#the part where i am creating fabric is finished | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jilixthinker · 3 months

Text

blackholes

=͟͟͞♡ jisung × fem!reader

=͟͟͞♡ parallel universes au

word count: 7.4K

synopsis: you can delude yourself and wait for the paint to dry and take away the evil. but the only truth, unique and unchanging, is that pain only creates more pain. you can close your eyes and believe otherwise, imagine another ending. but when you wake up, jisung is still sick and his illness is eating him from the inside.

content warning: explicit sexual content, oral sex (f receiving), angst, depression, mention of suicide, drinking and smoking, sufference, eventual happy ending (?)

=͟͟͞♡ please, consider reblogging if you like my works!

A drop of crimson red paint is tapping on the ground at a regular rhythm. At first glance, to someone who is not trained to know how to observe, it might even look like blood. The fingertips from which the paint is dripping off are moving slowly over the paper, searching for the weak spot on the canvas. There is always one, where the fabric gives in and the color soaks deeper. The fingers probe its full extent until a small smile of intimate satisfaction appears in your face.

The breaking point is within the body portrayed on the canvas, right in the center of his forehead. It sparkles a little like an Indian diamond, and you dip the tip of your brush in the red paint that previously soiled your fingers. At the bottom corner to the right, near the tapered shape of the feet you have just finished painting, you trace a few words.

pain creates love.

The young man on the canvas is dazzlingly beautiful. His eyes are night onyx, deep as lagoons. His lips are the color of ripe cherries, swollen and tumid. He is portrayed nude, legs spread wide and arms outstretched toward the viewer. He exudes eroticism from every angle, yet he is far from vulgar. A few strands of inky hair hide the pale, flushed skin on his cheekbones. Slender, elegant fingers are stretched out to their full length as if to grasp the air. There is no background. The only foreign element to that body is the canopy on which the boy is slumped. The draped sheets caress his figure enhancing his nakedness without covering it. The only dissonant note in that marvelous sensual work, the only weak point, is the too-hinted blush on his forehead. It's almost not noticeable if you lose yourself in the full beauty of the portrait, but you see it, because you painted it and because it's part of the canvas, part of the subject. And it is singular, as him.

"It's a masterpiece".

The voice is off-screen, as if it's coming from another world. You don't turn to check who it belongs to, but you keep staring at your painting. The sound of small footsteps unravels in the air of the room. The parquet floor creaks at every inch.

"I am not fully satisfied with it".

You run the back of your hand over the fabric, as if the epidermis could erase the color and replace it with a different image. The voice approaches you from behind and blows a crystalline laugh as his shadow reflects off the picture, obscuring the white of the canopy.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. What's wrong with it?"

As you move your gaze from the painting to turn around, the exact copy of the boy portrayed on the canvas stands out in all his glory in front of you. His shower-wet hair frames his ephebic features like a wreath, and a tiny smile illuminates his face in a cascade of light.

"It's not like the original".

The boy shakes his head and time freezes. A few drops of water land on your neck.

"It doesn't have to be".

Sharpened fingers curl around the closed collar of your shirt and begin to loosen it. Button by button, the fabric slips off your figure and the young man in front of you kneels down to slip off your shirt and deposit hundreds of tiny kisses on your hands. When he stands up again, he approaches your body and touches it, appreciating every inch of it and covering it with attention. You lift you face and bite his cheek, losing yourself in the soothing smell of Sunday sex.

Pain creates love, you are quite certain of it. Loving someone who suffers means loving every single portion of their pain and making it your own. It is not easy to desire something so abstract, but there are people who try, with soul, body, bones and sweat. Some succeed, some fail, and some keep trying. You cannot identify yourself in any of these categories. You only knows that you love, unconditionally, without a specific goal. You love so much that the pain is now only the frame to a picture of yours, you love so much that the Indian diamond on the boy's forehead becomes almost invisible to your eyes. Almost.

You can delude yourself and wait for the paint to dry and take away the evil. But the only truth, unique and unchanging, is that pain only creates more pain. You can close your eyes and believe otherwise, imagine another ending. But when you wake up, Jisung is still sick and his illness is eating him from the inside.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

You meet Jisung in the twilight of his nineteen years, when he is just a little lump of insecurity and imagination. He clutches a vanilla coffee in his left hand and a briefcase in his right, crammed with story incipits that he will never finish. He dropped out of school to become one of those freelance writers you see on the covers of magazines for intellectuals, the ones who live in unpronounceable French towns and smoke mint cigarettes while sipping aged cognacs. It must not be bad, he thinks, to be envied while basking in your self admiration.

When Jisung sees you, he is leaving creative writing school, and you are leaving art school. You have a white palette under your arm, open apron smeared with oil paints, and nose sniffing the air. In fact, Jisung doesn't really have time to see you, because fate plans to make him trip over you, causing his vanilla coffee to spill all over your pants.

With his face on fire and the excuse of dry cleaning to repay for the damage, you two get acquainted. Jisung discovers that you smoke mint cigarettes, like French writers. No cognac though, you say. You prefer gin. It goes down faster and helps me come up with new ideas for painting.

Jisung asks to see one of your works, but your condition is of him posing as a model for your next portrait assignment, because you had been looking for a face like his for months. Jisung lets you beg for a while, but then he capitulates in front of another coffee.

You live alone in a loft on the fifth floor of a suburban building. The apartment is a hellish mess and it almost looks as if a tornado has swept through the living room, bathroom and kitchen, mixing the different furnishings together. You invite Jisung to sit wherever he wants, assuming he can find a seat.

You silently eat two bowls of instant ramen and then dangle awkwardly in front of each other, thinking about what to say. After a few minutes Jisung breaks the silence and asks you to see your portraits. You dig through the easels piled against the wall before handing him a few palettes.

The portraits are not refined. In fact, that's the reason you are going to art school. You cannot seem to maintain proper proportions between the various body parts you draw. In the first painting you show Jisung, the woman's hands on the canvas are too big and stubby, in the second the eyes are exaggeratedly spaced apart, and in the third the legs are so crooked that they almost seem to belong to two different people. In spite of everything, Jisung fails to give those mistakes the connotation of flaws, because there is something that compels him to stay looking at them without speaking.

While Jisung stares absently at the portraits, you flip through the half-told stories you found in his briefcase and reads fragments of disconnected sentences with a lazy smile on your lips. Jisung reflects for the time of three cigarettes before looking at you and stating that he is ready to be drawn.

When you get up to gather your brushes and paints, out of the corner of your eyes you see the boy becoming pale and widening his eyes. A split second later, the canvas slips from Jisung's hands, crashing to the floor with a reverberating noise.

You don't have time to process what happened because Jisung runs quickly toward the exit, almost crashing against the walls. He runs down the stairs as fast as he can, tripping over his feet, hitting the steps with each step and leaving you, alone in your apartment, one hand extended toward the door, clutching the rarefied air.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"You remind me of someone I've seen before".

The second time you and Jisung met, he has the time to hide behind an alley, because it's easier not to be asked questions if you have something to hide. In this case, you happen to turn on that very alley and you find yourself in front of Jisung, curled in a quivering ball of shame. After assuring him more than once that you don't care if he broke the canvas and ruined the portrait, you convince him to have another cup of coffee together because you will never find a face like his for your painting.

You drink unsweetened black espresso, steaming hot to the limits of what is possible to drink. Jisung looks at you with an horrified look as he opens the third sugar packet and melts the grains inside his vanilla drink.

"Who?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure. Your hands".

Jisung glows and hides his flushed face behind his coffee.

"What's wrong with my hands?"

"They are vaguely erotic".

You lazily runs your fingers over Jisung's manicured nails.

"Thank you?"

"I'd like to paint those too. If you want to. You must promise not to run away and leave me alone like an idiot though".

Jisung stares out the coffee shop window and counts the drops that go condensed in the corners of the glass, Your voice is just a shade in the picture in front of him.

"Mh".

"Can I read something you wrote?"

"Didn't you already do that at your house a few weeks ago?"

"Jisung, come on, I want to read something serious".

"I'll pretend I didn't hear".

You smile andd curl your lips around your glass.

"You don't tell me that's all you wrote?"

"No. Of course not".

"Thank God. Those stories were really cheap".

You barely have time to shield your face behind your arms before Jisung's indigned look - along with his fists - dumps a shower of insults on you. It takes him a few minutes before he realizes that, hey I was just kidding, and he stops swearing.

You stand outside of the coffee shop shortly afterward, huddling under a horrible slime colored umbrella. You shove a mint cigarette between your lips and ask Jisung if he wants to try.

Jisung spends the next half hour coughing and cursing in all the languages of the world.

"You're not really suited to be a writer".

Jisung kicks you lightly and chuckles half offended as he watches you prance around on one foot yowling like a wounded puppy. Then you pull him by the hood of his jacket and smother your last words over his mouth. His comment on the kiss is anything but an insult. Jisung bites his lips and thinks that maybe you are right.

He doesn't tell you, though.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"What happened the first time at my house?"

"What are you talking about? "

"The painting".

"I thought we had already talked about that".

"Indeed. I'm not interested in the painting itself".

"It slipped from my hands".

Jisung looks down and you don't believe him for a second. You finish brushing the bluish sky and wipe your hands on the apron. You watch the canvas, but it's useless. You weren't able to paint decently for months.

"It doesn't matter. I couldn't paint anything anyway".

Jisung barely nods and closes his eyes. He squeezes his thighs together and rocks in his chair, absorbing the faint winter rays of light on his skin.

"Do blind people dream?"

You watch Jisung tensing his back like a cat and stretching slowly, making his spine creak.

"It depends. If they are blind from birth maybe they only dream of sounds".

Jisung opens his eye and observes you, illuminated by the light. He looks almost like a beam of the whitest sun, his hair is tousled and his lips chapped by the wind.

"What do you think is worse, being born without sight or losing it over time?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"I don't know".

You twist your mouth because Jisung tells that he doesn't know to a lot of things and you can never figure out if it's because he doesn't want to answer or because he really doesn't know. You pretend to be mad at it, but the facade doesn't even last two seconds. Jisung is like that anyway. You love his everything or you don't love anything at all.

"I think it's worse to never have the chance to see colors, or the sun".

He gets up from the stool and sits in your lap, staring at an indefinite spot on your face. You stand still for several minutes without speaking, then Jisung rubs his forehead against your cheek.

"If I couldn't see, what would you do?"

"I'd be painting with words".

Jisung kisses you and you end up flying outside the universe, navigating purple galaxies in the space constellation, running through the Milky Way and on a bridge leading to the end of the world.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"I don't feel like playing anymore".

Jisung, sitting on the wooden chair, looks at the window in an absorbed manner. He crosses his ankles and wrinkles his nose as if to chase away an annoying thought.

"I am bored. I've been sitting in this position for almost two hours".

You let out a soft grunt as you pick up a multitude of dried up tubes of paint from a ceramic jar.

"You are just being bratty", you comment, resting the brush on the coffee table and rubbing your hands against each other to scrape off the remnants of color on your nails.

"What do you feel like doing?" you ask as you look up at him.

Jisung smiles and gets up from his small chair by sliding down part of the sheet that covered his hips.

"You are dirty", he says, beginning to absentmindedly touch his lower lip with his fingers.

"I will take a shower after this".

Jisung shakes his head slowly. He moistens his index and middle fingers with his pink tongue, sticking out of his mouth.

"I don't think so".

Another handful of small steps and he is in front of you, already crushed against the bones of you pelvis. With his hands he brings your neck close to his face and licks the skin exposed by your shirt, from your ear down to the collarbones. There he stops and sucks just enough to leave you with a red bruise.

"I'll clean you up", he moans, biting the patch of skin at the nape of your neck, near your hairline.

You scramble to the kitchen chair, pushed by Jisung's hands that are slipping off your shirt, and it's pointless to tell him that I can't be dirty there because he is wetting a path of bare skin down to your belly button. He sticks his tongue out and he swirls it slowly inside of it, then continues on the dimples above your hip bone.

You feel your leg muscles contracting and you clasp your hands around Jisung's shoulders, pushing him down and allowing him to curl up on the floor, a hungry expression on his face.

Jisung spreads his legs and you let your head loll against the wall behind you as he bites your skin and removes your pants. You feel a tender, raspy tongue lazily sucking on the inside of your thighs and nibbling at them slowly. His fingers cup your already sopping cunt and start moving, circling your entrance and smearing the slick on the skin around it.

Jisung's mouth is searing and his black eyes bottomless. His saliva seethes on your flesh as you tense your legs with tiny spasms each time you feel him biting closer and closer to your aching pussy. Maybe he is sucking away something else, buried deeper somewhere inside you as well, but you have no strength to think about it when Jisung finally makes up his mind and sucks your clit in between his lips.

You hold your breath and all of your blood drains from your brain to focus lower, warming where the other's mouth failed. The wet sound is obscenely filthy as his lips slide up and down along your drenching pussy, lapping at the thin, swollen skin of your lips.

Jisung alternates between spitting dribbles of saliva on your cunt and sliding his fingers inside of you, massaging your aching walls for a long time. When he harshly sucks your clit inside his mouth, he lets out a satisfied meow and closes his eyes, completely enraptured by his own ego, fulfilled while listening to your moans. His fingers grab the tender flesh of your butt and he sinks his nose into your cunt, sucking as vigorously as possible on your puffy clit.

When he feels the walls of your pussy contract around his fingers, he starts to thrust them slowly and takes his time to give kitten licks at your hardened nub, sucking only the tip of it with undulating motions.

You squint your eyes, press your hands on the back of Jisung's neck and you finally cum with a dull gasp. Jisung presses his thumb against his own lips, smearing your release on them. He stares at you with vicious eyes and swallows slowly, wiping his crimson lips with his fingertips.

"You are clean now".

You kiss him, biting hard on his lips and licking his chin and cheeks to remove all of the traces of your slick from his face. When you inhale the smell of his skin, you thank whoever is above or below for allowing you to possess him.

