Before she can read his reply a throat is clearing behind her, and a hand is waving in her peripheral vision.

She looks up and realizes there's no-one in front of her. She's holding up the line. Her cheeks burn like coal as she stumbles to the counter. "I'll uh, I'll have my usual." Why is her heart beating so fast? "Large black with a dash of hazelnut."

"Sure, is that all?"

She cannot even breathe, the scratchy fabric of her polo neck is tightening around her neck. "Yes thanks!" She chokes out, laying far too many notes on the counter and dashing out.

Air, the colour of glaciers and mirror fragments, snaps at her skin. She let's it. Her breathing, erratic and struggling fogs, up the pretty world. She sinks to the floor, back grazing the rough brick of the coffee shop. The world is moving in and out of focus. Toffee being stretched and molded around her throat.

A hand lands on her knee.

"Hey," The voice is gentle. It sounds like a muffled echo in her ears. "My name is Mor. I think you're having a panic attack. Is there something I can do to help?"

Yrene looks up, she sees blonde waves and pretty brown. Her throat tightens. She's definitely not breathing. Where has the world gone?

"Okay i’m going to ask you to do something for me." That voice is still so soft. Sweet like her aunt's candied apples.

"Can you try to take a deep breath for me." If she was listening she would have scoffed. "And while you do that I want you to point out five things you can see." There's a beat. "Can you do that?"

She wants to ask how she's supposed to talk when her lungs have been squished like grapes. They will not make flavourful wine.

"Just point with your finger." Mor says.

Yrene sucks in a breath. It is as shaky as a smoker's hands.

She points her index finger at the woman in front of her.

"One." The blonde says.

She points to the ground; can feel the cool under her nails.

"Two."

Her finger catches on the book that had spilled from her bag when she collapsed against the wall.

"Three."

She looks at the sky. It is grey. It is there. She points.

"Four." The quiet smile on her golden lips is back. "Just one more."

Yrene wants to point to her ribcage. To show it isn't expanding. She is going to die. She points to the necklace hanging around her throat instead, the owl pendant warm from her skin.

"Five." Mor holds her hands. She cannot feel the heat radiating of her skin. She cannot feel anything. "Can you tell me four things you can touch?“

She is faster this time. Confused, but clearing. The wool of her jumper. The sunshine locks of the girl in front of her. The fluffy keychain Elide had got her at the start of the year. The plant stubbornly growing out of the sidewalk.

"Three things you can hear?"

Her voice is croaky, strangled in a way she hasn't heard before. She uses it anyway. Because she can.

"The bell above the coffee shop." It tinkles in acknowledgment. Students walk out laughing. "The cars on the road." There's an expensive car in the midst of traffic. She can hear it's soft purr. "My breathing." It is loud and full of life in her ears. She is grateful.

"Two things you can smell?"

She takes a breath, let's the university fill up her body. "The melting snow. It smells like rain puddles, muddy and dirty and fun to play in."

"One more?"

“You." Her senses are all over the place. Her common sense has disappeared entirely. "You smell like cinnamon, and the faintest hint of soap."

The laugh is enough to settle the last of Yrene's frazzled nerves. It is bright and full and carries happiness like a bouquet. She settles, heart rate slowing, lungs expanding, contracting, skin feeling the first nips of cold once more.

"Does that mean you like the way I smell?" The blonde grins, squeezing their still joined hands.

She thinks about it for a second. "Yes." Her earth brown eyes collide with Mor's caramel gaze. "I think I do."

"Can you give me one thing you can taste?"

Yrene knows she's lost it when the first thing that's pops into her mind is the woman's lips. She shuts her eyes to the thought, feeling her bones sludge inside her. Everything aches. She's held herself up for so long.

"How about this?"

The bitter smell of coffee wafting between faint hazelnut greets her. She opens her eyes to see her order dangling between slender fingers. Taking the cup, she tips its back, letting the hot liquid spill down her throat. It warms her from the inside. It burns away the dregs of the panic, hiding in the folds of her. Waiting.

When the cup is drained she looks to Mor, who is sitting their patiently, observing the world.

"How did you know to do that?"

"I suffer from panic attacks and anxiety attacks. It works for me." She shrugs as if it is not a constant and exhausting force. "Also," A bright smile takes over her face, "I'm a psychology major."

"Can I book you as my therapist when you graduate?"

There's that laughter again. The one that lights up all her insides. "I have a while to go before I get to qualified therapist status."

"Really?" Yrene frowns, "How long does it take?"

"I have to get my masters before I can practice."

"Wow," Her mind is a little blown. The med students are so cut off from the rest of the faculties- maybe by choice, maybe by design- that learning about other degrees always blows her away. Just the other day Feyre was telling her about the art students and the portfolios they have to submit. She can't imagine sitting down to pick a topic and then pouring your heart and soul into it. Med school made sense. There was no grey slate, at least for the most part. This is where the ulna is. This is how to tie off your suture. This formula tells you how to blow up the lab. The last one had been an honest miskate... the first time.

"Do you think you can stand?" Mor gets up, as graceful as a flamingo, and then offers a hand.

Yrene takes it without hesitation. She marvels at the contrast between her earth brown skin and Mor's burnt gold. The richest colours in the world. The ones that glow under the sun.

"Can I walk you to your dorm?"

"I have to get to class. If I rush I can be there for the second half of the double."

"Uh," She winces, looking at the hello kitty watch on her wrist. "It's been an hour?"

Her eyes widen to the size of planets. "It's been what?" Her voice is high pitched. "Oh gods oh gods oh gods. What if I missed the exam briefing? What if prof said something vital? What if—"

"Hey!" Mor clamps down on her shoulder, turns her so they're facing each other. Yrene only slightly shorter. "You were in no state to go to class. You still aren't. You should go to your dorm and rest. Maybe eat some carbs. Is there anyone who can take notes for you? And relay information?"

She frowns, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "Well I guess Rowan is in that class, and Nesta."

"They will help you?"

She nods. She breathes.

"Wonderful." Mor smiles. It's is pretty enough that Yrene sees stars. "Then we'll walk to your dorm and I'll make sure you're settled with some chamomile tea and some cheese sandwiches and then I'll go to my own classes."

They start walking, sludgy snow squelching under their boots.

"Won't you be late for class?"

The blonde just grins. She decides not to ask.

"You know I don't know your name?"

"Guess," It's her turn to be all mysterious and cheeky.

Mor looks at her closely, eyes traveling unashamedly from the top of her screwed curls to the tops of her black wellingtons.

"Irene."

She stumbles over herself. Looks at the woman alongside her. There isn’t enough oxygen in the world for her gasp of shock. "That's not it."

The blonde scrunches her nose in amusement. "“You’re a bad liar did you know?”

She sticks out her tongue. "How did you..."

"My friends call me Truth-Speaker."

"That's creepy." She raises a brow. It just makes Mor grin wider. "It's Yrene with a Y not an I."

"Pretty," She mumbles. "My full name is Morrigan."

"Pretty." She echoes. "Hey, you want to come drink chamomile tea and eat carbs with me?“

The blonde clasps their hands together beaming at the leaking blue sky.

"I'd love nothing more, Yrene."

She sees, touches, hears, smells, and tastes the happiness that clings to them as they step into the dorm.

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

When i originally thought up the idea for this Mor was supposed to be the new barista and Yrene the regular and they would meet-embarrassing when Mor gets the order wrong. Do not ask me how it turned into this?

I hope i have been sensitive about this topic and portrayed Yrene and her panic attack properly.

Tags:

@nishlicious-01

#Day 7 #Valentines day crackship challenge #Mor x Yrene #Yrene x mor #Crackships keep fandom alive #FDS fanfic #FDS series

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donatello-writes · 4 years

Text

Not Quite Human - Part IV

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Mystified by your date's bizarre actions, you wandered about your apartment, racking your brain as to where you'd gone wrong. Overthinking was your specialty, and you feared that perhaps you moved too fast, making him feel uncomfortable. Mortification painted your face as you hoped that wasn't the reason. Noticing Noodle sniffing around excitedly by the couch, you walked over to see what he was so interested in. Kneeling down for a closer look, you found a few pale green flecks dotting your carpet. They were lightly iridescent with a rough texture, almost like the skin of a snake. "...Are these...Scales?"

The sound of labored breath, laden with guilt, echoed through the otherwise silent midnight alleyways of New York city. Donatello felt like a fugitive fleeing from the scene of a crime as he darted from rooftop to rooftop, further distancing himself from you. The crisp October air burned his throat, but not as badly as the words left unsaid. He failed to have the courage to finally come clean about what he actually was: a mutant. The fear that surrounded him admitting his truth to you was paralyzing, knowing the outcome would most likely result in him never seeing you again. There was no chance that someone as perfect as you would want to be with a freakish reject like him. Beauty and the Beast is a lovely story, but things like that never happened in real life.

Engrossed in thought, he was unprepared when his two-toed feet split through the small converse shoes, causing him to lose footing and tumble across the next rooftop. As he laid face-first on the cold and unforgiving concrete, he vowed to replace the shoes he'd destroyed, they were Mikey's after all. The human-turtle hybrid moved to get up, only to remain on the ground when a sharp pain shot down his back. He involuntarily coiled into a ball in preparation for the worst part of the change. The smooth skin on his back began to crawl before hardening as it reformed into his carapace.

Wincing, the Donatello hugged his own body for comfort. To distract himself from the pain, he focused on the sound of the sweatshirt slowly tearing apart as it surrendered to his expanding form. He felt terrible for destroying your belonging, but due to the intense stress of the moment, he was unable to remove it in time. It wasn't long before his shell triumphantly burst through the clothing, regaining it's rightful place on his back. The mutant breathed a sigh of relief, it was all over. Removing his glasses, and retrieving his mask from his pants pocket, he tied it back onto his face. Surveying his surroundings, he located a nearby manhole and quickly slipped down into it.

Staggering through the sewer tunnels, vision doubled, Donatello struggled to even keep himself upright. Sewage splashed up onto his bare legs with each heavy step that he took. What little material that remained of his tattered jeans clung to his larger mutant form snugly, making movement difficult. This wasn't good. For the first time, he actually felt woozy following his change. Why are the after effects so adverse this time? He thought, mind swiftly consumed by worry. Thankfully, the journey wasn't long, and the lights of the lair soon illuminated his path.

The fatigued terrapin stumbled back into the lair, breathing still strained. Wobbling legs that had been threatening instability the entire jaunt home, finally gave out, and he collapsed like a newborn baby deer. Normally he would have rested before returning home, but he wasn't thinking clearly in his agitated state. Alarmed by the less than graceful entrance, his brothers rushed to his aid. Leonardo was the first at his side, followed closely by the others.

"Donnie, what happened? Where's all of your tech?" the leader in blue questioned.

"I...was attacked by foot soldiers...They ambushed me, I barely escaped...They took everything, but thankfully I awoke before they could do anything else." He lied again, something he abhorred, but had been doing a surprising amount of lately. Mikey tried his best not to react, knowing full well that his older brother's story was likely untrue.

Somehow the genius managed to convince his brethren that he was fine, and stole away to his laboratory. How was he going to explain this to you? After leaving without so much as a goodbye out the bathroom window of your high rise apartment unit. That, in and of itself, would be quite difficult to explain without telling you the truth. Worst part of all being the very moment at which he departed. The two of you were getting rather intimate, and if not for his pesky changing form, he would have stayed. The last thing he wanted you to think was that he wasn't interested in you that way. As if any of that even mattered at this point. Once you saw his true form, that flame of desire would surely die.

