As You Wish | Yoongi x Reader
Pairing: Werewolf Yoongi x Reader
Word Count: 21k
Warnings: 18+, Spice but no Smut, Yandere, Obsession, Fear, Non-Consensual Kissing, Grieving, Passive Suicidality, MC experiences major depression, Non-Consensual Touching, Breaking and Entering, Stalking, Depictions of Gore, Blood, Technically Cannibalism? Loss of Spouse, Loss of Child, Forced Found Family, Hunting, Mass Death, Attempted Burning and the stake, MC is hit by a man (not Yoongi)
I do not condone the acts displayed in this story nor do I believe any members of BTS would actually engage in this type of behavior. This is simply written for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a reflection of my own values, opinions, or morals.
Preview: You couldn’t even scream when the door was ripped from its hinges, the beast breaking through it like it was wet parchment. You were petrified in place, hyperventilating and trembling at the sight of it.
It was a giant wolf. It was covered from head to toe in midnight black fur although there were spots that seemed thinner than others that were littered in scars - slashes and bite wounds from what you could only imagine were others of its kind. It was larger than a horse with a head so huge it could bite your own clean off in one impressive snap. And then there were the eyes. They were glowing an ice cold silver in the dark with a glare that felt sharp enough to slice through you while a gnarled scar marred the fur and skin of its right eye.
A/N: I’m exhausted and grad school sucks but I really wanted to get this out for your guys. I hope you enjoy it, I spent way more time on it than I wanted to. I really thought it was only going to be 8k yet here we are…21k. Anyway, I miss all of you - sorry this is so long lol, this is SUPER UNEDITED. As usual, I can’t wait to see you in my inbox and comments, I love you and hope you enjoy
The sweet scent of flowers greeted your nose as you cracked open the window for the first time in months.
Despite the warmth of sunshine and the bright green strokes of grass outside, it very well could have still been winter. It felt as if no time had passed since that fateful day. In your heart, winter still raged on. There were gnarled, ice-coated branches there and a torrent of never-ending snow. It had frozen over since then.
You carried this sense of numbness you had never thought you would be capable of, it was as if your very soul had been corroded by frostbite. Any love or passion or warmth had been snuffed out like a match in the dark.
That was the thing about grief, it could change a person into something that was beyond recognition. And your grief was immeasurable.
When you got married, you never imagined your husband would die within the first year.
It truly had been a cruel winter that year. The two of you were making do with what food you had. He had always been so smart, planning out what you could have each day so that it would last until spring. The only problem was the fire wood. No one could have anticipated how cold it was going to be and if you hadn’t burned as much kindling as you did you were certain you would have frozen to death.
You could still remember that gentle look he had given you before he left. The soft touch of his fingers to your cheek, the gentle kiss he left you with. He still had every ounce of charm he had had as a boy. He had always been kind and sweet to you. He was the gentlest man you had ever known. That was why his death hurt even more.
You had been worried the minute he left, but as minutes bled into hours and the winter sun quickly disappeared behind the mountains you were frightened to the bone. He had only an ax and a knife with him. He brought no food and no more clothing than what was on his back. He was planning on making a short trip and if he didn’t come back right away the chances of him surviving the night were slim to none.
His body was found the next day.
Honestly, you didn’t remember that day all too well. Everything was a blur, you could faintly remember hearing the voices of a few men from the village, the feeling of your raw throat after screaming senselessly, and the surplus of food and supplies that were sent your way with small slips of paper that read: “Our condolences.”
They wouldn’t let you see his body and that was something you would never forgive them for. You didn’t care how bad it was, you wanted to see him with your own eyes and you were never afforded that closure. But you had heard enough from hushed whispers outside.
“Pieces,” they had said.
He had been mauled to pieces. They couldn’t even find all of him and what was left of him had huge teeth marks raked through flesh. It was an animal attack. Just like you and your husband, they were hungry.
And now you were all alone. You were a pariah, one that people pitied, but a pariah nonetheless. You would never be able to marry again, not that you wanted to, but no one would want a widow as their wife. That was the way of things, you were meant to live out the rest of your days in solitude. Nothing more than a sad story mother’s would tell their children as you passed through the markets in silence. Your story would become a warning for children not to wander off into the woods. Your tragedy would become a lesson.
The only lesson that you had learned was that love meant pain. You had given yourself to someone entirely, and when they had parted from you, you were left with nothing. That was the danger of love, losing yourself.
After months of wishing you had followed him out of this world, you were hit with the sudden clarity that you were being selfish. He had left to try and save the both of you, but here you were wasting the life he had given you. He had sacrificed himself in order for you to keep living for the both of you.
Choosing to live was so much harder than choosing to die.
You shoved those horrendous thoughts to the back of your mind as you traveled through your small cottage, prying open every stiff window that you passed by. Living meant starting with the little things, like getting your home in order. It didn’t feel the same without him, but at least now that it was warmer out you wouldn’t have to stay inside and constantly be reminded of his absence.
You stripped your bed, gathered up the used linens, and scooped up piles of worn clothes from the floor before depositing them in the basket. You were distracting yourself, that much you were certain of. But any distraction was welcome, you couldn’t bear the silence filled thoughts of him any longer.
You heaved the basket up onto your hip and made for the door, pausing as you were faced with the blooming greenery beyond the threshold. The breeze was cool, the air was fresh. The world was starting over once again, why was it so hard for you?
You shook the troubling thought from your head, squared your shoulders, and took a deep breath. You could at least try. And so, you stepped outside for the first time in months and faced the world. It was almost like nothing changed. The birds still chirped, the insects sang, and the rush of the river called from a distance.
That was the other thing about grief. While it felt like your world ended, in reality, it still rushed onward.
The soft grass sunk beneath your feet and sprung back to life as you walked, your body tense as you approached the forest. You weren’t going in too far, it was just the edge where the trees were still spread out and not too thick. You just needed to get to the river. But you couldn’t deny the sense of paranoia that was set in your bones. This was where he died, where he was mauled and consumed by whatever inhabited the forest. It would make sense that whatever animal that had ended his life was still prowling in the shadows, waiting for its next meal.
“Stop it,” You snapped at yourself, your voice hoarse from lack of use and louder in the soft sounds of nature.
You weren’t going far, you were going to be safe. There was no reason to be so anxious when you wouldn’t be putting yourself in danger. You weren’t walking into the lion's den, you were doing laundry.
Despite your scolding, you still snapped your head in every direction when you finally reached the river. You were unsettled by every little noise, hyper aware of everything that was going on around you. For a task that was so mundane, you felt so on edge.
The rush of icy water against your hands was enough to help you focus on the task at hand. The river had finally unfrozen. While your husband and yourself frequently bathed in the river during the warmer months, you had no plans on doing that anytime soon lest you be chilled to the bone and catch your death. Maybe when you were younger you would have risked it all for a moment of fun. But you were older now, matured by time and tragedy. It was harder to have fun now.
You threw the shirt you were washing on a rock beside you, the force of the toss resulting in a loud, wet slap. Your body bent forward under an oppressive imaginary weight as your icy fingers braced your face, a frustrated sigh leaving your lips causing your body to sink even further.
Living for two people was going to be even harder than you thought. Even these simple, menial tasks felt exhausting. It had been a miracle you had been able to drag yourself out of bed, that you had made it outside, that you had even journeyed to the river. But those things should be easy, so why did they feel so hard?
You felt weak.
Useless.
Helpless.
You couldn’t help but think had the roles been reversed, he would have been stronger than you. He would have mourned but he would have been able to survive. He would have been able to find another wife, he would have had the children he always wanted, and he could have been happy. It was hard to not feel like it should have been you, like you were just wasting the life he had given you. It was hard to not crumble beneath the crashing waves of grief that eroded your resolve.
It was too hard.
A high pitched whimper broke you out of your spiraling thoughts, your hands dropping to your lap and your head snapping to attention. You held your breath and pursed your lips, listening closely to try and hear the sound again.
And there it was again. Although this time it was much louder and much longer. It sounded like something was in pain. And your curiosity got the better of you.
You shifted your basket to the side and stood, gathering your skirts in one hand as you carefully lept from stone to stone as you crossed the river. Your heart raced as you slipped once then twice, the stones slick from the rushing water, but the cries were becoming louder and closer and you felt as if you had no other choice but to find out what they were coming from.
Once you crossed the river, you moved slowly through the grass so as to not startle whatever it was that was frightened. Every now and then you would pause and hold your breath, listening intently for the creature's cries before following them once more. You could just barely make out the shape of the animal, its body concealed by a thick underbrush of branches, leaves, and thorns.
You dropped down to your knees with abandon and blindly reached into the shrubbery. The cries were much louder now as the creature was startled by your invading hands. Thorns raked through your flesh as you grabbed hold of the small furry body and pulled, trying your hardest to gently remove the little animal. A loud cry made you stop, halting all of your progress. It looked like it was tangled up in something.
You quickly moved on to your second plan and softly placed the animal back down before grabbing thorn laced branches and snapping them with your bare hands. You hissed in pain as blood beaded up from the small cuts that now decorated your palms. You couldn’t fathom where this sudden rush of determination came from or why you felt like you so desperately needed to do this. That same rush that came over you to find the animal was present and even stronger with the desire to free it. You felt it on some deeper level, that you just couldn’t leave it behind.
There was a generous pile of branches beside you now and you could very clearly see what you were dealing with. It looked like a puppy. It was very small with soft chocolate brown fur, a short nose, and the cutest pointed ears. Its big brown eyes were welled up with tears, its tail tucked between its legs, and its entire body shook in fright.
Your horror stricken gasp was muffled as you involuntarily covered your mouth in surprise. The poor pup was tangled up in a snare. The wire was cinched tightly around its hind leg, chest, and foreleg, cutting in so tightly that blood was visible on the metal. The poor thing had run right into the trap and was stuck. You could only hope that it wasn’t intended for the puppy, that it had run into some hunter’s trap purely by accident.
Your already lacerated hands went straight back to work trying as you attempted to untangle the snare as gently as you could. You hissed as it sliced your palms but paused only a moment to wipe the blood off on your pinafore before continuing your work. By the time you had finally managed to undo the trap, beads of sweat clung to your neck and the sun had moved a decent way across the sky.
“There you go,” You murmured, “you’re free.”
The puppy, although now free, didn’t move. Its deep brown eyes stared up at you as it continued to whine, its entire body still shaking with unadulterated fright.
“Can you walk?” You asked, sitting back on your calves to get a better look at the animal.
You were shocked when it responded, in a way. The puppy attempted to stand and then walk, but it only made it two steps with a clear limp before it collapsed flat on its belly with a yipe.
“Of course you can’t, I’m sorry,” You cooed as you reached out. Your hand paused in midair, hesitating before trying to touch the puppy. It was probably a wild dog, so it was not a good idea to go touching an animal that very well could bite you, no matter how cute it was.
The puppy, as if it had read your mind, answered for you by leaning forward and sniffing your fingers with a cold, wet nose, before lapping at them with its little tongue. It was like any other puppy then, it wasn’t aggressive yet.
You chewed your lip in thought as you watched the pup. It wasn’t a good idea to take in stray animals, but it was injured and leaving it in the forest would be like ringing a dinner bell for all the predators in the area. All of the blood the pup and yourself had shed was certainly not helping. And then there was the crippling loneliness of your cottage. A dog would be good for that. It would be something to share the space with, something to break up the cacophonous silence. And, when it grows older, it would be good for protection as well. The benefits outweigh the negatives you selfishly refused to think of.
With the pup’s approval, you lifted it up and cradled it into your side much like a mother would her child. You giggled in delight from the feeling of a wet nose burrowing its way into your shoulder and neck, sniffing the cloth of your dress and your skin like it was trying to become accustomed to you.
You crossed the river even slower now on your way back, very aware of the precious animal you were protecting. When you stopped at the river bank, you gathered your abandoned laundry and placed the puppy in the basket. You didn’t really care about the dirt, grass, and blood that would inevitably stain the fabrics - afterall, they still needed to be cleaned and you had much more pressing issues to attend to.
You walked back with a sudden urgency in your steps, a small trill of excitement buzzing in your being. After months of isolation and misery, something so small had brought you joy, something that had been unimaginable a few hours before.
The pup was much calmer now, softly panting instead of crying as it laid in your basket of sheets, eyeing the world that passed by as you brought the two of you back to your cottage. When you made it inside, you shut the bottom half of the door, leaving the top half open to allow fresh air in without the risk of the pup wandering out and falling down the stone steps. When you placed the basket on the ground it nosed at the sheets for a moment before limping out of the basket.
“No, no, no, stay right there,” You chided, gently scooting it back into the sheets, “you’ll hurt yourself worse if you do that.”
You stayed a moment, locking eyes with the pup to ensure that it would stay and understand. When you were certain that it was calmed you finally turned your back and headed into the kitchen. You rummaged through the cabinets, searching for the healing salves and creams you knew had been there months before along with the strips of makeshift bandages.
Within mere moments of turning your back on the puppy you were alerted once more by its cries. It had tried following you again but was now laying in a heap on the floor, tangled up in the sheet and crying from the pressure it applied on its wounds.
You dropped the bandages and rushed to the pup, cooing as you picked it up and cradled it against your chest. The little thing was an escape artist, that was certain.
You let out a deep sigh as an uncomfortable thought brewed in your mind. It was the only option that you could think of, even though it was terribly unpleasant. Before you could dwell too much you headed towards the back of the cottage where a single door was fixed into the frame. It stuck at your first pull but relented on the second, the hinges creaking in defeat as you entered the room.
Any furniture that was in the room was coated with a thin layer of dust having gone undisturbed for months. That old wound in your heart was bleeding around the edges now, the pain of avoided thoughts bubbling back up to the surface.
There was a crib against the far wall of the bedroom.
You swiftly moved to the back of the room and gently placed the pup inside the crib. The sides were high enough that the injured dog would be unable to climb over and you were confident that this was the safest place for the poor thing.
But even that knowledge couldn’t stop tears from pricking at the corner of your eyes as your hands subconsciously cradled your belly. Your pregnancy had been short lived. Losing your husband had been the catalyst to losing your child, but you couldn’t help but blame yourself. Even though the midwife had promised you it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t see how that could be true. If you had been stronger, if you had taken better care of yourself, you would have been able to save that last piece of him.
If you hadn’t been pregnant, maybe things would have been different. Your husband would have stayed and you would have figured out how to make it through the rest of the winter. But you had been pregnant, he had left to find more resources because of that, and even though he sacrificed his life for you and your unborn child you hadn’t been able to save them.
You couldn’t see how any of this wasn’t your fault when you were at the center of it all.
The feeling of cool tears rolling down your cheeks shocked you back to reality. You weakly wiped the tears away, sniffed, and shook your head. You needed to clean yourself and the pup up, you had priorities.
You rushed around the cottage, busying yourself with what needed to be done. You ran to the water pump and wet some rags, retrieved the salves and bandages, and grabbed a bowl of poultry meat for the dog. This was a welcome distraction.
You were greeted by excited, squeaky barks when you returned to the abandoned nursery. The pup eagerly paced back and forth, its little tail wagging so hard its entire backside wiggled. You let out a gentle giggle before releasing it from the crib and sitting the two of you on the floor, pulling the pup into your lap and distracting it with a strip of meat while you assessed its injuries once more.
You blinked once and then twice in confusion. You could have sworn the wounds had been much worse not more than half an hour ago. The slashes were still bloody and in need of tending to, but they were not the deep, gnarled gashes that had once needed stitching. You were either still out of your mind or this animal had the fastest healing time you had ever seen.
It was much easier to believe that your mind was failing you. And so, you got to cleaning and wrapping the wounds. The pup was surprisingly well behaved, only whimpering every now and then as you touched a tender spot but it didn’t jerk away and did its best to stay still as it ate. The more time you spent with it, the more you realized it was much smarter and more aware than you had once thought. Everything about the little creature seemed eerily human when you thought about it too much. It was better to not think about it too hard.
Trapped in your own mind, you hadn’t realized that you had finished your work. Not until you felt the gentle lap of a little tongue against the wounds that decorated your palms, jolting you back into the real world.
You pulled your hands away with a pained hiss before reprimanding the puppy, “No, no, no, I don’t know where that mouth of yours has been. The last thing we need is an infection.”
The puppy whined in earnest and nosed at your palm once more before you pulled your hands away again and scooped the little thing back up into your arms. This way, it wouldn’t be able to mess with the cuts.
After you tended to your palms, applying salve and wrapping them securely, you couldn’t help but notice the odd tingling you felt emanating from them. It was warm and fuzzy and completely unexplainable - your salves had never caused that sensation before.
As time passed and the sun crossed over the sky before dipping beneath the horizon, the feeling became stronger until it was a pulse-like thrum causing your hands to tremble before steadily declining until it was nothing more than a memory. And an odd one at that.
It was when you began to turn in for the night, that everything fell apart.
You didn’t notice that the crickets had fallen silent nor that the wildlife of the forest had completely disappeared. You hadn’t noticed the hollow ringing that came from the wind slipping between the trees. It was the calm before the storm, and you had no idea what was coming.
The candlelight was dim, casting soft ochre colored shadows over the wood and stone of the cottage. The puppy slept soundly in your arms. Everything was calm.
That was of course until a howl fractured the peace. It was so loud you could have sworn you felt the floorboards shake as a rush of fright went down your spine. The soft lull of sleep was suddenly long forgotten.
The pup in your arms stirred at the noise, its ears perking up and its head frozen in place as it recognized the sound. It was on high alert. It knew what was out there.
You shakily stood and approached the door, the top portion of it still unlatched and swung outward. Outside of the lamp affixed to the stone above the door, the forest was pitch black. You could barely make out the twisted shape of the trees and the brooke that had once been in sight was obscured. But, what was even stranger, was that you were certain that the shadows were moving.
You tilted your head to the side, squinting your eyes as you tried to make out what exactly you were looking at. And then, it was close enough that the light bounced off of it and you were met with the horrifying sight of a set of bright silver eyes staring back at you from the dark.
You were frozen in an instant. But once you realized those eyes were steadily coming closer with a hulking form attached, you acted on instinct, slamming the door shut and latching it closed. You could only hope that the door would hold against whatever that thing was.
Your chest rose and fell with heavy pants as you became more and more unsettled. Why was it so quiet? Why couldn’t you hear something so big moving? Where was it? What direction was it coming from? Your back met the wall and your weak knees had you sliding down to the ground.
Your entire body was shaking in pure terror. There was something out there, something massive and monstrous. You held the pup in your arms tighter, bringing it to your chest for comfort as well as protection.
You yelped as a loud bang popped the eerie silence. Whatever it was, it was slamming its body alongside the cottage. But it wasn’t doing it mindlessly, like it thought it could break through the walls. It was purposeful, it was an attempt to frighten you and determine where you were. It was smart.
You curled into yourself as it came closer. You could hear heavy, sharp pants in between the vicious snarls that it was making. It sounded wild, primal, and predatory. It was hunting.
The pup in your arms began whining and wriggling around as it tried to escape your grasp and all it was doing for you was frightening you even more. All it was doing was making more noise, drawing more attention to itself. And you knew it had, the creature outside had gone silent. It was listening.
And then chaos unraveled in seconds.
You couldn’t even scream when the door was ripped from its hinges, the beast breaking through it like it was wet parchment. You were petrified in place, hyperventilating and trembling at the sight of it.
It was a giant wolf. It was covered from head to toe in midnight black fur although there were spots that seemed thinner than others that were littered in scars - slashes and bite wounds from what you could only imagine were others of its kind. It was larger than a horse with a head so huge it could bite your own clean off in one impressive snap. And then there were the eyes. They were glowing an ice cold silver in the dark with a glare that felt sharp enough to slice through you while a gnarled scar marred the fur and skin of its right eye.
Your body slowly began to slump to the ground, falling weak before the wolf. You looked like the perfect prey, like a rabbit that was so frightened its own heart had stopped. It seemed that the wolf thought similarly. It approached you slowly like it was still on the prowl as angry snarls left its gaping maw. You could feel your blood run cold as you caught sight of its enormous teeth, each one long enough that they could be made into daggers. Whatever this creature was, it was no mere wolf, it was something else entirely.
Your hold on the pup was weakened as your chest and forehead met the ground, bending beneath the invisible weight of the wolf’s presence. From beneath the cover of your hair you could make out its large paws and hooked nails mere inches away from you. It was so close now that you could feel puffs of its hot breath disturb your hair and ghost over your neck. You were breaths away from death.
You couldn’t decide if you wanted to flee or embrace it as you had once desired.
A soft whimper involuntarily escaped you as you waited, feeling the tip of its nose brush over your head as its snarls grew louder. A sudden loud yapping broke the tension.
The pup was frantically barking at the wolf and lunging at it in a playful manner all the while standing in front of you like it was trying to protect you. The sight would have been comical had you not been on the brink of passing out. This tiny puppy was fiercely defending you against this monster.
And, to your surprise, it was working.
Once you gained the courage to raise your head you were met with the sight of the wolf’s intense gaze trained on the puppy. More specifically, its gaze was trained on the bandages covering its wounds. The wolf looked back at you, its hauntingly silver eyes making you flinch. It continued to stare at you for a long moment like it was contemplating something, that of which you were unaware of. But then its gaze hardened and its predatory stance relaxed. It had made its decision.
Without another snarl or howl it nipped the pup by its scruff and began to carry it out of the cottage. It stopped for a moment once it had successfully squeezed out of the broken door frame and looked back at you, this too was a look that you were unable to decipher. It gave you a slow blink and then turned, carrying the pup back to the forest and disappearing into the darkness.
It was in that moment that you finally realized that it had not been a dog you had rescued, but that wolf’s pup.
And with that realization you completely collapsed to the floor and were dragged into a dark, dreamless, restless sleep.
~~~~~~~
Yoongi had come to realize that there wasn’t much that you could do to discipline a two year old, especially a two year old that was a shifter.
His daughter, Binna, had little control over her form and had a knack for slipping away and getting into trouble. That was something he could blame on his other pack members, specifically the youngest three.
He huffed out a sigh as he carefully extracted twigs and leaves from her messy hair, flinging them back into the underbrush. She was the very definition of a wild child. And while it wasn’t uncommon for pups her age to be curious and adventurous, it was uncommon that she so readily welcomed and followed humans.
Humans were dangerous, that was something he had tried his best to get her to understand but she simply couldn’t. She was too young to understand how they could hunt her and hurt her, far too young to realize what that meant, and far too young to understand that it was a human that had taken her mother away from them.
Then again, she hadn’t known her mother all too well. That was evidenced by her clinging to any female shifter she had found and babbling out “mama” to the wrong mothers. She knew her mother was missing, but she couldn’t match the face to the name. He couldn’t really blame her all that much. Her mother had been amongst the best hunters and was oftentimes absent as she hunted for the pack’s survival. Yoongi was a defender, he was there to ensure the safety of everyone that resided within their territory. He was at the front lines. And because of that, his wife was often gone and he was almost always home. To his daughter, her mother was a faceless being.
“Let me see,” He demanded firmly, trying to unwind the bandages that were already slipping from her skin.
She nipped at his fingers playfully, her serrated canines gleaming as she giggled. Yoongi tried his best to suppress his smile, he was supposed to be upset with her. He sighed once more and grabbed the edge of the bandage and began to unwind it.
“No,” She cried in a drawn out whine, “Mama gave me! Mama gave me!”
Yoongi froze, startled as he registered her fractured speech. She thought that human in the cottage was her mother.
He could see why she would think that, you had taken care of her after all. From what he had seen from the wounds he knew they came from a hunter's trap, snares made from silver that were so small they had clearly been designed for pups as no adult shifter would ever be able to be caught in that small a snare. It was clear that you had rescued his daughter and taken care of her in his absence.
And for some reason, Yoongi could only press his lips together in a firm line and failed to correct his daughter. At the end of the day, she wasn’t necessarily wrong.
Yoongi knew you.
He had known you for a while now. He had watched you the day you and your husband had moved in. The two of you had chosen a location that was incredibly close to their territory and so he scouted you out for days to ensure that you wouldn’t stumble too far from your home, to ensure that you weren’t a threat.
He had thought you two were safe, and that was his biggest mistake.
Yoongi would not say that he was enamored with you, but he was definitely interested in you. He had gone his entire life knowing to never trust a human, but as he observed he couldn’t help but be enthralled by your little human quirks.
You were so blissfully unaware of his presence as he silently stalked you. Your husband, like his wife, was often gone during the day and you were left to amuse yourself. For someone of your age, you had this odd youthful aura about you. He would watch as you would jump into the brooke, spinning around and splashing with abandon not unlike his child would.
That version of you that he knew though, that was long gone. Loss has aged you, hardened you. Even though you were completely ensnared by fright he could see the hollowness in your eyes when he had ripped your door from its hinges.