"You are my masterpiece".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

The spring of Jisung's twentieth year has the dull, bland taste of rain. It rains all the time, every day. Flowers fail to sprout and the few that succeed, eventually rot.

Jisung began to smoke, even though he gave up on his writing career. It wasn't really suitable, all things considered. He smokes your mint cigarettes and lets the fresh flavor fill his mouth before blowing away the residue. When he looks out from behind the window glass at the water drops tapping on the puddles, he sighs sadly.

You are splayed on the sofa with your legs curled on the floor. You snort, and your voice is hoarse as if you had just woken up.

"Would you like some tea?".

"Uh".

Jisung throws the cigarette in a jar filled with soil. He clicks his tongue against his palate and heads to the kitchen to boil tap water in the pot. He looks for the fruit tea filters behind the pantry doors when he stops all of a sudden, feeling the flesh under his skin instantly freezing. He tries to focus on something, anything. He stares at the wall, he opens his lips and, instead of a cry, what comes out is a whisper.

"Baby".

Jisung trembles and stretches a hand out in front of him. His eyes water and overflow like rain. He squeezes the air with his fingers and his veins swell on his wrists, pulsing his blood down.

"Baby", he slurs again.

You lift your head from the back of the sofa and look at your boyfriend's shoulders hunched forward.

"What's the matter?"

Jisung crinkles his eyes even more and doesn't hold back a tear that lines his cheeks and wrinkles his round chin. He squints, and thousands shades of colors disappear. His muscles relax involuntarily, and he hears the sound of shattering shards as if his brain had detached from his own skullcap to navigate inside of the the cerebral fluid.

"Baby, where am I?"

You sprint to your feet at lightning speed and you hold up Jisung before he can crash to the floor. His head, as an unconditional reflex, lunges forward and slams back against your forehead.

"Where are you?"

Jisung thrashes against your chest and continues to shake with convulsive spasms. He grits his teeth and tries to slip out of your tight embrace.

I love you say I love you and you see me I see you tell me.

"I am here. I am behind you. I won't leave you", you try to soothe him.

He turns around in deluded strength and fumbles with his fingers in search of you face. He taps lips, eyes, hair, cheekbones, squeezes knuckles and bites his own tongue.

"I don't see you".

Jisung's voice trembles. He opens his mouth two or three times, but his words dry up like a desert. A breath of wind, and he speaks feebly.

"I see nothing".

no no no no no no no

"The painting too. I couldn't see it anymore. It didn't slipped from my hands".

Jisung is gushing like a raging river and in a split second he becomes aware of herself, of you, of everything floating in his mind.

"It wasn't there".

say I'm there and you see me because I'm here and I won't leave you say that-.

"It was just a black hole".

please

"I lied to you".

I don't want to

"I never told you how my mother died".

"Jisung".

"No. You have to listen to me".

You feel your throat burning as if someone was smoking inside your stomach. You can feel the aftertaste of ash in the mouth of your esophagus and you try to swallow. But nothing goes down.

"Do you know what glaucoma is?"

"I don't think I want to know".

"It's a disease that affects eyesight. Your eyes accumulate water until the internal pressure is too much. You can't feel pain. That's why it is diagnosed too late. It's like your eyes are drowning in tears".

You die a little with each word, as if Jisung is spewing ink, and you are an inkwell collecting phantom waste.

"She couldn't stand the idea of not being able to see anymore".

"You could not have-"

"I have it".

You feel like falling. You stumble and fall. You fall for an endless time, and you fall into a dark well. You don't touch the bottom and keep falling into the cold. You try to scream but that requires oxygen, and your lungs contract, spitting out carbon dioxide because there is no more oxygen in you. So you cling to the walls, crawl your fingers and flay you skin. A cry rumbles out, but the voice is not yours.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

The first time you make love, Jisung feels broken. Not in the external sense of the act itself. He feels broken in a deeper place, where you cannot touch and where he didn't even know he could feel something. This is the reason why, in the middle of the intercourse, he starts crying and wets the sheets with salty tears. He cries so quietly that you don't even realize it.

"Paint me".

"What?"

Jisung rolls up between the covers and straddles you.

"I wish you would paint all the colors of the world on me".

He moans and rubs his nose against the protruding bones of your neck. Tears dry on the skin of his cheeks. When you taste the salt on your tongue, you softly bite his chin.

"Paint is bad for your skin, you know that?".

Jisung bursts out laughing, and you laugh too in response.

"I know, but I would like a sun on my stomach. Or on my back".

You clasp Jisung's hips in your hands, anchoring him to your waist.

"You are bright already".

"And a meadow, too, all over my arms. And light, everywhere. Beams of light all over my face. I want to shine in the night".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"You'll be there right? After".

"Where?"

"On the other side".

You slide the brush over Jisung's shoulders, lying on the floor with goose bumps caused from the cold tiles.

"Don't move".

There are empty liquor bottles scattered on the floor, with a bittersweet smell lingering in the room and permeating the walls. No light. Many unlit cigarette everywhere, a few blood stains - or perhaps paint - on Jisung's feet. You keep painting without seeing where you are passing the brush.

"I will follow you everywhere, if I can".

"You know that it won't be possible for you".

"I know".

You kiss the colors on his skin and Jisung tastes like sweat and burnt wood.

"But maybe it's better this way".

Jisung reaches out his arm and tentatively finds the neck of a bottle, brings it to his lips and drinks the clear liquid, letting a few drops slide down his chin to his nodular neck. Jisung picks up the alcohol with his fingertips and brings it to his eyes, pressing a little. It stings at first, but then he begins to see stars in front of him, so close he thinks he can gather them in the palm of his hand.

"Do you want me to open the window?" you ask.

Jisung shakes his head and pushes you against him, causing the brushes to fall from your hands. He clings to your back and pet your hair, smelling it and tasting it with his tongue.

"Did you take your medicine?"

Jisung shakes his head and searches for cigarettes inside his pants. He manages to find one and places it between your lips.

"It won't be so bad".

You inhale the smoke and blow it out somewhere in the darkness of the room. You rest your lips on Jisung's without kissing him, the dry taste of tobacco invades his throat and he smiles with the corners of his mouth.

"I have to take you to the sea, near the cliffs. I can paint the waves on your cheeks. We can even jump from very high if you want. Or you can sleep on the sand and taste the water".

Jisung pulls the smoking stick from your fingers and takes a wide puff of smoke, holding it inside himself as much as possible, then pulls you against him and opens his mouth, breathing into you.

"It will be fine, Jisung".

Jisung laughs and feels his throat tighten in a thorny grip. He gasps and pushes the lit cigarette on the back of his hand. He grits his teeth.

"How come I'm not sure?"

You take his lips in between your fingers and squeeze them until they open wide, then you move closer and whisper everything to him. You whisper the world and the universe.

you are light you are white and red you are scarlet you are perfect you are alive alive alive you are not the rain because it keeps raining and I will always wait for you on the other side always because you are alive and you are here it will be okay

And it should be okay, it should be right. Jisung would have kissed you and said it's true, it's always okay when you're here. But no, he pushes you on the chest and shrugs, his eyes blazing and his lips frozen.

"Listen to me. Outside, somewhere in this infinite universe, there is a parallel world. I know for a fact that it exists, just as I know that in that world everything is right, as it should be here. There is a Jisung running across the grass on a sunny day, and you are chasing after him and falling down in an attempt to catch him. There's the two of us laughing and drinking until dawn, throwing ourselves on the ground and hugging each other so we don't get cold. We have flowers on the balcony and dew in our hair. It never rains. The sun always shines. This world really exists, and it's beautiful. But what you have to understand - what I want you to understand - is that this world, this one, it's not that. This is the reality that hurts, the one where you have to pay a price for your life. We can't run across a meadow here, because you picked me and adopted me out of pity. You even managed to fall in love with me, and that's the wrongest thing you could have done. Because you could really be bright, you could really shine, have flowers on the balcony and dew in your hair. But you chose me. And this is not the world in which everything is right. This is the world in which I am fading, the world in which I am losing the color that you are so desperately trying to put on me. But look what happen, look".

Jisung gets up and you can feel his small body clawing in the dark inside the room to open the balcony door and go outside. The apartment is suddenly pervaded with a gray light, reflecting the color of the sky. You look at Jisung, naked, stiff and trembling under the raindrops falling from above.

Jisung pulls his lips up in a distorted smile.

"See?"

Water runs down his back and the paint drips on the soles of his feet, sliding down to his short, pink nails.

"The color melts under the rain. It only lasts a few seconds before I come back to be as transparent as your canvas. And this is not the world where the sun shines. These are blackholes. Life, light, nature, they are all projections in my head. But you. You can still make it. You don't have to follow me. Don't follow my selfishness".

"Jisung, I have to".

Jisung trembles and the water rushes over him. The reality mocks him and everything he can love.

"No, you want to".

don't come with me you are my love

"Don't follow me to the other side. You will fade too".

You clench your fists and watch the drops wetting the ephebic figure in front of you. Jisung comes to you and blows desolate words into your face.

"When I ask you to paint me, don't. When I ask you to pity me, don't. When I beg you to come with me, please, don't".

"No. I must follow you. Everywhere. As long as there are black holes, I will be behind you. As long as this world sucks. As long as I breathe".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

One night you close your eyes and, instead of the sea, you see boundless steppes and barren grasslands. After what seems like miles and miles of dry lands, inside a small depression - almost a pit - you see Jisung, curled onto himself, all naked and with his limbs tangled together, hidden from the world. You don't ask yourself why you can see such a small body at such a distance, but your muscles set into autonomous motion and you find yourself running in that direction.

After endless minutes, you reach what seems to be the final destination, but the pit gradually moves away from you. However, for some reason, you can still see Jisung swinging himself with his face pressed into the dry earth.

You speed up your run and you begin to feel your throat tightening as the first drops of sweat make their way onto your forehead. Shadows cast themselves in the barren ground, but they are distorted by the shadow of your own body and of the dim, suffocating light of the sun. The image of Jisung blurs for a few seconds, and when it becomes clear again, those same shadows are catapulted onto him as well. You lift your head and you see dozens, hundreds, thousands of hawks flying in circles over Jisung's ditch, which tightens and lengthens as it becomes deeper.

The last steps of your run are slow, while the first hawk descends in slow motion on Jisung's soft face and begins to do something to his cheeks. You see Jisung's cheekbones become parched, almost to the point you fear that a gust of wind will blow them away. The second hawk glides beside the other, and you cannot get the soles of your feet off the dusty ground as it begins, slowly, as if it was foretasting a feast, to peck at Jisung's moist eyes.

Soft tears continue to gush, tiny raindrops that can nothing against the infecundity of the place where they stand. The thousands of hawks fly inside the pit and peck at the remnants of that dead body, tearing it apart with their hooked beaks. They chew the skin and swallow Jisung's life, paralyzed in his grave.

After what seems like centuries, they soar together in their cruel dance of farewell. Your feet finally unclench, but it's no longer necessary, because Jisung now stands in front of you, perfect. The tender, rosy flesh barely flushed on his cheeks and the slender, trembling body almost hairless, beautiful.

without

eyes.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

Jisung is tired. June is an agony of dampness spent under the sheets, and you spend countless nights hoping that Jisung's sobs will cease and he will finally sleep. July is no better. The heat is starting to get unbearable and Jisung wants to keep the windows closed, hooked shut, so that not a single draft of clean air can penetrate into the apartments. Along with that, he stops drinking.

You keep opening the windows, even if Jisung screams and cries like a baby, and you force his lips open with the help of your fingers, making him swallow some liquids. August is definitely a torture when he stops taking his painkillers and his stomach turns over, forcing him to vomit all day and all night.

There is no turning back now.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

"Tell me".

There is so much smoke inside the room that even if it wasn't that dark, it would be impossible to see more than an inch away from your face. You are lying half on the floor, half on Jisung's sticky thighs, smoking a cigarette that seems to be his only remaining foothold in his earthly existence.

"What?"

Jisung's voice is hoarse and distressing. It has changed exponentially in the past two weeks, since he refused to let you go outside to buy something to eat. You fighted against it, and he bit your hand viciously before starting to cry in shame.

"When you want to leave, tell me".

"You can't come with me. We've already discussed it".

"No, you have already discussed it. By yourself. You don't listen to what I say".

Jisung opens his lips and raises a graceful hand as if he was trying to slap you in the face. Eventually, the hand sags and the slap becomes a trembling caress.

"Jisung, please", you become pleading, tired and desperate. With your bandaged fingers you caress Jisung's thin knuckles, one by one.

"Just tell me. I won't follow you, I promise".

Jisung laughs. His head rests against the wall.

"You will follow me".

"Please".

Your lips meet in the compact darkness and they rub, dry, against each other in the memory of an old, worn-out passion.

"I love you, and you are a liar".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

When you manage to drag Jisung out of the house in September, you almost gave up. You don't know if it is because of the faint light or the clouds, but Jisung's once tan skin is now grayish, and it makes his figure looks unhealthy and contagious at the mere sight. You also brought out brushes, hundreds of them, and half-squeezed tubes of color.

"Why did you bring me here?"

The grass under Jisung's shoes rustles in response. You are in a park just outside the city, a destination for a few couples and students with nothing to do.

"You asked me to paint you".

"That was a long time ago".

You pick up the brushes from your bag and pull a forced smile between you lips.

"And you, quite a long time ago, told me you wanted to shine. Here, then".

The tube of yellow paint curls against the wooden palette and the brush bristles wet in contact.

"Lay down".

Jisung tries to deny it, but then he seems to see in you the edge of a precipice, and maybe he feels a rush of pity and compassion for both of you. He wonders how it is possible to have reached that point without someone having the heart to save you both. Or save at least you.

With an awkward movement he leans over the lawn and lies on his back, shivering from the drops of water trapped between the blades of grass. You kneel beside him and barely lift the edges of his shirt, uncovering his belly and round hips. Jisung closes his eyes and trembles when he feels your open mouth kissing the flesh near his navel. You begin to trace marks near that spot, dipping your brush occasionally into the color. When you finish that first step, you keep painting all around radially, as if the first object was the focal point of the entire image. With your fingers you caress his petite chest, the spots uncovered by the color, the skinny hips, and as much of Jisung as you can.