Clearly his homemade ooze was unstable, it's effectiveness dwindling with each use. Time was a cruel mistress and refused Donatello any leeway. There was a limit to how many more times he'd be able to turn human, and honestly, he wasn't sure how much much more of it he could take. The formula was still incomplete. There was a key ingredient missing, and he couldn't figure out what.

***************************************

Back at your apartment, you collected the cluster of scales discovered after Donatello's bizarre and hasty departure. Digging a microscope out of the closet and unboxing the device, you carefully set it up. Slipping the scales between slides and under the lens, you examined them. Following some tests, the scales were identified as being of the common North American box turtle. Perhaps Donatello has a pet turtle? It was just odd, as turtles usually shed similarly to snakes, in large sloughs rather than individual scales.

As with most cases where you were in need of immediate answers, you turned to the internet. While navigating the seemingly unending information on box turtles, you happened upon a video. It was an excerpt from a nature documentary explaining their mating habits. The narrator prattled on in his proper English accent about how the males emit what was described as a churr, followed by footage of a male box turtle making an extremely familiar sound. Immediately recognizing it, you sat at your desk for a moment, completely stunned. It was almost identical to the sound you'd heard coming from Donatello.

This new bit of intrigue encouraged further investigation. With the few supplies that you had, you assembled everything needed to conduct a rudimentary DNA test. Running into your laundry room, you retrieved his signature flannel shirt. Upon careful inspection of the garment, you managed to find a hair that you could use for analysis. You placed the hair besides the scales under the lens and had a look. Moving your eye from the microscope, you gasped. Somehow, the structural appearance of each seemed to almost match.

"But that would mean...There's no way."

The tools required to conduct a proper test were not at your disposal, so you were quick to doubt the accuracy of the results. If your hypothesis was correct, Donatello would easily fit the description of those beings you'd heard about on the news. Considering the strides in genetic research that had occurred within the past decade, the existence of such a genetic marvel wasn't completely ludicrous. However, one fact remained: all of this was nothing but speculation until proven. This realization brought your wild theorizing to a halt.

Perhaps a goodnight's sleep would help to clear your restless mind.

Merely an hour or so after your head hit the pillow, a ruckus reverberated down the alley outside of your apartment, stirring you from fitful slumber. Understandably irked by the rude awakening, you grumbled and rolled over in your bed. The sound of a familiar voice among the others swiftly quelled your annoyance, prompting you to venture out of bed and over to the window.

"Donnie...?"

The name came out in the form of a whisper as you gazed skyward to the origin of the commotion. It was difficult to make out detail in the veil of night, but what you could see were four humanoid silhouettes on the rooftop of a neighboring building. The longer you stared, the more you came to realize that these figures weren't human. They had what appeared to be shells on their backs...turtles? Your eyes were drawn to one of them, specifically. The one who appeared to be decorated with various pieces of electronic equipment.

Why do I feel like I know him somehow?

Further investigation was in order. Clumsily stepping through the window, you made your way out onto the fire escape. Still hazy from sleep, little attention was paid to your footing. One misstep was all it took to send you over the rail with a yelp. Thanks to quick reflexes, you managed to grab onto it, leaving you dangling from a dangerous height.

Fingers losing grip with every passing second, it wasn't long before you finally began to fall. Knowing ground impact was immanent, you shut your eyes tight. But instead of hitting the hard pavement, you found yourself being whisked upward. Someone had caught you. Rough, scaly arms surrounded you, holding on tight and trembling ever so slightly. He didn't speak, but he didn't need to, his expression spoke volumes. Jaw dropped, releasing ragged breath, and eyes visibly ravaged by worry from behind his...tortoise shell glasses. This realization came too late, however, as you made the mistake of looking down. Dizziness assaulted your vision and the world swiftly went dark.

Once he climbed your fire escape, his tension eased to see that you had fallen unconscious. That eliminated any awkward questions that he couldn't answer. His voice was too recognizable to you. It could give him away or, at the very least, cause suspicion.

Gently, he laid you down onto the bed. Bringing the covers over you, he then lovingly tucked you in. He couldn't resist resting a hand softly on your cheek. So warm against his cold palm, a reminder of how different you were. It was easy to forget at times while waltzing around in human skin.

Just as he turned to leave, you shifted in your bed and mumbled, "Donnie..." He shuddered at the sound of his own name. Peering over his shoulder, a sigh of relief left him to see that you were still out cold.

It was just a coincidence, he told himself.

***************************************

Awakening with a start, you were bewildered to find yourself in bed. "B-but...impossible."

Throwing off the covers, you ran back to the window, gazing up to find the mysterious creatures had long since vanished. Before falling you could have sworn that you heard Donatello, but it all happened so quickly that you started to doubt yourself. With your crack theory regarding the nerdy lad all but consuming your thoughts as of late, you weren't all that surprised.

It was just a dream...right?

The next day, he called. Despite him being the one who initiated the conversation, you were the first to begin.

“Donnie! About yesterday...If I made you feel uncomfortable at any point, I am so, so sorry.”

“No! That wasn’t it at all! I called to apologize to you.” there was a momentary pause as he collected his thoughts before continuing, “I’ve never been with another person in that way and I just got a bit...overwhelmed.”

Though you maintained that jumping out a window was not the best choice, you understood. Nerves can make a person do crazy things.“Well, if that ever happens again, can you promise me one thing?”

“Of course, anything.”

“Next time, please use the front door.” snorts and laughter came from the other end as he agreed to your terms. After a bit of talking, the two of you made plans to meet up. Excitedly stuffing all of your necessities into your backpack, you immediately headed out.

***************************************

"You forgot something the other night." with a broad smile you then handed over the flannel shirt, neatly folded and cleaned. The scent of lavender and vanilla laundry detergent clung to the material, filling the air with it's pleasant aroma. "It seems as though you're determined to have me keep this."

Noticing a curious purple rag poking out of his pants pocket, you swiped it for further investigation. It looked so familiar, but you couldn't place where you'd seen it before. He jerked after feeling the item leave his pocket and turned to you. Gears were already turning in his head, preparing his answer to whatever you were about to say.

Upon further examination of the brilliantly colored cloth, you came to discover two specifically cut holes in it. Additionally, there were designs up and down both sides. One appeared to be Japanese kanji and the other...*an icon of a turtle*. That was it! The terrapin rescuer of your dreams was wearing a mask almost identical to this one.

"Is this a...mask?"

Without missing a beat, Donatello replied, "Yes, because I'm secretly a crime fighting superhero by night." He said, laughing a bit louder than necessary.

"You did mention that you work at night...The pieces of the Donnie puzzle are finally coming together." with a wry smirk, you played along with his comical hypothetical. As he reached out to reclaim his possession, you swiftly tied to onto your face.

Puckering your lips goofily, you then requested his opinion, "How do I look?" adding to the humorous display with hands on both hips and a sassy rolling of the shoulders.

"I'm not going to lie...you look good in purple. Unfortunately, now I will have to kill you because you know my secret identity. It's such a shame too...I was really starting to like you, we had a good run." as the two of you exchanged a laugh, he wrapped his arms around you; using this as a distraction to remove the mask. "Now, are we just going to fool around or are we going on a date?"

***************************************

Within the next few months, when Donatello wasn't working on the ooze formula, he was out with you. The more time that you spent together, the more he couldn't help but worry about telling you the truth. He was leaving a crucial fact out of the equation: that he wasn't exactly human...Well, not completely. Guilt ate away at his delicate conscience, his anxiety surrounding the matter only worsening with each passing day. The night that you shared together was a close call. It was only a matter of time before it somehow surfaced whether planned or unexpected. Not wanting circumstances to come to the latter, he resolved to tell you on his own terms. It was just a matter of finding the right time.

Going over the plans for the evening in his head, Donatello gathered everything he needed for the night. Dinner, a movie, and a walk through the park. That would allow more than enough time to return to your apartment, and for him to confess to you before the ooze's effectiveness wore off. Without the visual, his story would be hard to believe. A much as it pained him to think of you watching his gruesome shift in form, it needed to be done.

With a heavy sigh, he headed away from the lair and deep into the sewers to take the ooze. Following his change, he donned a Queen t-shirt and squirmed uncomfortably while fitting his suspenders over his shoulders. It felt strange wearing his usual cargo pants. Not only were they ill-fitting on his smaller human body, but they also served to mark the end. The end of being human, the end of being normal, the end of being...with you.

The final touch: his purple flannel over shirt. It would undoubtedly be torn apart when he reverted back, and he couldn't think of a better way to get rid of it. He couldn't keep the article of clothing after all that it came to stand for. The outfit was far from fashionable, but at that point in time, he was in need of functionality. He didn't bother to remove his goggles, there was no point, she'd already seen them. Bedsides, it'd be far better to be prepared in case anything happened.

***************************************

"Nice suspenders, you're really playing up the hot nerd look, huh?" You joked.

Making a point to adjust his glasses he replied, "You know you like it."

Shooting him a smirk, you grabbed hold of his suspenders and pulled him into a kiss. "Oh, I definitely do...And I surrender, the nerdy allure is too much for me to handle! Have mercy!" You both chuckled as you made your way to the restaurant.

Hopping seamlessly from dinner to movie, the date was just as normal as any other. However, once you left the theater and headed off to your next destination, Donatello leaned in and whispered, "I don't mean to alarm you, but...It appears that we have chaperones accompanying our date. They're undoubtedly looking for revenge after what I did to them before." He concluded, and you breathed a sigh of relief. He still didn't know that they were after you, specifically.

After a series of twists, turns, and misdirections that would make even the Scooby Doo gang dizzy, it seemed you had thrown the ruffians off your trail. The detour had taken a decent chunk of time, and by now it was already dark. Given how far you both were from her apartment, he was forced to find a secluded place where there'd be no threat of him being seen as he transformed.

A rooftop.

Taking your hand in his, he led you up a nearby fire escape. You didn't question it, figuring this was still part of your evading the current threat. Once the two of you reached the top, stared up at the sky wistfully before turning to you. Gazing deep into your eyes, he wasn't sure where to begin. After everything that had transpired that night, his time frame was limited. Within the hour, the effects of the ooze would cease and his true appearance revealed.

Noticing his unease, you wrapped your arms around him. The tips of your fingers traced up and down the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine. You followed with a delicate touch of the lips. He savored every kiss that you granted him, knowing this would all come to an end once you knew what he really was...a monster...those words still echoed in Donatello's head from that terrible night at the Police station. His analytical brain made sense of the situation, he'd rationalized long ago that what those police had said came from a place of ignorance; however, knowing that fact didn't make their words hurt any less.

"Y/N...I...I haven't been myself lately." He began, words slow and heavy.

Puffing a chuckle, you replied, "It's okay, it happens to the best of us."

"No. You don't understand, I-I'm not hu--"

Angry shouts cut Donatello off from his confession. The Purple Dragons who had been following the two of you earlier had managed to locate you once more. Effortlessly scooping you up into his arms, your beau made a mad dash for the fire escape. While descending the stairs, your phone wriggled free from your pocket and plummeted down to the concrete below. You let out an involuntary shriek as it did so.