The both of you had been irreparably changed by loss.
And then there was the other problem. He was indebted to you and you were now in his care. While he refused to acknowledge any attachment he felt for you, he couldn’t deny the attraction. It was incredibly wrong considering his own disdain for humans, but he couldn’t help himself. There was something else there, this odd discomfort in his chest that demanded to be felt, a sour feeling in his stomach at the thought of your frightened face.
This was not good.
Contrary to popular belief, wolves do not mate for life. And as a shifter that was even more true. While many chose to bond to one another, it was not horribly uncommon to find a new mate if one were to leave or die. And, very rarely, there were intense bonds that made it so that you did mate for life. In the case of his wife, it was not that type of bond. Of course he was hurt, of course he missed her, but it was not the debilitating grief that you experienced. It was natural for his kind, evolutionary even.
The attachment, this bond he felt for you paired with his daughter’s stubborn belief that you could be her mother made him make a decision far faster than he should have.
You lost a husband, he lost a wife. An even trade. Why could you not fill those roles for each other?
~~~~~~~
The following days were ones where you lived in a state of fright and confusion.
When you awoke the next morning you were greeted by the feeling of the floor against your cheek and a stiff ache in your joints. Apparently, you had spent the night collapsed on the floor.
When you finally mustered up the strength to stand there were several things that were brought to your attention. Firstly, that there was now a gaping hole in the wall from where your door had once stood. Secondly, the events that occurred the night before had not been a grief conjured hallucination. And thirdly, the pain in your hands had completely disappeared.
Upon unwinding the bandages you were met with completely closed wounds and thin scars that looked years old. Your suspicions had been proven correct, that wolf and its pup were certainly not just animals not with the way a few stray licks had healed your palms. Your fingers trembled in fright at the realization before you grabbed another roll of bandages and wrapped them tightly in a panic.
Out of sight, out of mind.
You followed the same thought as you gathered up sheets, a cord, and pins with the intention to cover up the missing door to your cottage.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Unfortunately, that was not possible for you. Before you could even attempt to hang the sheets you were frozen in place a foot away from what was once the threshold. On the cobblestone porch was a carcass. You stared at it, dumb in shock as you tried to understand what you were looking at. It wasn’t a complete animal, it had been skinned and cleaned and left on your porch laying out on a thick piece of brown paper packaging. At first, you considered the possibility that it was another mourning gift from one of your neighbors in town but that was very quickly debunked. For one, they typically cooked the meat or met you at the door. And secondly, there were clear claw marks in the bone and large tooth impressions left behind. You had a sick feeling that you knew where this came from. But it didn’t make any sense, no wolf could clean a carcass like this - this was work done by human hands.
Despite your conclusion, when you raised your head you were once more greeted by the sight of the wolf. He was much closer than he had been the first time you saw him the night before. He laid right by the end of the treeline - half of his body submerged in shade and the other half bathing in the golden glow of the early morning light. Those silver eyes were watching you intently, waiting to see what you would do next.
That only confirmed your suspicions, he had brought it for you. It was a peace offering of sorts, a truce. In spite of that knowledge your hands still trembled when you grabbed a corner of the parchment and dragged the carcass past the threshold. The wolf’s alert and tense body almost immediately relaxed. It was like it was relieved.
It stared after you for a moment longer, gave you a slow blink, and then rose and melted back into the forest - vanishing as if it hadn’t even been there in the first place.
And so you hung your sheet, peeled the flesh from the bone of the carcass, and disposed of the remains.
Out of sight, out of mind.
~~~~~~~
When you woke the next day, the makeshift curtain was pulled to the side and wrapped around a bent hinge that was still mounted to the wall. Another thing you were certain wolves were incapable of.
And there, on the stoop, laid a pile of wild berries and fruit on a small, clean cloth. And, not far away, the wolf was there once more. Although this time it was much closer, so close in fact that you could visibly make out the twisted scar around its eye. It was laying down, much like a dog would, with its large head raised in alert. Those silver eyes flicked slowly from the present and back to you three times, a clear signal that it was waiting for you to take them. It only relaxed when you brought them inside just like the day before.
This pattern between the two of you persisted for several days to follow. And, no matter how you tried to forget what had happened that night, this creature was making it virtually impossible. It was ironic how you had once longed for company and were willing to settle for it from a dog but now that you had someone, well something, watching over you you were incredibly unnerved by the ordeal. But you couldn’t exactly shoo the hulking creature away.
And so each day passed and more presents followed. One day it was bunches of wildflowers, another it was game of varying sizes, and another was a thick pelt that had been handcrafted into a blanket for the cold spring nights. You didn’t know how to exactly decline a gift from a mythical creature. Wouldn’t there be horrible repercussions for that?
The urgency to put a stop to this odd arrangement became even more apparent when a gold pendant was left at your door and the wolf had crept so close that it was less than fifteen feet away. It was beginning to make your home its territory and now it was somehow stealing items you had only dreamed of affording when you were young. It was all too much.
You wound the chain of the pendant around your fingers as you hesitantly crept down the stone steps. The creature perked up in interest, elevating its head again as you slowly approached it, your body shaking in fright in spite of your attempts to school yourself into a false confidence.
“I-” You paused to clear your throat, “I can’t accept this. You’ve done more than enough for me, you’re forgiven.”
It only cocked its head to the side in response. You were just a crazy woman talking to an animal, weren’t you?
“Here, take it,” You tried again, reaching out your palm to it as the chain caught the sun and glistened in the morning light.
It was looking at you like you were dumb.
“Fine,” You sighed, “I’ll just leave it here then and you can take it back to wherever you got it from.”
You lightly tossed it onto the grass and turned your back on the creature before briskly walking back to your cottage. And, despite the haste in which you walked, you were no match for the massive wolf.
A startled shriek left your lips as you felt a large, warm body bump against your side and thick fur rub up against your skin. Another shriek was forced past your lips when its tail wacked you on the backside like it had a mind of its own.
Gold glinted in its teeth before the pendant was unceremoniously dropped on your stone steps, the placement much more haphazard than it had been that morning.
If this had happened a few days before, you were certain you would have been more frightened, but now your patience was far too thin and you were in desperate need for your privacy and a sense of normalcy.
“If you’re going to keep bringing me things, at least let them be useful! Like a door, for instance. You know, that thing you ripped off of my home!”
The wolf huffed in what almost sounded like an amused chuckle before rising and stalking towards you, crowding you up against the side of the cottage. Your heart pounded as you realized you had made a grave error, you were not the one in charge here.
You clenched your eyes shut as you felt a warm puff of air over your face and a wet nose prod your cheek. You shook as you remembered the creature's giant fangs and huge body. You were certain now that it was going to eat you now that you had denied it, these were the repercussions that you feared.
What you hadn’t anticipated though, was the feeling of it pressing its head on top of yours and whining like an overgrown puppy. It was acting like you had hurt its feelings. You hesitantly cracked an eye open only to see this huge, scarred, wolf nuzzling your head and then your hands like it was begging for affection.
A surprised laugh came straight from your chest as you shakily began to pet the wolf. The wolf that had previously been ready to kill you after you had accidentally kidnapped its child.
“Alright, alright, cut it out!” You squealed, laughing hysterically as it began to lick you. You quickly froze when you realized that that was the first time you had laughed in months. It was the first time you had laughed since your husband had died.
You gently pushed against the wolf’s large head as you side stepped around it, a frown now tugging down the corners of your mouth. It felt so wrong to be happy.
Your companion noticed your swift shift in behavior. It ducked its head down and nosed at your back not all that gently as you stumbled forward.
“Don’t you have a child you need to get back to?” You hissed, a sudden wave of irritation rushing over you.
This wasn’t all that uncommon for you. The rapid changes in your emotions. It was easy to feel joy wither away to apathy, to frustration, to anger. Oftentimes you felt like you had no control over how you felt and it left you grasping at straws as you tried to hold yourself together. It was just so hard.
“Go on, go home,” You sighed, flicking your hand in the general direction of the trees, “I don’t doubt that you’ll be back tomorrow anyways.”
The wolf stared at you again, as it tended to, before purposefully bumping its large body against you once more and making for the forest. It hesitated for a moment, looking back over its shoulder to give you one last look, and then it was gone again.
That was what you wanted, wasn't it? But if that were true then why did you hate the loneliness that you were left with so much?
~~~~~~~
That morning, early in the morning, you were awoken by the sound of a hacksaw.
For a brief moment, in the hazy grasp of sleep, you allowed yourself to settle back down when you realized it was just your husband getting an early start on the daily chores.
But your husband was dead.
With that sobering thought you jolted fully awake, gripping your blanket tightly in your hands and pulling it up over your mouth as you struggled to control your breathing. Your neighbors were out of the way and they rarely came to visit anymore outside of the kind supply drops they had provided you with throughout the rest of the winter. So, if it wasn’t them, then who was it?
You rose and with the blanket still wrapped around you, you made for the door as quietly as you could. Once again, the curtain was pulled and fixed to the side like it usually was whenever your companion came to visit you. But the person that stood outside, mere steps away, was very clearly not the massive wolf you had come to know.
You could only see him from the back, but he was very clearly a man. He was a decent height with longer, thick, raven hair that began to curl at the ends. From what you could see of him, you could make out stretches of porcelain skin. He was wearing a loose fit white top and he had rolled the sleeves up past his elbows exposing pale forearms with impressive veins and hands that looked like they had been carved from marble.
Your cheeks grew warm as you realized you were spending far too much time appreciating his appearance rather than worrying about what this stranger's intentions with you and your home were. “What are you doing here?”
The man continued his work, sawing at the wood until the cut was complete before he responded. You then realized that he had been very aware of your presence the entire time, he had not been startled at all.
“You asked for a door, did you not?” He replied, sarcasm tainting his words, as he brushed the sawdust from his hands and turned to look at you.
His face was just as lovely as the rest of him. Dark brows, doll-like lips, and deep brown eyes that had the gentlest slope to them. He was beautiful, that was undeniable.
But what was most apparent and most worrying, was the long scar that ran over his right eye. A scar that you had most definitely seen before. Your body stumbled backwards on instinct, trying its hardest to create more distance between the two of you.
The man raised an eyebrow, a look of pure amusement etched into his features, “You weren’t afraid of me yesterday but you are now? You are a confusing little human, you know that?”
“You - that’s, that’s not possible!” You gasped, tightening your hold on your blanket. “What you’re insinuating is not possible!”
He chuckled to himself, leaning his weight back on his hands as he dropped his chin down, “You want me to prove it to you? I could if you really wanted me to, I do like these clothes though so I’ll only do it if you give me a reason.”
The thought of watching this man, creature, wolf, whatever he was burst out of his flesh and take on a different form was horrifying enough that you were certain you would faint at the very sight. Already you were shaken by the thought of this being possible, you didn’t know if you would be able to handle the sight. Not to mention that subtle innuendo that whenever he decided to take the form of a man again he would be as bare as the day he was born. It was all too much.
“Please don’t!” You cried, “Don’t do that!”
“As you wish,” He nodded with a teasing smile as he turned back to the door in progress. “Perhaps some other time.”
“What is it exactly that you want from me, if you are who you say you are?” You asked.
“I am responsible for you.” He said with a shrug, picking up the saw once more and continuing his work as if what he said made any sense at all.
“No, you are not. No one is responsible for me, you owe me nothing.”
“I don’t? I would think I at least owe you a door, that is what you said after all, remember?”
Heat rushed to your face in pure frustration and embarrassment. He was just as infuriating and insufferable as he was when he was an overgrown dog…that is of course if you were truly willing to believe in that sort of thing. But how else could he have known about your request for the door? Why else would he believe he was responsible for you had you not saved his child’s life? Unless he were some creepy, stalking stranger, he would have no knowledge of these events. This man was the very thing your town hunted and was frightened of.
“Just the door then? That’s all? You will leave after you’ve finished it and your debt will be repaid. You will leave me alone?” You asked.
He paused for a moment, a confused expression taking over his face. He looked at you as if he realized he couldn’t comprehend what you were asking of him. “You confuse me.”
“I confuse you?” You laughed, “I woke up this morning to a strange man outside my home claiming to be something that up until this morning I didn’t believe in, who claims he is responsible for me and owes me when all I want is peace and privacy!”
“That, that confuses me.” He admitted.
“What?!” You cried in exasperation.
“How can someone who so clearly hates being alone also want to keep it that way?”
You wrapped your blanket around yourself tighter, as if that would somehow shield you from the sudden sense of exposure that washed over you. You were feeling vulnerable. You were feeling seen.
“You humans are social creatures, not unlike my kind, yet when you need help, when you’re in distress, you push your pack away. It goes against every natural instinct that you have, it doesn’t make any sense.” He laughed with a shake of his head.
“You are alone here, you have no one to protect you. I can keep you safe in every meaning of the word. Whether that means building you a door, forgive me by the way, or guarding your land. I want to protect you.”
There was a gentle flutter in your heart, one that you desperately wanted to stomp out but were failing to do so. You hadn’t been affected by someone like this since your husband and you didn’t know if you should feel guilty about that. He was supposed to be the one allowed to move on, not you. These feelings weren’t supposed to be for you, they were supposed to pass. It was your job to mourn his loss; he was supposed to be your one and only love. These feelings were supposed to be wrong. So why, deep down, did you enjoy them?
Instead of telling him to leave, to abandon his work and yourself, you made the mistake of giving him a chance. You made the mistake of entertaining him.
“I don’t even know who you are,” You said with a laugh of disbelief.
“Yoongi,” He smiled, a wolfish smile, “And you do know me, I’ve been here longer than you know.”
That wasn’t the comforting sentiment that he was trying to make it be. Just how long had he been watching you? You were reluctant to linger on that thought much longer, so you moved on.
“How long will this take you?” You asked, shuffling closer to his work.
“Not long. Lucky you, you happened to pick a shifter whose trade is in woodworking.”
“A shifter? So, that’s what you are?”
Yoongi pursed his lips, his brows furrowed, he was thinking. It was like he was still deciding if he could trust you or not. He was deciding just how much information he was willing to give up to you despite the fact that you had seen him in his other form.
He nodded.
“Are there…are there more of you?”
“Yes,” He reluctantly admitted, you had already seen his daughter after all.
“Why is it that I have only met one of your kind now?”
“Because, we’re discreet. We have to be. You found my daughter in that hunter’s snare, remember?”
“Your daughter,” You echoed, “is she alright?”
Yoongi practically preened at your concern. All you were doing was giving him validation, you could and would be a good mother to her. You could be a good mate for him.
“Our kind heals fast, she’s already running around causing more trouble,” He chuckled, “but don’t be mistaken, I am grateful for what you did for her. You saved her life and you helped heal her. I owe you much more than you know.”
“I saved her life? You couldn’t mean…”
A grim look descended over his pretty features, a dark gaze settling in his eyes as he paused his work once more, his hands tightly gripping the tools they were holding. “That’s exactly what I mean. We have been hunted since the dawn of time. Woman, man, child, it makes no difference to them. Their entire goal is to eradicate us, they think we are abominations. It wasn’t enough that they took my wife, they tried to take my daughter as well.”
Your heart ached in sympathy for him. You knew that feeling, the overwhelming wave of grief and pain that attempted to drown you in your suffering. You had lost your husband and a child, Yoongi was just as familiar with loss as you were.
You crept closer to him, so close that you could feel the warmth that radiated off of his body like a stove. Hesitantly, you reached out to him and rested your hand on top of his. You could feel his grip go lax, his hand relaxing beneath your touch.
“I know how terrible it can be to hear someone apologize and tell you that they know what you're going through, but I think this is one of those rare moments where it’s true.” You said.
You could feel his gaze on you and the scarred skin of his hands beneath yours. He felt so incredibly close, this was the closest you had been to anyone in a while. You swallowed uncomfortably as you felt his hand turn over and the skin of his palm meet yours as his fingers laced their way in between yours.
“My husband…he was killed this winter. I’ll never know what happened to him, or why it happened, but knowing that he’ll never be here again is the most painful thing I have ever felt. It’s indescribable.”
Yoongi tried his best to suppress the inappropriate smile that wanted to make its appearance known on his lips. You two truly did complete one another. You were two pieces of a puzzle that had not been intended to fit together, but had been carved up and forced together. You were altered, created for one another. He gave your hand a gentle squeeze, stroking his thumb down the curve where your palm met your finger in rhythmic swipes.
“I know that feeling, I understand it well.”
I understand you, he wanted to say.
“People like us, we should stick together. We can trust one another like no one else can.” He murmured, gently brushing up against your side.
That was enough to wake you up from the dreamlike haze he had put you in. You stepped back, breaking your fingers away from his and holding your hand up to your chest.
It was too soon, too much, you couldn’t be that close to someone, to a man nonetheless. You couldn’t trust him, you couldn’t trust anyone.
Yoongi took a step forward and you took three back, retreating from the momentary comfort you had felt. But instead of looking dejected like you assumed he would, he looked determined, he looked sure of himself. And that only made you stumble back even more, stepping up your stone steps and into the house.
“I’ll leave you to your work.”
This is what you did. Despite the entrapment you felt by your loneliness, it was familiar, it was right. The loneliness was easier.
It was the only thing you knew you could hold on to for certain.
~~~~~~~
In the days that followed, you became antsy to get out from beneath your visitor’s presence.
You hurried past your uninvited guest, hoping that he wouldn’t notice you with his back turned to you. Your hopes were quickly dashed.
“Where are you going?” He called over his shoulder.
You came to a halt with an exasperated sigh, “Am I answering to you now?”
He only hummed in response and for a reason that you could not conceive, it lit you alight with agitation. “Where I go, is none of your concern!”
That caught his attention, his head slightly jerking to the side as he watched you from the corner of his eye. “It’s not safe out there, not when you’re alone.”
“I was fully capable of finding my way through the forest before you got here, I seriously doubt that I have lost all sense of direction.”
“It’s not your sense of direction I’m worried about,” He sighed, “There’s more of my kind out there and more of your hunters - both of which would not bat an eye at a human getting caught in the crossfire.”
“It’s never been a problem before,”
“No, but it is now.” He said with a stern glare, his eyes not meeting your curious gaze, but instead staring into the distance. His shoulders were tense, his forearms flexed, he looked as if he was burdened with knowledge that he could not share.
“Yoongi, what is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t wander off too far,” He deflected.
You stayed for a moment, suddenly unsure as to what you should do. Moments before you were ready to get out from underneath his oppressive stare, but now you were intrigued. Yoongi had told you about the shared hatred between your species. The humans hunted the shifters and the shifters were reactionary killers. They followed an honor code closely and truly believed in an eye for an eye. So what had happened that now made it unsafe for you to traverse the woods when before it had never been a problem. Why would Yoongi’s kind attack you unprovoked?
Despite your stare, Yoongi was blatantly ignoring you, pretending that he didn’t notice you hadn’t left. That was enough to let you know that the conversation was over no matter how much you poked and prodded.
Without another word, you left. Contrary to what Yoongi had believed, you wouldn’t be traveling too far. Your cottage and the shifter would not be in view, but you knew the way like the back of your hand. It was past the brook, and a good walk through the evergreens. What you were searching for was a small clearing.
The trees lined the space in almost a perfect circle, something that appeared somewhat unnatural amidst the organic shapes of the woods. In the middle, there stood one weeping willow - completely out of place and the only one of its kind. And at the base of its gnarled roots was a simple stone with your husband's name carved into it. The earth was still turned, a reminder of just how fresh his death and the wounds they left behind on your heart were.
You gently lowered yourself to the ground, your skirts folding beneath your knees as your fingers pressed into the dirt. You had often thought about crawling back to him, you had dreamed of being wrapped up in his warm embrace again, the two of you entwined and buried beneath a comforter of soil and flowers. In your dreams you were intertwined so tightly that years from now if anyone were to find you they wouldn’t be able to tell where you began and he ended.
“Hello my love,” You whispered despite no one else being in the clearing. And of course, you were met with the silence, the ever present reminder that he had left you and that he was never coming back.
You sniffled as your fingers smoothed down the fluffed dirt before digging into your basket and pulling out the prettiest wildflowers you could find with which you then began to arrange around the stone. You knew it wasn’t right to spend so much time here, you were holding on so dearly to someone that was gone and no matter how much love you held for him it would never be enough to revive him.
When you were satisfied with your arrangement you allowed yourself to empty your eyes of the last of their tears before patting your cheeks dry with the edge of your pinafore. With clear eyes, you were now able to see a few things that you had missed before.
Hanging from the boughs of the tree were several things. There were colored glass stars and moons that were strung up on several branches all of which varied in color and reflected the sun through them, casting brilliant shards of light over the earth. And, amongst those, were small wolves carved masterfully from wood. You slowly stood, your brows furrowed in confusion as you tapped one of the stars with a shaky finger. It swung back and an ethereal ringing sounded from within it.
What were these doing here? At your husband’s grave?
You looked back at the wooden wolves before you began to piece it together. Yoongi, he had a wife. Was this for her? Was this their version of funeral rites? But if that were true then she would have died recently, but why would she be buried here, where your husband had been killed and laid to rest?
Your heart thumped, your palms began to sweat.
No. No, you refused to believe it.
Their words began to rush back to the forefront of your mind, “pieces,” and “consumed.” Your husband had been ripped apart and eaten, there was barely anything of him left behind.
It was her, it had to have been her, she had been the one to kill him. But if that were true, then who had killed her?
“I am responsible for you,” Yoongi’s words echoed through your mind.
They had a code of honor, they believed in an eye for an eye. Or, a spouse for a spouse.
You turned your back on the burial sight and balled your fists up before pressing them against your eyes. Out of sight out of mind. Out of sight out of mind. Out of sight out of mind.
Yoongi wouldn’t, Yoongi couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to you, he wouldn’t take someone’s spouse from them, he wouldn’t make you feel the same pain that he did.
A rumble pulled you from your panicked thoughts, your breaths still fast and shallow. But what you thought had been the earth shaking, was something far more menacing. Across the clearing stood a wolf, a wolf that was not Yoongi. It was too small to be him and the fur was the wrong color. But the size alone told you that it was clearly a shifter and by the way it was looking at you, you were certain that you were in danger.
You stood still, hoping that if you didn’t make any sudden movements he wouldn’t be provoked but you were sorely mistaken. You could see its muscles tensing up as it crouched low and shifted its weight back towards its hind legs like it was preparing to lunge. No matter what you did, it had already made its decision to kill you right where you stood.
You hadn’t realized you were screaming until you felt the raw pain in your throat, your body acting on its own will to survive as you reeled backwards and hastily began to climb up the tree. If you were lucky, it couldn’t climb, but there was still a human inside of that creature - it was smart, you had seen Yoongi hunt you down before, after all.
You shrieked in fright as you heard the mangy wolf approach, its large paws ripping through the ground as it raced towards you while all you could do was try and climb higher. Unfortunately, you weren’t fast enough. The wolf leaped and its massive teeth tore into your skirt and ripped you from the tree. For a moment, you were completely weightless - you were airborne. And in that brief moment of freedom, you were quickly grounded by reality when you came crashing down to the ground, your forehead just clipping the top of your husband’s headstone as you went rolling down into the grass.
You knew what would come next. This time, the embrace of death would wrap around you. There was no getting around this. But what confused your shock ridden body even more was the pure dread you felt from the realization that you were going to die. You had once welcomed death, begged for her, prayed for her even, but now when you felt her looming over you you realized that you weren’t ready.
You missed your husband, but you weren’t ready to join him.
And, just as you felt the hot breath of the shifter mist over the back of your neck, it was just as quickly ripped away.
There was a symphony of snarls that followed, the sound of flesh being torn, booming growls, then a pitiful whimper, and a loud snap. And then, all fell quiet.
You were still dazed as you felt warm arms slip beneath your own, pulling you up into someone’s lap and pressing your body back against an even warmer, bare chest. Long fingers prodded at the warm blood that slid down your temple and a deep, frantic voice echoed in your ears - the words were unintelligible.
“I told you not to wander off,” Yoongi said, his lips just beside the shell of your ear, the first words he had said that you could finally understand.
“I told you,” He repeated, his voice wavering and full of emotion as he trailed off.
You looked at him wearily, your head feeling much heavier than it had earlier. His eyes were wide, his pupils blown. The look on his face could only be described as haunting. He was cradling your face with both hands. His thumb stroked your cheek, but his eyes were trained on the weeping willow. He looked just as shaken as you had been before.
That sinking feeling was back in your gut. The suspicions you had were coming back to your rattled brain. But still, you turned and wrapped your arms around his neck, collapsing your body against his completely as you felt yourself slipping away.
He was calling your name, his voice panicked as he held you against him even tighter. You rested your chin on the pale stretch of skin of his shoulder and started back into the treeline. You were finding comfort in the man that you were almost certain was involved in your husband’s death. You were embracing the suspected killer of your husband.