Once you are done, you lean forward. Jisung reaches out and gently touches your hair, entwining it between his index fingers and anchoring you to him. Jisung's entire chest is a cerulean expanse of sky. There is sky everywhere, interspersed with green tree foliage intertwining on the sides. Down, just above his pelvis, a clear sea joins the sky in a blue line of horizon. And in that small, hidden spot of the kiss, you painted a sun.

"Do you like it?"

Jisung opens his eyes and instead of your face he sees a black universe. He feels two tears sting and run down his cheeks, his chin and to his chest, wetting his lips folded into a smile.

"It's perfect".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

It's December when you think you feel Jisung moving on the bed and kicking off the covers. You also think you can feel his lips kissing you softly and his arms wrapping around your neck before sinking into the oblivion of sleep with his words in your mind.

remember you promised

But when you wake up, Jisung is not really there. The mattress is empty next to you and the sheets are tangled at the bottom of the bed. You snap to your feet, ignoring the dizziness and the fact that the room seems to be moving in circles around you.

"Jisung?"

You call him in a choked, shrill voice, a knot forming in your throat. You hear a ringing noise in you ears and you begin to search everywhere inside the apartment. You want to hope, you really do, that he just went out, but you cannot force yourself to believe in it because Jisung, by now, hasn't been out alone for months.

"Jisung?".

You look again, inside the shower stall, in the small balcony, under the couch, in the closet where you keep you painting canvas, inside the closet in the bedroom. But it's just when you are about to leave the house that you see it. On the living room table, between the keys and the fruit basket. A farewell letter.

You don't even understand how you actually got to pick it up, unfold it, and start reading it, that you tear it in two in your hands, teeth gritted and tears beginning to overflow from your eyes.

"Jisung".

You run outside without even closing the front door, engulfing the steps in trembling, messy strides. You reach the street and the only thing that you can think about is that I promised you, but you should have told me when you were about to go, you should have told me. You run on the road, crossing the roadway, risking getting run over, running on the sidewalks, running over people, running for hours. Until you see him.

For a moment you don't even notice him, caught up in the heat of your research. Yet it's him, standing in front of you. Perfect and naked, with a red dot on his forehead, like in your painting. Beautiful and full of life. As he has never been. As in an iconographic image branded in your head. And it's so perfect, and beautiful and full of life that you give in.

and yet you promised not to follow me

You close your eyes and take one step in his direction. Jisung smiles and spreads his arms wide, and so do you. An inch apart, and Jisung kisses you.

I love you.

You push back your tears.

"I am ready".

and you follow him.

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

You are 23 years old when you die. You are found in your apartment, lying on the floor, completely naked and smeared with paint. That's suicide, it is obvious, but nobody take a guess on why you decided to end your life.

When they take your body away, a dirty brush of yellow paint slips from your hand and ends up stepped on by the coroner.

Nobody finds dozens and dozens of canvases depicting the same boy. Nobody finds intact packages of painkillers. Nobody finds mint cigarettes and bottles of gin. Nobody finds a shredded letter saying "I am going". Nobody.

"You said you wouldn't follow me".

"You knew I would".

"I love you, and you're a liar".

+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*━━━*+:★:+*

Outside, somewhere in the infinite universe, there is a parallel world. There's a Jisung running on the grass on a sunny day, and you are running after him and falling down trying to catch him. There's the two of us laughing and drinking until dawn, throwing ourselves on the ground and hugging each other so we don't get cold. We have flowers on the balcony and dew in our hair. It never rains. The sun always shines. You could really shine, have flowers on the balcony and dew in your hair. But you chose me.

You chose me.

©️ jilixthinker, 2023. please do not copy, translate, or republish my works anywhere.

240 notes · View notes

katuschka · 15 days

Text

Scene One – Lampshade

Jake Kiszka x f!Reader (1st person narrative)

2.541 words

On my bedside table, I have a beautiful art deco lamp. When my lover leaves, he ties a scarf he wore for days on top. And when he’s gone I let my window open just a bit, the gentle breeze sets the scarf on motion, just like the waves in the tempestuous ocean. Once or twice, I swear, I could smell him in my dreams.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere.

Warnings: longing, alcohol consumption, penetrative sex, phone sex and masturbation, sex toys, phantasmagorical dream visions

Taglist

It’s been almost three weeks since I last saw him. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s not that bad, but the truth is that I always start missing him the moment he leaves. It’s a bittersweet feeling. I’m a grown, independent woman, engaging in my daily routines...or breaking them, just to stay sane.

But, it feels as if a part of my soul got attached to him. It travels with him wherever he goes and I feel it tugging at my insides every now and then. At first I thought it was just a side effect of the early stages of falling in love. I believed that it would get easier with time, but it never did. If anything, it only got worse.

It’s bearable during the day. My mind’s too preoccupied with my job, thank god. It’s not really much different from when he’s here. I still have my work to do and he’s busy too, until we finally meet at home to share a glass of wine or two. And then we fuck.

That’s why early evenings are the worst when he’s away. The house is just too big, too quiet, and my mind too restless. No sound of the strings being plucked greets me when I get home, no smell of savory dishes waiting for me in the oven or on the stove. I’m too lazy to do it myself, so I just order in, only to be reproached by him later that I’m not taking proper care of myself. My lover does all these things. My body’s spoiled with constant hugs and my cheeks peppered with warm kisses. So, on days like these, this is what his lady misses.

He knows that, so he tries to call anytime he can. It’s easier in between shows. He makes sure to call me around eight, even when it’s already 3 am where he’s at. Him being a night owl, this has never been a problem. Sometimes it’s just a quick hello to make sure I’m ok. Other times we talk for hours.

I didn’t expect anything like that today. He might call late or not at all. Probably not at all because today’s show was too important. He wanted me there, but I couldn’t go this time. I had an important project to finish and came home pleasantly exhausted. In a perfect world, we would celebrate our respective achievements together, but this world is not perfect, so I have to content myself with the fact that he is.

Well, not really, but I wouldn’t change a thing about him.

So, I just poured myself a glass of wine, climbed in bed early and tried to read, only to find myself checking the Instagram updates constantly. I don’t do it very often, because I’m not really keen on seeing hundreds of women swooning over him, but someone might be streaming the show, and I just couldn’t miss it.

Before he left, he fastened his scarf on my lampshade. That little piece of fabric is basically marinated in his scent – his strong, yet religiously comforting cologne mixed with the warm smell of him. I made sure to leave both the bedroom door and the window open, to create a slight draft. After three weeks, the scent had already faded a bit, but I still could get whiffs of him while falling asleep. Just like today. The livestream I found ended mid-show, but I wasn’t really paying attention anymore. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy long before the concert ended and without even bothering to turn off the light, I fell asleep with my phone still in my hand.

Except I couldn’t sleep. The thunderstorm in the distance and the billowing wind kept me awake. The sky was clear when I went to bed, so I couldn’t understand where the clouds came from. It didn’t matter anyway.

He was here. In my bed, sleeping. The intoxicating scent of clove and incense mixed with his musk wrapped around me like a second comfort blanket. The bedside lamp illuminated his disheveled hair and the clothes he had carelessly thrown over the armchair next to the bed. He was naked and all of the sudden, so was I.

It was our bedroom…and it wasn’t. The southern wall was gone, exposing us to the elements outside. Our garden turned to a stony shore, with the waves of a rough sea crashing upon it. Somewhere in the distance, I could see the storm raging.

I was feeling snug under the blanket, the warmth he elicited sheltering me from everything else around. I reached out to touch him. His skin was warm and dry and I snuggled closer to him from behind, inhaling the comforting aroma of his relaxed, sleeping body.

He never slept much. Sometimes I wondered how he could function after yet another sleepless night, and the dark circles under his eyes often worried me. But when he did fall asleep, he looked like a baby boy, his full lips slightly parted and his brows turned upwards. A man of paradoxes. He would fuck my brains out just moments after he spoon-fed me pistachio ice-cream. My doe-eyed barbarian. A romantic adventure, but a reptile too. Always offering something new. Just like the sky outside, with the full moon now illuminating the stormy sky. Where did it come from? It was hanging there in mid-air in front of the clouds, so big, so close it seemed that I could reach it with my fingers if I just stepped outside of the room.

But I didn’t want to. Instead, I slowly swirled around him like a serpent. I could feel him stir, his body responding to mine. It was a silent dialogue. He turned to me and pushed my chin upwards to nuzzle the soft skin behind my left earlobe. I could hear him murmur a prayer, the words of which I didn’t recognize, but I understood it anyway. I could feel his hand travel slowly down my belly, pulling my thighs apart, his palm sliding gently to my pussy and his middle finger slipping in between my folds. It’s been too long… My body reacted immediately. I arched my back and gasped for air as his moistened fingertip glided over my clit in slow circles. He kissed my shoulder and I could feel his parted lips stretch in a smile before he nibbled lightly on my skin covered with goosebumps.

He spread my thighs even more, like the petals of a blooming flower. I felt the weight of his body on mine as he shifted, obscuring my view, silencing the wind, his porcelain face dimming all the celestial lights behind him. He was coming home.

I cried out when he entered me, grabbing pillows on both sides of my head. He, too, yelped like a puppy, laying his head on my bosom just for a while, to gain his composure. I felt every exhale of his quickened breath on my skin, and enveloped his body with my limbs in a false promise to never let go.

He started moving inside me and I felt absolutely lightheaded, as if we were floating in an empty void. It got darker with each deep, long thrust until time and space around us disappeared and the only thing that tethered me to reality was the rhythm of his beating heart and the alluring sounds of his raspy moans. We moved together languidly, drunk in love, and the waves of pleasure running through my body intensified with each passing second. My fingernails dug into his skin…so deep until he suddenly stiffened and screamed in pain right next to left ear…

…nooo…at first I couldn’t tell where I was or who I was until the sound of my phone ringing on the pillow next to my head slowly brought me back to reality. I couldn’t believe it. What? Why? I looked at the screen and saw the name of the only person whom I could forgive for calling me right fucking now!

“Jake? Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I breathed out.

A moment of silence before the man on the other side responded. I must have sounded pre-t-t-y irritated. “Babe? Did I wake you up?”

Of course you did. What day is it? Oh yeah, it was slowly coming back to me. Madison Square Garden… “What time is it?” I breathed out.

“Almost one am here, your midnight. We just arrived at the hotel a moment ago, I haven’t even had a shower yet, I just had to hear…”

“Urgh,” I interrupted him with a groan, not in a reaction to what he said. My still not fully awakened body was just fighting with my mind as I tried to sit. I was still slightly disoriented and my coochie weeped. “I, uhm, I’m sorry baby. I just had a very intense erotic dream…the first one in years. And you just happened to interrupt it at the worst possible moment.”

“Oh, daamn!” he chuckled. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Not funny Jake. No one else but you could ever make me this wet. The sheets below me are literally soaked through.” I heard him inhale sharply on the other side. It took him a few more seconds to respond. “You’re wet?” It sounded a bit like a stifled groan, followed by him clearing his throat. Poor Jake, he was so taken aback by my response that Oliver had to take over. “Thaths probably because I was absolu-te-ly on fire tonight, my love! Telepathy must be one of my many superior powers. Now I need to clean the mess…”

“What do you mean?”

“Phone sex, obviously.”

I laughed. Nah, I’m not a fan. I love his voice, don’t get me wrong, but it couldn’t possibly make up for all the stuff that my subconsciousness flooded my brain with just a moment ago. Also, I’ve always found the idea of phone sex strangely disconcerting. We could do the most obscene stuff face to face without even batting an eye, but to be describing to him how I’m touching myself? No, thank you. I’d be embarrassed. Don’t know why. That’s just how it is, And that’s what I told him.

“Oh come on, let’s try it.” Jake was back. “Besides, it’s a mutual obligation now. I’m already hard.”

I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. “Ok Jake,” I crooned monotonously, “what are you wearing?”

“Oh GOD!” he moaned theatrically. “You sound so sexy when you’re bored. Mmmmm.”

I laughed again, in earnest. “Sorry,” I chuckled. “Ok, let’s try it. But I’m not going to describe what I’m doing. You tell me what to do.”

“Deal.”

I heard his sheets rustle as he shifted on his bed, which meant he already had me on speaker, so I did the same. I adjusted the pillows, stripped off my babydoll and tried to find a comfortable position. “Ok Jake, I’m ready.”

“Good girl. Now, close your eyes and cup your breasts. Let your thumbs draw slow circles around your nipples. No pressure.” His voice suddenly sounded huskier than before.

“Are you jerking off?” And then I heard it. The unmistakable sound of his fist sliding rhythmically up and down his cock. Of course he was.

“You can’t blame me sweetheart,” he breathed out. “I got here, still full of adrenaline from the show, only to hear you tell me that I was fucking you in your dreams. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

The sound of his heavy breath made my pelvic muscles contract and my heartbeat quicken. I licked my fingertips and let my hand slide between my legs, trying to ease the ache. “Talk to me Jake. Forget the nipples. Guide my fingers.”

“Who’s impatient now?” He let out an involuntary moan, swallowed harshly and continued: “Squeeze your clit between two fingers, scissor-like. Now rub from side to side and gently pull.”

I knew what he meant. His technique was completely different from mine and effective in its own way. I never tried to recreate it before. I did now, and it all suddenly came back to me. The dream, his touch, his dick, stretching me, fucking me, our loins dancing together to the rhythm of our heartbeats…

“Not enough,” I whined. “I need more, Jake.”

“Ok, time for Mini Me.”

That was yet another thing my lover did for me. We found a company that makes custom dildos using castings of real customers. Now, a cold piece of silicone can never compete with the real jake, but it was the next best thing whenever I needed to release the tension after a long day. I loved the shape of it. It was mine. I opened the drawer and reached for the toy. “Now what?”