"S-sorry, I'll get you a new one!" He promised as you finally reached the bottom. Without hesitation, he then bolted down the alleyway with impressive speed. You looked back to see a few new thugs had joined the chase and were not far behind. The change was upon him, and in a panic, he hastened his pace. He was paying little attention to navigation, but thankfully you were. Recognizing the area, you shouted at Donatello to stop. Unfortunately, the warning came too late, he'd already turned to face a dead end.

Pain finally gripped him and he froze, allowing the pursuers to catch up. Nestled in his arms, you could feel his muscles twitching incessantly, begging to regain their proper form. Surveying his surroundings, there were no fire escapes, no windows, nothing to grab onto to make a getaway. The only thing in this alley was a faulty streetlight that flickered weakly, offering an eerie lighting to the already tense situation.

***************************************

Your piercing screech echoed down the streets, making it's way to the ears of a certain leader in blue. Out with only two of his brothers, he couldn't ignore such an apparent cry of distress. Following the sound, they came to find only the Purple Dragons all converging on one point. Clearly they were up to nothing good, so they silently followed from the rooftops. Eventually coming upon the objects of the chase: a young, unassuming couple.

Raphael tilted his head, perplexed, as he concentrated his gaze on the stranger below, "Hey, doesn't that guy look kinda familiah?" He inquired, nudging his little brother.

"Nope, nope...Haven't seen that dude before in my life." Michelangelo straightened up, trying his best not to seem suspicious. Knowing it was Donatello, and concerned for his safety, the orange masked turtle added, "Should we go down there and help them?" He then looked to his older brethren for guidance. Both of them traded glances before surveying the scene below one more time. The heroic young man was poised to fight off his attackers, and he didn't appear to be a stranger to combat, judging from his solid fighting stance, and the fierce expression on his face.

Leonardo shook his head decisively, "No, if it's not absolutely necessary for us to intervene, we won't. We are not going to risk being seen over a small skirmish." the leader had spoken, and he directed his younger team members to follow him away from the stand-off. Not but a second later, the human man prepared to dish our the much deserved beating that his assailants were begging for.

This was a dead end in every sense of the phrase. Standing between you and the enemy, Donatello held his place firmly. He would do anything it took to ensure your safety. As if some otherworldly force were at work in his favor, just as the miscreants prepared for attack, the streetlight cut out. Scant beams of moonlight streamed in from between the lofty buildings and offered little light to the scene. Low gasps and groans of displeasure came from the Purple Dragons, but not him. He was completely at home in the shadows.

Drawing in a deep breath, Donatello began fighting off the group, and defend you. They all rushed at him, despite their limited vision, and the game was set. Maneuvering through the group with calculated grace, he easily evaded the flurry of fists and weapons. His strikes were deliberate, without a hint of hesitation. There was no time for flourishes like the last fight, this time he was all business. Admittedly, he was putting on a bit of a show to impress you the last time he faced off against these thugs.

Leonardo motioned for his brothers to follow him away from the scene, and the both nodded. Turning back to catch one last glimpse of the show, Raphael's eyes widened. He recognized those fighting movements instantly, they were exactly the same as what he and his brothers learned from Master Splinter. "Guys. Check out this nerd's moves."

Well aware that his shift in form was upon him, Donatello was forced to ignore it, and focus on the fight. Scales began to replace skin, and the sound of tearing fabric rang out into the quieted night. His darkened form appeared to be growing, but that couldn't be possible. A single flash from the streetlight gave you a glimpse of your heroic beau, half-turned. It was only for a split second, but enough.

The two oldest brothers watched in disbelief as this gangly human man slowly took the familiar shape of their brother, far too stunned by what their eyes were beholding to take action. Michelangelo shifted uncomfortably, being privy to the secret, trying to pretend like he was equally as surprised. The leader was speechless, not entirely sure of what he had just witnessed. While beside him, the red brute showed the most visible reaction. A myriad of emotions swept over the red masked turtle's face--shock, fear, and disgust, before finally settling on his usual: anger.

As the transformation persisted, so did Donatello's attackers. He wanted to double over, but couldn't let up his defense for a second. All that he could do was grit his teeth, and tolerate the pain as he continued fending off the assault. There were far too many enemies for him to be concerned with his change at this point in time. Meanwhile, his practically blind assailants were oblivious to his shifting form.

It wasn't until he took down the last of his opponents, and reached for your hand, that he finally came crashing back down to reality from his adrenaline high. His three-pronged, green, scaly hand was outstretched before him, mere inches away from yours. At which point, the streetlight finally decided to remain on, shining brightly down on the newly turned mutant like a spotlight. The otherworldly force was not so benevolent after all.

The orange and red masked brothers were prepared to jump down and interrupt, but Leonardo quickly stopped them. "No...we're not needed here." He stated, knowing this was time that you and Donatello needed alone. The wise leader was able to read the situation effortlessly. Putting the disappointment that he was feeling on the back burner, he chose empathy. Knowing that his sibling was already stressed, he didn't want to compound that by getting involved at this moment.

"Whut??? Didja not see our brother just--" the burly terrapin readied his argument, but was swiftly silenced by the head of the team. "Enough, we're not interfering. We can discuss this with Donnie later, but right now...They need to be alone."

Coming to the realization that you had just witnessed him transform for the first time, Donatello's eyes grew wide with horror and he quickly withdrew his hand. He wished this had happened under better circumstances, but these were the cards that he was dealt. Dread flashed over his features as you stared back at him, transfixed. The expression on your face appeared almost identical to the one in his nightmare. Anxiety at it's peak, he backed away like a frightened animal and absconded without saying a word. There was nothing to be said, his monstrous form spoke for itself, telling the story of his deceit.

The mutant's departure was so swift that he didn't hear your plea for him to stay. By the time you'd found words, he had already disappeared into the night. You stood there, surrounded by fallen enemies, and the many tattered pieces of his flannel shirt that laid strewn about the alley. Kneeling down, one by one you carefully collected the pieces of material. After retrieving every last shred, you stepped over the unconscious men and slowly made your way home in a daze.

Once he had returned to the lair, Donatello shut himself away in his room, head reeling from what had just occurred. The look of fear on your face replayed endlessly in his head as if it were a video on loop. He didn't expect you to accept him like this, he was an abomination of both nature and science. He only wanted for you to be able to lead a normal life, and he was unable to give you that. Knowing this fact made his heart ache.

Surely you wouldn't want to see him again, he concluded pessimistically. Not after watching someone you thought was human horrifically transform into a monster before your very eyes. Someone you trusted...and maybe even...loved? He quickly erased that possibility from his mind, you'd never return your affection for him like this...as a mutant. You loved the human Donatello, and that was the reality of the situation.

You returned to your apartment, utterly dumbfounded by the recent events. From your brief infiltration of Dr. Stockman's laboratory, you knew that he made unbelievable breakthroughs in genetic engineering. Though you were not privy to the specifics of his work, rumors flew within the scientific community that he'd found a way to modify human and animal DNA with his miraculous purple serum. You didn't believe these insane claims, it was something like that seemed unachievable. Despite the fact that you'd been hired to purloin said formula, you still weren't convinced of it's effectiveness. Was Donatello really a human-animal hybrid? Even though you'd witnessed him change into his half-animal form right in front of you, if was still difficult to swallow.

"He's...incredible."

...to be continued.

Tagged a few folks who asked to be:

@ali-on-reverie @fullvoidmoon @notaliteraltoad

#aaand it's done #I sure hope it was worth the wait #cause I don't feel like it was #*dies*#I struggled with this part for some reason I'm sorry guys #I'm just happy that I finished it #bayverse tmnt #tmnt fan fic #tmnt x reader #donatello x reader #tmnt 2016 #tmnt 2014 #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #fan fiction #my writing #don's quill pen #not quite human

246 notes · View notes

michael-langdon-appreciation · 4 years

Text

How Deep Is Your Love - A New Saga.

Jim Mason x Mermaid (AU)

Summary: All Jim Mason wants is to escape his turbulent in PV. Aurelia longs to find adventure beyond the sea. Once they collide together, their budding love becomes forbidden once Cornelius, King of the Ocean, learns his daughter is consorting with a human.

Warnings: Open Ocean, things get dicey for Jim!

A/N: I cannot thank @codyfernmorelikedaddyfern enough for this brand new saga. She owns the original idea and we fangirled and came up with this legendary idea. This is an AU inspired by The Little Mermaid and will feature a cast of very familiar characters including Michael and Duncan. This is also the first time I have used a name for the ‘reader’ character. I hope you all enjoy, invest and love it as much as we do.

Beautiful banner created by @codyfernmorelikedaddyfern

JIM

The ocean is always calm first thing in the morning. Jim likes to be out as the sun rises, before the Bay Boys can get in the way and ruin the beauty of nature. His arms paddle Jim and his board out, a tiny wave swelling under him and lifting him as he bobs through the sea. Up ahead a dolphin’s tail arc out of the sea and a smile catches Jim’s lips.

Here he’s free.

Out on the ocean, he’s home.

He didn’t check the weather today, didn’t need to. The entire week had been a swell of sunshine and blue skies. Jim turns round on his board and lies his back against it, letting himself drift off into his dreams. The sun makes has his skin gleaming a healthy bronze as a wave laps against his board. Jim frowns, it’s bigger than the others.

A rogue wave…it must be.

A raindrop falls on his shoulder and then another. Then another. The sky opens and rain hammers down, dark clouds circling above. The waves gather momentum, as if Poseidon himself had decided to reign down terror against him. Jim paddles and swims for shore, the waves lift and throwing Jim and his board forwards. The storm howls behind him, a wave nearly knocking him off his board.

He’s in trouble. Jim’s black wetsuit means no one can see him.

The rain blurs his vision. He can hardly see a thing, just the momentum of the waves which to Jim’s horror are taking him further out to sea. His arms burn and then everything goes wrong. Jim’s board flips upwards, smacks him in the forehead and he’s in the water. He flails to stay above water, but wave after wave after wave crashes over him.

He can’t get enough oxygen. The leash on his surfboard is dragging Jim through the water, the current and waves are too much and his lungs are screaming along with every fibre and sinew in his body.

He’s drowning.

His arms work to try and free him from the leash and then pain unlike anything Jim has felt streaks through him. There’s blood in the water, blood and rain and rock and then…nothing.

AURELIA

She’d always been adventurous. Aurelia loved nothing more than exploring an ocean that never seemed to end. There was a call to adventure around every coral reef, each fish with its own identity and ability to breeze through life. She was a saviour of the sea. Befriending those who were little and ready to go toe-to-toe with the predators who looked at her like she was a fine piece of plankton.

Today she’d swam far, disobeying her Daddy again and preferring to hitch a ride on Jigsaw’s fin. The Dolphin was as familiar to her as seaweed, Aurelia’s tail whipping behind her and cutting through the water as Jigsaw arced up and broke the water’s surface. Aurelia peeped above the ocean-line, a thrill licking her veins. Daddy always advised against their people going close to shore.

What will they say to you? A girl out in the middle of the ocean? They will capture you. They will hurt you. We stick to our own kind.

But the world above was ever-changing. The sea only held so much for her. Unable to swim lower than The Midnight Zone, forced to remain in the well-lit parts of the ocean or risk her lungs exploding, there was little Aurelia in her twenty-five years had not seen.

But she would never show her tail.

She’d kill someone before they saw her fully.