And in your delirium you caught sight of something out there, something you weren’t sure was even real. It looked like one of the clerics from town, his white robes reflecting the sun as he hastily retreated back into the cover of the trees.
A bloodied, naked corpse laid where the mangy wolf once stood.
You found comfort in a killer as a man of god ran away from the sight of the worst sin, murder.
~~~~~~~
Yoongi’s watchful gaze never left you, even when you thought that you were away from prying eyes. When he said he wanted to protect you, that you were his responsibility, he meant it.
It wasn’t safe for you to be alone this close to the woods and this far from town. Even though you chose to ignore this, he knew that he was right. He was oftentimes put on edge when he would think about the possibility of someone wandering through the woods and stumbling upon your cottage. And, even worse, he could imagine what someone would do when they found a beautiful woman, alone, in the middle of nowhere with help miles away. His paranoid suspicions had proven to be true with what happened days before.
“Who was he?” You had asked when you had woken up.
When you had slipped into unconsciousness he shifted once more, swinging you onto his back and racing back to your cottage. It would have been comical to try and watch his massive wolf form squeeze into your home while dragging your body inside, but in that moment Yoongi had trouble finding anything remotely amusing. He had been too frantic to switch back into his human skin and it took him several moments of concentration before he was able to do it.
“He was no one,” He plainly said, his brows drawing together as he dabbed at the wound that split open your forehead.
“You didn’t know him?”
“No,” He sighed, “He was just a nomad, a packless wolf. He must have caught your scent and tracked you down.”
“Was he going to eat me?”
You were met with a sickening silence as Yoongi pursed his lips and bandaged your cut. His silence was a clear answer.
“But, I’m not an animal. There’s plenty of deer and rabbits…” You trailed off.
Yoongi set down the roll of gauze and leaned towards you, cradling your face once more in his hands. “Humans and animals are not all that different, you eat, you sleep, you mate, and you both give chase. Many of my kind see yours and animals as one in the same. What only matters is the hunt.”
Human, shifter, or hunter it didn’t matter, he had grown to trust no one outside of his pack. There were nefarious creatures at every corner, whether he was one of them was still to be decided. His behavior certainly appeared to be nefarious, to an outsider.
He could hear the thrum of your heart in your chest and the quickening of your pulse as you digested his words.
“Don’t be afraid of me, I would never hurt you. I just want to take care of you.” He murmured as he leaned in closer to you and pressed his lips to your forehead is a soft kiss that pulled a sharp breath into your chest.
Since that day, Yoongi’s behavior has drastically changed.
During the day he worked, far slower than what was normal or necessary, and he watched you fulfill your mundane tasks for the day. While they should have bored him, they did quite the opposite. Everything you did seemed so curious, enthralling even. He couldn’t explain this odd tether he had to you. The only thing that he did know, was that he had to be near you. Whatever this was, it had become far more than just a sense of duty he felt towards you.
During the night, when the moon emerged, he would shift and watch from the shadows. He would watch you pull your curtain closed and float from room to room. He would sit as still as he possibly could and listen to your heart beat slow and your breathing even out as you fell asleep. He would sit in front of the gaping hole where your door once sat and he would keep watch, pride stirring in his chest as he protected you.
It was during the night when his daughter would come to visit. Some nights he could hear four paws ripping through the earth as she excitedly ran up to him, other nights he would be greeted by the sound of two little human feet running through the grass. And sometimes, she would morph between the two forms, flickering between the two states like the unsteady wave of a flame.
But, there was one constant with her.
“Mama,” She would whisper, crawling on all fours up the steps.
And every time he would nip her by her clothes and settle her back down in between his massive paws.
It was a silent “not yet.”
You were his responsibility, but his daughter wasn’t yours. Not yet at least.
The three of you had unknowingly settled into a routine. And on the day that the door was finished, that pattern was finally disrupted.
You had grown accustomed to Yoongi’s presence. If you were being truly honest, you would admit that you had grown to like him. You would never admit it to anyone but his presence had filled that hole in your heart that your husband had left behind. You knew that his saving you had caused this pivot in your emotions and in all honesty you were incredibly confused by them.
Yoongi was kind and incredibly gentle in spite of how your initial meeting had gone. His voice was soft when he spoke to you, his smile reassuring, and the gentle touches calming. It was hard not to like him, and it was even harder to remember that he wasn’t human.
But the reminders were there. The odd glow in the depths of his eyes, the wolfish smile, the predatory gaze you had caught sight of whenever he thought you weren’t looking and the looming suspicions you had about his implications in your husband’s untimely death. He was still a wolf, there was no denying that. But you approached it all with the same logic you tended to fall back on: out of sight, out of mind. It was simply easier to not think about it. That, as well as your traitorous feelings for him.
The clouds came out of nowhere the day the door was finished.
“No, no, no, no, no!” You cried as you frantically ran outside and towards your clothesline where you had hung all of your linens.
Yoongi watched you dart in between the fluttering clothes and sheets as the rain slowly began to descend and the wind threatened to whip everything away.
“Yoongi!” You called.
The shiver that sent down his spine was strong. That was all it took for you to rattle him, just the mere sound of his name on your lips was world shattering. You didn’t know just how easily you could ruin him.
“Yoongi, help me!” You called again, your voice stern this time. He thought it was cute when you tried to be in charge.
There had been a definite shift in your relationship after he had killed that wolf for you. You had started inviting him inside for dinner, watching him work, and even spending the evenings with him outside, leaning up against the warm side of his wolf form. And in turn he would accompany you wherever you needed to go, keeping a close eye on you, and a firm hand on the small of your back.
You had grown impossibly closer than you had ever thought you would be capable of. Hell, you hadn’t even questioned why he was wearing your husband’s clothes when you woke up - you weren’t even upset. You were beginning to feel alive again.
The two of your hurriedly gathered the linens. Yoongi had turned it into a game, ripping items off of the line right before you could touch it like it was a race. In all honesty, he made you feel like a kid again. The both of you were laughing, stumbling over the laundry and bumping into each other as you raced inside.
“You were supposed to help me, not compete with me!” You scolded him, dropping the sopping wet pile of laundry into your basket.
“I can do both, dearest.”
Dearest. That had been a recent occurrence. It slipped from his lips one day, it had caused your heart to stutter and your blood to rush and ever since then he had not gone a single day without letting the term of endearment grace your ears. He loved seeing how flustered it would make you, the way he practically purred around the word.
“Or, you could just be kind to me for once.”
“I’m always kind to you, have you not enjoyed the gifts I’ve brought you?” He asked, a faux pout on his pretty lips as he slowly stalked towards you. You could almost see the wolf in him when he did that, you could visualize the swing of his tail and the way his massive head would tip down as his glowing eyes locked in on you. It was there, in the swing of his walk and the taunt muscle of his shoulders. It was an ever present reminder that he was not like you.
You backed up, almost coyly, as he approached. His broader steps quickly gain on your short, shuffled ones. The cold, spring breeze rushed over the exposed skin of your neck, the open doorway was now behind you. But, before you could rush outside and back into the rain and allow him to give chase, he reached behind you and jerked his arm back. In that instant you felt solid wood press against your back, the new door settling perfectly into the once empty frame and blocking off your exit.
You let out a shaky breath as he leaned into you, his chest against yours as he raised his arm above your head. With one swift movement there was a click and then his arm settled by your waist and another click followed. He had locked the door behind you. You were trapped in your own home with the wolf.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Short breaths were passed between the two of you, both of you waiting for the other to make a move. Your lashes fluttered as your gaze traced the contours of his face. You often wondered if he knew just how lovely he was, scar and all.
You swallowed harshly as you raised your hand to his face, your fingers trembling with desire before softly grazing the bottom of the scar. Yoongi’s eyes slipped shut as he moved forward allowing his face to lean into your touch, his body pressing impossibly closer to yours.
“Yoongi,” You whispered.
And with that one simple call of his name, he lunged and went in for the kill. His pretty lips collided with your own as his hand moved to cradle your jaw and tilt your head back with the force of his kiss. With your back against the door there was nowhere for you to go, but there was nowhere else that you wanted to be.
You gasped as you felt his free hand slowly trail up your leg and over your hip before settling on your lower back and sharply pulling your hips against his. A pitiful whimper was passed from your lips to his from the sudden desire that was pooling in your lower abdomen.
A moment of clarity came to you, your mind pushing past the haze of desire when you felt your feet leave the ground. Yoongi buried his face in the junction of your neck and shoulder, his lips and teeth making quick work of the skin there, as he walked. It was when you felt the soft cover of your bed beneath you that you realized what was happening.
“Yoongi, wait -” You tried, but his movements did not falter. His fingers were making quick work of the laces at the back of your dress and he showed no sign of stopping any time soon.
He looked desperate, like he was going to die if he could not have you and the only way to relieve himself of his pain was to unveil every inch of skin that you were concealing from him and each stretch that was exposed was just as quickly covered by kisses and nipped by sharp teeth.
You couldn’t deny the attraction you had for him or the lust you were practically dripping with from his touch. But it felt like you were laying on a bed of needles when you were reminded of your late husband’s death as you were willingly laid down in your marriage bed with a man who was not your husband.
“Please,” You gasped, gripping his shoulders, “not here.”
That seemed to catch his attention as he finally stilled himself. From your position it looked like he was trying to gain some control over himself. His breathing was still heavy, but he had stopped touching you. He looked up at you slowly, his chin just barely brushing over your bare sternum. When he finally looked at you, you stopped breathing. His eyes were lit with moonlight, a silver glow emanating from their depths.
He was more wolf than human in that moment, a creature that was acting purely on instinct.
You cupped his cheek once more and while he flinched at first, he slowly relaxed beneath your touch. He was still eerily silent, and in that moment his behavior reminded you almost entirely of the first time you had met him when he was in his other skin, fully shifted into his wolf counterpart. It was those watchful eyes again, those eyes that held so much depth and awareness that it was startling.
“I can’t, not here.” You repeated.
He blinked slowly, once, twice, and then a third time as he cocked his head to the side. You felt a twinge of fear at that gaze and, shamefully, the rush of lust in your veins. Your body went lax as you allowed him to gather you in his arms once more. He was calmer now, his pace slower as he unlocked the front door and carried you into the night. You could see flickers of your Yoongi in him, his touch much softer as he laid you down in a bed of grass that has been permanently laid flat by the giant wolf that guarded your home.
That night the sky was completely open, not a single cloud obscured the stars or the body of the full moon. It was utterly beautiful. Just as beautiful as the feeling of fresh dew on your back and just as beautiful as the sight of your breath crystalizing in the cold, spring air. But nothing was quite as beautiful as Yoongi. The way that his bitten lips parted with soft gasps and deep moans, the way that his porcelain skin shone beneath the moonlight, and the way that he struggled to part from your lips. It was the way that he would rather kiss you than breathe. Everything about him was beautiful.
You had many regrets in your life, but this would never be one of them. Not when he held you like this, like you were the only person in the world that mattered. Everything about this was supposed to be wrong, unholy even, but that was what made it that more enjoyable. That was what made you tense your legs around his waist, curve your hips against his, and wrap your arms around the back of his neck - drawing him towards your pulse point where he had been nosing at, sucking, and kissing almost obsessively.
When your body shook with pleasure, a rush of warmth and tingles spread beneath your skin, your back arched and your neck was bared. And before you could even realize what was to come, his teeth had already sunk into your neck and shoulder without hesitation accompanied by an almost animalistic growl. The pain was there, it forced a scream past your lips, but it mingled deliciously with the rush of pleasure that emanated from your very core. You gasped and shook, your vision blurring as you were assaulted by your senses, your nails digging into his shoulders.
There it was again.
There was a flash of white in the treeline. It was there for a moment before flickering out of sight as you felt yourself barely clinging to consciousness.
You were being watched again, there was something or someone out there that was following you - watching you in your most vulnerable moments.
You tried to get Yoongi’s attention but he was in a similar state, the both of you lazily holding onto one another and barely moving as you began to drift. Your lips moved but no words were spoken, your tongue felt heavy in your mouth, unable to form words.
Yoongi’s lips were stained with your blood, his eyes heavy lidded but now returned to their dark color that you knew and loved. You tried again to speak but found yourself unable to as he pressed his forehead against your own, his fingers brushing back your messy hair.
The heavy lure of sleep was steadily pulling you under. You supposed it could wait until tomorrow.
Out of sight, out of mind.
~~~~~~~
When you woke up you were back in your bed and you were alone.
The cottage was dark, the windows all closed and the curtains drawn tight. When your eyes fluttered open you had almost believed that it was still night, that you were still outside with Yoongi and you had only momentarily dozed off. But the familiar comfort of your blankets and pillows quickly dismissed those thoughts.
Now wide awake with your sheets pooled around your waist, you could only wonder about where your wolf had gone. Had he left you already? Had he taken your words to heart when you told him that he was to leave when his service was finished? Had he abandoned you after you had shared your most intimate moments with him? What had you done?
You felt a sense of shame wash over you as you stumbled from your bed, dull aches throbbing at various points of your body that only reminded you of what had transpired the night before. Once you collected yourself you made your way to the door your wolf had crafted for you and when you grasped the handle and pulled, you were met with a locked door.
Your face scrunched in confusion as you turned the lock the opposite way and moved the bar at the top of the door but when you tried it again it still would not budge.
You had been locked in your own home like a canary in a cage.
Your heart dropped into your stomach and your throat felt impossibly tight as tears began to brim in your eyes. You had trusted him and in turn he had trapped you. How foolish you were to think that you could trust another man and here you were, a betrayer of your husband’s memory.
You sat on the floor curled up by the foot of your bed with a weak grasp on your blanket around your shoulders. There was an unexpected heartbreak that demanded to be felt in your chest, how could you mourn someone who you never really truly knew? Yoongi wouldn’t even tell you about his family, where he came from, or his people. Your relationship, whatever it was, had been an uneven exchange and you had clung to him so quickly because you had been so lonely. It was unfair.
You quickly swept away the tears from beneath your eyes when you heard a lock turn and light began to permeate the darkness as the door swung open. He came back.
The gentle smile he had entered with melted away, a look of concern taking over his face. He crossed the room and you rushed to stand, your arms crossing over your chest to protect and soothe yourself. You flinched away from his touch as he attempted to cup your jaw, the look of hurt and confusion on his face only inspired anger.
“Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” He asked, trying to bridge the distance between the two of you as he moved closer while you took to stepping around the bed. You needed to keep him away, you couldn’t be swayed by those gentle touches and kind looks.
“You locked me up, Yoongi. Why would you do that?” You sniffled as you attempted to keep your voice strong and firm.
“I didn’t lock you up-”
“Then why was the door locked? Why couldn’t I get out?” You asked, before leaning forward and grasping a cord that was strung around his neck and nestled beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Why do you have this?”
When you pulled the necklace out his hand shot out to grip your wrist in warning, but the damage had already been done. There was a key on his necklace, the key to your cage.
“I’m protecting you.” He whispered, his tone deadly and his gaze dark with warning. “You saw what happened, it’s dangerous out there - I can’t trust anyone with you.”
“No, you can’t trust me,” You corrected him before jerking your hand out of his hold, “This is my home, Yoongi, my home! You have no right!”
“I have every right, you are mine!”
“I am not!”
His eyes were burning again, he was having trouble keeping his anger in check and you weren’t helping in the slightest. His chest was heaving with every breath and his jaw was tense. You watched him take one long breath in and then out before his arm shot out as he grabbed you by the wound on your neck forcing a pained gasp from your throat.
“I told you, I am responsible for you, I need to protect you. This means that you’re mine and that I’m yours, this is a bond that goes deeper than marriage, do you understand that?”
Your lips trembled as emotion welled in your chest, that told you everything that you needed to know.
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
The silence you were met with and the empty look in his eyes was more than enough to confirm. Yoongi had been your husband’s killer. You stumbled back and heaved, waving away his hands that tried to steady you as you felt sickness stir in your stomach.
“How could you? Why? Why did you do it?!” You cried, your fingers shaking as they grazed your lips in pure shock.
His hands were raised as he tried to step closer to you, it wasn’t a defensive position, it looked more like he was trying to calm a startled animal.
“He killed my wife,” He said, his voice much gentler than you expected in your state.
“He wouldn’t!”
“No, but he would kill an animal, wouldn’t he?”
He stopped approaching you and you had stopped moving away, your body having locked up in a state of pure shock.Your silence was enough for him to continue.
“By the time I got there he was already taking her pelt, she wasn’t even able to shift back.”
He had skinned her. He didn’t know there was a person inside of the wolf that he had killed, and he had skinned her.
“I took what was owed to me, he killed her so I killed him and I don’t regret it. The only thing I regret is what that did to you and your child, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I tried my best to give back to you what was taken. I can protect you, I can take care of you, I can give you children, and I can love you.”
His pupils were blown out, there was a look of pure desperation in his eyes. It was a look that made your heart shudder in your chest.
There was a horrible ache in behind your ribs, it felt like it was on the verge of collapsing. It was undeniable that you cared for him, but the sickness that churned in your stomach was rivaling those feelings. You had never felt so betrayed before by anyone. You thought that he would have been different.
You couldn’t even bear the thought of looking at him in the moment, it hurt too much and you knew how powerful those eyes of his were. You refused to be swayed at that moment.
You knew that no amount of words you could say would force him to leave, so you did the next best thing and sprinted for the door. You barely made it a few steps before he lunged and grabbed you by your waist, picking you up with ease as you writhed in his hold. You turned into a feral animal, throwing yourself around wildly and scratching at any available skin you could find as you cried in shrill screams.
“Stop fighting me!” He grunted, throwing you down on the mattress and pinning your wrists down at your sides as he pressed his knees into your kicking legs. “Calm down.”
A scream of frustration burned your throat as your muscles strained under his firm grip. There was no use in fighting him, he was far stronger than you could ever hope to be. And so your body eventually tired itself out, your limbs going limp as you shook from a mixture of fatigue, fright, and dimming embers of anger. The skin beneath your eyes felt tight from all the crying you had done and the skin around your nails throbbed from the scratches you had carved into Yoongi’s forearms. But of course, those flesh wounds had already healed.
You flinched as he released one of your wrists and stroked your face, indirectly drying your cheeks of their lingering tears.
“You’re scared, now. Confused. But that’s alright, you’ll learn that I am the only one who can take care of you.”
You stayed silent and stubbornly turned your head to the side when he leant in to kiss you, but your actions did not deter him, he only laid a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth with a contented hum.
“I’ll prove it to you, I can give you everything that you want.” He whispered beside your ear before he finally stood and the blood rushed back to your arms and legs.
You scuttled backwards up the bed as he gave you one last lingering gaze and then he slipped out of the cottage and locked the door shut behind him.
He had trapped you once again.
~~~~~~~
You had laid there for a long time, frozen after what had transpired. Everything you thought that you knew has been completely and utterly wrong. It had all been a lie.
You slowly sat up and slid your palms into your lap. Your nails were stained with dark blood, you had hurt Yoongi afterall, not that it had mattered. To him, it had probably been no more irritating than a kitten’s scratch. You were once again reminded of his incredible inhuman nature.
You needed to leave, now was your chance to escape him. It was an odd feeling that stirred in the back of your mind. The night before, there was nowhere else that you would rather be, and now you wanted to get as far away as possible. You wanted to run.
With that thought in your mind you lept to your feet and made for the window. You knew that Yoongi would be able to find you, tracking you would be more of a game than a challenge. But if you left now, you would give yourself a head start. You would make for town and when you entered its boundaries it would be too risky for him to come after you. He wouldn’t be able to get you in either skin, the hulking form of that wolf far too obvious and the flesh of his human skin far too vulnerable when outnumbered.
You pried open the shutters and undid the latch. You hiked up the skirt of your night dress, baring your skin to the cool breeze, and swung your legs out of the window and allowed your body to drop down. You needed to go, there was no more time for hesitation.
Your dress was held tight in each fist as you began to run, the light fabric brushing over your legs as you moved. In that moment you had wished for a pair of shears to shorten it.
A pitched howl echoed through the trees and your heart thrummed even harder in your chest. Your limbs froze on instinct and your ears rang with the sound of your blood rushing. It was too high of a tone to be him, you had heard the sounds he had made when he tore that other shifter to shreds. It wasn’t him but it was someone else.
A small, dark, furry form shot out from the cover of the trees and darted through the clearing. Its pace was sure yet frantic, like it still didn't have control of its four limbs nor its speed. As it came closer you began to take cautious steps backward. You knew who that was, it was the pup.
You watched in horror as the creature’s gait became wild and the pup began to trip over itself before the fur exploded from its skin and in its place was a little girl sprinting through the grass.
There was no denying the impossibility of what you had seen, after all you had seen it with your own eyes. There was no forgetting this.
“Mama!” She cried as she collided with your legs and displayed an impressive strength that was disproportionate to the size of her body, sending the both of you to the ground. The world turned sideways for a moment, and there it was once more. That flash of white that you had been seeing for weeks now. But it was closer this time, close enough that you recognized what it was. From the shape of the clothes on the fleeing form, you knew it was one of the clerics from the town. Has he been watching you all this time?
“I missed you, mama,” She said, pulling your attention to her as she stared down at you with a pair of dark brown eyes that sent chills through your veins. She looked so much like her father.
“Binna,” His voice shot through the air, “Remember what I said? Be gentle, you don’t want to hurt your mother.”
“Sorry!” She giggled as she pressed her cheek against your collarbone, her eyes fluttering shut and her long lashes casting shadows over the skin beneath her eyes. She wrapped her arms around your neck and hummed, the warmth from her body seeping into your skin.
“Sorry, mama.” She repeated.
You gently laid your hand over her back, your breaths still uneven as you pulled the two of you into a sitting position. “Sweetheart, I’m not your-“
“Binna, do you want to go see your room?” Yoongi asked, dropping down into a squat behind his daughter, his eyes on you as he spoke.
Binna let out an excited hum of agreement, scrambling up onto two legs that still wobbled unsurely beneath her weight. You noticed that she was never completely stable in either skin she wore, it was like she was still trying to figure out how four legs and two legs worked.
“Come on, dearest,” He said, holding his hand out to you. You sat there for a moment, stubbornly, but his gaze was unwavering and his body was as still as a statue. You knew there was no fighting him and he had played dirty by bringing his daughter into the equation. He knew that you wouldn’t want to start anything in front of her, the last thing that you wanted to do was frighten her.
You let out an angry huff and rushed to stand without his help, storming past him and walking a few paces behind his small daughter who would toddle every now and then before bending over and trying to walk on all fours instead.
As frustrated, frightened, and irritated as you were, you couldn’t deny the tug at your heart when you watched Binna crawl up the front steps of your home and scamper inside. You could hear the sound of her bare feet tapping against the wood floors and you couldn’t stop the resulting burn in your eyes. You had always wanted to hear that sound, you had always wanted a daughter of your own.
But Binna wasn’t yours.
But it was hard to long for that when you watched her disappear into the once empty nursery. You didn’t like what Yoongi was doing, he was messing with your head. He knew how badly you had wanted your child, how you had tirelessly grieved your husband, and now he was trying to patch everything together and force your lives to fit with one another.
You knew that he could understand your loss, he had lost a wife after all. He would do anything to avoid that happening again, and if that meant locking you up while he was gone, then he would do that. But that wasn’t what you wanted. You had locked yourself up for months on end, turning your home into a mausoleum as you grieved the loss of the life you had once had. You refused to do that again.
The door shut and the lock clicked.
You heard him approach and then you felt his warmth as your back and his breath disturb the hair on your head. It wasn’t all that different from the first time that you had met.
His fingers grazed your own and your hand twitched in response but you didn’t move. He intertwined your hands and pressed his forehead against the back of your head, breathing in your scent.
“You have to let me go, Yoongi.” You whispered.
He froze and a low, warning growl thrummed in his chest causing the hair on the back of your neck to raise. It didn’t matter what skin he was in, your body recognized him as the predator that he was.
“No.” He simply said.
“You’re not being fair -”
“I’ve been nothing but fair. I broke your door so I fixed it, I killed your husband and I gave you myself, you lost your child and I gave you Binna. I have been more than fair, so much so that I even gave you my love when you did not want it.”
You ignored that last part, the love you felt for him causing a stabbing pain of betrayal in your heart. It wasn’t fair that you still felt the way you did about him after everything that he had done. After he had tricked you.
“I am not Binna’s mother.”
He quickly hushed you, spinning you around by your shoulders and staring into your eyes, “She can hear you, she has very sensitive ears and a gentle heart, you don’t want to hurt her do you?”
You bit your lip in frustration, “It’s not fair to her mother.”
“You are her mother.”
And that conversation was over, he wouldn’t hear any of your protests and you feared hurting Binna too much to continue to broach the subject. You were caught in between a rock and a hard place. And the worst thing was that it was hard not to love Binna.