“Ride me,” he groaned.

“How am I supp…”

“Let’s pretend we fell off the bed.”

“What?”

“Off the bed! Now!” he commanded. I climbed off the bed and attached the dildo to the wooden floor. “Mini Me’s ready. What now?”

“Now sit.”

I did as I was told. I got on my knees, placed the tip between my folds and slowly slid all the way down. Our roles reversed for a brief moment as I was now guiding him through. I heard him spit into his palm and groan with relief. It was his time to take the reins again. “Move,” he rasped. “Grab your hips and pretend it’s me. Set the pace, but tell me.”

I started moving my hips in a slow, sensual rhythm, while whispering up and down and up and down to him. I was now close to my bedside table, the fragrant scarf only a few feet from me. I closed my eyes. The illusion was almost perfect.

“That’s my girl,” he moaned. “Do you want to go faster?”

“No, this is fine.”

“Ok, continue baby. Let me hear you.”

We continued like that for several minutes, eyes closed, listening to each other. I could hear that he was close as his low moans turned to high-pitched whimpers. My thighs started shaking and I had to catch hold of the bedside table to ease the tension in my legs. I opened my eyes and that’s when I saw it. The multi coloured lampshade. As I was moving, so were the colorful lights before my eyes. It was like being there, under the stage lights, as I was listening to my man. The most beautiful song. It overwhelmed my senses and I came, screaming. From the haze of my own high, I heard him finish shortly afterwards.

I wanted to hear every detail of his show, and he wanted to know about my project, but we were both already too exhausted, so he promised to call me again in the morning. I knew he would, because that’s what my lover does.

@its-interesting-van-kleep @takenbythemadness @edgingthedarkness @writingcold @ignite-my-fire @klarxtr @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @fleet-of-fiction @lvnterninthenight @myownparadise96 @GVFstuddedmajesty @josh-iamyour-mama @jazzyfigz @sanguinebats @thewritingbeforesunrise

#greta van fleet #gvf #jake kiszka #jake gvf #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fanfic #jake kiszka smut #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fleet fanfic #gvf fanfic #gvf fanfiction

48 notes · View notes

kate-bot · 1 month

Text

OKAY SO I've gotten two asks about my Noisette cosplay AND THANK YOU SM FOR THE KIND WORDS !!!!!!!! It was sm fun to make this cos, so I will gladly explain everything I did in hopes that it might help someone else!! also both anons please share your cosplays with me when theyre done i would love to see them....

I've tried to link everything where I can, where I got stuff etc... I only rarely cosplay (although I am thinking of going as the noise in May Comiccon) and this was my biggest ever project so!! It's very trial-and-error! But without further ado

KATES EXTENSIVE(ish) GUIDE TO COSPLAYING NOISETTE FROM THE HIT GAME PIZZA TOWER!!!!!!! (warning its kinda long)

THE HAT

Okay i’m gonna be real my mum helped me so much she basically did all the sewing for me. Sewing is the fucking bane of my existence I hate doing it so much so we planned it out together and she basically executed it. Props to her for that she’s so real… She also wrote down what she did!! So i’ll just paste and colour that in for you to read!!

“The black material (seen in the above image) was originally a beanie hat that was picked apart to use as a template…

This was game changing basically. We had experimented with making the hat from scratch but it was far too difficult and we were both too stupid so we just unstitched a pre-existing hat and stole the template. The hat we cut up was one we had lying around for years so i cannot tell you where to get one from, but any beanie that is stitched together will work i guess! So I would recommend finding a hat that fits you snugly and doing the same thing!

…and the wool fabric that was utilised gave the finished product was stiff enough to be structurally sound.

I just got this from my local fabric shop, I would recommend wool over something like felt because it’s super sturdy and I was pulling on my mask a LOT.

Once sewn together, I attached a stiff card facemask to the front to help provide some structure, and to locate where the eye holes should be cut.

I think this picture shows it pretty well, my mum was able to curve the shape of the fabric to fit a pre-existing mask- we got ours from Hobbycraft, just one of those stringed white template masks yknow. We cut off the string, made the eyeholes a little bigger and just stuck it straight on!! I should mention this was pretty much all done with a sewing machine as well!

After that, we made two ears from a paper pattern, stuffed them and put some wire inside to allow them to be positioned, before sewing them onto this headband, which was then sewn into the hat. The bottom of each ear was also stitched to the crown to give it some additional stability and to secure the headband correctly in position (having fitted it on the wearer).

Yeah it was actually less of a mask and more of a headband!! That was what gave it most of the support and meant the ears would stay up, I’m not sure how it would work without it!! The ears were the only part that I could actually help with LMAO i just freehanded a little template, stuffed it, and then put in some modelling wire to make them able to be posed :)

Then it was a lot of hand sewing, and glueing the eyeholes to the mask to create a cohesive look.

AND YEAH that’s pretty much all it was! I also attached some little felt eyelashes to add to it as well. Honestly I could never come up with a step-by-step guide for the process because it was such a trial and error thing (i’d made two test-hats before we even came up with the method) but it was so fun!!

I would 100% recommend if you want the ears to stay UP to stuff them AS MUCH AS U CAN and/or put wire in them!! :) I also made some cute little bows to clip into my wig in the same fabric to make it more cohesive!! I also put a bow (and a bunny tail heheh) on the back of the dress too!!

THE DRESS

Super simple! I just found one online (okay for some reason the link has been taken off of the website, but just look up "overall dress" on google shopping and you will 100% find something super cute)- I made sure to buy the dress first, and then take it to the fabric shop to try and colourmatch the mask fabric as best as I could. Then it was just buying some big ol buttons off eBay and sewing them on!! (I could actually do that bit by myself, I'm bad at sewing but im not THAT bad)

EVERYTHING ELSE

Cute patterned knee-high socks cuz shes cute like that. Leg warmers, I think I got them both off of Amazon... Converse I got from Depop and I had wanted to buy a pair anyway so I was super stoked to get them cheap!! I chose converse over a pair of high-heels or Mary Janes just for comfort reasons, I was walking around loads at the con so... Everything else apart from the shirt was from Amazon or just. Somewhere online(I have no idea where to get fancy white gloves LOL) and the shirt was from Depop as well! I liked how frilly it was, re: Noisette is cute like that!!

oh yeah and the wig. I hate wigs it was awful. I have no idea how to style them. underneath the hat was the most awful bowl cut ever I just. It wasn't my best moment. Dont ask me about wigs please .

Also I should mention I got this bag for the cosplay (which I now use all the time cuz its so cute) because i needed space to store shit and I wanted something on-brand with her cafe... this isnt the exact link I used but I just got it off of ebay :P

PROPS

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of WIP pictures of my props but they were pretty simple to make!! The coffee cup was literally just spraypainting over a reusable coffee cup and using POSCA pen to draw on the front! Fun fact the cup says "To Peppino" because originally my boyfriend was gonna go with me as Peppino before the Cruetly Squad brainrot got to him so. YEA

And the tip jar was also pretty simple, I just painted on the lid a plastic jar (can't be glass, not allowed at ComicCon) and cut out a bit of vinyl to work as the sign. The cobweb was just hot-glued 3D printer filament, and the spider was made with foam modelling clay (literally the best thing ever if you're making small models like that) and i stuck him to the lid of the jar with Kandi string so he'd bounce around :]

AND I THINK THATS IT!! i may as well post a pic of the full cosplay since I dont think many people would have made it this far.... But I think it turned out pretty cool!! I got recognised a few times as well which was amazing!! (cropped out my bf cuz idk if he wants his face on tumblr gfhhfg)

SO YEAH!!!! if anyone has any questions please let me know.. but GOOD LUCK IN UR COSPLAY MAKING FRIENDS!!!! :D

#ask #pizza tower #noisette pizza tower #noisette cosplay #pizza tower cosplay #Yes this is very longwinded! But I really wanted to include all the details!!!#also second anon im so sorry it took me so long to reply i completely blanked on its existence #I HOPE THIS IS HELPFUL TO SOMEONE... ANYONE #re:noise cosplay in may? i'd love to try out making a mask (like out of paper-mache of his whole face) rather than a fabric one #might be fun? not sure #also face reveal ig i hate How i look in the cos cuz i rely so much on my hair to look half decent but.#IN THE NAME OF HELPING SOMEONE... ough #anyway ill stop rambling #thank u for the asks!!!!!

31 notes · View notes

tsarisfanfiction · 8 months

Text

A Single Drachma

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rated: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship Characters: Michael, Clarisse, Chris Alone. Injured. Hunted. Michael doesn't know where he is, but he knows he's running out of time, and he's only got one shot at calling for help. He's got to make it count. I'm a bit late posting it here because rl, but this was a fic written for @pod-together and my podficcer partner for the event was once again the amazing @stereden, who I also worked with for this event last year and once again had an absolute blast with! I pushed the boat out rather further this year in terms of length (there is actually a lot more to this story planned, but it became unrealistic to podfic... that being said I am still hoping to finish writing it at some point, for all that this does currently work as a stand-alone). We both had a lot more free time this year, and we definitely made sure we used it! I've lost count of how many times I've listened to Stereden's various takes on the podfic but it's been so much fun to work with her on this again this year! I was in a massive Michael&Clarisse mood when the event first started, and Stereden is a fantastic enabler who was more than willing to let them be the focus of the plot for our project, so here we are, and I hope you all enjoyed reading and listening to this as much as I did creating it! You can find the podfic to listen to here (go, listen to it! It’s amazing!)

After so long in darkness, the light of the sun was blinding. Michael’s tolerance for bright lights had always been higher than most, just like his siblings, but as he staggered out onto the street, limping heavily and doing his utmost to ignore the various signals of this fucking hurts different parts of his body were sending to his brain in discordant harmony, his eyes narrowed into a blurry squint. He stumbled, biting back a curse as his leg protested loudly at the bulk of his weight being forced onto it, and raised a dirty, shaking hand to shade his watering eyes from the worst of the glare.

Where was he?

With a wince he couldn’t hold back, he limped a few steps forwards, impatiently waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, until he almost collided with a wall. Knocking his shoulder - the less-bad one, the one that was only bruised and not taunting him with fears of dislocation - against it, he awkwardly shuffled until he was leaning heavily against the painted brickwork, shifting his weight until it was off of his right leg.

It still had the audacity to fucking hurt, and Michael could feel his left leg trembling from the strain, less injured but no less exhausted than the rest of his body, but there was nothing he could do about it except lean harder on his shoulder, shoving as much of his weight as possible onto the building.

He needed to keep moving; he knew that. His arm stung, his newest injury still bleeding sluggishly. Michael could hear the slow yet steady drip, drip, drip of the liquid onto the ground. He’d run out of useable fabric to tear into makeshift bandages a while back - his clothes were in tatters, and stained with so many things he didn’t want to think about that using them to wrap an open wound was probably begging for a dose of tetanus, as though he needed any more problems on top of everything he had already.

Leaning against the building was the most relief he’d had in days, though, and Michael was at loathe to give it up. He glanced towards the sun again, still blindingly bright and near-impossible to look at. Hi, Dad, he thought, his mental tone somewhere between bitterness and despair. Apollo hadn’t contacted him for a long time, not since the night before they left for Manhattan, and Michael missed his father’s dream visits. He didn’t understand why they’d stopped - he’d feared, for a while, that Apollo had fallen to Typhon , that despite the lack of Kronos stomping around suggesting that they’d won the war his father had been lost for good.

Deep down, he still feared that - despite the freak saying things to the contrary - because if it wasn’t true, if Apollo hadn’t been destroyed, then that meant his father had been ignoring all of his pleas for help.

Apollo had been answering him reliably since he was a small kid, before he’d even realised the guy he dreamed about frequently was real and his father. There was no good reason for him to have stopped.

And yet he had.

Where the fuck are you, Dad? he thought at the sun. And where the fuck am I?

He lowered his hand, squinting against the bright light of the sun as it inflicted a fresh assault on his eyeballs, and took stock of his surroundings.

It was some sort of side street. Not enclosed enough to be an alley but no major thoroughfare - Michael could see a busier street, if he squinted against the shadows and too-bright sun hard enough, running perpendicular to the end of the street he was in. People passed through with purpose, none of them batting an eyelid at a messy, injured demigod leaning against the painted bricks and no doubt leaving some crimson stains behind. Was that the Mist at work, or was he somewhere where no-one even noticed bleeding teens?

Michael didn’t really care. Both options were far better than where he’d been, where he was running from.

He needed to keep moving, no matter how much his body protested, but first he needed a plan. Running blindly wouldn’t help; he hadn’t shaken his pursuers despite his best efforts so far, and he wasn’t naive enough to hope he’d shaken them now, either. But now that he was out, he had a chance.

His hand tightened its grip around his precious prize, the one small shard of hope that had crossed his path amongst the pain and fear. Firm edges pressed into his palm in a way that would be almost painful, if his body’s resting pain threshold wasn’t currently up around ten out of ten, a reassurance that he hadn’t lost it, hadn’t dropped it as he ran.

Michael had no weapons. He had no way to fight off his pursuers, no way to make them stop following him for good. Hand-to-hand had been out of the question even before the injuries started stacking up; he’d never done well enough in that during training to treat it as anything other than a last, desperate, resort. Here, where defeat meant getting dragged back to the freak, it was even lower on his list of non-existent options than normal.

But what he did have was one, single golden drachma. A stroke of luck amongst everything else, because drachma meant communication, and communication meant help. He could call Chiron, ask the old centaur to send someone his way, and warn him about the freak while he was at it.

Once he knew where he was.

He only had one drachma, one chance to make a call. He had to make it count.

It didn’t take Michael long to come up with a plan, if it could even be called that. Step one, find out where he was. Step two, find a rainbow and make the call.

Don’t get caught in the process.