Above her, the clouds had begun to darken. Aurelia glanced over at Jigsaw, who made a click and she nodded, diving back down with the dolphin. Better to get deep enough to avoid all bad weather till it had passed. Finding a flat rock, Aurelia stretched out, watching as her friend swept up small pieces of food, diving in and out of the coral. Her fingers swept over some of the Sea Anemones who bristled at her touch. A little further, some of the coral was stark white and bleached.

A pang filled her heart as Aurelia’s gaze lifted upwards, towards the patter of rain hammering the top of the ocean.

Humans will never understand.

If it weren’t for Jigsaw, the board would have hit her. Her friend’s nose pushes hard into Aurelia’s ribs, steering her clear as the board cuts through the water above them. The water tumbles and rocks Aurelia as the storm intensifies above. A body is flung through the water, an arm smacking Jigsaw who whistles in indignation.

A human…this far out?

Aurelia knows the US shoreline is a good seventy miles from where they are. She can taste the current, whipped into a frenzy by the storm. Jigsaw has already swum after the human, his instincts kicking in. Aurelia is quick to follow, beating her tail and entering the current. Spurred on, she catches up easy as the board with its human slow to a stop. The human is unconscious, male. The body curls in and then expands in the water, just a couple meters above the surface.

Aurelia halts, he could already be dead.

Jigsaw swims under the body and pushes upwards, carrying the man to the surface. The board rises with him. Its then Aurelia realises the man’s ankle is attached.

A surfboard.

She’s seen them often. Humans who ride the waves with little care for their lives in order to get a thrill. They know nothing about the ocean, or what lives inside it. She tugs at the leash as Jigsaw lies flat, giving the surfer some much needed oxygen. Aurelia tugs again and the leash releases, freeing the man as the board starts to drift. Catching it, the mermaid transfers the man from Jigsaw’s back to the board. He’s heavy, weighed down by water as she hoists her body onto the board. Her tail dips out of the water as she positions the surfer and begins to slide back into the water.

He’s a beautiful boy. Eyes shut, but with full lips and skin bronzed from the sun. He’s new and exciting, even if he might be dead. Aurelia looks to Jigsaw again, who splashes the surfer with a flipper. The dolphin is quick to circle round, impatience and concern brewing as he whistles low again.

‘We have to try.’ Aurelia murmurs. ‘We should get him to shore.’

The dolphin seems to share the idea. His nose pressing against the surfboard as Jigsaw pushes them through the water. It’s hard-work, his tail beating fast as Aurelia swims beside him. A protectiveness swells inside her, for the surfer and her bestest friend.

No one else would save him with her. No one else would understand.

The surfboard rolls up against the sand and stills, unable to move anymore. Jigsaw’s nearly beached himself as he slides back into the water. Aurelia hesitates, looking round for humans.

There’s none. The houses overlooking the beach are motionless and quiet.

The boy will still die if she doesn’t do something.

Jigsaw clicks a warning as Aurelia crawls along the beach, abandoning the safety of the shallows. Her fingers brush some hair out of the surfer’s eyes, a hand running down his chest and pressing. She unzips his wetsuit down as far as she can and starts to pump, instincts carrying her as water spits out of the surfer’s lips and nose. His ankle is raw from the leash, Aurelia’s hand travelling down to run her fingers along the wound. The song leaves her lips as she works, a hummed lullaby from her childhood. The wound dissipates, flesh melding together, the redness leaving as the song blooms inside her.

Music held so much healing, Aurelia’s head tilting up to the sun as she peers down at the surfer’s toned body. How she’d like to keep just this one. Give in to her urge to lure him back to sea and keep him with her forever.

Her song dies as the surfer’s eyes open. Blue, crystalline and confused.

JIM

His head feels fogged, as if there is literal water on his brain. He squints, despite the cloudy, dull day as a balm numbs his every sense. Someone’s touching him. Someone’s got him wrapped in a blanket of beauty, soft green eyes capturing his own as he stares up at the woman bending over him.

She’s more beautiful than heaven, looking down on him.

Her eyes crease in fear, but Jim’s already roamed down her figure, past the little sea-shell bra that covers her breasts to her…the girl darts back into the water as Jim surges upwards. His body drives him forwards on pure adrenaline. He’s coughing up more water and the world tilts and he’s crying out for her, ‘NO WAIT!’

Her tail, iridescent arcs up and disappears as Jim’s left coughing in the shallows. A tiny wave licks at his chest and he scrambles backward away from the water.

He was lazing about. The clouds. The storm. The…he turns back to his surfboard, hardly scratched apart from the broken leash.

The girl.

She…saved him?

Jim gets to his feet, shaking. He wants to find her, but…no.

They’re not real.

He’s hallucinated.

He’s probably dead after all.

It wouldn’t surprise him.

‘JIM.’ His head turns as a punch lands at his shoulder. Blonde hair and furious, Medina glowers at him. ‘Tell me you were not out in that storm.’

Jim pulls his twin close, hugging her fiercely. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re an idiot.’ She cries, head burrowing into his shoulder. ‘Please, Jim. No more stupid ideas.’

‘I know.’ He says, ‘I didn’t know there was going to be a storm.’

‘You’re lucky you’re not dead.’

Jim knows he is. His gaze lifts back out to the ocean, scanning the horizon to see any glimpse of her.

There.

She’s watching him, half her body lying on a rock. She’s trying to hide from him and failing miserably. Beside her a dolphin swirls in a figure of eight.

Jim lets Medina pull him back to the house, back to his Mom and the spending and reality. He knows he should feel terrified by the ocean, from what just happened. But as he sits on the couch, leaving a wet-patch Mom is sure to kill him for, Jim’s only thought is when he can get back out there again. How he can find her.

Tag-List: @leatherduncan @sojournmichael @duncvns @elizabethbennett @mochitheruby @dyns33 @xavierplympton @jimmlangdon @emmyrosee @brattylovee @lizhomitz1984 @pppsssyyyccchhhiiiccc @rocketgirl2410 @satansfavouritesons @blakewaterxx @lvngdvns

#jim mason #Jim Mason x reader #Jim Mason imagine #new series #Jim Mason series #the NEW runaway saga #how deep is your love #Cody fern #Cody Fern characters #Michael Langdon #Duncan Shepherd #the tribes of palos verdes #pv #mermaid #aurelia #Jim Mason x mermaid #the little mermaid inspired #ocean #forbidden love

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rebelheartsmustbefree · 3 years

Text

(Standing in the Flames)

Ewan:

Did death bring with it smells? I’d never been dead before, but I suppose it could. My sense of smell being assaulted by numerous scents. Vile one's. My limbs moved.

“Motherfucker!” The tone in my voice somewhere between a dog whistle and glass smashing pitch.

No, I wasn't dead, surely there wasn't this much pain in death. There couldn't be, that all-loving God wouldn't allow it....Wings. The thoughts of my untimely death halted. Wings was safe as long as I was here, there’d be no more looking for me, for that face. An inner calm came over me; it didn't stop the pain from assaulting me, hitting in nauseating waves, but it was something. I moved my head; my teeth clamped together. Tightly. My limbs felt like lead; they couldn't move, I couldn't make them move, and this time it wasn't because they were tethered to a table. Finally, my head lifted. My limbs laid at odd angles on the makeshift bed. My head fell back, not the comfiest of landings but better than hitting the table. Pain wracked my spine. Fucking hell. If I could shift....the air around me shimmered....nothing.

Nothing for hours, between bursts of pain, I tried. I failed. Between bouts of unconsciousness, I tried. I failed. Faces came and went, Gretchen, came and went. I was a freak show for them to stare at, prod at when it pleased her. Hear my screams of pain as they moved my broken limbs for their enjoyment. One guard had the audacity to piss on my leg. I would enjoy killing him. My mind became lost in the maze of my head with each needle. These people had been doing experiments on shifters for year's. Murdering us, trying to learn our secrets, trying to understand our DNA and why it was so different from theirs. Fucking werewolves. Why the fuck weren't they happy with just being able to change into wolves? Arseholes.

Isaac:

*I could hear Jason screaming my name, his hand shoved up against my throat. My mind was slowly coming back online, the darkness fading from unconsciousness and the darkness of reality I realized was much, much worse. I shoved Jason off of me and scrambled over to Marie, my hands gathering her up and pulling her lifeless body into mine. NO. This cannot be happening. I won’t let it. I close my eyes and give everything into trying to heal her. Come on sweetheart, come back. Deep down I knew. She was already dead before I came out of that bar looking for her. Before I was attacked and hit the ground. But the side of me that knew that lost the battle of wills, still trying to save her anyway.

My throat was already in the process of healing, all my grace seeming to be focused on patching me back up, Marie be damned. The more I tried to fix her the slower the process of my own healing was, blood still trying to gush out from the wound. FUCK. Jason was down here with me, his arms closing around us both. I could hear his words, in an effort to comfort me but no words would work.*

Isaac, she’s gone..you can’t bring her back. You have to let yourself heal.

*My head shot over and I glared at him, tears streaming from my bright blue eyes. I couldn’t help her. Healing is one thing but bringing people back from the dead isn’t something we try to do as Angels. We can but we don’t make a habit of it. And with this cut across my throat taking all my grace and sucking it up for itself, I didn’t have enough in me to save us both. I didn’t have a choice. My body made the choice and the celestial being side of me chose selfishly.*

Ewan:

The sweat dripped down my forehead, my body covered in it like a blanket. My broken, shattered limbs shook. I wretched, the contents of my empty stomach fighting it's way up my gullet, my throat and finally into my mouth. Bile. Fuck, I wasn't dead. I blinked, how long had I been here? Why hadn't I died yet? I’d begged. Pleaded for death, which hadn't come yet. I lifted my head; the room spun, more bile. My legs still at odd angles, green and yellow oozing from open wounds. Flies buzzing around my arm, the muscle curling, turning black.

I dropped my head, the stench in the room I could only imagine; I’d been put back in here at the end of every ‘session.’ No bath, no shower, no toilet. I’d rather have been gutted, my head severed. Each time, when I believed I couldn't feel any more pain, they’d find ways to inflict it. Some new test or experiment to try on me.

Tears fell from my eyes, the material below my head, soaking them up silently, keeping them as though holding on to a secret.

The door opened that scent I wretched again. Gretchen.

“Hello, Ewan...” Her voice is perky, too perky. “Today we are going to open that chest of yours.”

Her head appeared above mine, her finger on my chest as she outlined a heart with her nail.

“Let me die.”

“Oh, no...the fun is just beginning.” A sadistic, twisted tone in her voice.

Isaac:

*I had to go. I couldn't be here when the police showed up. They would take one look at me and immediately have too many questions. I was covered in blood. My own blood but there was now no wound at all. Not even a trace, a scratch, nothing. So they would assume I did this to Marie. Jason shoves as me and tells me to get out of here, the sirens are nearing, closing in bit by bit.

But when it came down to it, I couldn't leave her. Everyone in the bar knows I was here tonight and asking everyone to lie would not be okay. And clearing their minds is the last thing I would want to do to people I care so much about. This shit was going to come down and fast.*

Jason. Tell them I went after the attacker. I'll be right back. Just tell them that!