She was curious, mischievous, and sweet. She had been the same way when you discovered her as a pup, but you adored her even more this way. All she wanted was your attention, she was a little girl that was desperate to be loved by a mother.
“Why did you leave?” She stumbled over the words, her little fingers twisted in the fabric of your skirt as you had started dinner, the light of the sunset cast over her eyes and bursts of silver shined in their reflection.
You didn’t know how to respond.
“Mama’s back now, you don’t have to worry about that baby.” Yoongi answered for you with a gentle smile as he pulled her onto his lap.
“Forever?” She asked, staring at him with wide eyes full of wonder that only a child could possess.
“Forever,” He repeated, his eyes tracing over the profile of your face.
The questions didn’t stop there. It was a full moon that night and Binna demanded to be outside. Yoongi had briefly told you before about their connection with the moon. It was almost religious, but even that wasn’t a good comparison. It was a part of them.
“Shift.” Binna had commanded, tugging at your skirt again as she had quickly grown accustomed to.
“I can’t Binna,” You explained, lowering yourself into the grass so that you were more level with her height. “I’m not like you, or your daddy.”
Yoongi had stayed close to you all day, keeping a watchful eye on you to make sure that you wouldn’t try to leave them.
“But…” She said, her words trailing off as her face furrowed in confusion, “It was white.”
You were confused but a quick look at Yoongi cleared that up. His gaze was glassy like he was remembering something, something that he didn’t want to think about. Binna must have meant her mother, she must have seen her before she left. Her pelt must have been white.
Yoongi cleared his throat after a moment, “I think it’s time for bed.”
Binna, even though she was a shifter, was still a child. She whined in protest and went limp as Yoongi scooped her up in his arms and held onto your hand, guiding the two of you back into the house.
The door shut, the lock clicked.
The both of you cleaned Binna up together, her feet and hands dirty from struggling to crawl in her human form and her hair a mess of twigs and leaves. She had laughed as she watched the pile of leaves grow beside the basin and attempted to jump into it like it were a much bigger leaf pile than it really was.
And when she was clean, fed, and tired, she crawled into the center of the bed and reached her arms out for you. Your heart ached again. As soon as you laid down she was curled into your side, her little arms curled into her chest as she pressed her nose against the bite mark on your shoulder, taking in deep breaths.
The lamps in the room were snuffed out one by one, the room becoming progressively darker until it was completely plunged in darkness and only the gleam of silver eyes at the foot of the bed were visible. The bed dipped beneath Yoongi’s weight as he climbed in, laying on the other side of the bed behind his daughter. When he laid down he rolled over, wrapping his arm around the two of you and pulling you in closer to him.
Binna hummed a happy noise, burrowing deeper into your shoulder and burying herself beneath your blankets.
“What is she doing?” You asked, the first time you had spoken a direct question to Yoongi since that morning.
“You smell like me, it’s how we identify each other. She feels safe with you.” He explained.
“So that’s why you did it.” You said, a bitter edge to your words as you smoothed your hand over Binna’s freshly washed hair. “She doesn’t know any better.”
“That’s not true. She chose you, and so did I. She knew you were safe, that’s why she let you take her that day. And this,” His fingers ghosted over the mark sending chills down your spine, “was purely for my own selfish benefit. I wanted everyone to know that you’re mine.”
“You didn’t even give me the choice.”
“I love you, and I know that you love me.”
You remained quiet, not willing to agree or disagree with him. It was hard to make sense of madness, whether that be Yoongi’s or your own.
“You’ll see it eventually, this is what you wanted.”
~~~~~~~
When you woke the next morning, you immediately knew that something was wrong.
Firstly, Yoongi was gone. The spot on the bed that used to be your husband’s was cold, he had been gone for a while. Secondly, Binna was curled into the corner of the room, hiding beneath a blanket as she shook. And when you looked closer, you could see the tip of a snout and a still tail peeking out from beneath the blanket. She was frightened. Thirdly, there was smoke in the air, something was burning.
You stumbled out of bed when there was a pounding on the door.
“Open the door!” A man yelled, the door knob shaking as he tried to open it himself. Your instincts were screaming at you that something was wrong.
“Open up, and pay for your crimes!” He yelled again, this time throwing his weight against the door.
That couldn’t be right? Crimes?
You crept closer to the front window, the wood shutters were pulled shut but there was a crack that you had peered through, unnoticed, many times before. This time, the sight that you were met with was horrific. There was a large, angry crowd with torches outside - illuminating the pitch black field around your home.
You had heard of these events before, but never had you considered that you would become the victim of one, not when you were so isolated from the town. But it was happening now and you needed to act fast.
You rushed to the corner where Binna hid and scooped her up into your arms blanket and all. Her snout sniffed at your bite wound before she began to settle down. You ran to the nursery and to the very back of the room where the crib sat. You gripped it with one hand and with a strength you didn’t know that you possessed you pulled it aside. Your heart pounded and your breath was coming in harsh pants as you moved to the window.
“Binna,” You whispered, forcing yourself to make your voice as soft and soothing as you could. You had one priority right now and that was to get her safe. You had seen what those hunters were capable of before. “I need you to run as fast as you can, and I need you to find your daddy. Don’t stop running until you're safe, don’t stop no matter what you hear.”
Binna stared back at you, her ears perked up as her glossy silver eyes poured into your very soul. Binna was a little girl, but she was smarter than any human child. You trusted her.
A loud thwack sounded from the front door, a sound that you weren’t all that unfamiliar with - it was the sound of an ax striking the door. Your motions became faster and more panicked than before, your nails ripping at the bottom of the window that groaned as you forced it open. You grunted and with one more hard push, it popped and raised and there was enough room that Binna could slide through.
“Don’t stop running, be very brave.” You whispered before pressing a quick kiss to the space between her ears and lowering her as close to the ground as you could. And then, her body left your hand and her dark fur disappeared into the night. You could only hope that she could find help on time.
You had a terrible feeling that you weren’t going to make it out of this.
A loud crack and sharp splintering sounded from the front door and then the thud of boots entered the kitchen. You stayed as quiet as you could but you knew there was no hiding and you needed to buy Binna time.
You slid an oil lamp off of the dresser and hid by the door, waiting for it to open. The boots approached quickly, they didn’t want to give you time to get away and they were hunting you down. This was nothing like the way Yoongi had hunted you, it was un-practiced, frantic, amateur.
When the door to the nursery slammed open you brought the lamp down on the back of the man’s head and sent him crashing to the ground as blood pooled onto the wood. But when you darted out into the hallway, there was already someone else waiting for you.
You swung the lamp towards him with a scream but he dodged, grabbing your wrists and bending them in such a way that a sharp scream echoed through the cottage as you lost your grip and the lamp shattered upon impact with the ground.
The man from the nursery was up and moving and now he was behind you, pulling rope from his belt.
“You fucking bitch!” He yelled, and before you could move he had punched you clean across your face, sending you sprawling on the ground.
You could taste blood in your mouth as he straddled you from behind, wrapping the rope around your hands.
“Get off of me!” You screamed, wriggling desperately but to no avail. All it earned you was another strike to your head that made your vision blurry and spotted.
When you came to, you were being dragged out of your house. The door that Yoongi had painstakingly crafted was shattered.
And, as soon as the three of you were outside, torches were thrown and the house was lit aflame.
“No!” You screamed, guttural sounds that ripped through your throat. “No, no, no!”
Your husband had built that house. It was the only thing that you had left of him. It was yours, it was where you were supposed to make a family and grow old together. And now that dream, that life, was being burned to the ground.
It was absolute chaos.
The smell of smoke burned in your nose and made your eyes tear up on reflex. When you had thought of all the ways that you could possibly die, you had never considered this as an option. You wriggled violently in your bonds like a wild animal trapped in a snare. The rope was digging into your wrists leaving behind raw, bloody wounds. There was no escape, but you couldn’t help but try. If you didn’t free yourself, then this would be it.
There had been a time where you craved nothing more than to be reunited with your deceased lover, but when faced with the frightening reality of death you wanted nothing more than to live.
Violent, raw screams tore through your throat as you were held down to the ground. There were hands everywhere, gripping your shoulders, your legs, and one in particular that was knotted in your hair.
“Silence, witch!” A man yelled, pressing down on your neck and forcing your face into the dirt.
“Witch? Witch?!” You shrieked, another manic scream breaking up your words as you writhed against the ground.
You could hear the murmurs of the crowd that surrounded you and with a strained eye you could see nearly the entire town gathered around you and the men that held you captive. It was clear what this was, but you didn’t want to believe it. You didn’t want to believe that your own kind would turn on you like this. But that seemed to be your plight, those you tried to trust always turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The hand that was wound in your hair tightened its grasp spurring a pained gasp from you as they began to drag you. You could only desperately writhe in the dirt as you were pulled closer to the crowd. You were certainly a sight, your hair a deranged mess, filled with leaves and twigs with dirt smeared down your cheeks and staining the tips of your fingers. Their rough treatment of you had only served to make you appear as the very thing they feared. The thing they were accusing you of being.
You finally came to a stop in front of the town elder, the men behind you forcing you into an upright position on your knees, your arms still painfully stretched behind your back.
The elder looked at you in what could only be described as disgust.
“Behold, the witch who has brought a curse upon our village,” He spoke, his voice raspy and low, causing silence to descend over the group in order to hear him.
“I am no witch-“
“Quiet!” The man behind you yelled before delivering a harsh smack to the side of your head, forcing it to snap to the side as you cried in pain.
“The accused has brought death to all of your doors. She who murdered her unborn child in a covenant with the devil and brought those beasts to our home, and she who slayed her husband to feed those wretched demons and seal their bond to her will continue to slaughter us where we stand. What say you, shall we stand by and allow this to happen?” The elder said, opening his arms to the crowd who voiced their agreement.
This was the man who had known you since you were a child, the very man who had approved your courtship with your husband, the same man that married the both of you. This was the man that would ultimately kill you.
Yoongi was right, humans were horrible creatures.
Your body had gone limp, your head rolling forward as if your neck could no longer bear the weight of it. Desperate, wounded cries burst from your lips. You had not killed your baby, you had not killed your husband, but there was nothing you could say to change their minds. They had already made their decision.
“The punishment for these crimes shall be paid by that of which you are familiar,” The elder said, gesturing to a horrifying sight looming behind him, “Hellfire.”
You couldn’t hear the screams that burned your throat, you could only feel them. There was a loud ringing in your ears and the feeling of your feet and shoulders digging into the ground as you were dragged toward the stake and unlit pyre before you.
They were going to burn you alive.
Your cries for help were left unanswered, there was not a single look of empathy on anyone in the crowd. He had truly convinced them all that the deaths that had plagued the town were because of you. They believed you were the one that had brought the shifters upon them even though that didn’t make sense, they had been there long before you and longer than they realized. But there was no getting through to them. What the elder spoke was considered divine nature.
You sounded like a wounded animal, horrific sobs and screams shaking your body as you were tied to the stake. Nausea swirled in your stomach and your heart pounded, the fear that you felt was indescribable.
Vaguely, you understood that you were mumbling something repeatedly under your breath which was not helping your perception with the crowd. It looked like you were trying to cast a curse upon them. And if you could, you would.
But what you were saying was far from that. All you could brokenly whisper was, “I did not kill my baby.”
The scent of smoke became even stronger and from in between layers of your hair, you could see a torch flickering. The flames wavered, almost teasingly in nature, like it was deciding whether or not it would engulf you in its fiery embrace. Ultimately, that would not be its decision.
“Return from whence you came, witch,” The man before you spoke, and with the crook of the elder’s finger, he lit the pyre.
Heat licked at your feet and ankles as the fire slowly but surely crept up the logs and branches piled around you. This would be a long, slow, tortuous end to your life and that was what they wanted. They wanted to put all of their rage, pain, and hatred onto you and they would make certain you experienced the full extent of their wrath.
Tears rolled down your cheeks as you accepted your fate. You cried as you watched the flames lap at the edges of your skirt - eating away at the hem. In a matter of seconds it would eat the fabric away and begin charing flesh and bone.
But it was when you lost all hope, that fate decided to play yet another trick on you.
Frantic cries were coming from the crowd and when you raised your head you were shocked by the sight of six massive wolves emerging from the trees. It took no time for you to realize that they were just like Yoongi. Binna had made it back to them, she had gotten them to come and help you and thankfully she was nowhere in sight.
The crowd pressed in closer to the elder, who’s face had gone gray at the sight of the wolves, as the six shifters surrounded them, corralling them all into one place.
In the midst of the madness, you hadn’t noticed the presence behind you until you felt your ropes loosening.
It was Yoongi.
The fire was searing both of your clothes yet he remained, slicing through your bonds with deft hands. He had come for you, he had saved you.
The moment your bonds slid from your hands he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you from the stake and pyre, the two of you sinking down to the ground in each other’s embrace.
“Yoongi,” You choked, your lungs thick with smoke and ash.
“Shh,” he hushed you, “just breathe, breathe for me sweetheart, just like that.”
His hand came to rest on your chest while he guided yours to his, taking in exaggerated breaths so that you could follow him.
Yoongi was many things: your husband's killer, your captor, your protector, and lastly - your savior. It was impossible for you to describe what you felt for him as it was no longer black and white. If there was anything you did believe, it was that nothing was ever that simple. There are many truths and many lies, it all was dependent on what you wanted to believe.
You coughed again, the force of it shaking your entire body as Yoongi pulled you into himself tighter. You were in his lap, chest to chest, with his nose buried in your hair. You could feel him breathing in your scent, a growl radiating through his chest when he realized it had been tainted by smoke and other men.
“I thought I lost you too,” he sighed before pressing a desperate kiss to your temple and then your cheek. He treated you like you were the most precious thing in the world.
“Help us!” That raspy voice called out to you again.
You slowly turned your head to face the elder who had placed himself in the middle of the crowd, using the bodies of his people to shield him from the wolves that were steadily circling them.
Help them.
Help them?
Help them?!
You cocked your head to the side, a look of bewilderment and rage taking over your features. Why should you help them? After what they had done to you? After what they had accused you of?
Humans were horrible. You didn’t need them, after all, you much preferred to be alone.
You didn’t need other humans.
“Yoongi?” You whispered, maintaining eye contact with the elder.
“Yes?” He leaned forward, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear.
“Kill them all.”
You felt his warm finger trace the curve of your jaw before turning your face in his direction. He looked down at you in a mix of adoration and excitement before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours in a hard kiss.
“As you wish,” He murmured before setting you down on the ground and joining his brothers.
In a matter of seconds he burst free from his skin, a giant wolf in his place alongside the tattered remains of his clothes. The crowd screamed in fright from the sight of his transformation and then from the massive fangs of seven wolves.
You sat there, knees drawn into your chest as you watched Yoongi carve his way through the crowd and toward the elder. And, with great ease, he forced the man to the ground and ripped his head clean from his shoulders. A large spurt of blood soared through the smoggy air, painting the grass a vibrant color.
You watched on as several more people were felled by the shifters, their gruesome screams quieted by large jaws and hooked claws.
You were numb, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care about their lives that were swiftly ended - their souls ripped from their bodies.
You craned your neck back and stared up at the full moon, eyes dull, red, and finally dry as more gurgled screams were silenced.
Out of sight, out of mind.
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Minamoto Supernatural Detective Agency — April Fool’s Day 2023
April Fool’s! Nah, this one’s the real deal—here’s a translated archive of the event hosted on AidaIro’s twitter during April of 2023.
Day 1
“Hello, you’ve reached the Minamoto Supernatural Detective Agency—”
“Oh, it's just you, Kou. Yes, of course.”
“All right, I'll see you at 8 PM.”
Click! Booop, booop....
Day 2
Somewhere in the city lies an ultra-famous detective agency that boasts a terrifying case-solving rate...
[Teru]
“Welcome, I've been expecting you.”
“I look tired, you say? Haha, I've been working on a big case that came in yesterday.”
“But I have plans to go on break tomorrow, and I'm used to pulling all-nighters, so don't worry about me.”
“You reporters are just as busy, right?”
“I've collected the info pertaining to the Ryokan Case over there.”
“Huh? You don't know where I mean? Sorry, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to organize everything.”
“All my other case files are scattered around... but I won't mind if you search through them for it.”
Various items have been scattered throughout the detective agency.
What interests you is the...
POLL:
Old Flier
Strange Magazine
Dirtied Diary ✅
Left-on TV
It's a diary with a cute design.
It's terribly dirty, as if someone had dropped it somewhere. You can see a footprint left behind where somebody stepped on it.
Everyday events have been written inside with neat handwriting:
“The potted flowers we planted bloomed today.”
“Went out with a friend.”
“I spotted a cute cat.”
...But the diary entries abruptly cut off, and a message written in another person's hand-writing has been left behind:
“Go Away.”
[Teru]
“Ahh, that's unrelated to the ryokan.”
“A client asked me to locate the diary of someone precious to them.”
“I did find it, but as you can see... her work environment was rather poor.”
“She set her sights on a new career path, and left to do field research, but I'm not sure where...”
――Knock Knock!
“Hm?”
“Looks like somebody's here. Is it another job request...?”
[Akane]
“Oh, there's a guest here. Hello.”
“I came to pick up something I left behind before I leave! I'm going on a trip with my childhood friend!”
“A vacation to the hot springs, all by ourselves... I can't squander this. I've finally made it...”
“Enjoy working on your day off, Chief! See ya!”
[Teru]
“A hot springs vacation with his childhood friend, huh...”
“Oh, that was one of our staff members. It seems he's going to be taking some time off, as well.”
Now, where should I check next?
POLL:
Old Flier
Strange Magazine ✅
Left-on TV
A mysterious magazine titled Monthly MO has been left here.
There’s a bookmark inside.
A special report on cryptids...?
[Teru]
“Reports of cryptids at the ryokan are almost never-ending.”
“If you go there, try seeing if you can catch one. You might earn some extra pocket money if you do.”
“Haha, I'm just kidding, of course.”
Now, what’s next?
🐈The investigation continues tomorrow at 8PM🐈
POLL:
Old Flier
Left-on TV
Cassette Tape ✅
Day 3
It's an old cassette tape. I'll try playing it.
...It's a man recounting how he was spirited away as a child and wandered into a mysterious ryokan in the mountains. He sounds oddly happy about the experience.
“...and that was how I returned to human civilization.”
“I'll never forget the girl who helped me to escape from there. Never ever~!”
“She told me ‘you must never come back here again,’ but it's my dream to return one day and be reunited with her.”
“If it meant being with a beauty like her, then I’d do anything—I’d even become a cat...!!!”
[Teru]
“To be attracted to someone that isn't even human? What a freak.”
“I can't relate at all.”
Now, what should I check next?
POLL:
Old Flier
Left-on TV ✅
The 12 o'clock news is on.
It appears that the children of the leaders of the East and West yakuza organizations have gone to dinner together.
Rumor has it that they're considering an arranged marriage to unite the criminal underworld.
“Now this is just plain dumb. A political marriage, in this day 'n age?”
“Wait, you don't want to get married?”
“Huh?”
[Teru]
“Wow, they'll make a news report on just about anything.”
“I'll change the channel~”
Now, what’s next?
🐈The investigation continues tomorrow at 8PM🐈
POLL:
Old Flier
Old Newspaper Clipping ✅
Day 4
It's a newspaper clipping from 50 years ago.
During a national tour, a popular circus troupe had their tent burst into flames in the middle of the night and burn to the ground.
Officially, the cause of the fire is unknown, but on that night, two small figures were spotted fleeing from the scene of the crime.
However, there was only one child registered with the circus troupe at the time—a single animal handler, who went missing after the incident.
The child was known for doting on his pet black cat.
[Teru]
“Rumor has it there's someone at the ryokan who looks exactly like the child who went missing, completely unchanged over the years.”
“I wonder what that means...?”
Now all that's left is the old flier.
There's a tattered, yellowed flier lying around—a notice for a lost cat.
It appears the cat went missing over ten years ago...
[Teru]
“What a big cat. Cute, isn't she?”
“They said she was a strange cat who would dance on nights of the full moon.”
“Apparently they never found her... but lately, I've heard reports that a cat with similar characteristics was spotted near the ryokan.”
I've finished surveying the results of the agency's investigation.
Now, for the final step, I'll ask for information concerning the person I'm looking for.
🐈 The final investigation begins tomorrow at 8 PM 🐈
Day 5
This is what the person I'm looking for left behind.
I've brought it here with me.
[Teru]
“About that coworker of yours who disappeared, the photographer...”
“So far we haven't found any concrete proof that kid is staying at the ryokan.”
“It's possible he might have disappeared of his own free will...”
That's what the guys at work all said. That he ran out on us 'cause the job’s too hard.
But...
He'd never go off and leave his camera behind.
Something must have happened to him out there...
[Teru]
“I see. In that case, you should trust your intuition.”
“Even if there's no evidence to support it, there's still a chance he could be there.”
“...And with that, I believe we’ve gone through everything that my investigation turned up.”
“So what's your next move? There isn’t much left to do except actually going to the ryokan itself.”
“If you hire me, I can tag along and...”
[Teru]
“Oh, you're going alone? Since you don't want to bother me when I'm on vacation?”
“But you know, they'll probably be less suspicious if we go together... Have you already got a ticket?”
“Oh... You're so responsible, Kou. Your big brother is very proud of you.”
“Okay, see you. Be careful out there.”
[Teru]
“......”
“A trip to the hot springs, huh?”
“Not like I've got anything better to do. Maybe I’ll go, too.”
📺⚡
BZzT zzzZzZT......
🐈
"Human society brings endless pain and suffering~♪"
"The youth of today with nowhere to belong feel nothing but frustration~♪"
"Let the hot spring's waters wash your troubles away~♪"
"And let your bellies be satisfied by our tasty food~♪"
"So come on down—"
"To the Bakeneko Ryokan Hanako-tei!"
🐈 The End 🐈
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Lay your hands on me
Part One
Mizu x Akemi
3.5k words
tags: Modern AU, Questioning Sexuality Akemi, Lesbian Mizu, Making Out, Smoking, Lesbian Porn, Sexual Tension, Mean Mizu, Hometown Trauma
Summary: Akemi experiences post-grad loneliness (and horniness) and starts questioning her sexuality. She goes to a local bar in her hometown to fix it. Mizu helps her out with her dilemma.
A/N: I just think it would be neat for Akemi to start questioning her sexuality while she’s back in her hometown. More specially her attraction towards hot butches 🥰
Post-grad life was treating Akemi pretty well. Granted, it had only been a week since she had graduated, the soft pane of her childhood window awash with snow and dirt from the wind. Her parents hadn’t turned her room into an office, workout room, or storage like most of her other friend’s parents had done. Instead, she got to look at all the k-pop posters she had hung up in her high school era. Splattered polaroids when that was a thing, marked by pink sparkly sharpie and stickers too cute and too childish for her now. The whisper of her childhood frozen and unfettered by time.
She’d fall asleep amongst the mountains of unpacked clothes and wake well into the day, drowsy and sticky from the space heater. Deciding to relax and rot only lasted a few days before her life started picking back up without her.
She had to get paperwork done for her job that would start at the tail end of January. Some local newspaper position that sounded exactly right on paper in every way. She didn’t want to talk about how long she took to accept her offer when it popped up in her email five whole days after graduation.
Her parents would scold her for taking showers daily, especially if she wasn’t going anywhere so she was left to rot in her pajamas bottoms since she got back home. The only real thing changing was her shirts and whether or not she decided to wear a bra that day—which was usually a no go.
She wondered if this is what post-grad life was really supposed to be. Late mornings and reheated coffee and pajama bottoms. Akemi didn’t want to think about how others her age were probably out with their friends, family, or significant others for the holiday break. All of her friends were still at university or had moved away. While her hometown friends were moms, engaged, or no longer in contact.
The glow-in-the-dark stars that shone a deep muted green for minutes after she turned off her light was her only company on cold nights. Her longtime business major boyfriend Taigen had broken up with her before he graduated in the spring six months ago. Something about moving to New York and making it big. Not like he was gonna be interning under his fathers company that already made millions.
Although, Akemi supposed she wasn’t too different from Taigen in that respect. Both her parents were realtors that ruled their hometown. It’s what paid Akemi’s way through undergrad. It’s what she was expecting to pay for her masters.
After all, she wasn’t staying here for long. The plan was always a gap year to start saving before going out into the world and conquering it, or whatever it was that was advertised most these days. This would be temporary.
But then again, a degree in English was never really a great option was it? Or at least, that’s what her parents would say when they thought she wasn’t around. To each other in the pantry that meets the lip of the kitchen. Or at their hosted neighborhood dinner parties, whispering and shaking their heads with other parents. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice they were proud of.