He’d lingered too long. He knew he had. With a groan he forced his body upright again, biting back a scream as his right leg buckled and almost collapsed, and shoved himself away from the wall. The movement pushed him into a run, one leg in front of the other with no pause to think, for all that they both threatened to crumple beneath him as he staggered forwards, each step sending a bolt of pain up his right leg.

Michael stumbled his way towards the busier street. He didn’t know if it was a major enough street to have helpful signs like “welcome to”, but it was the best shot he had at finding where he was.

Several times, he almost fell, barely catching himself on the building walls, but he made it to the larger street without picking up any more injuries.

It didn’t have a “welcome to” sign, or any other defining characteristics that might have at least given Michael a clue. Cars drove past him without a second look, not that Michael intended on getting in one, anyway. It would be infinitely easier than walking, but the freak had a lot of influence. Michael couldn’t trust anyone not to be part of his many, many circles. Until he made contact with Chiron, he couldn’t risk talking to anyone.

The street ran east and west, as straight as an arrow, and Michael barely even had to think before he was turning east, glancing up at the sun as he did so and sending yet another silent and rushed prayer his father’s way.

Apollo had guided him to safety before. Why couldn’t he do it again?

Passing mortals paid him no more attention on the major street than they had on the side street. Michael still didn't know if that was due to the Mist concealing the various injuries and blood dripping from hastily wrapped (and in some cases unwrapped) wounds, or if they really just didn't care in this place. Not that the why actually mattered; at least no-one was stopping him.

It was only going to be a matter of time before they found him again, and Michael needed to have figured out where he was and called Chiron by then. If they caught up to him here, he didn’t stand a chance.

The thought spurred his protesting body on, legs screaming and lungs hauling in as much air as they could stand. There had to be some sign, somewhere, to tell him where he was. A café name, roadsigns, billboards. Something.

He reached an intersection just as the lights turned green for the cars. A glance behind him didn’t show any obvious pursuit but Michael couldn’t risk it. He dashed forwards, dodging honking vehicles, and felt his leg buckle halfway across, but he snarled and pushed on, refusing to let it surrender to the break just yet.

Not until he was safe.

It was probably more luck than skill that got him across without being knocked down by a irate driver, but Michael didn't pause when his feet met the sidewalk once more, leaving the cacophony of chaos behind him as he kept running. His lungs were starting to burn; no demigod endurance could keep going forever, and Michael had been fleeing for days, weeks, he didn’t even know. He’d long since lost track of time.

There were more than a few near-misses with crashing into mortals on the street, his legs not quite up for intense manoeuvrability and reliant mostly on other people getting out of his way, and more side streets crossed - more than one involving a game of chicken with cars and the accompanying soundtrack of blaring horns and swearing drivers - but Michael didn’t let himself stop. Couldn’t stop.

Where was he?

His eyes scanned the streets as he ran, desperately searching for any sign, a familiar name to latch onto, but his dyslexia kept jumbling anything that might be helpful and he didn’t dare stop long enough to decipher it. He couldn’t hear any pursuit yet, but he knew with a certainty deep inside his bones that they’d come. If he hadn’t lost them in there, he wouldn’t lose them here.

Another intersection - complete with more cars and horns, and Michael almost collapsing in the middle of the asphalt as his leg buckled alarmingly - and the buildings sharply receded on the other side of the street, leaving a large lawned area with a broad paved path leading directly up to an impressive building. People milled about, sitting on the edge of the cacti-infested planter that ran up the middle of the path, signifying it as a public place, and Michael made a snap decision.

It was the first thing he’d seen that seemed like it could tell him where he was, and further down the street he could see a fountain.

He clutched the drachma tighter, certain it had to be leaving jagged red marks in his skin, and ploughed across the street, his run disintegrating into more of a rapid limp as he dragged himself towards the building. There were words emblazoned above what was clearly the entrance, and flapping banners covering the outside of the second floor windows, more images than words.

When he drew to a stop outside, chest tight with pain and almost all his weight on his left leg, which trembled frantically as it desperately tried to bear it, he blinked at the large words, willing them to arrange themselves in a way that made sense.

AZRINOA STATE MEUSUM

No, that wasn’t right.

Arizona State Museum.

Arizona.

Michael had never been to Arizona before in his life, but the state name triggered an immediate memory of crackling spears and loud, abrasive words.

Clarisse.

He’d had a lot of time to think, while the freak had him. Time to get angry at the daughter of Ares, time to shout and curse her existence, to blame her for the battle going wrong, for the hellhounds tearing Nathan apart, for the shockwave that had sent half his siblings cascading off the shaking bridge-

But then time to go hollow, time to remember that the Ares cabin was never going to be stationed with the Apollo cabin, that the deaths wouldn’t have been prevented.

Time to realise that it wasn’t Clarisse’s fault. That in the grand scheme of things, their argument had been petty and inconsequential.

Gods, but the Fates had a sense of humour, dropping him in Arizona, of all places.

Michael didn’t know which city held the state museum, if it was Phoenix or Tucson or somewhere else entirely, but… Clarisse would know.

Clarisse, for all that they’d never got on, had always been a strong leader. She might hate him, might have told him she hoped he died (and he almost had and that still stung, a little), but she was prepared for trouble and Michael had never seen her without at least two visible weapons on her.

Hades, he’d been on the receiving end of them a few times, when their arguments got too heated. Lee, and Emily before him, had always told him off whenever he landed in the infirmary again after a fight with her.

The drachma felt heavy in his hand.

Michael turned away from the museum and pushed his body to start moving again, a walk that turned into a jog until he dragged it into a full run again, leg screaming in agony but something almost like hope starting to bloom in his chest.

He just had to reach the fountain. The Arizonian sun blazed down above him; there had to be a rainbow shimmering in the droplets somewhere, and then he could call for help.

The back of his neck prickled as his staggered run took him out of the museum grounds and back onto the street, and the blooming hope stuttered before it had much of a chance to grow. He threw a glance down the street, back the way he’d come, even as he pressed forwards towards the fountain, glistening in the sunlight. No sign of pursuit, but that didn’t mean anything. Michael hadn’t survived this long by not listening to his instincts, and the sudden tenseness at the top of his spine told him he had to run.

So he ran.

Jagged agony shot up his broken leg as he pushed it further, stumbling but refusing to fall even when tears of pain started leaking from the corners of his eyes and his breathing took on a whine of desperation that rang in his ears.

He almost crashed into the edge of the fountain, hands reaching forwards to brace himself against it and absorbing the impact. The drachma in his hand dug in deeply enough Michael wouldn’t have been surprised if it had drawn blood, but he’d take that a thousand times over dropping it now, so close to being able to use it.

Exposed and with no cover, if he lost it and the cry for help it afforded him now, it would be over for him.

Dashing away the tears of pain with the back of his hand, and wincing as the salt stung open scratches, he glared at the fountain, desperately searching for the glimmer of colour that had to be there, somewhere. The sun and the falling droplets of water were present, he just had to find -

There.

It was halfway around the fountain from where he’d stopped, and he clawed his way around the edge, leaning heavily on the white stone rim and letting his right leg abandon his weight. His left leg, and the arm he was bracing himself with, both trembled angrily, but Michael wouldn’t fall here. Not now.

The rainbow shimmered in front of him and he forced his fingers to unfurl from their death grip around the drachma, streaked red with angry lines where the coin had imprinted almost every detail onto his palm.

“Oh, Goddess, accept my offering,” he mumbled. His voice rasped in his ears after however many days it had been since he’d last had a reason to talk out loud, hoarse in his throat - maybe he should’ve taken a drink from the fountain first, but there wasn’t time for that - but hopefully the words came out clearly enough for Iris to understand. He tossed the drachma into the rainbow with a shaking hand.

“Clarisse La Rue.”

Fuck.

He hadn’t planned on calling Clarisse.

Even if he was in her home state, Chiron would know where things like the state museum was, and crucially, the centaur had never told him to die .

But the drachma was gone, the only one he had, and he’d said the name now. He dashed more tears - pain, frustration - away and stared at the rainbow, waiting for the call to go through and knowing he wasn’t at all prepared to talk to Clarisse, but that he had to.

Nothing happened.

The rainbow shimmered, glistening in a way that didn’t quite seem natural, and Michael stared at it in horror.

“C’mon,” he muttered, glancing back the way he’d come. Still no signs of pursuit, but his instincts were screaming at him. “C’mon, connect, why aren’t you fucking connecting?”

The rainbow pulsed lightly, as though it was still waiting for something, and realisation crashed over Michael.

“Fuck.” He hadn’t said where Clarisse was - where was Clarisse? He didn’t know, didn’t know if she was even still alive, let alone if she was at camp or if she’d left camp now, or... “Fuck. I don’t- Where the fuck is Clarisse? Iris- fuck- Lady Iris, please.” His hand clenched into a fist as he leaned forwards and rested almost the entirety of his weight on the rim of the fountain. Breathing was supposed to be easier than that but the air kept getting caught in his throat and distantly he realised he was panicking, sensing his hope slipping away from one slip of the tongue. “Clarisse La Rue at… fuck, I don’t know. Camp Half-Blood?”

His right leg buckled and he clamped his mouth shut against the cry of pain as broken bone fragments slipped against each other. More tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he turned his head, wiping them away frantically in the dirty remains of the fabric on his shoulder.

When he looked back up, Clarisse La Rue was staring at him out of the centre of the rainbow, eyes wide in shock.

She looked older than when he’d last seen her, hair semi-neatly chopped around her cheeks and small scars he didn’t remember peppering across her face. She was bigger, too, always broad-shouldered but now easily twice his width, and Michael was pretty sure she was even taller.

“Clarisse,” he rasped, too relieved to even care how frantic he sounded. “Help. ”

“Michael?” she asked. “You’re dead.”

The bark of laughter that erupted from his mouth wasn’t humorous in the slightest. Fuck, camp thought him dead? It made sense, explained why no-one had ever come looking, but-

Fuck.

“Not fucking quite,” he replied hoarsely. The back of his neck tingled again and he glanced back the way he’d come. Still no sign, but that didn’t make him feel any safer. “Not yet.”

Her brown eyes sharpened, narrowing from wide-eyed shock to the assessing daughter of Ares Michael had seen so many times before. “What happened to you?” she demanded. “And why are you calling me?”

“Fuck if I know.” He looked around again, and caught sight of movement in the distance. Movement that didn’t seem natural for mortals going about their day. “Fuck. I’m in Arizona, don’t know where the fuck except the state museum’s just down this road and if I don’t find somewhere safe to hide - or at least some fucking weapons to fight back with - now I’m fucking dead for real.”

“I know where you are,” Clarisse said. Michael saw her glance away from the IM for a moment, then nod firmly, a familiar stubbornness settling into her expression. “There’s a big building behind the fountain.” He looked up and nodded. “That’s the state university. Get around the back of it then follow the boulevard east through the campus. Once you’re out of the campus, keep following the street east for six blocks, then go left, then get to the park on the right. There’s an unused building in the far corner; mortals think it’s locked but it’s not. It’s one of my safehouses. You’ll find weapons there.”

Through the college campus and then another six blocks. Michael’s leg throbbed in protest but he set his jaw and nodded. He could do that.

He had to do that.

“Thanks,” he rasped, glancing back again. The shapes were clearer, bulky individuals that clearly hadn’t figured out exactly where he was yet but were searching. “Fuck. Gotta go.”

He slashed an arm through the rainbow, cutting off Clarisse’s “Mi-”, and pushed himself away from the fountain.

Time to run.

Michael knew that his leg shouldn’t be able to keep moving, let alone running. A mortal could never have managed it, and he was pretty certain most demigods couldn’t, either. Being the son of Apollo had its perks, but that didn’t stop it sending vicious stabs of pain up through his body with every step, reminding him loudly and furiously that son of Apollo or not, he wasn’t doing it any favours and sooner or later it was going to run out of endurance.

Oblivious college students didn’t even seem to blink as he ran past them, adrenaline flooding his body and pushing him further, further, faster. Fear of being caught and the hope of safety ahead of him worked in tandem to urge him on, slamming away the pain with extreme prejudice and forcing his legs, both the broken one and the merely exhausted one, to keep going, one foot in front of the other and jarring with every step. The campus stretched out before him, seeming impossibly long, and in the back of his mind a small voice despaired that he’d never make it.

He told the voice to shut the fuck up and kept going.

The sun beat down as he ran, sweat joining with blood to leave a trail behind that he was painfully aware of but could do nothing about. All he could do was hope that he had enough of a headstart to outrun them to Clarisse’s safehouse. And that Clarisse would think to tell Chiron, because fuck, he’d forgotten to tell her to.

The first sounds of active pursuit reached his ears as he passed a set of tennis courts near the end of the campus, lungs burning, chest heaving, legs screaming, and he glanced over his shoulder to see students being pushed out of the way by larger, armed and dangerous, figures.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

His body had nothing left to give but Michael wasn’t going to let it surrender. Not now, not when he finally had a chance to get away. He ignored the voice in his head that said that a safehouse wasn’t much good if they saw him go into it, and that he didn’t stand a chance in combat even if he did get his hands on weapons, because it didn’t matter how true it was, it was still all he had.

He accelerated again, finding speed he didn’t know he was capable of even with two intact legs and not on the cusp of exhaustion, and bolted across the last few yards of the campus, hurtling across the street without stopping and forcing cars to swerve to avoid hitting him, and kept going.

One block.

Behind him, more car horns sounded and drivers started shouting. Something sounded like it hit something hard.

Two blocks.

Something went crunch and the shouting abruptly stopped.

Three blocks.

Michael’s lungs were on fire. He couldn’t even feel his legs any more, which definitely wasn’t a good thing.

Four blocks.

Fresh shouting started up, low and guttural and undoubtedly aimed at him.

Five blocks.

His lungs transitioned from on fire to non-operational, each breath a constricting choke as he ploughed on.

Six blocks.

Michael skidded around the corner, crossing the intersection to more irate cars and almost toppled over at the change of direction. He caught himself on a wall and all but bounced off of it, lurching down the sidewalk and knowing it was too much to ask that his pursuers hadn’t seen him make the turn but part of him begging whichever gods might be listening that they’d missed it anyway.