*I yell at him as I start running from the bar. I had to get away from all the blood at the scene for this to work. I was going to track that bastard down. There was no way with a throat wound, that my blood hadn't gotten on him. I am going to find this fucker and it is over for him.*

Ewan:

My legs didn't work, that was obvious from the fact my shoulders were dislocating under the strain of my body weight. Hung from a wall by arms, blood dripping from the muscles and ligament around my wrist where there was no skin left. Gaping skin on my abdomen where their fingers, hands and instruments had been. I had to wonder if I had any insides left in there. The drugs they'd given me had at least numbed me this time; it was a shame they couldn't have numbed my brain and taken my eyesight.

My eyelids lay closed; my body jerked now and again, my back hitting the wall, no feeling I just knew it was there. I continued to try to change, shifter into anything; at this stage, I would take a worm, a gnat, a fly. For the love of fucking God anything. I’d fought through this for the only thing in my life that made sense anymore. The only thing that had given me peace. Wings. In my mind, I’d been back to that cottage a million times. More tugging on my body. Words are spoken between these people; I can only hear certain ones. Obscure words in random order. There was no point trying to put them together, trying to form a sentence. I didn't care.

Isaac:

*He wasn't hard to find. My blood was the strongest beacon in the free fucking world. Even the most minuscule trace of my blood could be tracked by me. Only me. My grace was unique and no other Angel had this combination of human and celestial DNA. He was a couple blocks down from the bar, just behind that little shop Ewan and I went to before our get together. I had to immediately shove that warm thought out of my head. Sentimental shit had no business being in the forefront of my mind right now. I had one thing on my agenda and it wasn't reminiscing.

Thing about me is I can be the most loving, caring being you'll ever meet.. until I've hit that line and crossed it. The line where you've fucked with my family, you've hurt me and killed one of my own. The most random act of violence. Senseless.

The closer I got to our attacker, the more I could smell him, smell my blood on him. He had no idea what was about to hit him. I was up on him and shoving him onto the ground before he had a chance to turn around and see me. The Isaac that everyone knew was pushed aside and the vengeful Angel was full on and ready for blood.*

Bet you didn't expect me to get up from that.. did you? *My words were practically seething from between gritted teeth, my hand had the back of his neck and his face shoved into the pavement. I had no idea what was happening to me. Shirt was gone, a blood stained chest now exposed and my wings fully expanded behind me. The flare from my blue eyes blinding as I reached that boiling point. He was dead to rights.. my hand coming down to the back of his head to obliterate him entirely until he calls me, 'Jason?!'.*

What? *I spat out and shoved at his body until he turned around. Maybe this wasn't random after all.* Who fucking sent you.. and you better talk sense quick.

Ewan:

The hours passed, I knew that because of the pools of blood at my feet when I did open my eyes. I tried to continue to take myself away, now and again though I’d be jolted back against the wall, I was shackled to right now. There was a comfort to be taken from being at the cabin: a commotion, words being shouted dragged me back again. My head lulled on my chest, I trying to lift it, fighting my eyes this time to open. Perhaps someone had found me, Wings? He’d found me, come to get me out of here. I felt the hope begin to spring in my chest; I could do this. I lifted my head painfully, slowly, my vision blurry.

“Wings.” A mere whisper fell from my lips. Figures rushed around, colours folded into each other, no outlines.

“Wings.” One of those blurred blobs headed my way; I blinked furiously trying to get my vision to clear. “Wings.” My voice a little louder this time, the hope had travelled through my body like my blood, springing up everywhere. He was here. He was here.

As the blurred vision got nearer the crumbled bones of my legs tried to stand a loud crack, my body slumped against the chains holding me. “Wings...here.” The blurred vision stood in front of me.

“Wings....Thank you.” I swallowed, it felt like nails fighting to get down my throat. It didn't matter; he was here. He had come. I felt my mouth attempting to smile. I wasn't sure what was taking him so long, his smile, he was smiling at me. He knew it was me. Those dimples. I blinked again.

“Wings? Is that Jason, dear Ewan. He won't be rescuing you anytime soon.”

The image in front of me cleared, Gretchen.

“Jasons dead.”

Isaac:

*He begrudgingly gave up a few details, none of which told me anything that made this whole shit show make sense.*

What the hell does Jason have to do with any of this? *My hand tightened around the guys throat and lift him off the ground by it, I kept my face in his, still seething. It was then that I realized that my wings were on full display by the saucer sized eyes the guy in my grasp had.*

He called you Jason.. But also Wings.. Now I know why. *He scoffed and actually had the audacity to reach up and try and touch them but my reflexes were much quicker. I caught his wrist and snapped it back, laughing darkly at how the bone crunched within my hold. His apparent amusement faded real quick after that. And then I knew what this was all about. This must be about Ewan and this fucker must be one of the guys that Ewan has been running from.*

He was wearing my face wasn’t he? Ewan. Is this why you came after me? Cut my throat and ran like a fucking coward? *My heart began to race. The plan was to grab this guy, fuck him up and smite him without hesitation. But he had information. This was about Ewan and the bullshit ran deeper than what it appears to be on the surface. With nothing more than a blink, I will us back to my apartment and sit his ass down in a kitchen chair. Before he could even realize or put up a fight, I had him tied up and gagged. He wouldn’t move. He couldn’t. And for good measure, I placed an old enochian ward on the rope, making it impossible to wriggle out no matter how strong the guy was.*

I’ll be back. I’m not done with you. *With that, I find a shirt and let the cloak settle back in place, wings tucked back away and headed down to deal with the cops that just arrived.*

Ewan:

Could time stand still? Could words float in the air? I blinked. No. No. It was Wings, I’d seen him. I’d seen Isaac; it was a trick. I blinked again. My eyes frantically searched every inch of the face in front of me. No. No.

“Wings....Wings...” I croaked.

He was here. He was. I pulled on the manacles restraining my wrists; a scream rushed from my throat as pain wracked my body. Why didn't he hurry? They'd find us; he’d be caught then too. Wings quickly. Hurry.

“Ewan.” The sound of the voice floated to my ears; it was him. He was trying to tell me he was here, but I knew, I knew I’d seen him.

“Ewan.” Again.

I'm here; it's me. Isaac, it's me. The other hand pulled at its binding, another scream. My broken legs slipped in the pooled blood, getting no traction even to attempt to stand. WINGS!! My brain screamed.

“Fucking listen to me, Ewan.....your friend, Wings is dead. Peter cut his throat open and let like the trash he is on the floor.”

NO. No. No. It wasn't true. The words had been said, but they weren't making sense. I’d seen him. He was here. He’d come for me.....

Isaac:

*The cops came, asked about a million questions I didn’t have time for or wanted to answer. But I knew I had to comply and play human. To pay no mind to the man bound up and tied to a chair in my dining room. He had answers and I would do everything I had to, to figure out what the hell is going on. Lynn stood beside the gurney, the body of Marie zipped up in the body bag. Marie had no biological family unless you counted her ex husband which we definitely did not. We were her family. Lynn like her sister. It would be us that would handle all the arrangements. Starting with Lynn heading off to the morgue. I motion to Jason to go with her. She didn’t need to be alone right now. No. I needed to be left here to take care of things. The cop grabs my arm, repeating his question.*

I came out and found her like this and all I could think of was to have Jason call you guys and I ran out there trying to find the attacker.

*The officer jots down the information I just relayed to him and closes his little notebook. He gave his condolences once again and they were on their way. With the bar now closed and everyone else taking off, I was here alone to do what I needed to. Climbing the stairs two at a time, I get back to my apartment and shut the door behind me. The man in the chair had wide eyes once again. I tore the gag out of his mouth roughly and before I had a chance to say anything, he’s stammering.*

Look, I am just carrying out orders here. Doing as I’m told. Your friend was a casualty of the job.

*The balls on this guy to just refer to Marie as some fucking casualty. The back of my hand struck him across the mouth, busting his lip open immediately.*

Don’t you fucking talk about her. She wasn’t just something in your way. She was my family. All of these people are my family and you fucked with the wrong guy. *I gripped his hair in my fist and yanked his head back, making him meet my icy blue eyes.*

Now...who are you and where is Ewan?

Ewan:

I shook my head, it wasn't true he was here. I felt my eyes fill up, no he was here.

“He’s dead. The trash had to be taken out Ewan, and now....no one knows you're here. I wanted to make sure of that. I intend to keep you for a very long time.” The voice gleeful.

He was here. He was here. I blinked furiously clearing my vision. My broken limbs slipping again and again as I tried to make my legs work. Bones rebreaking, as I pulled against the shackles. The muscles making noises as the shackles rubbed against them, blood fell from them. An anguished scream ripped from me as I continued to fight. The vision in front of me, twisting and turning.

And....there he was, smiling saying my name, how sweet it sounded from his lips.

“Ewan...” His arms wrapped around me, those dimples perfect.

“Wings....My Wings had come for me.” There, right there was the cabin. I felt my lips smile. It was over.

“He's unconscious, take him back to his room. We will continue tomorrow.” Gretchen instructed one of the lab workers.

Isaac:

*So far I had gotten out that this evenings attacker was named Peter, that he was just another cog in a bigger machine and that him going missing wouldn’t bother the whole big picture of their operation. I stepped back and watched him, stalking around his rope bound form that now had many wounds that he bled from. He wouldn’t give me more information if he died on me. I lay my palm on his shoulder, letting the grace slowly flow from my fingers and into his body. He would heal, just giving him enough to not die on me.*

There’s one question you keep skirting around and it’s a very important question, Pete. Where is Ewan?

*I really didn’t know what he had to laugh about, but he did. Choking on his own blood as he did so. I was through with fucking around with this guy. Just as I was about to haul off and slap this asshole again, he opens his mouth and more hateful words come out.*

Why do you care about that fucking thing? The only reason she keeps him alive is so we can run tests on his DNA because he is a freak. *Another laugh, spitting out blood onto my floor.* He is some bottom feeding entity, not like us. You.. though that has to be the best face I’ve seen him use, you are something different. I saw those wings. Those glowing eyes. I heard the dialect you used to bind these ropes. You’re an Angel and I cannot figure out why you would waste your time with a lab rat, our lab rat.

*And then that was about the time I couldn’t take anymore. I pulled back my hand and landed it across his face so hard that I could hear his cheekbone crunching beneath the contact. Ewan seems to be a trigger, my wings were back out and on display again, those bright blue eyes burning a hole in that mother fucker. How dare he talk about him like that?*

You’re going to show me where they are holding him or I will pull you innards out through your mouth, Peter. I don’t care anymore. I just want him back and I’ll let you go, healed even though you killed an innocent and tried to kill me. Do we have a deal?

Ewan:

The world was perfect again; somehow, Wings had found me. Now here we are, the cabin, the snow, our friends coming tonight. The smile on my face had been continuous since we got here, how many days had that been? I couldn't remember. I looked down at my arms, my legs....flashes of pain rushed into my head, my hands went to my temples as I bit my lip to stop me from groaning out....Our friends were here; I opened the door, a sight to see. Jason, Marie and Lynn. Marie’s outline shimmered, like a shifter, maybe she didn't know what she was? I could explain it to her.... My hands shot to my temples, the pain....flashes of silver appeared in front of my eyes. I turned around looking for Wings......

“Is he awake yet?” Gretchen asked the guard; all he did was shake his in answer.

“There's no point in torturing him if he can't see it.” She opened the latch door, looking at my broken body. She slammed the looking hole closed.