The fact that she had hauled all of her stuff from college back home was something that only proved their point further. Akemi felt like a child who wasn’t stopped when her imagination got too big, and now she was dealing with the consequences.
Feeling lonely and horny on top of it all felt like the icing on top. Her collection of dildos and vibrators tucked away at the bottom of her underwear drawer seemed crude and way too loud in her parents house. She would watch porn and work too long and too hard to orgasm. Taigen always used to marvel at how wet she would get. Now though, Akemi found herself reaching for lube every time she wanted to masturbate. It felt like an important part of her unraveling. A key turning point.
The first time that Akemi got off to lesbian porn, she felt guilt in a way. She’d watched it before back in the beginning parts of college when everyone was experimenting. Akemi herself had kissed a girl at her first house party at eighteen years old. However, this time felt different. She barely got halfway through the cringey teacher and student plot before Akemi had to shove her pajamas down and rub one off mean and messy. No lube required.
The second time it happened, Akemi used a dildo and was more prepared for the hunger that bloomed inside her gut. It was like a forest fire the way the desire burned into her. A kick to her gut and a shove to her clit and she was gone.
She didn’t understand. Taigen had always fucked her the way she wanted—slow and soft and with whispers and cuddles afterwards. It was fine. It was sex.
This was something entirely different. One that Akemi felt was important to note. She’d never fucked a girl. Never been fucked by one either. Her very limited experience of women started and ended with the porn she was starting to rely on to get off.
She texted her friends about it. Got a flurry of responses that ended up with Akemi self-reflecting and asking herself what she wanted.
It wasn’t an easy decision. She told her girlfriends as much. They suggested a night on the town, and Akemi figured why not? It had been ages since she had gone out. Been even longer since she had gone out in her hometown.
So that’s how she finds herself in a bar that doubles as a sports spot during the day. Billiard tables line the entryway and take up most of the place where groups of men and women alike play. It’s a Saturday night and a bit busy for a small town. The bartop is a long expanse of wood that juts out at a corner and extends to the other end of the room in an L shape. It’s a small place. One room with a connected outside patio with stringed lights.
The security guard has to double check her ID and even after that he eyes her closely as she enters. Akemi feels overdressed the second she gets in. Mostly everyone is wearing jeans. Akemi spots a tank top here and there, but flannels and long sleeves with a modest crop and cut are the majority. Every guy is a copy and paste of rough jackets and some snapbacks worse for wear.
She sets her jacket on a rack and wraps her arms around herself. The velvet of her shirt barely extends past her shoulders before it connects to lacy long sleeves that hide nothing. Her matching butterfly tattoos hover above her collarbones. The deep V-cut of the shirt leaves little to imagination, and the cropped cut accentuates her waist. The mini skirt and tights are just as out of place. Akemi feels herself turn hot and wonders if this is really the place she should’ve gone to.
But before she can second-guess herself, she swallows hard and marches to the bartop to order herself a drink. She’s already slightly tipsy from the wine she had with her dinner beforehand. Yet the liquid courage disperses once Akemi reaches the mess of bodies blocking the bartop. She squishes and politely tries to wiggle her way through but is met with less than friendly looks.
Just as she’s started to give up, a strong shoulder brushes up against her and nearly shoves her out of the way completely. Akemi feels the wine as she stumbles. Her face feels hot when she turns to see who it is, and feels it burn hotter when she realizes.
It’s a woman. Dressed in dark wash jeans and doc martens. She’s also wearing a long sleeve shirt. The waffle-knitted thermal pulls tight at her shoulders and back and neck. Her legs go on forever and Akemi watches allured as the woman moves with ease through the crowded bartop. Her profile is sharp and angular. The jut of her jaw, the peak of her cheekbones, the point of her chin. Her nose and soft curve of her forehead are the only distinguishing features that scream woman. Otherwise, the undercut and pulled back hair would’ve thrown Akemi off completely.
She watches as the woman gestures to order. Her two fingers long and pink from the cold drink in her hand. It’s half empty in her hold and Akemi wants.
It sits with her, then, how familiar the woman looks. It comes in flashes suddenly, the last couple of pornos she’s searched for and watched. Two women, bodies writhing, hot and panting. But beneath that, the difference between a taller, leaner and mean-looking woman and a smaller, bustier, whinier one. The crux of Akemi’s desire all along.
Akemi recalls the title of that first porn video she’d gotten off on. Hot Butch Professor Teaches Student A Lesson.
The woman waits for her drink and gets what she’s there for. As she leaves, Akemi feels that familiar punched-out feeling. The start of arousal. A spark catching.
She tracks the woman to the edge of the room. A billiard table observing the games going on. She’s as tall as the other men and her rounded tinted glasses reflect the low hanging lights. Akemi forces herself to look away. Her phone is dug out of her purse and she smashes a question into the group chat.
Guys, what’s a butch?
Her chat explodes instantly. Some gifs of eggplants, a picture of the blonde girl from atlantis, and one actual answer in a paragraph-length text.
She skims, looks at the woman, skims again, and nods, determined.
After managing to force herself through the crowd in a similar fashion to the woman, she gets a drink. Something fizzy and sweet. There’s a cherry floating on top.
Akemi wonders how this works. If there’s a method to flirting with other women. She shakes her head at that, there shouldn’t be. It’s attraction. Akemi knows attraction. Has been the center of it many times. So, with her resolve, she struts to the woman.
The height difference is apparent when Akemi meets the woman’s gaze. She’s wearing combat boots that have at least an inch on her usual height, yet she’s still looking up to grin at the woman.
“Hi.” Akemi says. She leans against the wall, tilting her head and showing off the stretch of skin on her neck.
“Hm.” The woman says. She regards Akemi carefully. Her eyes flicker to her matching butterfly tattoos. The action fizzles inside Akemi’s belly like the drink in her hand, “You are?” An eyebrow raises, and oh she’s mean, isn’t she?
“Akemi. And you are..?”
The woman meets her eyes again. This time over the tint of her glasses and Akemi is caught. Feels like a small creature fenced in by a predator. Like a fawn in a snare, bloody and vulnerable and raw.
“Mizu.” Her voice is deep and raspy. Akemi shudders at the sound. Mizu must notice because she takes a sip of her drink and works an ice cube into her mouth. It crushes against her canines. Akemi watches mesmerized, “You new to town?”
“Hah. No, back for the holidays.” Akemi lies. She figures it’s easier to have an escape, “That easy to tell?” Akemi jokes, getting closer and working with what Mizu seems to be giving.
“A bit.” Mizu drags her eyes down Akemi’s body as an answer. Akemi thinks she might combust.
“Yeah? How so?”
Mizu flicks her eyes around the bar and grins. She bends down to get to Akemi’s level. There’s a hand at her waist.
“Most girls wait until I’m tipsier to start flirting.” Akemi’s hip is gripped tightly by Mizu’s warm firm palm, “I can be mean.”
As quickly as Mizu is there she’s gone in the next instant. The lip of her cup against her mouth. Standing back up like nothing happened. Her hand is still on Akemi’s waist though. A warm firm heat.
“I’m eager.” Akemi replies. Makes her eyes wider and bites into her lip.
Mizu frowns then. Takes another sip of her drink and sets it on a nearby stool, “No. You’re confused.”
The hand disappears then. The cold shocks Akemi as she makes an aborted sound. A start to a sentence.
“But, I-“
“I don’t fuck straight girls.” Mizu states simply. She’s turned back to the room now, disinterested. No longer facing Akemi, the illusion of privacy is lost. The sounds of billiard games come back and Akemi startles.
“I’m not…not—“ not straight. Was that right? It didn’t feel completely right. Not completely wrong either. Akemi didn’t know exactly. Wasn’t meant to be thinking about it right now. She was here for an answer to a question, “I want to.” Akemi feels like it’s an okay response to her swirling thoughts.
Mizu doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at her. Rather, she chugs the rest of her drink and walks back to the bartop. Akemi feels the air brush by her and she stews in annoyance at the outcome. Doesn’t know why when she’s the one who is apparently walking around with a giant neon sign that says straight girl.
She finishes the rest of her fizzy sweet drink and eats the cherry. It tastes like her childhood and she chuckles at the irony. Wonders what young Akemi would think about her right now. Trying to get some in her hometown because she’s what? lonely? As if no one else in the existence of the world hadn’t been lonely.
She chats up some guys that buy her drinks for the rest of the night. It’s familiar and all the tricks work on them easily. There’s no fight about it. No pushing for more. No pulling for dominance. Cat and mouse be damned. Akemi convinces herself she likes it.
Mizu doesn’t linger inside long and soon enough she’s out of Akemi’s sight. Akemi tells herself she doesn’t care.
A couple drinks turn into more and suddenly Akemi’s drunk. It dawns on her that she’s had more than she thought when the guy she’s talking to grabs her waist as she stumbles. The touch is in the same place Mizu placed her hand earlier. It doesn’t feel nearly as intense.
Akemi promises she’s fine to walk when she leaves the bar with her purse and phone in hand. The December cold shocks some alcohol out of her, and makes her realize she’s left her coat inside.
“Urgh.” She’s turning around to head back inside when she notices a figure at the edge of the building. Plumes of smoke flow out of Mizu’s mouth and Akemi can smell the tabaco from where she stands.
Maybe it’s the alcohol or the cold realization that Mizu may have been right that Akemi stumbles over. A fight is what she wants, but what she gets is another pretty cocked eyebrow and lips that must taste like cigarette smoke.
“You smoke?”
Mizu seems surprised by her confidence but quickly recovers.
“Yes. Need a light?”
Akemi is upset for some reason. There’s been no success tonight and she’s determined to make it Mizu’s problem.
“I don’t smoke. Too bitter.”
“I have a vape too.” Mizu suggests, scooting over for Akemi to lean next to her, “‘ts sweeter.”
Akemi throws a glare at Mizu. She’s still beautiful under the combined glow of a nearby street lamp and the reflecting christmas lights that hang off the roof above them. The falling snow only makes Akemi’s heart thunder.
“Don’t do that either.” Akemi mumbles, pouts despite being the one who denied it, “My ex used to be addicted. I hate the smell.”
“Huh.” Mizu says inhaling another pull before exhaling away from Akemi. It’s gentle, the way she holds concern for Akemi, “Ex-boyfriend?”
“Ugh not this again.”
Mizu casts her a glance. A faraway knowing look that makes Akemi feel so young. Almost like she’s a kid again. Not like she’s just graduated. She pouts harder.
“I’m interested. I want to…I want to try it.” Akemi says. She’s shy now after all her big emotions have worn themselves out with the stretch of silence on Mizu’s end, “And you’re hot.”
Mizu chuckles, takes another drag and then flicks her cigarette into the snow. Turns towards Akemi and pushes into her space. There’s the touch on Akemi’s waist again. It feels colder than before. Akemi groans.
“You don’t know what you want.” Mizu says. Her voice has dropped and become deeper. She’s frowning down at Akemi. A wolf under the full moon. Akemi is trapped and her breath hitches. Her thighs squeeze together, “Don’t even know the first thing about being with a woman.”
“I-I..I do!” Akemi stutters. Determined to win this game she’s started.
“Oh yeah?” Mizu asks, pushing pushing pushing.
“Yeah..” Akemi didn’t notice earlier that Mizu had freckles. A smattering of them on the bridge of her nose and beauty marks on her chin, her cheekbone, the edge of her lips, “We make out first.”
Mizu smirks, gives Akemi room to wrap her arms around Mizu’s neck.
“Okay.”
It’s a clear go ahead and Akemi is pressing her lips to Mizu’s. There’s no finesse. Two lips touching. Akemi pulls away and is flushed from her own actions. She avoids Mizu’s eyes and looks at the expanse of forest that engulfs their tiny town instead.
Mizu is still close, her nose brushing Akemi’s own. Her breath is hot on Akemi’s face. She smells like cigarettes and suddenly Akemi doesn’t mind it at all.
“Cute. Now let me show you how. Properly.”
Mizu tilts Akemi’s chin up. They’re looking at one another now. The tinted glasses now gone from Mizu’s face. Akemi wants.
“Understood?” Mizu asks. Her hand has slipped to the back of Akemi’s back, brushing her tattooed collarbone with the movement. Her other hand has clamped down on the jut of exposed skin and Akemi whimpers.
“U-understood.”
And then Mizu is kissing her. It’s nothing like Akemi’s gentle kiss. This kiss is wet and hot. A pressing smear of heat against Akemi’s mouth. Her mouth is open and suddenly Mizu’s tongue is there licking and exploring. Mizu’s hand presses into Akemi’s hip and slips under the velvet and Akemi shakes despite herself. Pulls away to gasp at the cold press of Mizu’s palm against her ribs.
Mizu laughs, kissing her jaw and ear and chin as Akemi huffs out little whines.
“Pathetic. Can’t keep up at all.” Mizu growls. She grips the back of Akemi’s neck. Hard, “Not done. Take it.”
Mizu kisses her like they’re going to fuck.
Akemi realizes this when Mizu’s hand leaves the sensitive skin of her ribs and drifts under her skirt. Up the tights on her thigh and underneath the line of her ass. Her fingertips find her underwear and the wet of her cunt. It’s brief and gone before it’s even fully there, but Akemi whimpers and accidentally bites down on Mizu’s lip at the feeling.
“Hah.” Akemi’s lips feel puffy and swollen when they part. The sound alone makes Akemi wetter, pushing her thighs together tighter for friction, “Please..” She reaches up for more, and Mizu stands up fully then. The distance too great for Akemi to close by herself.
“No.” Mizu says. Her pupils are blown and the blue that Akemi was mesmerized with is now harder to make out.
Akemi shivers at Mizu’s blatant staring and is surprised to find Mizu’s own breathing is staggered. Clearly affected after all.
“You’re cold.” Mizu steps away then, hands coming undone around her. Akemi feels like a puppet with its strings cut, boneless against the wall. She shivers hard, proving Mizu’s point, “Here.”
Akemi’s bundled up in Mizu’s sweater when Mizu invites her over. It’s a clear indication of more and Akemi’s chest hammers with the implication. She nods shyly, shoving her hands into Mizu’s jacket pockets. Is surprised to be met with gum wrappers, coffee straws, and sticky notes.
“No sex tonight. You’re drunk. I have roommates.” Mizu explains just as Akemi is trying to discretely update the group chat with the recent events, “There aren’t any buses running now and I live nearby so..”
“But! you kissed me!” Akemi whines. Ah, she can hear the way the alcohol has made her voice more pitchy. She nearly misses the down step of the curb but Mizu catches her, hand strong around her waist, “Okay, fine. But, can we make out some more?”
Mizu nods sagely. She leads Akemi towards the sidewalk. The falling snow lands on her head and shoulders and Akemi wants to leave marks there if she’s allowed. Akemi distantly thinks that Mizu would be into that, being in charge.
I’ll find out tomorrow morning.. Akemi thinks, delighted at the loophole she’s found. She presses into Mizu’s side as they walk back together.
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Notes I have after watching the movie again:
- When Mike was telling Vanessa about Garrett, she kept looking away, not even saying anything like “I’m sorry for your loss.” She seems to have known that her dad was responsible by her actions, but did she find out before that moment, or did she only just realize what the connection was when Mike told her the story?
- Abby specifically said it was Golden Freddy who told her what happened to Garrett, so he somehow knows the specifics of what happened. When he told her this is uncertain.
- Vanessa stared at the picture of the children and the yellow rabbit in one scene, and I wonder if it was her who drew it, or perhaps GF? It would have to be someone who knows that the kids were playing with Spring Bonnie.
- Vanessa knows that Mike can change what happened in his dreams. Did she have some sort of dream experience when she was there? Or does she understand the feeling of wishing she could go back in time and change something from her past?
- GF is actively changing Mike’s dream and he knows what Mike wants, despite what he says to the kids. How does GF know what he’s thinking?
- Golden Freddy never attacked Mike in his dream, only the other children.
- It’s left ambiguous whether Aunt Jane died in the movie. If GF left her alive, did he do that on purpose? If so, did he do it because he didn’t want to kill her for personal reasons, or because she was Abby’s family? Would he have spared Mike’s life if the other children hadn’t been there to handle him?
- Vanessa showed up exactly when Mike was about to die. How did she know Mike was in danger? Did someone warn her? Was she hanging out there and heard him pounding on the door?
- GF disappears after Abby gets into the building and isn’t there to attack Abby. He leaves just as she’s about to be taken hostage by the other kids. Why wasn’t he forced to help like the other kids?
- When Vanessa shot William, she looked upset that she did, like it pained her to hurt him. She wasn’t really afraid, she was sad that her dad put her in the position where she had no choice but to hurt him.
- At the end, when the spotlights were turned on the picture and Afton, how did they point in the right direction? Mike flipped the breaker to turned the lights back on, but the spotlights came on at specific times. Did Golden Freddy turn the lights on? The lights seemed to work the same way as they did when the ghosts were manipulating them.
- Afton actually cried in pain when the GF ghost was watching, even reaching out for help. He let his guard down in front of this one child, while before he’d held it in to try and remain in control. Did the pain become too much to hide, or did he show weakness on purpose?
- GF kept on staring as Afton writhed in pain, not even smiling at his torment, only shutting the door without a word, without a hint of emotion or breaking eye contact.
- Vanessa is only listed in the credits by her first name, not even the last name Shelly.
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LISTEN. im not a big fan of love triangles, mostly because they're usually pointless or there to stir up unnecessary drama but i will admit i genuinely liked the rachel-percy-annabeth love triangle.
but i personally think the rachel-annabeth represented something deeper than just two girls who like the main character. rachel and annabeth both symbolised two different aspects of percy's life. while annabeth represented his demigod life and godly heritage, rachel represented his mortal upbringing. percy is a bridge between these two worlds, while he is a demigod and it'll forever be a part of him, he also grew up as a mortal child and being a mortal gives him a sense of normalcy, and choosing one over the other is percy choosing which life he chose to identity himself with.
annabeth chase links him to his godly heritage
percy met annabeth and the whole chb when he was struggling as a mortal kid, he felt like an outcast in school, his stepdad was a shitty man, and then ultimately he lost his mom. his experience in the mortal world was not good at all. in fact the only thing which happened to him that time was becoming grover's friend, who once again, was a part of the demigod life.
finding chb was a blessing to him. he met kids who are just like him. he made friends who genuinely care for him. he found the love of his life there. he found a way to get rid of smelly gabe and get his mother back. he met his dad. the start of percy and sally's better life started after percy learned his demigod heritage. it gave him a second place to call home.
and annabeth was a part of all of it. annabeth was a demigod. she associates herself with the demigod world. she is proud of it. she was one of percy's first friends. she was also one of the major reasons why chb felt home to percy. she was an important of his whole demigod journey. she fought by his side. they risked their life for each other. they understood and felt home to each other. they were for each other at their lowest points and even happiest points.
“See,
Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she’s always visiting famous
monuments and stuff. She’s weird that way. She’d e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I’d look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn’t just been my imagination.”
– percy jackson and the sea of monsters
rachel dare reminds him of his mortal upbringing
while chb gave him another home and true friends, being a demigod also had its cons, such as he constantly has to be on guard and watch out for monster attacks. his life is far from normal and stress-free, he rarely gets time to act like a teenager. on top of that, he has to watch his friends die, get betrayed by someone he looked upto and now there's a war coming up. no child deserves to go through that.
percy needed a break and a sense of normalcy, and that normalcy in this case was the life he could lead as a mortal. no monster attacks. no war. which means no stress and no further trauma. he can be a teenager for once. living his life as a normal highschool student is far better than this.
rachel was a mortal, and like percy she grew up as a mortal. she wasn't connected or involved to any of the demigod stuff. she was just percy's mortal friend who helped him when he needed. percy spent his entire summer right before the war with her. away from chb. because she provided him that normalcy at a time of war. she provided him the temporary break he needed.
“We'd spent a lot of time together this summer. I hadn't exactly planned it that way, but the more
serious things got at camp, the more I found myself needing to call up Rachel and get away, just for some breathing room. I needed to remind myself that the mortal world was still out there, away from all the monsters using me as their personal punching bag.”
– percy jackson and the last olympian
It's not a coincidence rick used similar words to describe how annabeth and rachel made him feel
percy ending up with annabeth also signifies how he ultimately chose his demigod life.
while rachel provided him a break from all this stress, and he enjoyed her company, his feelings and connection with annabeth was too deep for him to suddenly go out with rachel just because he and annabeth had a fight. even if he tried to go out with rachel instead, he wouldn't have been happy with her.
just like how the mortal world could give him a temporary normalcy, he could never truly escape from his demigod life. it will forever be a part of him. even with all its flaws and cons, camp half blood was his home and the only place he feels understood. he can never turn his back on it, even if he tried, he would fail.
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Can you do Indra reacting to his blind wife yelling at their young prankster sons for causing trouble in the house? Please and thank you.
Let's keep in mind Indra comes from older and much harsher times, do not be frightened by his reaction👀❤️🩹
You can picture him inside one of these:
The sky is beautiful, the sun brightly shines in a calm winter with bearable temperatures, and Indra relaxes in the hot springs just behind the house. He rests his head against the rocks as he lets the hot water soothe his muscles, ponytailed to keep his hair from getting wet.
There are few moments when he can enjoy this peace, only possible when the children are asleep. Today he saw it necessary to have a moment of tranquility in the middle of the day, believing he deserved to break a little with the routine.
He avoids thinking about what he has to do later, all the responsibilities he has to take care of, and enjoys the small moment of pure quiet he gets to experience. He throws his head back and settles further on the hard surface, stretches out his arms and feels the satisfaction of lengthening his tired muscles and -
"INARI!" His wife's voice sounds in the distance, from inside the house and particularly in the kitchen. He sharpens his senses, but he doesn't even need to activate the Sharingan to guess what's going on.
He emerges from the water with an exhausted snort, feeling anger rise in his chest as he hears more and more of his wife's screams, and wraps a towel around his waist as he walks towards the scene.
His child hides behind the counter at the sound of his angry father's footsteps, and as he enters the kitchen, Indra's anger shoots through the ceiling. The floor is full of flour, the furniture and his wife's entire skirt, different liquids poured over the white powder generating a jumble of strange things.
The boy looks at him in panic, for he knows who sets the limits at home is his father. Just a few seconds ago, he was laughing at his mother's inability to stop him, and even at the age of five, that cannot be interpreted as innocence, if not cruelty.
(Y/N) cries, and that ends up triggering him.
He walks up to the child and slaps him, turning his face away with more force than an infant deserves. "You shall not dare disrespect your mother, ever, even less in my presence. You are to clean this up within half an hour, and no help is to be given to you." He doesn't even raise his voice, but the fear in Inari's eyes indicates he understood the message.
Indra approaches (Y/N), and guides her to the room to help her change. She has been muddy from the mess their child caused, whether it was on purpose or not is unknown, but those clothes must be washed.
On the way, they cross paths with their older children, and the father gives clear instructions for none of them to help Inari. They are forbidden to intervene, and having all grown up under the same harsh hand, they know it is in their best interest to respect their father's unfair limits.
He doesn't plan to do anything to hurt his son, and he knows he won't be able to clean up after himself, but it is through fear that he makes them learn, and he wants Inari to get a good scare to stop being a nuisance.
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MARCH: In Which, Beans Are Not Beans, Eggs Are Everyplace and I Have To Eat Them (this is doing my part, people!) An Eostre Story as told by Grogu Djarin
WORD COUNT: 1000ish
RATED: G
WARNINGS: excessive fluff and sassafras, oh and food. Lots of food.
A/N: Here is the March installment of The Wheel of the Year, my theme for @yearofcreation2023. Organized by the effervescent @oonajaeadira and @writeforfandoms Ostara or Eostre marks the vernal equinox, the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and one of the two days when the amount of daylight and darkness is equal- and from here on in the days get longer. Ever wonder where all the bunnies and eggs in the Easter celebration come from? It comes from this holiday right here.
During a milestone celebration, I did a Grogu Character Takeover and got this ask-
Have you ever seen rabbits on the farm or is big ears the only rabbit you’ve met? That reminds me, since you like eggs so much have you heard about Easter which is all about hunting for eggs. I think you’d be amazing at it. Did you know bunnies can be made out of chocolate?
I thought it might be fun to expand on Grogu’s answer for this month's year of creation fic. This is set in A Galaxy Far Far Away AU. Here is a link to that series (though you don't really have to read it to get what's going on here except that Din and Grogu are on Earth with a pagan f!reader who lives in a house called Juniper Cottage.) This is not a “witchy” one, but I hope you enjoy!
At Jupiter Cottage, Easter is called Éostre, but I was told when it comes to eggs and bunnies they are very the same! This is one of those Special Days on the calendar on the wall. And that means fun and food!
First is The Preparation.