The park on the right, Clarisse had said, and Michael almost stumbled over his own feet as he caught sight of greenery after a moment of desperate running.

A javelin sailed past him, missing only because his leg buckled and listed him to one side for a heartbeat, and Michael’s stomach leapt up into his throat. Not now, not now he was so close.

He threw himself into the greenery the moment it opened up, using the shrubbery for what little cover it could give him, but it was barely moments before he heard the leaves get brushed aside behind him. Guttural cursing in a language Michael didn’t know but had got used to hearing was far too close as he frantically scanned the far side of the park for the building Clarisse had mentioned.

Where was it where was it where was it where the fuck was it-

There!

On the far side of the park, sheltered by trees on multiple sides, was a building that looked old and rundown. Chains and padlocks wrapped around the door, but as Michael focused on it, they shimmered and fell away.

He hadn’t known Clarisse could manipulate the Mist that well, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He didn’t have time to complain.

There was still half the park to cross and he wasn’t going to make it unless he found another burst of speed from Hades-knew-where. He choked on more air, willing his legs to go faster, but he still couldn’t feel them, not even the pain from the break, and he definitely wasn’t speeding up.

If anything, he was slowing down.

Fuck no. He wasn’t going to get caught, not here. Not now . He leaned forwards, desperate for just a little more speed, and felt something snag his feet.

He landed on his front hard enough to see stars, every part of his body compressing in a way that made him feel sick, or perhaps that was the knowledge that he’d never get up and away in time. It didn’t stop him trying, pushing himself upright on arms that were shaking almost too much to bear his weight, one shoulder screaming as it reminded him it probably wasn’t in its fucking socket, determined to fucking crawl if he had to.

Electricity crackled.

“Back off!” a female voice roared , footsteps running towards him from where he’d been trying to get to. Michael’s first thought was that he must have hit his head when he fell, because that was Clarisse’s voice.

He dragged his head up just in time to see a figure jump over him, barely an instant before there was the clash of weapons behind him.

Rolling over was marginally easier than trying to stand up. It brought with it a reprise of pain from his broken leg that jolted back into awareness so quickly he barely choked down a cry, but more importantly gave him a front row seat to Clarisse La Rue in nothing but jeans and a t-shirt wielding a familiar electric spear with a vengeance against the freak’s employees as they found themselves on the back foot, clearly not expecting to face anything more than a desperate, injured demigod they’d already run into the ground.

A skilled daughter of Ares with a weapon gifted to her by the god of war himself was not a desperate, injured and run into the ground demigod.

Michael had seen the Germani fight before, when the freak wanted entertainment. They were skilled and powerful, far more so than most demigods - but Clarisse was not most demigods, and had surprise on her side.

He pulled himself backwards with trembling hands, away from the fight, until his back hit something solid. A panicked glance upwards revealed that it was the trunk of a tree - not a rogue Germani trying to get around Clarisse - and Michael reached up with his less-bad arm for a low-hanging branch to haul himself to his feet with, much to the protest of his entire body.

If one of the Germani did get around Clarisse, he refused to be vulnerable on the ground. He could still run to the safehouse if he had to, leg be damned .

For the moment, he let the trunk of the tree take most of his weight, keeping his right leg off the ground and gripping the trunk with white knuckles to stay upright while he watched Clarisse fight.

She’d always been an impressive fighter, but the demigod in front of him here was a whole different class to the one he remembered from before Manhattan. The IM hadn’t deceived him - she was slightly taller and muscular since he’d last seen her - but there was a confidence to her that felt different, almost more natural.

Or maybe he was just so relieved to be saved that his mind had entered delirium. That was certainly possible.

Whatever it was, Clarisse clearly needed no help in finishing up the fight, her spear whirling around and dispatching the startled Germani in a typically child-of-Ares display of aggression, until the last one disintegrated into dust.

Michael was not ready for Clarisse to turn and face him, towering over him the way she always had done and racking him over with narrowed brown eyes. There were some bleeding scratches on her front, and a rather more considerably bleeding gash on one arm, but she didn’t seem to notice them as she stepped towards him. Instinctively, Michael straightened, his weight automatically transferring back to both his legs, and provoking another blinding protest from the right one.

“Clarisse,” he croaked.

“What happened to you?” she demanded, voice sharp and unyielding. “You died in Manhattan.”

“The fuck I did,” he protested. “Some fucking emperor-god-wannabe fished me out the river and dragged me off.” At least, that was what he’d gathered after the fact. He didn’t remember anything between the bridge collapsing and waking up in the freak’s floating villa, which had taken far too fucking long to escape from.

He didn’t expect Clarisse to believe him, though. It sounded fantastical, he knew it did, wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t lived it himself. But it was the truth.

To his surprise, Clarisse’s gaze sharpened. “Emperor-god?” she demanded, and there was something in her tone that made Michael’s default defensive snap back falter briefly, because it sounded like she did, somehow, believe him.

Still, “that’s what I fucking said,” he retorted after a few seconds, the familiarity of arguing an unlooked-for comfort washing over him even though he didn’t want to argue, still needed Clarisse’s help badly. “Freak said he was one of the Roman bastards despite the fact they’ve been dead for fucking millennia. Called himself Caligula.”

The soft shit that slipped out of Clarisse’s mouth seemed like a reflex, and Michael blinked as she set the butt of her spear on the ground. “Let’s move,” she said, glancing around. “We can talk once we’re somewhere more secure.”

That, Michael agreed with, and he took a step away from the trunk.

His body did not agree.

Enough, said his leg, at the same time adrenaline drained away, leaving his head lighter than air.

He crumpled.

“Shit!” Large, warm hands caught his shoulders in a grip of iron. “Michael!”

Michael snarled weakly and tried to get his leg under him again. “I’m fine,” he insisted, knowing it was a lie. He wasn’t fine, but he hadn’t hit his limit yet - he refused. He dragged his head up to meet Clarisse’s searching gaze.

She snorted. “Pull the other one, Yew.”

To his surprise, she sank down in front of him, and by the time his brain realised what was going on he was slumped over her shoulders, pinned in place by an arm around his leg and hand clamped around his wrist.

“The fuck, La Rue?” he yelped as she grabbed her spear with the hand not holding him in place and straightened up. “I can fucking walk!”

“This is faster,” she said. “Instead of slowing us down, keep an eye out for more of Caligula’s people.”

Michael tried to be offended, but as she broke into an even jog, he had to at least privately concede the point. The movement jostled his broken leg, thankfully not the one she was using to hold him in place, and he fought back whimpers, but after so long running under his own steam, it was a relief not to have to, anymore.

Even though it meant a fireman carry from Clarisse.

It was easier to let his head hang than try to hold it up, and his matted hair made a curtain that was difficult to see through, but Michael had no desire to be ambushed by more Germani - more of Caligula’s people, and he was starting to wonder how much Clarisse knew about the freak, how she knew anything about him in the first place. He squinted past his hair, watching the park behind them as Clarisse jogged forwards, and then the street as she passed the safehouse without pausing.

“Where’re we going?” he asked, watching the building get smaller for a moment before flicking his attention back to the street.

“My apartment,” Clarisse said shortly. “It’s more secure than that.”

Clarisse’s apartment? “Your mom’s place?”

She snorted. “No. My apartment. You just ran through my college campus.”

It hadn’t occurred to Michael that Clarisse would be in college, now. Fuck, they were the same age; if she was in college, then if it wasn’t for the freak, he probably would be, too - if he’d ever decided what the Hades he wanted to do.

“Huh,” was the only noise he could summon in response, followed by another muffled whine as his broken leg jarred again. Fuck, he missed the pain numbing properties of adrenaline. Clarisse’s grip on his wrist shifted, and he realised that she’d heard it. She didn’t mention it, though, just kept up with the jog as though he didn’t weigh a thing.

In his current state, he probably didn’t as far as she was concerned.

Wherever Clarisse lived, it felt a long way away. Maybe it was because she wasn’t running in a flat-out sprint, but the journey seemed to take forever. More than once, Michael found his eyes starting to slide shut, exhaustion fighting for dominance, and forced them open again, unwilling to risk missing a threat.

Nothing attacked them. Michael could feel the tension in Clarisse’s shoulders rising the longer they went without being attacked, but she drew to a halt outside an apartment building unchallenged.

“Still awake?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Good.” She turned around, looking back the way they’d come for herself and giving Michael a clearer view of the building, complete with the flight of stairs they were no doubt about to go up. Seemingly satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything, she then turned back and continued towards what was clearly her apartment door.

Michael’s leg did not approve of the stairs. Clarisse went slower than he expected, the rise and fall of her body minimal, but still his leg complained and more than one hiss forced its way past gritted teeth on the ascent. Her grip on his wrist tightened, but she still said nothing. Michael appreciated it.

Eventually, they came to a stop outside a plain door, indistinguishable from the rest of the apartment doors. Michael wasn’t sure how Clarisse was planning on opening it with her spear in one hand while the other kept hold of him, but he wasn’t expecting for her to call, “it’s him.”

The door was yanked open so fast, Michael half-expected it to fly off the hinges.

“Michael?”

He forced his head to raise, his hair falling mostly out of his face so that he could see over Clarisse’s shoulder.

“Chris,” he rasped, not liking the way the son of Hermes was looking at him in horror. “Take it you two are still together, then?”

“Yeah,” Clarisse confirmed as she walked past her boyfriend, who shut the door behind them. At the click of the catch falling into place, Michael let his head sag again. “Down you go.”

Michael didn’t manage to brace himself before spilling out of Clarisse’s grip, but he didn’t have to as he was gently laid on a throw-covered couch, his limbs limp and boneless as he sank into the fabric.

It felt heavenly.

“Gods,” Chris breathed, kneeling on the floor next to him, dark eyes surveying him from head to toe. Michael heard the quiet click of a catch opening and his eyes flitted to look at the floor, where Chris had a large plastic box cracked open on the rug. “Eat.” A small square of ambrosia was held up in front of him. Michael forced a shaking hand to take it from him and slipped it into his mouth, instantly feeling the relief that came from eating the godly food.

Hades, how long had it been since he’d last had ambrosia? The freak certainly hadn’t ever given him any.

He let his arm fall heavily back onto the couch as he savoured the taste.

“Let me treat your wounds,” Chris insisted. He was already pulling on gloves, and Michael eyed him in surprise. The son of Hermes huffed. “I know I’m not an Apollo kid, but my dad is still a patron of medicine, even if he’s not strictly a god of it. I might not be able to instantly heal you but I can make sure you don’t die of sepsis.”

It wasn’t like Michael could do much more for his own wounds than he had already; he healed fast but not instantly.

“Fine,” he agreed, and Chris broke into a relieved look. Clarisse shifted her weight.

“I’ll make sure the perimeter is secure,” she said, grabbing a small vial of nectar and taking a sip from it.

“Could you grab Michael something clean to wear before you go?” Chris asked her. Michael felt him gently take hold of one of his arms, then hissed as he gently dabbed at the exposed cut with antiseptic. “These clothes are filthy.”

“Fuck you,” Michael muttered, well aware that he was right. They weren’t clothes he was attached to - the freak had got rid of his clothes after Manhattan and replaced them with some sort of sailor’s outfit, which Michael had had no hesitation about tearing up for makeshift bandages.

He was still furious about the loss of his camp necklace, though.

Clarisse headed further into the apartment without another word as Chris wiped down the skin around the gash before peeling away one of Michael’s makeshift bandaging attempts and getting to work treating the wound underneath it.

“You know I’m right,” Chris replied. “Those rags need cutting off, anyway.”

Michael bristled. “I can-”

“I know a broken leg when I see one,” Chris overrode him. “I don’t even want to think about how much damage you’ve done to it running around - or how the Hades you managed to run around on that - but it won’t thank you for moving it again.”

Clarisse returned before Michael could come up with a retort, dropping a bundle of fabric over the back of the couch. “I’m securing the perimeter now,” she said.

“Be careful,” Chris replied, and Michael watched as she stalked out the front door, shutting it with a loud click behind her. “Okay, let’s get these rags out of the way.”

Chris’ hands were gentle as they tended to each cut, scrape, gash or worse. It wasn’t the same as one of his siblings, but it was enough to make Michael feel halfway human again, if completely helpless.

“I’d run you a bath now but I think you’d fall asleep in it,” the son of Hermes told him as he probed gently at the probably-dislocated shoulder. As much as Michael hated to admit it, the older demigod was once again right; he was well aware of the exhaustion doggedly gnawing away at him now that the adrenaline had faded away. “I’ll do that later.” He frowned at Michael’s shoulder. “This, on the other hand, I’ve got to deal with now.”

One good thing about the encroaching exhaustion was that Michael’s muscles couldn’t tense up too much, even if they wanted to. He grit his teeth as Chris carefully manipulated his arm into extending, before slowly starting to rotate it. The earlier ambrosia was not enough to completely muffle the sensation of the joint grinding back into its socket; some whimpers slipped out past his clenched jaw. Like Clarisse earlier, Chris had the tact to not mention it.

Even worse than the dislocated shoulder, predictably, was the broken leg. That was by far the worst part of the treatment as Chris gently poked and prodded at it before resetting the bone. The ambrosia was no more effective as a painkiller for his leg than it had been for his shoulder, and Michael couldn’t help a short, high-pitched shout as it shifted back into position - thankfully also passing unacknowledged by the son of Hermes.

“No walking on it,” Chris said firmly as he fitted a splint to keep it in place. Michael grumbled a string of curses under his breath as it was secured. “It - and the rest of you - needs rest.” It was obvious that he wanted to ask about what had happened to Michael, much in the same way Clarisse had, but to Michael’s relief, he wasn’t actually broaching the subject.

Then again, Chris knew a lot about traumatic experiences.