Isaac:

*Good ol Pete agreed and I refrained from turning him inside out. We took the way by foot, my hand at the back of his neck with a death grip that let him know I wasn't in the mood for any sort of negotiation. Traveling through all the back alleys and shortcuts I could find, not wanting anyone to stop us with questions. Which since it was about three in the morning, chances of that were slim. All I could think about was Ewan. My stomach was in knots ever since Peter told me what they were doing to him, why they hunt Ewan.

I swallow down the lump in my throat. The thought of him being shackled up brought back my own painful memories of what the Garrison wants to do to me, and have tried doing before. I would lay down my life to keep Ewan from going through that hell. Peter croaks out instructions, telling me where to turn. We were on the outskirts of town and I could see the old building up ahead. It had been abandoned for as long as I could remember so at first I questioned whether Pete was telling me the truth or not. But the closer we got, the more I could sense Ewan.

We had spent enough time around each other that I would never forget the way he smells.*

Okay.. I brought you to him, now let me go. You said you would.

*Ahh.. the smell of fear. It was rolling off Pete and filling my senses. It was delightful. Especially after what he did to Marie, to me and what fucked up shit he was part of that would hurt Ewan. The grip on the back of his neck tightened, I lifted Peter up off the ground so his feet would kick and protest the height. The fire tore through his body quickly, his screams muted by it consuming his throat first since that's what I was holding him by. When he was fully engulfed in flames, I dropped his charred body to the ground, smirking down at it.*

I lied, mother fucker.

Ewan:

My arms wrapped around my head; the pain had taken me to my knees. “Wings.....Wings....” Jason, Marie and Lynn stood watching, not coming near me. Flashes of silver blinded me. “Wings...Wings” Why wasn't he here? He was here, he came for me. He was here. I shook my head, the floor distorted, it became brown. No, no, no. I opened my eyes.... There was no cabin; I was back in the room. I was here. Pain ripped through every limb, every part of the skin that covered my body. I remembered, I remembered, the second round of pain tore from my insides, it was my heart tearing to shreds. No, no, Wings was dead. The bellow echoed around the empty room, my whole body shook......my vision blurred.

Marie’s shimmering figure laughed. Jason smiled. Lynn was dancing. A blurred figure stood in the doorway, I smiled. “Wings?”

“Get that bastard out of there and wake him up. I need to....experiment on his voice box.” Gretchen's order was simple enough.

Isaac:

*The little hairs pricked at the back of my neck. All celestial senses now in overdrive. Ewan was here and he needed me. He needed help. I carefully opened the door and stepped inside, closing my eyes and sussing out the counts of heartbeats.

One.. two.. three.. four.. five..

And one more.. slow and ragged, injured. I smelled blood. It was him. Five people and six counting Ewan. These fucks had no idea what was about to go down. I listened carefully, followed voices. My wings allowed me to move about with barely a foot on the ground. I hovered around corners, nearing those voices, the first heartbeat was in front of me.

Out from the shadows I came up behind the man, never expecting me, or death. But he got both. I didn't have time to mess around with fighting, making myself known. With a quick snap, he hit the floor in a crumpled pile of bones.

Four more to go.

I round another corner and it opens into what looks like a laboratory. The smell of blood hits me like a ton of bricks. This was all Ewan. I was seething. More than I ever had before. I would be damned if I would lose someone else tonight. He was mine and I would fight for him. I hear a woman and it stops me in my tracks. It must be the one Peter spoke of.. talking about Ew's voice box.

And then faintly.. the sound that could have broken my heart where I stand. A faint 'Wings' from a room beyond this one. I was close.

Bullets greet me as I charge into this laboratory, slicing them away with each swipe of my wings. I could feel the hot lead tearing through my flesh, missing me mostly and then ripping through my feathers. I didn't care. I kept coming. And that's not what they expected at all. Suddenly guns are being thrown down and the two men, the ones who look like they were twins, come charging right at me.

Their last and fatal choice. I caught both of them by their throats and let the holy fire within my fingertips devour their flesh. Throwing them down at my feet, the woman standing there with a look that was half fear and half curiosity, looked over to the other man before shifting into a wolf right in front of me. Both taking off before I could chase after them.

Ewan. I rushed into the small containment room, finding him lying there. What wasn't bloody was broken. What wasn't broken was infected. But his face.. I fell to my knees and gathered his face in my hands, the glow already trying to seep into his flesh. It knew what to do.*

Ewan.. Ewan can you hear me?

Ewan:

The blurred figure in the doorway wouldn't come into focus, no matter how hard I blinked. And I blinked a thousand times or more. My hands flying to my head. Pain. The people in the room shimmered. Pain. I screamed. My eyes blinked, a voice was saying my name. The blurred vision cleared a little; the room had changed again.

“Ewan, Ewan.” Those dimples, those lips. No, no, they'd tricked me before. My shattered heart knew, No.

My broken, shattered hand reached out, not doing or going where I wanted it to.

“Kill me, Gretchen, please,” My ragged voice begged. “I want to be with him.” My eyes closed; he was still blurred in the doorway. Why wouldn't he come to me? Why?

“Wings.”

Isaac:

*He was definitely not okay. Not even in the fucking least. I turned my hand over and placed the back of my hand against his forehead. He was burning up and by the looks of his hand eye-coordination, he wasn’t seeing clearly either. When he reaches out in my general direction, I am mid reach back to him when his weak voice comes through and his words break my fucking heart.*

I’m right here, Ewan. *I rested my forehead to his, my wings though a little damaged from the gunfire I went through, they closed around us as I gathered him in my arms. We had to get the fuck out of here. Everytime I tried to move him was making him cry out in agony. He kept asking this Gretchen bitch for death. He was completely lost in his pain right now. There was no reasoning with him. I had no choice. I lower my mouth to his, kissing him softly. I hoped he knew how much he meant to me. My hand drops to his chest and the other hand rests on the back of his neck. Just like Jason and his hangover, it was time for some sleep, to put his tortured mind and body at ease for now.

His whole body went lax, making it easy to hoist him up in my arms and carry him out of this hell hole. Once we were outside, I carefully laid him down on the ground and walked back over to the building. There was too much blood in this place, Ewan’s blood. The bodies with my name on them were already burnt to a crisp so there was only one thing left to do. I placed my hands on the side of the building and closed my eyes, letting out a roar that was loud enough to wake the dead. The building didn’t take long to turn into an inferno. My eyes were still a fiery blue as I turned back to reclaim the man I came for, the man I killed for and scorched earth and flesh to save. I plucked him up back into my arms and knew exactly where we were going. I need to take care of him and nothing would stop me. With Ewan secure in my arms, my wings did the work and got us out of here. I don't give a second thought if anyone would see us or not. We disappeared into the night with the glow of the building afire long behind us in seconds.

At the edge of the woods, silently watching the scene play out here in the wee hours of the night, two wolves watch as the Angel takes flight with their prey in his arms.*

#TBC

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graveyard-in-the-void · 3 years

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(Writing frenzy continues, this time even with some “art” I swear to god, I’m ruining the lore of pumpkin scissors completely with my AU. In my defense though, listening to this and this didn’t really help me with my active imagination! ... I seriously need to get a grip on action though. I want to write it so bad.) --- Lucifer ---