When I waked up one day the Jupiter Cottage had bunnies everywhere. Wooden ones, and softy ones, plus also ones that might break so please do not force lift them, thank you very much. AAAALLLLL the winter decorations were gone and the little seeds we planted on the windowsill a few weeks ago on that day about guessing when spring comes were peeking out of the dirt!
But the most important thing is collecting eggs. This is a thing I am very good at. And the hens do not mind one bit!! We have “an Agreement”. That is permission to eat their eggs. I was very shocked by this news cuz my past experience with eating eggs was… well, let’s just say- Not. Great. ANYWAYS, all the hens love me very a lot and we are best friends. Eva is the only hen in the hen home that gives us white eggs, so we had been saving up her eggs for a little while so we would have plenty of white eggs “for coloring”.
This is what you do: the eggs get boiled up first. This can be a frustrating process. Cuz if they crack, you can not color them. But I do not mind it, cuz I get to eat The Mistakes! Then they go in little cups. The cups all have their own colors- there is blue water, and red water, plus also yellow water, and all the waters smell weird. I am NOT allowed to drink ANY of them!
I had trouble remembering this rule.
We dipped the eggs in, and when they came out! They were all the colors of red and purple, yellow and blue, and green (my favorite)! This is cuz of mixing colors together and making other colors! WHAT?! Dad and Me were taught to draw pictures on the eggs before putting them in the color water with this little magic crayon! It was a very big surprise I tell you, cuz you couldn’t see what you drawed at all! Then, after putting them into the waters, WOW, the drawings is RIGHT THERE! We drawed rabbits and suns, plus also mudhorns…. and frogs a-course.
I was so excited at bedtime the night before Éostre! I was thinking about that bunny visiting us and giving me chocolate and things. I got wiggley, plus also very giggling, and stopping wiggling and giggling is hard, I tell you!
Dad sighed his sigh of you are my dear child, who never does anything wrong ever, but I am just a tired father many times.
The sun waked up and waked me up, so it was not my fault at all! So I waked Dad and he said, all super sleepy and gravel, I’m sleeping, lil womp rat.
So I just went out to peek out the door for the surprises the Éostre Bunny left for me. I brought Long Ears with me. (You know who Long Ears is, right? Yeah, we’ve discussed that guy) Cuz she is an expert being a bunny and all. I found a trail of the tiniest color eggs I have ever seen in my entire life. First, I sniffed it, and then I tasted one, cuz that is what I do! And they were so yummy! They did not taste like ANY egg I have EVER had, and I have had many eggs, even some we do not talk about!
(Frogs are friends, not food!)
ANYWAYS I was informed later that they are called “jelly beans”. But they are not beans at all, they are candy, so a Special Treat! Which is code for I can not have them all the time, which is not what I want to hear, Father!
How can they not be beans, it says bean in its very own name!? Like Candy Corns, did you know they are not corns at all? I was shocked by that news. But I do not care so much cuz candy corn is not so much… good. It is sweet. But… blah, crayony. How I know what crayons taste like is another story, that I am not telling at this time.
The jelly not-beans leaded to a basket, oh boy! It had so many good, good things! Chocolate rabbits! Well, rabbit SHAPED chocolate. I got a little concerned. And so did Long Ears! And these guys called Peepses! Have you had them?! Like baby chicks BUT NOT! These peepses are yellow with white fluffy fluff inside and chocolate on their bottoms. Plus also a wooden duck guy that you pull with a string and his big orange feet go whap whap whap on the floor and his bill goes quack quack quack and I walked him around and around! Oh and a little wooden cup on a stick, plus also an egg on a string… it is a game of trying to swing the egg into the cup. This is hard. And the egg is hard. And bonky when it hits you in the face.
Dad likes it and is good at it. He says I will get better, I just need to practice. I just walked that Duck guy around some more.
In New Hampster it is still cold outside even when it is Spring. Sometimes it snows. But not this time… So when it was not “the crack of dawn, for kriff sake” we went outside to do The Egg Hunt. It is a good thing I am a good egg finder! Cuz eggs was every place- under blueberry bushes and the jupiter bushes a-course, and in the garden shed and under Clara, which was funny. She said, Grogu did I lay a purple egg!? And I said, no silly chicken!
Pfft, I love her, but that guy. We also went for a walk in the woods to look for green and had a feast!
Then a special moment happened! That was the Moment of the Equimox! This is when the sun moves across a line on Earth. And you get to do an eggsparmint. That is standing an egg up on one end, and it will stay! Or so they say, cuz we tried and tried… Dad and me were skepical.
And that is the special day of Eostre at Jupiter Cottage. And it was a good thing I like eggs so much, cuz we had to eat them for DAYS! We ate them hard boil, and devils, plus also salad samich.
this is Long Ears.
THANK YOU FOR READING 💚
You can find more of my writing here, and if you are interested in being tagged for this or any of my other works, here is my taglist form.
And if you want to ask Grogu a question, you can find him @grogu-explains-it-all
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Ikevamp OC: Tchaikovsky
(If Ikevamp can genderbend Jeanne D'Arc, I can genderbend Tchaikovsky.)
The Porcelain Composer
Sensitive x Docile
Full name: Pyetrovna Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Nickname: Tchai
Nationality: Russian
Current place of living: Vlad’s Castle
Past Occupation: Composer
Birthday: May 7th
Likes: Flowers, Ballet, Snow
Dislikes: Alcohol, Pessimism, Intense Emotions
Background: Like a spring flower standing against a winter storm, Tchaikovsky always keeps an optimistic air about her, no matter what the weather brings. Rain or shine, Tchai plays her violin and dances to her own melody, hoping to bring a smile to every face she sees.
All she wants is for everyone in the world to be happy, to be understanding, to love one another… Even if it comes at the expense of her mind and body. It’s a small price to pay.
“If my music can make one person smile– just one– then I think I’ve made the world just a bit better, don’t you agree? Maybe that's a bit selfish of me...”
Relationships
Mozart: A mutual respect for each other and their dedication to music. They almost treat each other like siblings, despite Mozart looking down on how emotional she is. He finds her passion for music quite amusing sometimes, seeing as she always has her violin in her hands and has a habit of breaking into song whenever it hits her. They share the music room when she stays over and play together a lot, though many times Mozart has caught her on the floor of the music room when her tremors flare-up. He usually has to force her to take a break from her songs.
Vincent: If you put these two in a room together and peaked in, it would be like staring at the sun. They’re too pure and bright! They share an adoration of flowers and end up agreeing on many things. They go to flower shops together to look for inspiration. Theo does not like this, especially considering her… “cat” (aka a beast from hell the size of a human child).
Vlad: The one who revived Tchaikovsky after learning of her intense desire to make the world a better place for all. Her heart is pure and not a single bad thought goes through her head– the perfect example of what Vlad wants from humanity. Vlad can be protective of her because of this and her disability, but they are also very good friends. They can often be seen gardening and playing duets together.
Faust: Acquaintances and nothing more. They don’t interact with each other often. At most, she goes to Faust when she’s having tremor flare-ups or needs a muscle-relaxer. Otherwise, she tries not to get in the way of his dubiously ethical experiments. She slightly confident he won’t hurt her specifically, considering he deems her too fragile for any meaningful experiments, but she still doesn’t trust him that much.
Charles: Combined, they create a single brain cell. When their hyperactivity syncs up, it can either be the brightest, sunniest day or it can mean chaos for all parties involved. Tchai loves to go visit children with him and perform for them, dancing and laughing the entire time. Other times, they will simply sit with each other and wallow in misery together. They always play off each other’s emotional states when they’re near each other.
Pet, Svetlana: A snow-white Maine Coon, she’s almost the size of Tchai herself. Vlad adopted Svetlana when she was a tiny kitty, intending the cat to be a gift for Tchai when she was having a depressive episode. Tchai instantly fell in love with the cat and despite her size, still treats her like a small lap cat. She loves this cat with all her heart, cuddling her whenever she’s around and keeping her well-groomed and clean as possible. Svetlana is extremely friendly and prides herself on her cleanliness. When Tchai can’t take the noise or has flare-ups, she spends time with her favorite little kitty-cat.
Physical Characteristics
Addictions: This girl will drink iced tea (preferably sweet) even if it kills her. She’s trying to stay away from alcohol in her new life.
Eye color: Lavender
Hair color: Pastel pink
Skin color: Pale as snow
Disabilities: Tchaikovsky has central nervous system issues. Large sounds and intense vibrations trigger intense tremors. Ironic, considering how intensely she loves music. Her tremors can grow intense enough to the point she can’t even stand without assistance, but she’ll strum her violin on the floor if she must.
Height: 5”4’ or 162 cm
Hobbies: Aside from playing her violin, Tchai collects flowers and presses them into a journal in her spare time. Vlad and her exchange flower crowns on occasion.
Clothing style: Tchai wears light, flowy dresses and ballet shoes. She likes having freedom of movement due to her bursts of inspiration.
Health issues: Other than her tremors, Tchai deals with bipolar depression. She uses music as her escape and tends to hide these feelings, staying as optimistic and kind as possible. She will spend some days locked in her room, unable to do anything, and a few days later she’s filled with energy and life.
Mental Characteristics
Fears: Tchai has an irrational fear of birds. If one gets near, she starts screaming and trying to cover her violin as if it were her own baby, thinking that the birds might pluck the strings out.
Self-confidence: Very low. Tchai does not see herself as worthy to be here or to help Vlad with his goal, but she’s trying her best.
Rational or emotional: Emotional
How could you upset this character: Almost anything can upset Tchai. She was called the “porcelain child” for a reason– she’s highly sensitive. Not just due to her nervous system issues, but her emotional state as well. She is a crybaby through and through. Any intense situations, good or bad, will have her sobbing.
Sleep habits: Erratic. Sometimes, she only wants to sleep. Other times, she’s so busy composing she won’t sleep for days and Vlad has to use his powers to get her to bed.
Emotional strengths: Tchai always looks on the positive side of things, shining with positive light wherever she goes.
Emotional weaknesses: Any strong emotions means tears will appear. A little kid complimented her skills? Sobbing. Someone pushes her aside and laughs? Crying. Her cat brings a dead squirrel? Wailing in pride.
Introvert or extrovert: Introvert
What would they change about themselves: She wishes she wasn’t such a crybaby.
What motivates them: The thought of bringing purity and love to the entire world, making pain no more and letting happiness reign. She hopes her music will inspire people to enjoy life and encourage others to be kinder to each other.
What scares them: Disappointing her friends/family and causing trouble for anyone.
What makes them happy: Music and flowers.
Give or take: Give
Nice or rude: Nice
Pet peeves: She hates unnecessary rudeness.
Guilty pleasures: When nobody is around, Tchai will perform entire ballets by herself, dancing and playing violin simultaneously.
Picrew:
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I got SUPER sick right after school ended for break and then there was the usual family drama at holidays so I didn't get to posting any of the little Christmas ficlets I'd been working on.
Draco loved being a dad.
Truly. There were few things that he got more fulfillment and joy out of than being a father to a wild, rambunctious, precocious, sweet little almost three year old. He worked hard at being a good father, at not making the same mistakes his own father had; he worked hard regulating his own emotions so he could help his child.
But there was always more to be done and Draco felt like he could never quite keep up with work and Scorpius at the same time, and then when he threw in dating Harry Potter seven months ago, well. Things had gotten busier, but also somehow easier.
In his teen years, he'd often mocked Harry by calling him Saint Potter, but honestly, his gentleness and selflessness was working out pretty well for Draco and Scorpius.
So well, in fact, that Draco sometimes felt a little guilty for all of the ways that Harry spoiled them. He was always doting on Scorpius and hanging on his every word like he was always the most important person in the room. As for Draco, he helped with all sorts of mundane tasks (dishes, tidying, cleaning up), he was always a second adult when Draco needed a hand with his child, he was always gentle and encouraging. The way he loved Draco was unthinkable, honestly, and he wouldn't believe it if he didn't experience the constancy of his love every single day.
Draco decided that Harry deserved a perfect, quiet evening. They deserved a perfect, quiet evening. Everything was so busy in December, and Scorpius had been sick for pretty much the entirety of the month one thing after another, that they'd hardly had any alone time together.
Pansy was watching Scorpius over night, which pretty much guaranteed that he would come home in a sugar coma, cranky from having too much fun and too little sleep, but it was a price Draco was happy to pay for one night of quiet time.
She'd picked Scorpius up at 4:00 and Draco had spent the last two hours cleaning his house and making dinner. Well, he'd spent the last two hours attempting those things.
It wasn't going well.
His son's toys seemed to multiply every step that he took, the list of rooms and spaces in need of cleaning only seemed to grow as he cleaned and found more and more neglected corners, he ended up burning the meat and overcooking the pasta, and the cheesecake that he'd made hadn't really come together; it was still just a runny mess inside the spring-form pan.
The entire kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off and Draco had food and mess all over him when the doorbell rang.
Glancing at the clock, he took a shuddering breath and headed to the door, vanishing everything with one flick of his wrist in spite of the way it made his heart twist uncomfortably in his chest.
When he opened the door, Harry grinned brightly at him, holding out a lovely winter bouquet, "Hey, love," he said warmly.
And Draco couldn't breathe quite properly, his chest a little too tight, as his eyes stung. It wasn't fair that Harry was always so charmingly perfect and he was such a fucking mess.
"Hey," Harry whispered, moving into the house and taking Draco in his arms.
He inhaled the cold, crisp scent of the snow off Harry's coat; and the warm cinnamon, spice, spruce scent of Harry's body wash and cologne beneath. "Sorry," he said softly. "Everything's still a mess, and I completely ruined dinner, and I'm probably covering your coat in food, and-"
"Hey," Harry said again, pressing him back so that he was caging him against the wall, "Can I kiss you for a minute?" he asked, looking in his eyes, desire and love plain as day.
Draco nodded and Harry leaned in and kissed him, slow and tender and gentle. His toes curled against the carpet and he pressed up into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Harry's neck and letting the rest of the world fall away for a minute.
"I love you," Harry murmured into his mouth. "You don't have to do anything to make me love you."
"I know," he groaned, stomping his foot because he'd done it one day with Scorpius to let out some frustration and it did actually make him feel better.
Harry grinned and kissed his cheek.
"I just wanted to give you nice things."
His smile turned a little sharper as his hands strayed down Draco's back, "You're a very nice thing," he said, nipping Draco's chin. "Give me you and I'll take great care of you."
He laughed, he couldn't help it, it was such a terrible line (even though it was true). Harry smiled at him like that had been the point all along. "Take of your coat, come inside. Let me try dinner again," he sighed.
"Or," Harry said as he took a step back and stripped out of his coat, "I could just order us dinner and you could change into comfy clothes."
He looked down at his outfit, he'd picked the trousers because the accentuated his arse, and the blue button up because it complimented his skin, and the waistcoat because it made his waist look narrow and his shoulder look broad. Draco had imagined that Harry was going to like this outfit. And sure it did have several spills on it at this point, but it was nothing that a couple of quick cleaning charms wouldn't take care of.
"You look very handsome," Harry said, as if he was reading Draco's mind. He caught Draco's hand in his, "so handsome," he repeated. "I just thought maybe you'd like to be more comfortable? I don't want you to feel like you have to dress up for me, or clean for me, or cook for me," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was just thinking it would be nice to just relax with you."
Draco nodded, feeling disappointed and like he very much wasn't enough. "I'll go change," he said, not quite able to meet Harry's eyes.
"Draco-"
"It's fine," he said quickly, "I'll be right back."
"Draco-"
He shook his head, "I need a minute," he said because it was the truth. "It's not you," he added quickly, still fleeing toward the bedroom, "I just need a minute to process. I'll be fine," he assured as he closed his bedroom door.
He sat on the bed for a minute just breathing in and out. Harry didn't think he was failing, Harry didn't think that Draco didn't love him because he made a mess; he slowly reminded himself of the things Harry had said and stopped the cycle of degrading things his 'mean voice' was saying to him.
It would be nice to spend time together, Draco didn't actually want to try making dinner again, and he would rather be wearing sweatpants and a Christmas jumper like Harry had been. Taking another slow breath and pushing aside all of the pressure to be perfect, Draco changed out of his dirty clothes and into his comfy ones before meeting Harry in the living room.
Harry looked up from where he was perched on the edge of the sofa, scrolling through food options. "Hey, baby," he said, standing as soon as he saw him and wrapping him in his arms again, "I'm sorry," he said softly. "Thank you for working hard to do all of these nice things for me and to make the evening special. I didn't mean to trivialize your efforts," he added.
Draco sighed and leaned into his hug, "It just feels like you are so much better at loving me than I am at loving you. You're always doing nice things for me and taking care of us, and-"
"But Acts of Service is your love language," Harry said. "Well, Words of Affirmation a little too," he added with a little shrug.
He frowned, "So you just do things to help me because it's my love language?"
He nodded, "In part, because it's your love language and the easiest way for me to tell you that I love you in a way that's easiest for you to receive. It's also because I love you and I love Scorp, and I am genuinely happy to help you. I'm happy to make things a little easier."
"What's your love language?"
Harry laughed and rubbed his hands over Draco's back, "Physical touch," he said softly. "Followed closely by quality time."
"So," Draco said, "A night cuddling on the couch, eating a take away pizza, is just as satisfying as coming into a space that's been tidied for you with a meal that was made for you?"
"I mean, I appreciate the effort," he replied, "but honestly, I would have been just as content to snuggle on the sofa and eat pizza straight out of the box." He pressed a kiss to Draco's forehead, "Especially if it could have saved you the frustration of this afternoon. I never want to be something that adds more to your already too full plate."
"You're allowed to have needs, too," he protested, and perhaps this was more the heart of the problem for Draco than anything else.
Harry blinked at him, "I have needs," he said.
"Well, I'm not sure who's meeting them because I am clearly failing spectacularly at everything!" he threw his arms up in the air and pulled away from Harry, "I'm stressed and exhausted, and you're always having to help me and support me and-" he shook his head, "What are you even getting out of this relationship?"
"What?" he asked incredulously.
"Because, I swear to Merlin, Harry, if this is just your martyr complex, or-"
"Shut up," he said, voice sharper than it had been with Draco for a long time.
Inwardly Draco recoiled a bit, taking another step back from him and trying to catch his breath.
"Sorry," Harry said immediately, running his hand through his curls and mussing them. He rubbed a hand over his mouth next, not quite looking at Draco. "Sorry," he repeated, "I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I didn't mean to snap at you." He looked over at Draco then, eyes burning, "That's a really specific trigger for me," he said, "but I shouldn't have snapped. I'm sorry," he said again.
Draco nodded once, not quite willing to say it was okay, but understanding why he'd spoken so harshly to him.
"I have worked really hard not to live my life for everyone else. I love you and I choose the things that I do out of that love. It's not out of a sense of guilt or obligation, or the need to serve. I give what I have, not what I don't. And," he continued, "I don't harbor any secret frustration or resentment. I help because I love you and I want to. Okay?"
"Sorry," he whispered, arm wrapping around his stomach. Why did he always have to push? Why was he always shoving people he loved away?
Harry took a step toward him, "Draco," he said softly. "It's okay to ask me when you feel like things are imbalanced. It's okay for you to feel worried, or whatever else you're feeling. I am happy to tell you all of the love and fulfillment that I get out of this relationship. I'm not going anywhere."
He blinked up at him through his tears, "I'm a mess."
“You’ve got a lot on your plate,” he said reasonably. “You’re so used to managing everything,” he added with a little laugh, “but you don’t have to manage me, love. I just,” he shrugged, “you making time for me when you have a thousand things on your plate means more to me than anything else. You holding my hand, or touching my shoulder when you walk past me, or brushing my hair off my forehead,” he shook his head, “you tell me you love me all the time.”
He reached out for Harry’s hand, “thank you.” He shook his head, “sorry my anxiety-brain gets the best of me.”
Harry took his hand and tugged him over to the couch, wrapping him up under his arm and pressing a kiss to his head, “you don’t have to be sorry. Just talk to me,” he added, “I’m glad to reassure you. I love you,” he said again.
“I love you too,” he replied, turning his head to kiss Harry’s hand on his shoulder. “Let’s order dinner.”
“What do you think of Thai tonight?”
He hummed but before he could politely say yes, Harry continued.
“Alright, that’s a no. What about Italian?”
He nodded, “I was really in the mood for pasta.”
“Perfect,” Harry said. He put in his order, then handed his mobile over to Draco. “I’m going to get us a bottle of wine,” he said.
Draco sat up to let Harry out and put in his order as Harry came back with two wine glasses, filled a bit fuller than was strictly polite. “Thank you.”
“Mmhmm,” Harry replied, handing him one and settling back in beside him on the sofa, pulling a blanket over their laps.
They chatted quietly, about work and Scorpius, about their friends and all of the busy-ness of the season and they laughed together.
And Draco realized that Harry was all but glowing, he watched the way his smile stretched almost too wide for his mouth, the way his eye crinkled at the corners, and his dimples appeared. His green eyes were so bright that Draco couldn’t stop himself from leaning up to kiss him softly, right on the corner of his mouth.
“Hi,” Harry murmured, grinning at him as he leaned in to return the peck.
“Hi,” he replied. “I see it now,” he said softly.
“Hmm?” Harry asked, tracing the curve of Draco’s jaw with his index finger.
He leaned his forehead against Harry’s, “how this is you love language.”
Harry hummed happily and let his forehead rest against Draco’s, “you make me really happy.”
“The feeling is quite mutual.”
“Would you-” he started before the doorbell rang and interrupted him.
Draco started to stand but Harry waved him off.
“I’ve got it,” he said, standing and making his way toward the door.
He looked over at the Christmas tree and laughed at a clump of ornaments all clustered together in the corner. Scorpius had been determined to fit as many on as possible and he’d hidden little pockets of clustered ornaments all around the tree. It was one more thing that Draco would have been trying to fix an hour ago if he’d noticed, but that he had no desire to fix whatsoever anymore.
Harry returned with their food and summoned plates and silverware from the kitchen.
As he was dipping, Draco said, “what were you going to ask?”
Harry glanced up and shook his head, “it’s silly.” He looked back at the food. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching over and stilling Harry’s hands, “look at me.” When Harry looked up he said, “there’s nothing too silly to ask me. I want to know.”
Harry searched his face for a long moment, “I know your last marriage was one of your parents’ choosing and left a sort of bad taste in your mouth,” he rushed out all at once. “But would you ever consider maybe getting married again?”
He sat there, floored, completely speechless, mouth opening and closing without any words coming out because that sounded unbearably like a proposal.
“It’s fine,” Harry assured quickly. “This is great. You’re amazing. I love you. We don’t need to change a thing-”
Draco closed the space between them and made Harry stop talking, stop saying all of the ridiculous words in his head, by kissing him.
Harry melted into the kiss, one of his palms cupped Draco’s cheek.
“Yes,” he said when he pulled back. “Salazar, yes, Harry.”
“Really?” he asked, “are you sure? We don’t have to-”
He shook his head, “I love you.”
“Shit,” he said, patting down his pockets, “I don’t-” he broke off. “Hold on,” he said, kissing him giddily, “don’t move.”
He disapparated and then reappeared a moment later with a little blue velvet box, “this was for someday. I hadn’t imagined it would be so soon.” He laughed and knelt in front of Draco, “you have my whole entire heart. I promise to love and care for you and Scorpius, to cherish you, and to make you feel seen. Will you marry me?”
He nodded, eyes flooding with tears. “Harry,” he whispered as the other man slid the ring over his finger. “I love you too.” His heart was fuller than he could ever remember it being and for the first time in years, Draco wasn’t worried about what the future might hold.
Nothing that evening had gone according to plan, but everything was impossibly right.
This story is set in the same universe as Against An Endless Tide because I loved that story and I love that Harry and Draco. If you enjoyed their characterization here, you might enjoy that fic too (it's a personal fav of mine).
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2×2 - Children on the Streets 1
Author: Akira
Characters: Yuuta, Shinobu
Translator: Mika Enstars
"Actually, why do you continue being an idol if you’re so dissatisfied, Yuuta-kun?"
[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]
Season: Spring
Location: Downtown
Two days later, on the third day of shooting 2×2 episode 5, noon…
Shinobu: … …
Uu, uuu, uuuu…
Yuuta: Shinobu-kun looks like a wandering zombie during an apocalypse…
Shinobu: It’s so hard~, usually… My standard of living has dropped to the lowest level possible.
Yuuta: W-well things are going surprisingly well, right? Better than we expected!
It’s like riding a bike! Thankfully we lived in extreme poverty for the fourth episode, so we knew to find dollar stores and thrift shops to buy our essentials—
We then save money for that using our idol skills we honed at Yumenosaki and ES, a.k.a., performing on the street and asking money from those who pass by!
Since ES is nearby, there are often performers around town, which helps a ton. Passerbys are used to them, and typically give a bill or two.