Once all his wounds were treated properly, Michael pulled on the spare clothes Clarisse had dug out for him, begrudgingly accepting Chris’ help. Unsurprisingly, they were all far too big for him - Clarisse was easily twice his size, now, and Chris might have been rather lither than his girlfriend, but he was far taller than Michael. The only advantage was that it meant they were easy to pull on over the various bandages and even leg splint, which didn’t negate Michael feeling like he was swimming in fabric.

“I’ll get you something that fits better soon,” Chris apologised as Michael flaked back down again, finding the couch far more comfortable than it had any right to be.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

The apartment door opened and Clarisse strode back in, bolting it behind her and propping her spear up beside it. “Secure,” she reported, heading for them. “Done with the first aid?”

“Done,” Chris confirmed. “He won’t be walking on that leg any time soon, but otherwise it’s mostly exhaustion.”

Clarisse sat down on the rug; with Michael laying down on the couch, their heads were at similar heights. “So what happened after Caligula grabbed you?” she demanded. Chris’ sharp intake of breath at the name told Michael that they definitely knew something about the freak. “That was nearly two years ago.”

Michael grimaced.

“Couldn’t get out,” he admitted, glossing over the gloating, the leering Germani and the self-important big-eared pandos, to say nothing of the fucking horse and the freak himself. They’d found his attempts amusing. The freak had even dared him to get out, promising him that he couldn’t.

The freak had said a lot of things, and Michael still couldn’t shake the shivers at the promise that he would be the new sun god. It was delusional - it had to be, Apollo was the sun god and wouldn’t be usurped by some fucking wannabe - but the freak had always sounded deadly serious when he’d said it, like he fully believed he would . He’d said Michael would help him, too.

Michael’s attempts to escape had always got more frantic whenever he heard that gloat.

He didn’t say any of that, didn’t think he could if he tried. Neither Clarisse or Chris pressed him for details.

“Had a fucking boat villa. Never let the thing near land.” He’d managed to get on one of the boarding boats, once. Mortal security guards had spotted him and dragged him back, citing some nonsense about the boss’ son not being allowed to leave. “Took for fucking ever to get off.”

Eventually, one day, the guards had been distracted by something. Michael still didn’t know what, but it had been enough for him to finally slip past them, onto land for the first time in eighteen fucking months, and run for it.

It almost hadn’t been enough, he’d almost been caught, but a door he’d run through had ended up in tunnels and more tunnels and more and more and more fucking tunnels with monsters with claws and teeth and other appendages they shouldn’t be allowed to fucking have that wanted a piece of demigod flesh and-

“Michael, breathe.”

A hand rested on the couch, not touching him but enough to catch his attention. His eyes snapped to it, then followed the arm up to a shoulder and up again until he was looking at Chris’ face. The older demigod’s brow was furrowed in concern, and Michael realised he was breathing too fast, air not actually reaching his lungs.

Fuck.

Michael closed his eyes, only to be assaulted by memories of being tracked, hunted, and snapped them open again, focusing instead on Chris’ face as he tried to wrench his breathing under control.

“Don’t push yourself,” Chris told him gently as air started to reach his lungs again. “It’s okay if you can’t talk about it.” Michael glanced at Clarisse, still sat on the rug behind her boyfriend but frowning, face all twisted up.

“No,” he said, hating how thin his voice sounded. “I- fuck.” If it was anyone else, he’d take the invitation to stop talking, because they wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t get it. But these two…

“Fucking Labyrinth.”

Chris’ face paled, and Clarisse moved, putting her hand on the son of Hermes’ shoulder. Her knuckles were white.

“It got me away,” Michael admitted, because it had; without its twists and turns and traps absolutely everywhere the freak’s men would have caught up to him within a day.

He didn’t know how many days he’d been running through the fucking thing before it finally spat him out in Arizona.

“But- fuck .” He’d never been in the fucking thing before, but he’d seen what it had done to Chris, how pale and shaken Annabeth had been when she re-emerged alone after her quest. Had seen the monsters spill out of it into camp, had seen Lee’s head smashed open-

The fucking thing was supposed to be destroyed. Why was it back?

He could’ve done without experiencing the inside of the fucking living nightmare for himself.

“You made it,” Chris told him, voice shaky but assuring. “You made it out, Michael.”

“You’re safe,” Clarisse added, tone firm and leaving no room for debate. Michael looked at her, remembering too many arguments and disagreements and threats from the daughter of Ares but seeing only pure sincerity and stubbornness there now. “Those shitheads won’t get you, and you’re never going in there again.”

Michael swallowed around a lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice shaking just as much as Chris’. “Yeah.”

He was out. He was safe.

The knowledge settled over him, heavy and warm as it finally sank in, and with it came a looming darkness his battered, aching and exhausted body finally stopped fighting and instead welcomed with open arms.

potentially tbc...

#riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson fanfiction #trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #michael yew #clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez #toa caligula #tsari writes fanfiction #stereden #podfic #podfic of my fic

33 notes · View notes

slytherinsomniari · 11 months

Text

A Twisted Kind of Love| Part Two + Epilogue|Possessive! Sebastian Sallow x F! Reader x Victor Rookwood

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x F! Reader x Victor Rookwood

Summary: Months after Sebastian used the Imperius Curse on you, you find you situation has changed drastically. Under his control, you now serve to please him every waking moment. In this horrific situation, only time will tell if you succumb to his will and devote yourself to him for the rest of your life, or if you will take a chance with the most unlikely of people.

Word Count: 5233

Themes: Smut, Rape, Consensual sex, Masturbation, Teasing, Aged up characters, Imperius curse, Mindfuck, Sexual Slavery, Comfort, Happy Ending

A/N: It’s been a long time coming and I am so sorry for the wait. I was caught up with character ai and lost the inspiration to write, leaving this halfway done until I was able to come back to it and finish it. Sorry if it is not up to par. This one is real long but I didn’t want to cut anything out. I wanted to illustrate more of the abuse that Sebastian did to the reader while also showing the kindness of Rookwood and his encounter with her. It is my first dark fic, so I really hope I am able to portray this subject properly and with respect.

|Part One| Part Two|

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been three months since Sebastian had mind-fucked you in your cottage that night, though you didn’t know. No, you were so far gone and under his Imperius Curse that the only thoughts in your head were Sebastian and how you wanted him every single second of the day and night. You are traveling on the road now in a horse-drawn open top wagon with Sebastian and none other than Victor Rookwood. He used to be your enemy but Sebastian viewed him as a useful tool to gather allies and help him create a way of life that would allow him to take you away and live with you. Currently, you’re sitting on Sebastian’s lap, black dress hiked and legs spread as you grind into him. The fresh air hits your exposed body, doing nothing to cool the heat in you. It is an unquenchable heat and only one thing would help. Though you wear a dress, you don’t wear underwear anymore, not when you are with him. He wanted to be able to take you at any moment and you were all too ready to please him. He is aroused, his member poking out of the fabric of his pants. That was what tipped you off in the first place. Once you saw that, you had gotten on top of him and started grinding, silently begging him to have his way with you even though you were on the road and had an audience. By this point it didn’t even matter where you were or if there were others around. The curse made you so willing to be with him that you no longer cared about things like decency. In fact, in the months he had you, he had taken you while you were in company, just grabbing you and fucking you right there as if you were an object–and in one sense you were. You have been so reduced as a person to now just being a tool to be used for his desires.

You had positioned yourself so that he would be practically inside you, the cloth getting in the way while simultaneously making you wetter. You continued grinding into him, your true desire so tantalizingly close yet so far away. He wasn’t initiating contact so you moved, sensually moving your hips to try to entice him to finish what you started.

He laughs, “Such a needy little pet, aren’t you?”

Despite saying this, he makes no move to comply with your desires. He sits still, watching as you beg him to fuck you. Frustration mounts within you, not liking how he wasn’t giving himself to you. Not being satisfied by him, you take matters into your own hands. You stop moving and lower your fingers to your pussy, pleasing yourself on him. A single touch from your fingers sends shivers up your spine and you let out a whimper as you circle your clit. Biting your lip, you lock eyes with Sebastian as he watches you vent your frustration on yourself. He places his hands tightly on your legs and ass, stabilizing you and allowing you to play with yourself fully. The feeling of his smooth fingers clenching your skin like that drove you insane with desire, wishing even more that he would take you. You insert two fingers and begin to thrust them inside yourself, moaning loud and not caring who heard. Taking direction from what he had done to you before, you use the techniques he taught you and move your fingers around and over your clit, switching between touching and plunging. Your breath quickens and your moans grow louder as you continue the show. Soon it becomes too much for you and you cum all over yourself. Warmth pools on your cunt and slightly dribbles down your legs, leaving some on his trousers.

“Good girl.” Sebastian praises you, rubbing your head with his hand. He is clearly pleased with your actions and despite your disappointment in him not following through, you smile at him, basking in his praise.

“Remind me, who do you belong to, my pet?”

“I belong to you, Sebastian. I am yours to play with, as long as I live. All of me is open to you. Above all, I want to please you. You can fuck me as long as you want, anywhere and everywhere and I will give you as many children as it pleases you.”

Satisfied, he smirks. He was taking great pleasure in how you turned out. One moment–one night–with him made you his personal sex slave. He could get you to do anything for him and could just sit or lie there as you pleased him or even yourself for his entertainment.

He originally did love you purely and wanted to be with you, but being sent to Azkaban changed him. He felt betrayed by his closest friend and believed that you were innocent in all of it. If it hadn’t been for Ominis, the two of you would have been together a lot sooner, and that thought plagued him. One day in his cell he snapped, letting dark thoughts enter his head. If Ominis and the rest of the world were going to keep you away from him, he would have to take you by force. Hopefully in time, you would forgive him. Of course you would. It was obvious that you wanted to be with him–that you belonged to him. He would just have to convince you first. He had smirked, thinking of all the ways he could make you kneel.

And kneel you did. You belong to him now, though even he knew it wasn’t permanent yet. He would have to keep this up for a while until it was all you knew. Eventually you stop at an isolated glen as he sets up a tent. It appears that this would be where you would live for a while until he made enough money to buy a house for the two of you. So your life began there, Sebastian stealing and doing other nefarious things to earn an income alongside the other dark wizards. Though he would always make sure he had enough time to thoroughly ravage you multiple times a day to make sure you knew your place and to satisfy his infinite desires.

One day two months later, the Imperius Curse suddenly wears off, giving you your sanity again. You recoil as the memories of everything he did to you came flooding in. Everything that you remembered was absolutely appalling. You find yourself in a room in a tent that resembles the ones that the dark wizards used when you were a student. It has, amongst shelves and other furniture, a desk and a bed. It appears that this was the room you were being kept in–or at least, the room you had come to in. Apparently you must have been making some noise in your shock as someone enters the room and you don’t even have to wonder who it is as you know immediately. It is your former friend and your current tormenter–Sebastian Sallow. He looks almost the same as he did the night he came to you, with a muscular body and short brunette hair, but he was not in his prison uniform. He is wearing black trousers and a black button up along with a black vest with gray stripes. He looks healthier and more relaxed, as if he was living a normal life and hadn’t just escaped from Azkaban. As if he wasn’t assaulting someone he supposedly cared about daily.

Your instincts kick in and you run at him, aiming your hand for a slap but he effortlessly grabs your wrist and stops you. His grip on you is tight despite his relaxed appearance and doesn’t budge when you try to give him the slip. You grunt in pain as he forces you further into the room stopping right in front of his desk. He releases you and you quickly retract your wrist and rub it, a feral look in your eyes.

“Let. Me. Go.”

“No.”

You glare at him.

“Why would I let you go when we’ve been having so much fun together? Besides, it’s not like you can leave anyway, given your condition. I’ve been keeping track, you know. You haven’t bled ever since I took you. I’ve been filling you for this very purpose. Of course, I loved seeing you full of my seed but I had other reasons why it had to be that way. We can start a family together, Y/N. No one will come after us. It will be just you and me and all of the children you will have. Because, love, I don’t plan on stopping our little fun time anytime soon.” He places his hand on your stomach and you realize that there is a noticeable bump. “We’ll be one big happy family and you will bear me many children.”

Once more, you are hit deeply with the revelation. You are absolutely horrified. Pregnant? That can’t be. This is all going way too fast. You couldn’t even think straight. Regardless of your thoughts, the noticeable bump proved that you were indeed pregnant with his child.

He cups your face tenderly, as if he hadn’t done such horrible things to you. “What are you thinking?”

You tear your face from his hand in anger and confusion, shoving his hand away. “I don’t know! This is sick! How could I be pregnant?! I don’t even remember being gone that long, thanks to you. I hate you for what you have done to me. But you want to know the real fucked up part? There’s a part of me that still loves you. I have always loved you! I want to run away but I want you. I’ve wanted you to fuck me for so long like you have been all this time–” You are cut off as he flips you around and pushes you onto the desk on your stomach as he undoes his trousers. One arm holds you to the desk while the other finishes unbuckling his belt and pulls on his pants, letting them fall to the floor.

“Your wish is my command, sweetheart.”

Realizing what you just said, you quickly try to take it back. “Sebastian, please! You need to–”

You are given no time to finish your sentence as he pulls up the bottom of the dress up above your hips and thrusts himself into you. You let out a shocked gasp and grip the desk tight, nails digging deep into its surface. His hands move to cover yours and intertwine with them as he leans over you and takes you. A chilling sensation flows through your body as he does this. It’s a very intimate yet dominating move–using a comforting move usually used between two consenting lovers while also demonstrating that he was in control. His body presses up against yours in an oppressive yet horrifyingly arousing manner. You knew he was raping you– that he had been raping you all this time–but he made it feel so fucking good. You had wanted him for so long and now you have him, but you have him in the worst way possible. Your mind was so confused, flipping from disgust and horror to desire within moments of each other.

“Why…why do you make me feel so good?” you bitterly ask yourself, feeling him thrust into you. He isn’t going as fast as he usually does but he isn’t slow either. As he goes on, you realize that he fits perfectly in you. It appears that your body has completely gotten used to him and has molded itself to wrap around him just right. That thought gives you mixed feelings and you would rather not think too deeply about them.