“Okay, newbie.” Malcolm remembered Foxy’s words from back then. “There are a few rules, even in OUR section. I know it’s surprising, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of most of them easily, just by watching us! We’re pros after all. However-“ This part was especially vivid, as a shadow crossed the fox’s face. “The main rule, the rule you need to know before anything else… never, ever make Henry angry.” It had been so confusing. “Uh. Foxy… I appreciate your concern, but the Lieutenant seems… always angry?” “Oh-“ He waved his hand. “Upset? Frustrated? Annoyed? Offended? All of these are fine. That’s just how he operates. But no- what I’m talking about here is anger. Rage. Fury.” “He’s already scary enough… I won’t try to make it worse.” Somehow, this drew a chuckle out of Foxy, as he looked over him, up his whole size. “Yeah… some people are scary enough by themselves, aren’t they?” And from there on out… he did see what Foxy was talking about. There were special moments. When they entered territory that they were shot at just for stepping in. When they entered pricey houses, facing the occupants who lived in luxury, sucking out all the life from the cities around them. When they faced a hateful mob, carrying their old, rusty weapons, raising it against their uniform, much more than their words and actions. Every single ones of these times… … when Henry drew his sword… … there was something in his eyes… … a light. Shining maniacally. That stuff was scary. But… there also always had been something about it that made Malcolm feel calm. He knew this kind of light. His lantern seemed to exude something similar- but what Henry had was much, much different. It felt so controlled and aimed. It felt… right. Just, even. In a terrifying way. Henry was ALWAYS armed too. To act on this shine, whoever it may shine on. Fully ready to engage in combat with anyone or anything, from his slacking subordinates to full on abstract concepts. It was good he was always armed. Because they could have never seen this ambush coming. They should have. But they didn’t. Inside of the metal facility, a place nobody should have- could have- predicted them to be… Now the alarms were going off, red light blinking. The siren screaming at the top of its capabilities. Stinging right through the soul- And it was good that Malcolm wasn’t the only one keeping his weapons too close. Too close for comfort. His own, that was. The light of the lantern was shining. It felt so oddly bright in these halls that turned from pitch black to deep red in just a second, coloring his whole vision in with the wrong colors, the wrong noises- He wasn’t thinking. He was listening to the orders that his brain produced at a volume that somehow allowed him to listen to everything and nothing around him. Moving forward. Töten Sie. The only law of his field. This parasite inside of him, the enemy raising the weapon- It was too quick, and too long. A whip? A metal whip, made out of multiple parts that expanded more and more? It was a painful, hard to predict weapon. People could quickly falter under it, especially when wielding a sword- but also those with guns weren’t save from having the weapon ripped form their grasp- leaving them defenseless. Most people, that was. Malcolm just rose his wrist, letting the weapon sling around it, ripping away fabric and skin- Then he pulled. It broke. Expected. What wasn’t expected though- A liquid. It splashed out of the tip of the weapon, covering Malcolm- And starting to abruptly tear away his flesh, in a horrible sizzling noise. Before he could adjust for it, the weapon jumped forward again. In the back he could hear Henry scream out for him- Then he was on his knees, coughing up blood and weird chunky clumps of flesh. Did get anything inside his mouth? He couldn’t realize the feeling- Staring up, at the assailant, all his mind was busy with was to come up with a way to get up again, to avoid the whip and crush this persons being, under his bare hands if it had to happen- He was only lightly armored, if he managed to reach him, somehow- The cold mask that seemed to be the one of a demon simply stared down at him, the expression empty as his own. Slowly he began to raise his hands, willing to pull himself forward- But before he could, something yellow and pink flashed before him, the movement of a short sword was audible- He wanted to scream, suddenly he was on the ground, in pain, suddenly it all came flooding to him, the reality of the situation and that Henry too would be hit by this liquid- whatever it was, whatever it was, if it hit- Abruptly a silver snake landed with a cold, high noise on the ground. The attacker moved backwards. His voice muffled by the mask, almost unrecognizable. “We expected nothing less of the famous Lieutenant Miller. However. You should give up now.” Henry’s eyes bore into his enemy, as he held his sword up defensively, ready for the next weapon and the next attack- “No. I have no intend to make anything easy for the likes of you.” Behind him Malcolm groaned, trying to force himself upwards, his mind a completely jumbled mess, screaming of blood and protection, of love and violence, he couldn’t decipher it- The demon simply scoffed. “… still alive? Well. No witnesses.” He snapped his finger- A gunshot. Then another. Then another. Frozen, Henry turned around, his eyes wide and empty as Malcolm collapsed once more, this time seemingly for good. His body was still twitching, probably grasping to get up- Ignoring the very real threat of getting shot himself, or the masked person stabbing him into the back, he jumped forwards, in such a rush to crouch next to him- over him, trying to keep the life in his eyes- Malcolm’s stare was purple and wide- The eyes of an animal. He grabbed Henry abruptly by the wrist, so strongly that it hurt, but Henry didn’t care about that. Those eyes were not like Malcolm’s at all. Quickly his eyes wandered down to the cursed lantern. It wouldn’t even let him die as himself, huh? Reaching out, he clicked the mechanism shut. Instantly the man below him grew weak, limp, looking up at him with those wide, pained eyes that he knew. “H… Henry…” “Shhhhh-“ Gently he took his cheek into his hand. “It will be okay. You will be okay.” Those words. Said every time. By now he believed in them, that they had some power. After all, until now it always worked, right? The gunmen had stepped out of their hiding places, surrounding them. “Lieutenant Miller. I once more ask you to come along with us… or we will see ourselves forced to use the poisoned darts to cause you to fall unconscious… after a long period of writhing in pain, of course. The body must be fully exhausted for it to take full effect.” Henry however wasn’t even listening. All he did was holding his corporal, trying to- force Mal to stay alive by simply keeping his eyes on him- There were many things Malcolm could tell him now. It hurts. I’m scared. Get away from here. I’m sorry. You did nothing wrong. But both of them were caught watching each other, staring into one another’s eyes, trying to find answers to this situation- Henry hand wandered slowly down to Malcolm’s belt as he shifted, just for his other hand to be abruptly squeezed. “D-don’t touch- the- it will-“ “… it is merely a tiny will-o-wisp.” The alarm didn’t stop screaming, no matter what, keeping Henry at the edge of his sanity. God, he hated that noise. The grip of his corporal was staying tight- “I am warning you one more time, Lord Miller. If you-“ Leaning down, Henry kissed Malcolm, paralyzing him for a second- All the time he needed. Before he the corporal had a hint of a chance to gather himself again- As he looked up to Henry, for a second he was sure he could see flames dance over his lips, out of his open mouth, raising up to his eyes that were flicking with- “N-no-“ “I will be fine.” Calmly Henry stood up, to turn back to the people. If they all shot at once- Well, they wouldn’t shoot at his vitals. They clearly wanted him alive for something. Then all he would have to deal with was the drug. His mouth tasted like Malcolm’s blood. He liked that. Slowly he rose his hand, to lick off the rest of the blood and thinned down acid, as Malcolm watched from the ground, quietly realizing something- Henry took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “Your ambush was cowardly. Your trap ridiculous. But I was not mad yet, for I know that is the way you are.” His eyes wandered over everyone as adjusted his step a little bit more, to better shield the man behind him. “However, not only did you shoot at a man on the ground, which alone did seal your fate, but you also happened to shoot at my Corporal Malcolm… and unlike him… I am a little twisted.” Then his hand went down, and he opened up the chamber. It exuded a pale, golden light. And then Henry’s face was gone- Together with the rest of him. In ONE move he was forward, so much faster than Malcolm could ever be, Malcolm who staggered and stumbled, Malcolm who HESITATED- Henry was on top of the first goon, stabbing him multiple times with his golden dagger, before rolling with the body, letting it soak up the bullets, moving again within a second onto the next one who screamed loudly, his weapon useless on such a short range. One kick. He stumbled, closer to the other next victim- Gunfire. Some of them did HAVE to have hit Henry, however, he wasn’t standing still enough to show, as the two goons fell down to the ground, like oversized puppets. The other two wanted to run, gain distance, but Henry simply threw both of this weapon, splitting them with ease. The demon hadn’t moved. “What an impressive display Lieutenant Miller. How interesting to see you under the influence of the will-o-wisp. However, now you are out of weapons.” “Why thank you. My Corporal has this sort of effect on me that I desperately wish to impress him…” “You will never see him again after today, so it might be good you had this last chance.” The demon aimed calmly forward with the injection in his little gun- Just to stop for a second, his eyes widening just the tiniest bit. Due to his connection, he had seen the ATTs in action before. He had seen their movements, their attacks, their expressions- But- But what he saw in front of him now- There was something off, something abnormal- It wasn’t only that the dulling effect was taking place, it wasn’t just- Henry Miller… … was grinning. His teeth reflecting yellow and sharp in the pale golden light. He was- Enjoying himself- He wasn’t being wielded by the wisp as its senseless murder puppet- This man was battering the will-o-wisp into submission. Submission to him. It flickered so excitedly. Caught in its steel cage- No, no- It wasn’t in its lantern anymore- IT WAS IN HIS EYES AND MAW- “You know why… I saved you for last…?” Henry didn’t seem to mind not having a weapon. The devil masked man rose his weapon, trying to suppress the cold climbing up his spine as though death itself touched him. All he had to do was shoot. Then this creature would be on the ground. The body was still human. And small. It was- “… I wanted you to know that the mask you are wearing…” Abruptly he shot. It hit Henry in the shoulder, the liquid quickly emptying itself into him. Slowly he reached up and inspected the syringe. Then suddenly, his bright, white grin was back. “… thanks for providing me with the weapon, but I was not done yet. Besides, I do not need this.” And with that he was on top of the masked man, who struggled below him. “… your mask is an insult to the good name of demons. At least they have conviction.” The man froze, staring up- For a second just a second he saw a dragon opening its fire-tainted maw- Slowly Henry came to his feet, stumbling the slightest bit- Hissing. “… bastard… ruined the taste in my mouth.” Finally he wiped the blood off his face, the blood that had been on there in such quantity that it dripped onto the ground from his chin and into his clothes- Turning to Malcolm, he expected- something. Fear. Probably. But there was only such- Sadness…? Walking over to him, shuddering and in pain, he kneeled back down next to him. “We will fix you up, Malcolm-“ “… you’re hurt Lieutenant. Why… did you…” Footsteps sounded in the distance- From both sides- But before Henry could rush down the corridor to try and distract the enemy from spotting Malcolm, out of the corridor stumbled Foxy and Simon, out of breath and concerned. “L.T.!” Both of them called out. “Wh-what happened?” “You’re injured!” “Big guy-“ Henry interrupted them. “Good that you are here. Get Malcolm out. Fix him up. I will clean the place out.” “A-alone?!” “L-Lieutenant- don’t- the- the syringe-“ Coldly Henry’s glare wandered from his subordinates to Malcolm, where he paused, his eyes turning softer, but the flickering inside of his eyes didn’t die down. “… there are people somewhere in here. Stuck. I heard something as we walked. Let me get them.” His hand rose up to his belt, where the metal lantern flickered in the rhythm with his heart. “… let me do this. I always liked to play with fire.” Malcolm wanted to speak up. Object. Henry didn’t want to save these people, he wanted to use the lantern- But the other two nodded and proceeded to lean over him, helping him up, as Henry disappeared into the darkness of the red and black- and now golden- corridors. Only faintly, when they were almost gone- He could hear Henry laugh. Slowly he closed his eyes- And prayed for him to be okay. It took an eternity. Simon and Foxy were discussing if one of them should maybe go in, while Malcolm stared up into the sky, gathering himself, fully planning on standing up again, to go inside- But then they heard- Chatter. Out of the opening of the tunnels, a pale, golden light started to shine… … and slowly the silhouette of a person was recognizable, stepping closer. And behind him… … more and more people. They looked tired, beaten and battered- But they were smiling and talking. Forcing himself to stand up, not even hearing his comrades trying to talk him out of it, he walked towards the opening of the tunnel, seeing soon enough that while Henry was drenched in blood, he seemed mostly fine. Scratches and rips, but- fine. The people were celebrating when they saw the sky again. Malcolm wondered how long they’ve been down there. And for what purpose. For now, they were trying to help the weaker ones in the group with some of the food and water they had, sending a message to HQ that they needed some more people here to help. The still injured Malcolm was fairly useless- Waiting for Henry to get freed from the crowd of grateful onlookers- Until he was interrupted by a boy, barely more than a child. “This- this pink guy there! He’s awesome! He- did you see what he did?” “… no, can’t say I did…” Malcolm answered, slightly hesitant. “HE SLICED THEM! DICED THEM! PEOPLE WITH AND WITHOUT MASKS. THE SCIENTISTS TOO! HE GOT ALL OF US OUT! A-at first I couldn’t believe it- I was in this dark room- with no sound- and things got so weird, the scientists said that was normal- but then the door opened and someone- someone brought light! The Pink Guy, he brought light to me- a-and the others! And he got us out!” Making a few movements, the shaking boy jumped around, trying to do some combat motions. Hell- he probably didn’t even know he was shaking. Adrenaline? Fear? He looked up at Mal, out of brown eyes. “S-so, yeah! He’s a great person! Right? He’s so good at fighting and he- took all out of us out! We didn’t get hurt! He killed all the baddies. That makes him the good guy. Right?” Malcolm opened his mouth and he wanted to say something- positive, something good, something that would leave the kid with the sense that it all just had been a dream, a fairytale in which killing the beast was- good- … but… “No. I… do not think… the Lieutenant is a good man.” It was barely more than a whisper. “… he is merely the devil… collecting his dues. And the light you saw, it was-“ Lucifer. The light bringer. Abruptly he moved forward, reaching out for Henry, who allowed him to. “Corporal? Are you alright again…?” “I- yes. Lieutenant, please, let me- can we talk for a moment?” Lieutenant Lucifer. His eyes were dark. No hint of the hellfire left. “… of course.” They stepped away from the crowd, and as soon as they were out of sight, the big guy held out his hand. “… give it back.” Slowly Henry inspected him. “… please.” Malcolm added. With a sigh Henry picked it up from his belt, handing it over. “I suppose you need it more than I do anyhow. I do not need the will-o-wisp to guide me.” “I’ve… seen.” For a moment he paused, then he spoke up. “Uhm- Lieutenant- can I ask something?” “Of course, go ahead.” “Why… the scientists?” Henry paused. “You are right in assuming they were not dangerous, however- they would have run.” “You know that?” “I know that. And cowards like them, if they do not face their punishment by the law… I have to do it myself.” It was quiet for a moment, then Malcolm spoke up again. Hesitant. Afraid. “Uhm- you looked absolutely nightmarish with that lamp.” Even worse than the troops he had walked into fire and brimstone with. And now all he could think of- “… do I look like you… with that lamp…?” For a second Henry stared at him blankly- Then he started laughing. A bit embarrassed the taller guy stepped back. “I- I’m sorry if I offended you or-“ “Oh- oh no- oh Malcolm, you sweet, naïve man-“ Calming down, he wiped a tear away. “… Corporal… Malcolm… you really never pay attention while using the lantern, do you? Well then, let me tell you one thing about yourself.” Leaning over, he signed Mal to lean in too. “… Malcolm… … when using the lamp… … you are NOT the one smiling.” At that he tipped his subordinate onto the nose and turned. As Malcolm watched. Tracing the devil’s steps. Following another lightbringer. He supposed… that was what he was made for. To stay in Lucifier’s steps. But for what purpose he couldn’t yet tell. To join him? To suffer at his hands? To stop him? Hopefully he would find out soon.