Shinobu: Because ES promotes music, or rather, idol activities.
If this were the Special Music Zone, for example, that centers around “that”, we could have made money more efficiently, but…
Yuuta: We really don’t have either the money or energy to travel that far out… We’ve been doing a lot of street performances with the sun high in the sky, so I’m seriously starting to hit my limit.
Shinobu: And I wonder if it’s even harder on me… Uu~, maybe it’s a genetic thing, but no matter how hard I train, I can’t build up physical strength.
Yuuta: We both have our genetic disadvantages, don’t we?
Shinobu: And to make things worse, our beds are atrocious, so we can’t recover our lost energy at all…
Yuuta: We were able to eventually save up enough money for a decent cardboard house, but…
There was a horrible draft in the end, and the blanket from the thrift store wasn’t enough to keep me warm.
Shinobu: Though if the temperature gets too low, we’ve been going to a cheap public bath to wash up and sleep in the break room.
Yuuta: We get two birds with one stone with that. We used to use those places when we were kids, I’m so glad those cheap bathhouses haven’t gone out of business~!
This is a show about idols, after all, we have to keep reasonably clean.
Shinobu: So every day, we make sure to wash our clothes at a laundromat and our body at a public bathhouse or internet cafe shower room.
It’s more than a matter of looking good, we also gotta keep clean so we don’t get sick, usually.
Yuuta: Living in the streets seriously is so tough. It’s just staying alive, but it’s so tough.
I seriously don’t know how we did it back then.
Shinobu: Yeah… I can say this from my heart now that I’ve experienced the hardship myself, it truly is amazing. It’s commendable.
At that time, you and Hinata-kun were just small children who still needed the protection of their parent.
Yuuta: And we ran away from that parent~. Didn’t we just reap what we sowed in a way?
Shinobu: Seriously though, I don’t know how you did it.
Yuuta: Aniki was strangely talented with these things, and I recall being able to live in this area rather comfortably.
But, back then too, Aniki was also just a small child, the same age as me—
He must’ve been having a really hard time, I just didn’t realize it… I’m sure.
Shinobu: Fufu, Hinata-kun’s done a lot for you, hasn’t he, Yuuta-kun.
Yuuta: Uu~… I didn’t ask for him to, though! He did it all on his own, meaning it was all just for his ego.
Aniki must have just been happy because was able to do what he wanted to do.
Whenever I wanted to do something, he wouldn’t let me. That is what was tough, you know!
So this time around, I’m rather satisfied. I’m able to do what I want, without anyone getting in my way or denying me.
Shinobu: But the burden of that’s being pushed onto me.
Yuuta: What? You have complaints? You know, if you don’t like it you can just quit, 2×2 is our show after all—Meaning you have nothing to do with it, Shinobu-kun.
Shinobu: That’s not an option… To abandon a job once undertaken goes against the code of a ninja.
Yuuta: Sounds inconvenient and a lot of work to me, but do what you want to do I guess, ninja.
Shinobu: Actually, why do you continue being an idol if you’re so dissatisfied, Yuuta-kun?
If you hate it so much, why don’t you just quit?
Yuuta: … …
Shinobu: Ah… S-Sorry. I said a bit too much. Living marginally like this has put me on edge.
Yuuta: No, nevermind that. Look, over there.
Shinobu: Huh…?
Hmm? Over there, could that be—
Yuuta: —Aniki!
That bastard Aniki~! I thought since we were having such a hard time, surely he must have been as well!
What is this? Why on earth are those guys looking so happy!?
[ ☆ ]
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Venomous Teachings au: Underworld Duo revisions
Since I’ve changed some things up since my first post about this au, I feel like it’s necessary to go over what’s changed with Garmadon and Nya.
No new character sheet, since I already did a new one for Nya and Garmadon doesn’t look any different, but I do have some doodles of them.
When Kai and Nya were barely 7 and 5, the Skulkin attacked Four Weapons. Wu ‘saved’ Kai, but Nya was captured and held captive in the Underworld. Wu told Kai that Nya had been killed, and went on to raise him as the Green Ninja.
A few days after Nya was captured, Garmadon was stealing supplies from the Skulkin, he heard them talking about an important prisoner being held in the Skulkins main base. Fearing that the prisoner was Misako, Garmadon sneaks in, intent on rescuing her. Garmadon finds Nya instead, terrified and trembling in a cell that made her look even smaller than she already was.
After assuring her that he meant no harm, Garmadon breaks Nya out. At this point Garm had just barely managed to steal a Skulkin truck, which he’s been living out of.
He then spends the next 8-ish years raising Nya in the Underworld.
Between the stress that comes from being ripped away from the only family she knows, and the Underworld itself actively trying to kill any mortal unlucky enough to get stuck there, Nya’s Dragon traits come out quickly and painfully.
In the two years Garmadon was alone in the Underworld, he had almost fully changed into a scruffy and malnourished Oni. It was a gradual process for him, but not a pleasant one.
Nya went from fully Human to half Dragon in a little over six months. It was a painful experience, but one she doesn’t remember very well by the time she and Garmadon escape the Underworld. She doesn’t remember much from before she got stuck in the Underworld to be honest; not her birth parents or being human or Ninjago.
The only memories she clings to are the ones of Kai.
During the first year or two that Nya was in the Underworld, she clung to Garmadon like a bur. She hated being alone, and with the unpleasant transformations she’s going through Garm was constantly tending to her, trying to help ease her through everything.
The two quickly grow close.
Nya’s childhood, much like Kai’s was filled with training of all kinds, but unlike Kai, all of Nya’s training was necessary to survive, and Garm did his best to try and let Nya be a kid.
Living in a truck for a few years helped Nya discover her talent and passion for mechanics and inventing. After a few more years the two find a cave large enough for them to hide the truck, and they turn that into their home.
Growing up in the Underworld and being raised by Garmadon made Nya a lot more feral.
Garm didn’t realize who Nya’s birth parents were until she was about 9, when they were camped near a small spring and the water reacted to Nya having a nightmare. After that, he started training her to use her Elemental Power, and started telling her about Ray and Maya.
Well, he tried to at least.
Nya finds her True Potential in the Underworld, but it’s different from cannon. Instead of Nya having a fear of failure that’s tied to her needing to prove herself and her gifted child syndrome stemming from her childhood trauma, her True Potential is tied to how she feels about her birth parents disappearance, and about them in general. And some slightly different childhood trauma.
Nya doesn’t really remember Ray and Maya, but Garmadon telling her stories about them actually makes her resent them. If they were such cool, strong, amazing warriors, there’s no way they could have been taken away or killed, so they must have left her and Kai alone to try and fend for themselves and then be attacked and separated by the Skulkin.
Not that she would trade the Dad she has now for anything; despite where they live, Nya feels like she had a pretty good life, thanks in large part to how Garm made sure she felt loved and cared for. But if Ray and Maya hadn’t have left, than she wouldn’t be so worried about Kai, wouldn’t spend nights lying awake just hoping that he’ll be safe and sound in Ninjago if when she and Garm were able to escape the Underworld.
And she wouldn’t have the vague memories of huddling in front of a dying forge with Kai desperately trying to stoke the flames to keep them warm through the night. Of Kai trying to figure out how to ration the groceries he had earned doing errands around town to make them last as long as they could.
This resentment leads to Nya pretty much just ignoring her powers, and avoid talking about her birth parents altogether. Garmadon tries to broach the subject with her, see what’s bugging her, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, so he doesn’t pry.
This goes on for a few years actually; until one day, the father daughter duo get in a tight spot.
Y’know those giant spiders in the Pilots? I’m making those Tiger Widows, a species native to the Underworld and good source of food if you can take one down without getting killed.
The Duo were hunting one, but got caught in an ambush themselves. Garmadon gets venom spit on him, but bc hes an Oni he reacts to it similarly to a Djinn would, being severely weakened instead of dying a painful death.
Nya gets the two of them squirreled away in a tiny cave near a river, just big enough for them to stay just barely out of the reach of the Tiger Widows, but leaving them with nowhere else to go.
They’re stuck for a while, with no sign of the Tiger Widows leaving, and Garmadon in no shape to fight. Nya only has a spear and a broken sword to slash at any leg or face or whatever that might try to squeeze into the crevice they’re holed up in.
And Nya has a realization; the only way they can get out of there is if she can use the river to fight off the Tiger Widows. If she keeps shunning her birth parents and the power she got from them, she might lose the only parent she’s ever really known and never get to see her brother again.
So she asks Garmadon to tell her about Ray and Maya. Specifically, she asks if she reminds Garm of them. And for the first time in years, Nya learns about her birth parents, and actually tries to connect to the stories.
And something clicks.
Nya is able to use the river to save herself and Garmadon, and starts diligently practicing with her powers, getting to the point she uses them as easily as she breathes. Garmadon didn’t think he could be more proud of Nya than he already was, but she proved him wrong.
The two repair the portal generator part of the truck when Nya is about 14, and are finally able to make it back to Ninjago.
Nya is able to hold her own in combat against the Ninja once they get back to Ninjago. In terms of raw ability, she’s better than Jay, Zane, and Cole, but not quite as good as Kai. But the built-in armour she has from her scales, her willingness to fight dirty, and her skill with her Elemental Powers close the gap.
Gonna end this here, my inbox is open for questions!
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Something's not right about that child
Defending herself from a vicious attack, seven-year-old Ruadhán Ní Loinsigh discovers that she may be far stranger than anyone around her had ever realised. (Word count: 5,055)
Trigger warnings: physical and verbal bullying, violence, ableism and ableist language including the use of the r-slur, all of these towards a young autistic child, animal death
A/N: Finally, the Rowan backstory is here! This is part one of (at the moment) a three part series, covering the events leading up to their arrival in Vesuvia for the first time. I can't promise that parts two and three will be out soon, but I've been cooking them up for a long time now and I'm excited to share them! As indicated by the content warnings, this one is quite heavy, born from me partially projecting my experiences growing up as an autistic child in an ableist society. If any of this hits too close to home, I absolutely wouldn't blame you for skipping this one. It was difficult to write and even more difficult to share. That being said, if you do read, I really hope you enjoy.
A part of Ruadhán - the part that wasn't already occupied by her struggle to break free - thought that this wasn't a particularly fair fight. There were three of them, for starters, and only one of her. Aside from that, Ciarán and Diarmuid had been ten for months now, and their big sister Eimear was nearly twelve. Ruadhán hadn't even been seven for a week.
Then again, she'd be an idiot to expect fairness from any of them by now.
The three of them must have been lying in wait for her to show up; one second Ruadhán thought she was alone, and then the next they were on her, faster than she could react. She hadn't even had the time to try and run before Eimear had tackled her into the muck, getting her clean clothes that Saoirse had only finished drying that morning all dirty. Before she could wriggle free, Diarmuid had wrenched her arms behind her back so hard she'd screeched in pain, and Ciarán had taken hold of her flailing, kicking legs by the ankles. They'd lifted her up, leaving her able to do nothing but squirm and grunt into empty air. When struggling proved futile, she tried screaming for help, but they were too far up the cliffs by now for anyone in the village to hear, the sound snatched away by the bitingly cold wintertime winds.
Ruadhán knew exactly why they had ambushed her. For her seventh birthday, Da had gifted her with a necklace that had once belonged to her mother, Síofra. An oval locket embedded with a smooth piece of bluish-green marble that was ribboned with gold, it was beautiful in its simplicity. She'd been so pleased with it that she'd worn it every day since, proudly showing it off at school and delighting in the jealously of her classmates - and she'd especially delighted in rubbing bullies like Eimear's noses in it. At the time, she'd felt positively gleeful about all of the attention it had brought her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should've known that it would all blow up in her face in the end, just like it always did.
"What should we do with her?" She heard Diarmuid ask from somewhere behind her head. She took a small amount of satisfaction in the strain in his voice, his difficulty in keeping a tight enough grip on her arms as she tried to pull them free. Her head jerked back, butting him in the stomach; she almost smiled at the quiet grunt of pain he let out, but she wasn't able to put enough power behind it to hurt him properly.
Eimear stood over her, looking - leering - down on her, like a predator over its prey. Ruadhán glared right back, her teeth bared in a snarl as a growl rumbled in her chest. She fought to keep a brave face on even when Eimear wound her fist into her hair and yanked, hard and fast enough to bend her neck back and make tears spring to her eyes.
"Take her up the cliffs," Eimear said dismissively, finally letting go of her hair. "We can throw her off after I get the necklace off her. Keep her from following us."
Ruadhán's heart started to hammer painfully against her ribs. Down by her feet, Ciarán started to splutter.
"Eimear, we can't!" He protested. Ruadhán wasn't surprised; Ciarán was always a lot nicer to her when his siblings weren't around. "She might drown! You said we wouldn't actually hurt her, you said- owww!"
He was cut off with a pained grunt as Eimear punted him in the belly, almost making him drop Ruadhán's legs in the process.
"Oh, would you ever give over! One of the little cliffs, you gobshite, not the big one. People go diving off'a them all the time." She snorted derisively, giving Ciarán another shove for good measure before turning back to Ruadhán with an ugly sneer. "We're hardly gonna drown her. Just 'cause she's retarded doesn't mean she can't swim."
Ruadhán snarled again as she gave another violent wriggle, kicking and flailing with all the strength she could muster, but try as she might, there was nothing she could do to prevent it when Eimear grabbed her underneath her jaw and forced her head backwards. Forcing Ruadhán to look up into her eyes.
"Though I'll tell you what, I am in a pretty good mood today," she said with a grin that was almost as sickening as the soothing tone she'd adopted. "Maybe if you ask me very, very nicely, Ruadhán, I might just take your necklace now and let you go."
A yawning pit of dread opened up in Ruadhán's belly. This was a trap, it had to be. If she fell for it, the consequences would be disastrous.
"It's alright, Ruadhán. All you have to say is "Please, Eimear, please let me go. You can have my necklace. I promise I won't tell anyone", and we'll leave you go home right now." Eimear's grin, all big teeth and pink gums, was practically splitting her face in two by now. She was clearly having the time of her life. "That's all you have to do. Even a retard can do something as small as that, right, Ruadhán? You can say that one little sentence back to me?"
No, she couldn't. And Eimear knew she couldn't. Her trap had been set, and now all she had to do was wait for it to be sprung.
Eimear's hand squeezed her neck sharply, just long enough to make Ruadhán gasp for breath. "Go on. Say it."
And the worst part was that even though Ruadhán knew it was a trap, she had no choice but to take the bait regardless. Her freedom, an opportunity to escape from here unscathed, was on the line. She'd be a fool not to take it.
She licked her dry lips. Tried to swallow past the hardened lump of anxiety that had formed at the base of her neck, barely allowing her to breathe.
"P..." She tried, she really did, but it was like her throat was full of burrs and brambles, snagging and clinging onto her voice and refusing to let it go. No matter how hard Ruadhán tried to force the words out, they stubbornly stayed stuck behind her teeth. She licked her lips again, started over. "P-puh..."
Eimear's hand tightened on her neck, fingers digging painfully into her jaw, and Ruadhán knew with a sinking heart that she had failed the challenge she'd been set.
"Puh," Eimear mimicked, her voice high-pitched and nasty. "Puh, puh, puh!" Spittle sprayed across Ruadhán's face with each mocking syllable from her thin, sneering lips. "Gods, Ruadhán, how thick are you? Even our baby sister isn't as stupid as you are, and she can't even use a toilet yet. But at least she can fuckin' talk."
"D'y'know what, I bet Ruadhán can't even wipe her own arse, either," Diarmuid snickered. "I bet she gets Saoirse to do that for her as well."
All three of them guffawed, and Ruadhán burned with humiliation, her face as red by now as the fox she'd been named for. She thrashed under their hold, opened her mouth to let out another desperate scream, and got nothing but another grip around the neck from Eimear for her trouble. Her shriek cut off abruptly with a guttural choke, and Eimear gave her one last threatening squeeze for good measure before finally releasing her.
"G'won, lads, let's bring her up already. I'm sick of the sight of her."
And so Ruadhán was carried further up the cliffs by her arms and legs, as if the three siblings were hunters and she a deer they had freshly killed. With Ruadhán's head hanging the way it was, she could only watch as the ground beneath their feet became less grassy and more rocky, until they finally arrived on the clifftop.
It was as Eimear said; they were only on one of the littler cliffs, the "baby" cliffs as the older children in the village would call them. People would dive off of these all the time during the height of summer, enjoying the coolness of the ocean below.
But this was not one of the warm, sunny, summer months, it was approaching the middle of December, the wind and the waves crashing against the cliff-faces below bitingly cold. Eimear had been right, Ruadhán could swim, but what if she ended up dragged under by the current, the freezing water stealing the strength from her body and drowning her before she could struggle back to shore? What if they didn't throw her out far enough, and she broke her arm, or leg, or worse on one of the rocks near the bottom? What if, what if, what if-?
"No no no," she gasped desperately, flailing and thrashing with renewed vigour, flapping her arms as hard as she could against Diarmuid's grip and kicking her feet out at Ciarán. Her pleas rapidly increased in pitch, from a panicked mumble to a last-ditch, frenzied scream. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-!"
Eimear seized hold of her face, hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her cries. "Shut-" She squeezed as hard as she could, fingers and thumb digging in harshly on either sides of Ruadhán's face. "The fuck up! I gave you a chance to talk already, you're not getting another one. I'm sick to the back teeth of your screeching." She used her grip to push Ruadhán's head backwards, exposing her throat. From the angle she was forced into, Ruadhán couldn't see Eimear reach for it, but she felt when the chain of her necklace scraped against her skin as Eimear dragged it forwards, searching for the clasp to open it.
To steal her necklace. To steal her mother's necklace. To steal the necklace that Da had given her for her birthday, pressed it into the palm of her tiny hand and curled her fingers around it protectively, telling her with tears in his eyes how important it was that she have it, and that she keep it safe. (Da almost never cried, so Ruadhán knew it must have been the truth).
Ruadhán felt herself growing hot with anger with the indignity, the cruelty, the violation of it all. Eimear didn't even want the necklace. She just didn't want Ruadhán to have it. After she took it and Ciarán and Diarmuid pitched Ruadhán into the sea, if anyone were to tell on her, she'd probably end up throwing the necklace into a ditch or down a well just so nobody could prove it.
There was no way Ruadhán was going to be able to escape. It would be a cold day in Hell before she had a chance of breaking free of the grip of three other children, all of them so much older and stronger than she was. No matter what she did, this would end with them throwing her to the piercing winds and the mercilessness of the ocean, like a rat tossed into a bucket to drown.
But she would be well and truly damned if she let a horrible, sneaky little bitch like Eimear Ní Dubhuir take her mother's necklace without a fight.
So she snarled. She thrashed. She jerked her head backwards as sharply as she could, breaking Eimear's grip on her face. And when she moved to clamp her hand back over Ruadhán's mouth, a deeply irritated expression twisting her face ("Oh, don't fucking start that shit again-!"), Ruadhán was ready for her. As soon as it was close enough, Ruadhán reared forwards and bit down hard on Eimear's hand, her jaws closing around it with a snap.
Ruadhán's baby teeth hadn't come in quite right, and the small handful of adult teeth she'd since grown were even worse; they were crooked and snaggled and ugly. But beyond their looks, they were strong and they were sharp, tearing through Eimear's skin to sink into her flesh and refusing to let go.
The reaction was well worth the hell she was sure to pay later. Eimear shrieked like a newborn baby, all her swagger and pride gone in an instant. She tried to yank her hand free, but Ruadhán snarled and clung to it like a rabid dog, clenching her jaw as tightly as she could, her teeth digging in so deeply she was sure they would soon reach bone. Even as Eimear wailed in pain, tears running down her cheeks as she tried over and over again to wrench her hand free, even as Ruadhán's mouth filled with the salty, metallic taste of blood, she refused to be shaken off; her anger towards her assailants and the satisfaction of her revenge fueled the fire she felt building within her, aiding her strength to hold on. Her whole body felt white-hot with rage, even hotter than the blood that was starting to drip down the corner of her mouth; it was as if she was burning up from the inside out.
After what could've only been a few seconds (certainly not long enough for her liking), Ruadhán felt a hand wind tightly into her long, thick curls and tug backwards, hard. She tried valiantly to hang on, but with Eimear pulling from once side and Diarmuid from the other, it was only a matter of time before her head was sharply wrenched away from Eimear's hand, finally releasing it from the vice-like grip of Ruadhán's jaws. Diarmuid held onto her even as Eimear staggered a step or two backwards, clutching her forearm and staring down at her hand with a mixture of horror and revulsion as it twinged in pain. It was smeared all over with a mixture of blood and drool, already bruised an ugly shade of reddish-purple around the ring of ragged, oozing indentations in the perfect shape of Ruadhán's teeth.
Ruadhán grinned at the sight, her ugly, bloody teeth on prideful display. She hoped it would scar. She hoped Eimear would never be able to look at her hand again without remembering what Ruadhán ní Loinsigh was capable of.
"Eimear..." Ciarán's voice shook when he addressed his sister, his touch gentle on her shoulder. "Are you-"
Eimear's head snapped up. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears, but they did absolutely nothing to disguise the pure, unadulterated hatred within them when she fixed her gaze on Ruadhán.
"You..." Her voice trembled with equal parts rage and pain as she took a step closer. "I'm going to fucking kill you, you-!"
Ruadhán never found out what choice insult Eimear was going to use next. As soon as she was close enough, she pursed her lips and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva directly into her face.
Eimear froze up. Her uninjured hand twitched erratically by her side before she brought it to her face, scrubbing harshly as she shuddered with revulsion. She breathed heavily through clenched teeth, her face and neck blotching a deep red with anger. Ruadhán barely had time to brace herself before Eimear swung her hand back down, slapping her so hard across the face that her head snapped sideways.
"You stupid-!" Slap. "Retarded-!" Slap. "Little-!" Slap. "CUNT!" Slap.
By the final slap, Ruadhán's face was aflame with sharp, white-hot pain that nearly rivaled the anger burning in her chest. She could barely hear Eimear's screams - "I'll do your Da a favour, we all know he fucking hates you!" - above the buzzing in her ears, but she certainly felt it when Eimear wrenched her out of Diarmuid's grip and threw her to the ground, the impact knocking all the breath out of her lungs. In an instant Eimear was upon her. Ruadhán's eyes widened with horror as the realisation of what was about to happen dawned on her, panic seizing her mind just as Eimear seized her throat.
Everything after that was a blur. Ruadhán was vaguely aware that Eimear was still screaming obscenities above her, that both Ciarán and Diarmuid were trying in vain to pull their sister off of her; all of it was lost in the rush of blood pounding in her head as Eimear's hands tightened around her neck, like she was trying to squeeze the life right out of her. She kicked, she thrashed, she gasped for breath; none of it did her any good. Her lungs were already burning.
Not just her lungs; every part of her was burning. The flame in her chest that had been lit by her anger had only been fanned by the satisfaction of getting her own back, then fueled again by her panic, and now it felt as though her whole body was ablaze. Her vision blurred, seemed to tint red at the edges, every ragged breath she struggled to take scorching her throat. Was this what it felt like to die? Was Eimear really going to kill her?
Desperation lacerated the sluggishness that panic had formed in her mind. Her arms were still free - in her blind rage, Eimear must have forgotten to secure them - and so she reached up, jabbing towards Eimear's eyes with her fingers and thumbs, but she couldn't reach, she couldn't reach, she couldn't reach, and now it was getting harder and harder to breathe, and her head felt so hot, the buzzing in her ears so loud, and everything she could see looked so blurry and so so red, she was sure she must really be dying... in one last desperate attempt to free herself, she grabbed at Eimear's jumper, hoping against hope that she could muster the strength to pull her off-
Her eyes widened. The relief she felt when Eimear let go of her throat and jumped off of her, screeching like a banshee, was muted; she barely even noticed it. Surely she must have been wrong. Surely she must have been hallucinating.
Surely she hadn't seen flames spring up beneath her hand where she had touched Eimear's cardigan, igniting the fabric like it was little more than dry straw.
She could do little more than stare in disbelief as she watched Eimear frantically tear the burning garment from her body, the skin underneath it red-raw and blistering, and throw it to the ground where it continued to burn up in unnatural red-gold flames. Even as the cream-coloured wool gradually reduced to little more than a pile of ashes, all Ruadhán could do was stare. She stared, and stared, and stared, and still none of it made sense.
Ruadhán was startled out of her reverie by a long, low, agonised moan from Eimear as the adrenaline of the situation clearly started to wear off, allowing the pain from her injuries to hit her in full-force. Diarmuid ran to her side, catching her by the elbow and supporting her just before she crumpled to the ground. Ciarán took a few slow, cautious steps backwards, his gaze fixed on Ruadhán with a mixture of anger and horror in his eyes.