#Henry #Malcolm #shippy stuff #mod toast

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daxieoclock · 3 years

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ok shay you dont understand i was literally scrambling through our messages on discord to find a dissidia link and now i cant pick between the kairi reunion with sora and the namixi bed sharing scene so you gotta pick for me

jdhfbghjgb Enu you absolute sweetheart thank you for the ask

they’re both kinda short scenes though sooooo por que no los dos djhfgbjh

Kairi reunion scene is in chapter 10 and the Namixi scene is in chapter 14

She'd only been there twice before, both times after Xehanort's defeat, but Kairi instantly recognized Terra, Aqua and Ventus's home: the quintuple towers and golden chains of the Land of Departure.

I don’t remember if I ever articulated what both of those times were in my head, but it’s a HC that just felt right hehe.

And there, sitting on the bottom steps leading up to the front door, was Sora.

He hopped up as soon as he saw her, that stupid grin all over his face, and then Kairi's eyes blurred over and her feet pounding against the stone courtyard.

"It's so good–" he said, and she cut him off by punching him as hard as she possibly could in the shoulder. "OW!"

Kairi’s anger, frustration and just general emotion is something I had a lot of fun exploring in DKH, and something I definitely want to do more of if I ever return to KH writing (still undecided on that). As much as I love the comedy beat of the pissed-off reunion, it’s an honest feeling I think, to be both overjoyed and infuriated by someone at the same time. And it definitely fits my interpretation of where Kairi – who has been incessantly damseled, left behind and sacrificed-for – is at this moment in her arc. Furious and bitter and just wanting to drag her dumbass bffs/bfs to safety whether they like it or not.

"It's so good–" he said, and she cut him off by punching him as hard as she possibly could in the shoulder. "OW!"

"You absolute, goddamn, stupid idiot!" Kairi shrieked. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? How worried Riku was?"

For whatever reason this makes me think of the very beginning of the story, with Riku lying awake thinking of Sora. Like...yeah. Yeah he was. And on that note, as much as I missed Sora’s presence in the story, I absolutely loved the chance to expand on Riku and Kairi’s friendship/relationship (it’s complicated; when is it ever not?) without him there. I wanted to emphasize both how much they care about each other, and how much Sora’s absence is felt nearly constantly.

"Probably," Sora said, sheepish, massaging his shoulder.

"We had to try and explain to your parents how you....you vanished into thin air, but how it's actually completely okay because you did it to save my life!"

I don’t know that I’ll ever focus too much on any of the KH characters’ biological families, but I think the Destiny trio are the closest to actually Having Any Sort Of Bond with their parents. We’ve got a vague idea of Kairi’s home life – adopted daughter of the mayor, and I’ve extrapolated her dad is kind of absent – but none of Riku’s and only the fact that Sora has a mom. But the idea of Kairi and Riku returning to the island alone, having to break the news to Sora’s parents, just stuck in my head when I was writing this.

She didn't know who embraced who first. But she was in his arms then, and he was in hers, and she squeezed him so close, so goddamn tightly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Just hold me," she said. "Just shut up and hold me."

I think this is just a sweet moment tbh djhfgbj.

"Your hair looks longer," Kairi said, finally. They were sitting on the steps together. Her eyes had cleared, but she wasn't ready to leave this moment. "And you're missing a button on your jacket."

"Oh." Sora ran a hand through his hair in that absentminded way that he did. He laughed. "I hadn't noticed."

Liar. She knew him well enough to know when he was putting on a front, and he definitely was now. But she wasn't much better, she had refused to point out the bags under his eyes, the greyish pallor of his tan skin, the way his blue eyes seemed darker than she remembered. She couldn't speak those details, as if silence would make them go away, as if she could will away the scuff from his shoes and the dullness from the little metal crown that hung around his neck. He reminded her of how Aqua had looked after they'd rescued her, so relieved but yet so exhausted. It was the impact of that much time spent alone, that much time spent wandering, spent lost and far away from the ones you love. Kairi's grip on Sora's hand tightened.

I will never forgive Nomura’s cowardice to not show the physical, kinda traumatizing toll that years of isolation in the RoD took on Aqua. 0.8 delved into it slightly, but only in the most surface-level way. And judging by what we’ve seen from Re:Mind and MoM, the same sort of surface-level emotion is going to be applied to Sora’s ‘death’ as well. He’s almost definitely going to come out of a YEAR of complete isolation being just as chipper and bright-eyed as he’s always been, and that is something I wanted to rectify here.

I love the KH cast and I love seeing them challenged, and love watching them grow. There’s not quite enough Sora in DKH to grasp the full extent of how he’s changed after his ‘death,’ but I’d like to think we do see that he HAS changed. It’s something I touched on more directly during Riku’s reunion with Sora, but it’s present here as well.

"So, who's your friend?" He motioned with his head towards the Spirit-Namine, who sat patiently on her haunches.

"Sora, it's me," she said with a little laugh. "It's Namine."

"Oh." Sora stared at the Spirit-Namine for a moment, the gears straining in his head, and then he looked over his shoulder up the stairs, then back at her with a confused expression on his face. "Wait, weren't you sleeping inside? Why are you here and a cat? How are you here and a cat?"

But of course, even after that sort of trauma, Sora is still Sora. He’s still a goober and a softie, and I didn’t want to abandon those traits for the sake of angst.

Sora had never been very comfortable with silence, she noticed him starting to shift and adjust next to her.

ADHD Sora rights.

Kairi kept catching herself holding her breath, waiting for him to vanish or the floor to give way or her alarm to wake her up. Waiting for something to drag him away again.

He looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. "I'm not going anywhere, you know," he said.

Kairi spluttered. "What...who...shut up!" She stared at the ground, cheeks flushed, unable to acknowledge out loud that he'd read her so well.

I haven’t decided if Sora’s surprising emotional perceptiveness is a new aspect of his character or something he’s always had that hasn’t been highlighted well, but it’s definitely an interpretation of him I enjoy. Like, yeah, he’s impulsive and inattentive and kind of rude on occasion, but he’s also showed some moments of being able to read people with shocking accuracy. I think that’s a skill some Keyblade wielders have, a sort of magical hyper-empathy, and Sora definitely has it in spades without even trying.

And briefly before we go into Namixi (and speaking OF Namixi)

Xion glanced at Sora and Kairi from the middle chair and threw up a peace sign. "Hey, what's up?" Her outfit had also changed a lot since Kairi saw her last, she had on a pair of loose black cargo shorts and a pullover hoodie, her black hair swept to one side and tucked behind her right ear. Honestly, she looked a lot happier, a lot freer.

Butch Xion is absolutely the hill I will die on this gal is 100% loves girls and presenting in nonconforming ways.

Namine, laying against Xion, her eyes closed and her expression peaceful.

Xion looked down at Namine as she noticed Kairi's stare. "Oh, yeah, I'm uh...keeping her safe? Cause she can't move when doing her spell, and uh, probably more comfortable than laying on this ground or something right?" She forced a laugh. "Yeah."

Namine, who absolutely has ulterior motives: “I’m going to be unconscious while using this spell and I’d rather not wake up sore, so maybe you could hold me while I’m using it? I’d make me feel safer too.”

Xion, who is gay as shit and forgot about the fact this castle has beds in it: “Yes absolutely I will totally hold you for as long as you need Namine wow yes that sounds great I’m on board heck yeah.”

*************

And with that introduction let’s hop right into the dedicated Namixi scene shall we.

Namine heard her door open, then close. She didn't move, just kept staring straight ahead, lying on her side in the bed, her heart beating staccato on the inside of her chest. A quiet bump of collision in the dark.

"Ow!" Xion muttered. "Stupid bed."

No good confession scene is complete with at least a couple comedy beats.

Her eyes probably had to adjust to the dark still, which Namine was thankful for, considering the fact she was probably blushing up a storm at the moment. "Are you okay?" She sounded so concerned, oh light.

Gentlebutch Xion strikes again. I refuse to see her as anything but very polite towards pretty gals (and Namine is very pretty gal in her humble opinion).

"I'm fine," Namine said, quickly. "I just...." She reached out to take Xion's hand, but hesitated, and just let her own fall back onto the mattress. "Wanted to see you, I guess."

"Oh," Xion said. Relief. Namine started when she felt Xion's fingers brushing against her hand. "Shit, sorry, sorry."

"No, no." Namine laughed, and took Xion's hand. "Thank you. This is really nice."

The eternal sapphic dance of being terrified of overstepping and desperate to express your affection at the same time. Also I have said it before and I will say it again: The Gay Gals Love Hands. Idk what it is but sapphic attraction is like 75% hand-holding it’s ridiculous.

Xion opened her eyes again, those gorgeous purple eyes.

Changing characters’ eye color is sort of a running theme in my fics I suppose, though it doesn’t ALWAYS come up. Xion’s purple eyes is something I saw once and got stuck in my brain forever. I have no idea who came up with it or why it’s something that apparently a decent chunk of Xion fans hc for her, but it sure is what we’ve decided on haha.

Three words. That's it. So easy, just three words. Just say it. Say it. "When you found out Sora was here, and decided to go after him." Coward.

Namine, like most of the female cast of KH, has basically no outwards emotion and very little development. For whatever reason, I’ve fixated on an interpretation of her as someone who expresses her emotions in unconventional ways, spends a lot of time overthinking things, protects herself by exaggerating her personality around others while also being terrified of hurting people the way she was forced to hurt Sora. It’s sort of funny to see a very similar personality come up around my interpretations of Haru Okumura in Deja Vu, but Namine definitely expresses her post-trauma identity a lot softer, less formal but still so very careful.

Anyway that’s a lot of words to say that she self-loathes and picks her words incredibly carefully and that contrasts really interestingly with the more impulsive, emotion-driven Xion. They’re a good fit for each other C:

"You can get under the covers too, if you like."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable."

Please stop being a gentlewoman and take the hint. "I want you to," Namine said. Was that too firm? Too bossy?

"Oh!" Xion smiled, and threw the comforter over herself in an instant. Guess it was fine.

More of that aforementioned dynamic.

"This is very good. I'm happy."

"I'm glad," Xion said. "I...like making you happy."

Namine had to inhale deeply at that. It wasn't easy to confess when the girl kept taking her breath away.

I really like the idea in general that it takes so long for Namine to tell Xion how she feels because Xion just keeps doing really sweet things or being kind of romantic but not really making the space for that confession, and Namine just gets flustered and puts it off.

Three words. Just three. Just say them. Namine took a deep breath. "I, uh. I..." She felt a sob welling up in her throat. Light, why was this so difficult, why couldn't she just tell Xion–

Her lips were on hers. Namine couldn't breathe, could barely think for the screaming of her heart in her ears. Xion broke the kiss, looking so very embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean–"

Namine reached up and pressed a finger to Xion's lips, cutting her off before she could apologize any more. "Um," she said, "kiss me again?"

And Xion nodded, and Namine let her finger fall, let Xion lean in and kiss her again. And she squeezed her hand so tightly and kissed her back.

So not really a confession but Xion DID get the hint. Once more: Xion’s impulsiveness makes things both very difficult and much easier for Namine. And I think I like the fact that she ends up deciding to just go along with that impulsiveness, just let go of her plan and kiss the gal she’s been pining for, and stop beating herself up about the words she can’t say yet. It’s sweet hehe.

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