"What..." His voice trembled with trepidation. "What the hell have you done?"
"Me?" Ruadhán would have asked incredulously if her voice was anywhere to be found. How could this possibly have been her fault? Indignantly she pushed herself up into a seating position, already vehemently shaking her head-
Only to stop dead when she looked down and saw two blackened scorch marks imprinted into the dirt and rock below her, one on either side of her body, and both in the perfect shape of her hands.
For a moment, time stood still. In that moment, Ruadhán took note of several other things. The fear in the eyes of all three siblings as they looked at her like she was a bomb about to go off. The way her whole body burned like she was sick with fever. The heavy, acrid smell of smoke in the air (it was in her nose, her throat, her eyes)...
The realisation that the smoke was coming from her.
Pouring out of her skin.
Her mouth.
Her eyes.
Her red, red eyes.
When she scrambled to her feet and bolted back down the cliffs, she left a trail of it behind her, lingering in the air for just a moment too long to be natural before it was lost to the winds.
The base of the cliff split off into two directions. One lead to the main path into the village, barely two minutes' walk away. The other lead to the forest; thick, dense woodland that one could get lost in for hours. Save for the road out of town that merchants sometimes took, the trees surrounded the town completely; along with the coastline, it gave the little village a feeling of seclusion, like it truly was isolated from the rest of the world.
And now, it would be the perfect place to hide.
Ruadhán ran like the devil itself was at her heels. The buzzing - crackling, she realised now - in her ears was so loud, she had no idea if the three she'd left on the cliffs were shouting after her; or worse, if they were chasing her. Even if they were, she didn't care anymore. All that mattered was getting far, far away from what she had just done. Before too long, the muck and grass under her feet had been replaced by a thick carpet of slippery moss, damp leaves, and scattered twigs that snapped with every other step. Soon after, the foliage high over her head became so thick and dense the weak sunlight above could scarcely hope to penetrate it.
Still, Ruadhán ran. Even when brambles snagged her ankles and branches whipped welts into her face and arms, she kept running. If the unnoticed tree root sticking out of the ground hadn't sent her sprawling to the forest floor, perhaps she might have run forever.
Groaning, Ruadhán rolled onto her back, tears evaporating into steam on her scalding hot skin before they could roll down her temples. She brought her knee to her chest so that she could grasp her injured foot in both hands, almost reeling all over again at how hot they were even through her boots. It was a reflexive gesture; she barely cared about the pain. Her entire body hurt like nothing she had felt before. Her face and throat ached from everything Eimear had done, her hands and ankles covered in little stinging lacerations from her mad dash through the forest. Really, what was one more injury to add to the pile?
Alone with her thoughts, and at this point desperate to focus on anything other than how much everything hurt, Ruadhán allowed her mind to wander back to what had happened up on the cliffs. As much as she didn't want to believe it, it seemed undeniable that she had been the cause of the fire that had burnt Eimear. It flashed brightly once again in her mind's eye, its colours a deep, dark red and a contrasting warm gold, so unlike a fire lit by natural human hands. Each time she blinked, she could see it burning there, lighting up the darkness behind her eyelids.
Eimear's screams rang out in her ears, and she shivered despite the heat of her body. Not out of guilt, and certainly not out of sorrow, but she did feel a deep, foreboding sense of regret at the thought of the inevitable consequences. Nobody would believe that she hadn't meant to do it. Nobody ever believed her.
Dread rapidly seeped in, making Ruadhán's body feel hot with panic all over again. She quickly pushed the thought out of her mind, taking deep breaths to calm herself down and turning instead to wondering how exactly she had done what she did.
She knew that magic existed, of course - everybody knew that. Magicians were hardly uncommon on Iniscrainn. They were as ancient as the country itself, if not older. The village even boasted its very own wise-woman; a grouchy old crone living in a cottage near the edge of the forest, who spent most of her time foraging ingredients for the potions she sold at the market. She knew that her mother had been a magician of sorts, as well, though she didn't know to what end - Ruadhán had never really known her, and neither Da nor Saoirse liked talking about her. Really, it wasn't all that surprising that Ruadhán seemed to have magic of her own.
Magic of her own...
Ruadhán thought back again to the cliffs, to how the three of them had backed away from her. They had all been so confident before, so willing to hurt her, to make her cry and beg for mercy, to punish her for the crime of existing in a way they deemed unacceptable. All of that had been gone after she'd started the fire. They had looked at her like she was something dangerous, a force to be reckoned with.
They had looked at her with fear.
And Ruadhán - bruised, tear-stained and terrified - had never felt more powerful.
A smile slowly curved her bloody lips. She wondered if she could do it again.
Now that she had stopped running, stopped panicking, she became aware of just how peaceful the forest around her was. Dim, dappled sunlight peeked through the treetops. Aside from the distant trill of birdsong, all was quiet. Ruadhán raised her hand up to the sky, surveying it from where she still lay on the ground. A few trails of blood ran down from the worst of the cuts. She watched as they trickled down her wrist, the stillness in the air allowing her to hear how they sizzled against her skin. She focused on the fire she felt burning in her chest, fueled now not by anger and desperation, but by pride; she took hold of it, grabbed it in both hands and pushed, imagining it travelling out from in between her ribs, past her shoulder, up her arm, and now she could feel it bright and hot and right there in the palm of her hand-
With a crisp snap-whoosh that pierced the silence around her like an arrow through a heart, a flame leapt to life in Ruadhán's cupped hand, as red-gold and brilliant and beautiful as the one that had saved her from Eimear. She couldn't help herself; she laughed with delight, the sound bold and bright as she marvelled at the sight of her magic taking shape and crackling merrily away.
Closing her fist, she extinguished the flame once more, content now with the knowledge that even though she would surely be punished for what she had done, nobody would ever dare to hurt her again.
And even if they did, she would make sure they lived to regret it.
She was just about to get back up, to go home where she could lick her wounds and recover from the rollercoaster that had been today in the comfort of her bed, when she heard birdsong ring out again, closer than it had been before. Tilting her head back to investigate, she smiled brightly again at the sight of a robin, perched on a tree branch not far above her head. Ruadhán loved animals, and quite unlike people, they always seemed to like her back. This delightfully round little fellow was no exception. It tilted its head curiously as it chirped at her, almost as if it were asking her what on earth she was doing down there.
"Fell over." She chuckled, albeit wincing slightly as she did; it hurt to speak, her voice hoarse and raspy. "Wanna help me?"
The robin let out another tittering trill, ruffling its feathers just a little - then, to her utter delight, it hopped from the branch it had been sitting on and swooped down through the air towards her. She uncurled her fingers again, allowing the robin to land neatly and nestle itself rather comfortably on her outstretched palm. Oh, it was just too cute for words. Ruadhán giggled, lifting her index finger so that she could gently stroke the soft red feathers on the little bird's chest-
By the time Ruadhán realised what was happening, it was already too late. One second her hand was cupped around the robin; the next it was holding little more than a charred mound of flesh, bone, and feather, the agonised screech the bird had let out as it died still ringing in Ruadhán's ears even as the flame she had created consumed its body whole.
At first, all Ruadhán could do was stare, her eyes and mouth wide in abject horror.
Then she screamed, the sound tearing her throat open and adding a metallic tang to the taste of smoke in her mouth. She flung the burnt corpse of the bird - or what was left of it, anyway - away from her, but still the flames in her hand continued to burn, continued to mock her, and no matter how many times she clenched and unclenched her fist, they wouldn't go away, they wouldn't go away, they wouldn't go away -
"I didn't mean it!" She cried out, tears streaming down her face, smoke and steam blurring her red-tinted vision. In a blind panic, she shook her hand back and forth in a desperate attempt to put the fire out. "I didn't, I, I didn't, I didn't mean it-!"
She repeated this mantra over and over again, until the words lost all meaning, until her voice quietened from an ear-splitting scream to the faintest of whispers. Somewhere along the line, the inferno created and housed by her body had died down, extinguished by perhaps her anguish, or simply her sheer exhaustion now that all the fight had left her.
Ruadhán wasn't sure how long she lay there on the forest floor, feeling cold and numb now with the absence of her magic. Even though she was tired, she kept her eyes wide open. She didn't want to close them anymore. Every time she did, she saw herself killing the robin. Saw herself burning Eimear.
Saw the monster that she really was.
It was dark by the time Ruadhán picked herself up, arms wrapped around herself as she slowly limped towards home. Whatever punishment was waiting for her there, she knew now that she deserved it.
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I wonder, how’s Colress as a father to Yuu .
Adoptive Dad, Colress
Watch out, ‘cuz this is gonna be a long one!
First, let me say Yuu and Colress' relationship as father-and-daughter is far from typical. When he first met Yuu on the streets of Castelia City, he was very impressed by how she and Zorua were so in sync.
1. Because she was like 6 or 7 and has already a Pokémon that can be considered her partner.
2. Zorua are known for their aloofness and tend stay away from humans. (Especially in Unova, considering the the only way to get a Zorua in Black and White is through a special event scenario)
And when he heard her story about how she and Zorua would be forced apart if she returned to her foster home. Now on one hand, it would be a waste to break up such a duo. On the other, Colress (despite what many may think) can’t in good conscience leave such a young child to fend for herself on the streets. Then an idea springs to mind. He wishes to further his research in what brings out a Pokémon’s true strength. He had deduced that it is the bond between Trainer and Pokémon that unlocks their full potential. And here is a human child and a Pokémon that have forged a bond before their journey even started!
“I have a proposition for you Miss. How would you and Zorua like to come live with me?”
Don’t ask how an ex-convict (yes, he did do jail time for the Kyurem incident, but was let out on good behavior) was able to adopt this child! Colress has his ways…
So yes, Colress adopted Yuu so she and Zorua could be subjects for his research, with their knowing consent of course. It was either that or they remain in the shadows of the streets, stealing food and avoiding the cops. Both sides had nothing but to gain from this agreement.
Up to the point she met him - Yuu had some bad experience with the adults in her life, so as far as they go, Colress is fairly decent. He made sure that Yuu and Zorua were fed, slept well, and have a healthy environment. Even read some parenting books for reference. He strikes me as someone who doesn’t have a lot of empathy, so he’s often blunt with Yuu, hardly ever mincing words. Thankfully she did have teachers and friends that helped her emotional development. Oddly enough, Yuu actually appreciates this side of him as he was the first adult that was ever straight with her and didn’t talk to her as if she was some dumb annoying kid.
You could say that Yuu got her bluntness from him.
As a Pokémon Trainer, Colress didn’t really do anything to steer Yuu’s path as one. Nor did he deter or assist her. After all, to interfere with her growth as a Trainer would defeat the purpose of his research. Yuu had wanted to become a Trainer since way before she met Colress, so there really was no need to convince her in that category.
Again, before you ask, yes, Yuu does know about the whole “Kyurem Incident”. And they did have a conversation about it. She recognize that he’s now using his skills for a better purpose now. After everything he’s done for her, the least he deserves is a second chance. And if he reverts back to hurting others again…
“My Pokémon and I won’t hesitate to break you…”
*Short Timeskip*
Kukui: “Hey Colress, your smile’s a bit different than usual. Did something happen?”
Colress: “Hmm… I have this odd warm feeling in my chest… Could this be… Parental pride?”
Though Colress adopted Yuu for the purpose of his research into the bonds of humans and Pokémon, he unknowingly developed a fondness for the girl as she and her Pokémon grew stronger. Seeing the look on her face when she triumphs in battle, just seeing her with her friends as well as her Pokémon partners with that big smile on her face..! Makes him remember how he first found that small skinny, glaring distrustful girl with the feral Zorua in that alleyway. Now look how far she has come. Makes him smile ever wider.
And now, if anyone were to ever threaten his baby girl…
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a more in depth background of my persona 3 oc...
the one linked here! It's a lot so its gonna be under the cut but it's much more than what i had before!! idk how many will see this but it would be so cool and awesome if you read it because these two give me such intense brain worms i need to tell everyone about them (will include p3 spoilers)
touma hiroya was born as a surprise to an, all things considered, normal family. a mom, dad, and a brother, teijo, 10 years his elder. his family was not expecting another child but welcomed him anyways
the pregnancy caused a lot of complications, but they thought they were in the clear during his birth, unfortunately more issues arised and his mother passed away shortly after, devastating the others. a new life was brought into the world but at the cost of another.
both grew bitter towards the newborn, silently blaming him for the death of the mother. it took until his father shouted at the now-toddler for teijo to realize how foolish he was being. touma was completely innocent.
but things only got worse as time went on, their father having resorted to drinking since the passing of his wife and quickly developed an addiction. obviously i wont be going into abuse detail but their situation gets Bad, but teijo always makes sure to protect touma always
he manages to get accepted into a college, with an insane amount of hard work he is able to gather enough money to get an apartment and take in touma, pretty much raising him. teijo finds himself leaning more towards science, while touma starts picking up his medical books
years pass, now roughly 20 and 30, teijo gets himself into the kirijo groups scientists, and touma is in medical school. all things seem to be going well for the two, teijo sending touma extra money to support him every once in awhile.
that is, until, again, things take a turn for the worse. teijo gets sucked into the deeper parts of the group, seeing the experiments theyre doing on the shadows, and worse, people. but hes too far into the group now he cannot back out without being in danger
it becomes obvious, though, how he hesitates. and soon enough they turn on him. they realize teijo has a strong potential, and try to force-summon a persona from him. it works, but he is unable to control it, and his own persona kills him.
touma is clueless. he stays clueless, it wasnt uncommon for months to go by without hearing from his brother, he is busy after all. then the accident happens, the explosion. he is told his brother died there. and hes alone in the world.
touma tries to go on, tries to keep going in school but he struggles. he finds himself skipping classes, sleeping in, after some years he runs out of money, he has no choice but to drop out. he tries getting jobs, but none last too long. a few more years and hes out of money and jobs that will accept him. unable to afford his apartment anymore, hes stuck wondering the streets. its now he discovers the dark hour, terrified of it, but able to use it to his advantage. he felt awful, breaking into places and stealing, but he would starve otherwise.
its on fateful day that he is found. he had fainted on the street during the dark hour, after not having had enough to eat the day prior. shuji finds him, clothes torn and dirty, trying to get him to awaken. after a bit, he does.
during this time its early spring, a month or two after makoto had joined SEES. seeing the potential in touma, shuji decides to, at the very least, help him through the night. he can see what else can be learned about him, if he'll be useful to his cause.
after bringing him to his home, getting him showered and fed, they talk. shuji realizes he's heard of touma before, the younger brother to one of the scientists. it feels like fate, his brother had an extremely strong persona, if touma was any similar, perhaps he could be useful
if things were handled differently. with the plan in mind, shuji offers him to stay with him at his home. he even pulls some strings and allows touma to be an assistant nurse at the school.
months pass, and touma never awakens to his persona. but its alright, he is proving himself to be extremely useful by having the medical knowledge he does, helping out the kids after tough fights and long tartarus trips.
touma is EXTREMELY grateful towards shuji, feeling as if he saved his life. during those months he can't help but find himself falling for him. sure, it helps he saved him, but he genuinely adores shuji. he finds him so charming and funny, he feels like a schoolboy with a crush
meanwhile shuji is finding himself feeling the same. which complicates things a lot. he can't have feelings for someone right now! the world is destined to end, its unworth saving, theres no point in dealing with love. he tries to keep up appearances but shuji is stressed as hell
hes in heavy, heavy denial he could love someone in this cruel of a world, trying to find any reason to justify it. and he does. it all makes sense, why the pieces would fall into place so neatly. touma was destined to be the avatar of nyx. it was so clear!
shuji would be the god of the new world, with touma by his side to help bring it to fruition. no other reason would he be so drawn to him, right? so his plan continues in motion, until all 12 arcana shadows are defeated, and shuji starts his plan.
touma watches as someone who he loved betrays him, betrays them all. he tries his hardest to reason with shuji, to beg, to plead to listen to him, that killing these kids he cares for won't do any good, that the world is still worth saving, but shuji's delusions have taken over
shuji raves about how this is destiny, how this is what they wanted, right? to be together, and they will be, with the creation of the new world everything will be perfect. and the rest plays out in canon, aigis saving everyone, and shuji getting shot.
despite it all, the betrayal, touma still loves him. as shuji walks backwards towards the edge of the roof, touma runs over to him, trying to save him from falling, but it's too late at that point. shuji had fallen. without a second thought touma goes after him.
he doesn't think about it, if this is how he dies..then let it be. he'd rather die with shuji than live with losing someone else he loves. through the rush of doom, its finally now touma's persona awakens, eos, the goddess of dawn.
touma, who had managed to grab hold of shuji's hand, pulls him closer against the wind, and with eos' wings they're able to safely make it to the ground. what i have after this is pretty..up in the air, but pretty much it comes to shuji realizing he was fucking crazy and a LOT of therapy. a lot. touma and shuji stay away from the kids for awhile because..well they kind of doubt theyd want to see them. again still nothing concrete after this but. they end up being okay one way or another.
this is just like. toumas in-canon story how it would go In Canon but i also love pretending everything is fine and that theyre silly and in love but also ouch ouch ouch ouch they hurt me to think about sometimes
also sorry if not all of this makes a lot of sense within canon its been awhile since i beat the game.. but uaugh. augh. uahg. they mean so much to me.
heres a little lamb touma doodle for ur troubles <33 i doubt it but if anyone has any questions PLEAAASE ask me i need to talk about themmmm
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happy friday!!! can i request thalia/samson, the world tarot prompt? 🌎🔮💜
Once I stopped screaming, I decided to commit an atrocity. Then I made myself sad.
the world: fulfillment, experience, completion; “Do you remember, back when…” possible AUs/settings/ideas: old age, happy end, fantasy world au
I'll just go ahead and spoil the game and say this will likely go at the beginning of the next chapter of Through a Glass, Darkly as a dream sequence Samson has. Any similarities to the opening scene of Witcher 3 is entirely intentional.
For @dadrunkwriting
WC: 1142
CW: Implied misogyny, a tiddy or two, a fake child briefly in peril I guess???
---
The warm breeze wafted in through the open door to the balcony, bringing with it the smell of spring. Samson thought he might never get that scent again: the sea salt mingled with flowering juniper as it blew up from the Wounded Coast. The sunlight gauzy filtering through the was yellow as lemon.
He stood in the tower of the keep, the chambers they’d chosen for their own. It had all the trappings of splendor: a four-poster bed; large, round tub in which to luxuriate; vanities and armoires and writing desks for the lady, and of course the large, taxidermied halla atop which some of their more adventurous love-making had taken place.
How long had it been since they’d settled here? He chose not to remember.
He moved freely, easily, with no armor nor burden. Weapon and shield had been lain down a number of years ago, and it was strange to admit he didn’t miss them. He had spent so much of his life fighting and scraping for survival, but he had traded it all in when the battles had been won.
And of course, the main attraction. Stretched nude on her side on a chaise lounge, long hair wrapped in a towel from her recent bath, Thalia faced away from him, nose buried in a large tome. He admired the view, the shapely curve of her hip and ass, the barest hint of breast.
He chuckled low in his throat. “That book really so interesting you couldn’t wait to put clothes on first?”
“I don’t hear you complaining,” Thalia replied drily.
“No, and you won’t, neither.” He sidled closer. The tilt of her neck was delicate and supple, her skin creamy soft. A fair number of years separated him from her, but that had never bothered them. He might be sliding gracelessly into old age, but Thalia remained as beautiful and nubile as the first time he saw her.
He leaned down, pressing a kiss on her neck, then her shoulder. “D’you think it’s odd, the way we met?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice was light and coy.
“Oh, you do.”
He gently pulled the towel from her head, letting the damp wine red waves fall down about her shoulders and back. He threaded one hand through her hair and with the other reached around to squeeze her tit. She let out a delicious sigh, arching her back into his touch.
“Remind me,” she whispered.
He buried his face in her scented hair. “We were trying to kill each other,” he murmured. “You and that bore of a Commander, you were trying to find a way to break my armor. And I was working for a deluded monstrosity who fancied himself a god.” He felt a thrill of triumph, saying the words aloud. Like uttering blasphemies in the middle of Chantry service.
Thalia dropped the book and twisted around to face him. She threaded arms around his neck and pressed herself close to him. “Ah, yes. I do remember now.” She threw her head back and looked at him through coquettish lashes. “I’m glad we managed to get past that, aren’t you?”
Maker, he wanted to take her right here, on this damn reclining chair. He climbed onto it beside her, and she pulled him down, giggling.
“Don’t forget,” Thalia murmured in his ear as he showered her with kisses, “you’re wanted in the yard.”
Samson groaned, halting with his lips on her clavicle. He rose above her and gazed down, annoyance mixed with fondness. “I bloody forgot.”
“You forgot sword practice? For shame.” Thalia wriggled beneath him, smiling brightly — the little tease.
He pushed himself to sitting, scrubbing a hand down his stubbly face. “She’s your daughter. What’s she need with swords? Can’t she just—?” He waved his hand around in a vague approximation of what it seemed to him mages could do.
“She’s your daughter too.” Thalia leaned down beside him to retrieve her book. He watched the graceful curve of her back, the spring to her bosoms as she righted herself. “And she wants to learn swordplay.”
Samson sighed, squinting out the round archway to the sweet morning. “She’s probably at the smithy anyhow, with Maddox.”
The name hit him like a sour note in a pleasant melody. His chest twinged. Why should Maddox be here? The poor lad is—
“Teaching her everything he knows,” Thalia finished, although he hadn’t spoken aloud. Or had he? He stared at her, confused, but her pretty head was buried again in the wide, heavy tome. “You think soon she’ll start bringing us those little paper cranes he makes?”
Samson stood, unsettled. “I never told you that.”
“Never told me what?” She did not look up.
“The cranes. I never told anyone. That even after they made him Tranquil, he could still—” Samson broke off, his throat tight.
“Love, what are you talking about?” Thalia gazed at him, wide eyes as blue as the day’s azure sky.
“Nothing,” Samson said quickly. “It’s nothing. Forget it.” He leaned down and kissed her on the top of her head. “I’ll go check on the little one.”
He left her, strolling to the tower balcony that would lead him down to the inner bailey. Samson curled his fingers around the marble balustrade’s edge and fought his growing sense of unease. Everything was fine. Everything was bleeding perfect. Why did he have to ruin it? Why did he always have to—
A glint of red below drew his attention, and Samson caught sight of her: the tiny ragamuffin, with a mop of curly hair that matched her mother’s, but his dark eyes. She was dressed in old Templar recruit leathers — Maker knew where’d she’d got those — and proudly hoisted a wooden sword over her shoulder. She waved at him in the bright sunshine, flashing a gap-toothed smile. Nine, now, maybe? Or ten? The years hardly mattered anymore.
“You comin’ down or what, Papa?” She sounded born and bred in Lowtown, just like him.
“In a minute, sweetling.” Samson wanted to savor this moment for a little longer. Before… before what?
The red of her hair captivated him — the deep scarlet, pulsating almost, like the veins that had cut through the towering crystals. Lyrium. Red lyrium. When it had once threatened to consume the world.
A cloud passed over the sun; the sky darkened, and Samson’s mouth drew as dry as ash. “Wait. No. No, this isn’t right…”
There was a great crack of thunder. The blue sky disappeared, as did the thick tree line that extended toward the horizon. Above, clouds roiled in grey and green. The little one let out a scream. Surrounding her were the great glowing crystals, extending up and up, overtaking the walls of the keep, choking out the forest, blotting out what was left of the sun.
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Mike coming out to his parents like
Mom, Dad, I have to tell you something. When Will vanished, Lucas, Dustin and I went to the spot he vanished to look for him and we found El with a T-shirt and shaved hair, so I brought her home and she lived for a week in the basement. She told me bad men were going to kill her and me if they found her, so I couldn't tell you. Turns out she knew Will was abducted by a monster to another dimension because she opened the door to that dimension, while being a superpowerd child experiment in Hawkins lab. Anyway, the government faked Will's body, but we knew he was still in the other dimension and we saved him. The next year Will was possessed by another monster and we had to exorcise him and El closed the gate to the other dimension. Turns out the Russians were trying to open the gate back up and the mindflayer wasn't gone and so he rebuild himself with the flesh of his victims. That's why so many people died summer 85. In spring break one part of the government brought El to another lab so she'd get her powers back. Another part of the government tried to kill El and us and were shooting up the house. It was just me, Will and Jonathan at home , because Mrs. Byers spontaneously went to Russia to save the chief from a prison camp. Long story short, we got away with a dying special agent, buried him in the desert and picked up El at that lab before it was blown up. Still the first superpower child experiment from Hawkins lab was killing teens in Hawkins all that time. El did try to piggyback through Max' mind and fight him, but I guess he won and opened all those portals in Hawkins and here we are. Also, I'm gay.
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