He keeps going, moving into you at a steady pace, smiling behind you as he continues. You had said you wanted it–said you wanted him. It wouldn’t be that long until he wouldn’t even need to put you under the Imperius curse to make you be with him. The longer it goes on, the more your body starts to enjoy it. This situation was not good, but you are quickly finding that you can’t stop your growing need.

“Oh fuck, Sebastian. I want…I want…”

He planted his mouth on your neck, biting down hard and sucking while he thrusts. A desperate moan came out of you. “What is it that you want?”

Your entire being was fighting what you were going to say, but failed. You quickly get out, “I want you to keep ravaging me and fill me with all you have.” You regret it the moment it comes out of your mouth but you can’t stop yourself. He had kept you in a constant state of arousal for months on end, pleasing himself inside you as he used your body as an object. Your body had taken control from your mind and all it wanted was him. You just regained your sanity and just as quickly had your will taken away from you. It wasn’t as easy as you thought to return to your proper state of mind. Your body had been trained to love him–trained to submit to a single touch. You would have to fight a lot harder to break his hold on you.

Taking you to the bed, he removes your dress along with the rest of his clothes and pounces onto you. He begins his assault on you once more, making you feel so wonderful with each powerful ram into you. Your body moves on its own, wrapping itself around him and gratefully grinding into him, submitting itself once more to his dominance. You lay there, tears streaming down your face, as you moan ferociously loud while he takes you. It hurt. You were scared. Why did he feel so good inside you? You knew it was so wrong, so fucked, but you couldn’t get rid of the part that loved it when you were his. He took you for hours. From afternoon until the sun came up the next day he fucked you and used you. He took no breaks, forcing you to take what he gave–what he gave because of your foolish request. In your confused state you gave him permission to continue treating you this way, and this is something you would regret deeply. But in the moment you only felt the sweet pleasure and satisfaction that he gave. He made sure that you orgasmed multiple times and ensured that he came in you every time. Being pregnant has no bearing on this; rather, he did it because he enjoyed it and wanted to claim you.

He wanted you to know there was no way out–that you couldn’t get rid of your desire for him even when you had your mind back. Pretty soon, you would snap out of your delusion and would realize that you could be happy with him. You would have a good life with him and he would never let anyone harm you or take you away.

The day shifts and becomes the next day. Life is much the same as it was before, with more of the same treatment. He’s been keeping you in that same room for hours, constantly teasing your clit and stopping before you would orgasm. He wanted to drive you insane–wanted to make you bend to his will once more–without Imperio.

“You know I love you Y/N and I know you love me too. I can see it. Why ruin your own happiness and run away? I can give you everything you want here.”

“This is all wrong Sebastian. You are sick and demented. I want this all to stop.” You say as you fight through the pleasant sensation resonating through your body.

“That’s not what you were saying last time.”

Flushing, you angrily retort, “I wasn’t in my right mind and you know it. Don’t torture me anymore, please.”

He continues teasing you for a while, ignoring your pleas. His long, slender fingers repeatedly caressing one of his favorite parts of you. You were so close to breaking, he just needed to keep it up for a while longer. Shortly after, he makes the final move.

“I’ll leave you to think about our future for a while. Perhaps when I return you will be more obedient and kind towards your husband and father of your child.” He walks out to conduct business of his own, leaving you writhing in unfulfilled desire on his bed. Tears roll down your face as you are left without any fulfillment. You could touch yourself but that wouldn’t be enough. He made you want more–made you want to be taken, and only that would satisfy you.

Not that long after Sebastian left, Victor Rookwood enters the room, looking at you as you lay on the bed.

Not even thinking, you tearfully utter the word “Please…” as one lone tear spills down your face, your plea obvious to anyone who sees you. Rookwood peers down at you with a look of pity.

He approaches you slowly and cautiously, almost like he was approaching a wounded animal and wanted to show he meant no harm.

“Are you sure about this, girl?”

You nod, in pain from your desires not being fulfilled. You hate how Sebastian made you like this but once you were made to be in this state, you needed to get it out of your system. He looks at you once more, contemplating a moment before complying and removing his clothes. Once he’s done, he gets on the bed and positions himself to be on top of you. He touches your face gently and caringly, not at all like how Sebastian touched you. Rookwood touched you as if you were made out of porcelain and would break at any moment. The pity in his eyes is still there, but he knows that you need this in order to return to normal.

“Get ready” He says, allowing you to prepare for what is about to happen.

You wrap your arms around his toned body and nod, signaling you were ready. He presses himself up against you and pushes himself in, causing you to make a sharp moan. His member is unfamiliar to your body after having been trained to seek out and fit around Sebastian’s perfectly, so it has to adjust to the new shape. He stops once he’s fully in, keeping himself in you and allowing you to adjust to him. His lips press against yours and he begins to kiss you slowly, trying to make it a pleasing moment while simultaneously attempting to calm you down. You kiss back, loving the intimacy and understanding what he is trying to tell you. Once he breaks off the kiss, he slowly begins moving, keeping the pace relaxed and casual. Random noises start to come out of you, bubbling up from your mouth and escaping. A sense of fulfillment is gradually starting to flow through you as your sexual needs get taken care of.

If you had been in your right mind, you would have felt slightly odd being intimate with your former enemy. You wouldn’t have even been able to imagine this scenario when you were 15 and trying to control your ancient magic while fighting him and Ranrok off but here you were, your body starting to move with his at this calm tempo. You would have wondered what it felt like for him, how he felt about having sex with the girl who ruined his plans all those years ago. But alas, the only thing in your mind was getting the fix that Sebastian neglected to give you in his most recent torture session.

This slow movement continues for some time, the two of you basking in the pleasure it brought. It wasn’t rough like how Sebastian started out, but rather like a gentle caress. Each time Rookwood moved you would feel a relaxing pleasure, causing your body to release the tension and for the first time in forever, you were allowed to enjoy it. After some time, your hands fall back on the bed, bent and up near your head. Rookwood places his rough hands on yours and intertwines them, an act that causes you to jolt. It was the same thing that Sebastian did earlier and he can immediately tell, stopping his body. He has a loose grip on your hands and his thumbs soothingly rub your hands, showing you he meant you no harm–that he was different from Sebastian.

“Shhhhh, girl. It’s alright. You are not with him.”

You look at him, studying his face. He looks the same as he always has, dark facial hair scattered across his face with blue pools that peered down at you. You look into them, getting lost in the calm waves in his eyes. You close your eyes and get control over yourself, regaining control over your breathing and mind. Your eyes open and you look back at him, offering a silent apology, one that he softly shakes his head at before continuing his movements. After a while you say, “Y/N.”

He looks into your eyes questioningly for a moment and you respond, “Call me Y/N. Please.”

“Y/N” he murmurs, picking up his pace.

“Victor~” You moan, using his first name. His eyes flicker with hidden emotion but within a flash he gets over it and kisses you quickly to silence you, slipping his tongue down your throat as he continues moving faster and faster. Your mouth opens in shock, giving him access. Mouth moves with mouth, tongue moves with tongue, and body moves with body in a passionate yet tender moment. It is as if time stops and you can forget everything terrible that has happened to you and focus on the one good thing that is happening. Your bodies move together at an ever increasing pace for quite a while. Your body, prevented from orgasming, is allowed to do so and Rookwood continues, allowing for your mutual releases to occur multiple times as your body relaxes after Sebastian’s constant teasing. The only sounds in the room are your breathing, the sound of his body hitting yours, and the muffled moans you make in his mouth as it all wraps up in a beautiful crescendo.

Afterwards, when the two of you have had your fill, he sits up and glances at your figure. You are more tranquil now, having been able to receive what Sebastian denied. Your breathing soft and face at peace, looking as if you haven’t had to endure countless months of agony. You look beautiful to him.

Sebastian isn't back yet, a testament to how much he wanted you to suffer until you broke for him. However, this allows Rookwood to have the perfect opportunity to enact his plan–a plan that was completely unexpected to you. He removes himself from you and looks at you, whispering hastily, “Get dressed. Now.”

Not understanding his haste but hearing the serious undercurrent in his voice, you comply, getting out Sebastian’s bed and putting the dress on. He looks at you, seeing you in such a flimsy dress–the same dress that Sebastian made you wear the entire time as his slave. If you could see yourself through his eyes, you would be able to see how much you looked like a lady of the night, leaving one lover’s bed for another. You were so incredibly close to becoming fixed as one, destined only for Sebastian. Determination settles in his face, making him get up and get dressed as well. Once he only has his coat to put on, he grabs it and walks over to you. Placing it over your shoulders, he lets you put your arms in before buttoning it up. It’s a bit big for you, but it covers you and gives you decency–something you haven’t had in months. The smoothness of his coat feels amazing on your skin and you can smell his scent lingering on it. You breathe it in and smile a little, finding his presence now comforting and safe when as a child it would not have.

Now that the two of you are ready, Rookwood straightens up and tells you to follow him quietly. You trail behind him, leaving Sebastian’s room as quiet as a mouse. He leads you through the tent, going through halls and other rooms and occasionally stopping and hiding the two of you in case Sebastian or one of his friends were to show up. You guys finally reach the flap of the tent and step out onto the grassy glen. The sun is starting to set but it is still light outside. You see the beauty of the vast green hills covered in grass and a small river that flows nearby. You are far away from your home in the hamlet but despite the traumatizing experience, you could still admire the beauty of the area.

On edge, he turns to you quickly, outstretching his hand. “Take my hand. Take my hand and we will be away from here; you will be free. All you need to do is trust me. Take my hand, Y/N.”

Hesitating for one brief moment, your mind floods with all of what happened to you. All the trauma and feelings you experienced with Sebastian, everything came to you in that split second. Months of torture that had resulted in you becoming with child all led up to this moment. Making your decision, you place your hand in Rookwood’s and he disapparates with you, taking you away from your tormenter. You apparate to a place you find oddly familiar but can’t quite place why. It takes you a few moments to realize where you are but you do so and discover that you are at Rookwood Castle. It looks more glorious than ever and it was clear that Rookwood had it renovated after the events with the repository. It was already huge before but now that it was fixed and in its proper state, it was massive. Your eyes find it overwhelming to take in, especially with all that you have been through. He leads you by the hand to the entrance of his castle and steps inside, bringing you with him. You enter and the two of you stand by the door, leaving it open for the moment. He lets go of your hand and you stand in front of him, not able to believe that you had gotten away.

“He won’t be able to find you here. Relax, my dear.”

Your mind is frazzled, not yet able to keep up with this. “Are you sure? How do you know? As soon as he finds out I’m gone, he’ll know who exactly took me and he will come here ready to reclaim his…his property.” You can barely get out the last part, feeling disgust and shame.

Rookwood takes his hand and brushes it across your face, rubbing it softly before moving a strand of hair behind your ear. “Hush, girl. I have taken care of that. He won’t be able to touch you anymore.”

Your hand goes to your stomach, “But what about the–”

“We’ll figure it out, I promise. We just need you safe and out of his way at the moment. You can stay here and rest in the meantime.”

He presses his lips to your forehead and takes you in his arms, saying “I won’t let anything else happen to you.”

With the realization that you’re safe, that you’re so far away from Sebastian’s clutches, you break down in Victor’s arms. The tears and sobs pour out of you like a dam let loose and you clutch at him to hold yourself up. He soothingly holds you, occasionally rubbing your back softly and resting his head on your head as you let out all of the pain and suffering you’ve been holding in. You never thought your former enemy would become your ally, nor did you think that Sebastian, the man you had been in love with since you met at Hogwarts, would be your enemy. With all the events that had occurred, your affections have transferred to Victor Rookwood–a man who should have been evil, should have been the one doing something like what Sebastian did to you. Instead, he was the one who comforted you and protected you. The man who was giving you what you needed without hesitation. Now, what you needed was a quiet life in a place where you didn’t encounter anyone you knew, in a place where you could isolate yourself and heal. Rookwood is giving you that and more. It is near Feldcroft, which brings back painful memories, but you aren’t going to leave the castle for a while until you feel ready. You are allowed to live in his castle for as long as you want, spending your days healing and exploring the castle. You have found peace at last, in the arms and home of Victor Rookwood.

EPILOGUE

Due to Rookwood’s anonymous tipoff, Sebastian is caught and sent back to Azkaban with an extra sentence and even heavier security. He fights all the way back but the aurors are quick to react and subdue him quickly. The only happy thoughts in his head are the months he spent happily with you, enjoying you to his heart’s content and knowing you are having his child. He loathes the fact that he is back in Azkaban but knows that his legacy will continue through you. Even so, he still craves your body and your touch every second of the day. All he can think of while in his cell is holding your body and feeling its softness in his hands once more, taking you every waking moment. He doesn’t know if he will ever break out again, but he will most certainly try. He has to have you permanently this time, and he won’t let anyone get in his way. However, this time it will be incredibly hard to escape so if he was to be successful, he would really have to plan it carefully. Only time would tell if he would succeed in his escape or not.

As for you and Rookwood, you are still healing but are living in peace with him. You eventually give birth and raise your child, teaching it that Rookwood is its father. Sebastian’s blood may be flowing through your child’s veins but so was yours, and you wanted your child to know everything good in the world, not the evil that flowed through the other half of its blood. After a while, you approach Rookwood and let him know you want to spend the rest of your life with him. Your life is full of bliss as you marry him and start creating a happy family with him, adding to your children and tranquil life at the castle. You travel outside of it when you are ready but as for now, you live a life with the man who you formerly fought with, the man who turned from enemy to friend, and then to lover and more. Happiness bloomed and, like the feeling of the sun shining down upon you, you were content.

#sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow fanfic #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy x reader #victor rookwood #victor rookwood x reader #victor rookwood fanfic #imperius curse #Imperio

45 notes · View notes

sweetestofchaos · 11 months

Text

Blackthorn Ch 10 | M.YG

Home - Prince Yoongi finally shares his final gift with the Princess and Namjoon leaves the palace to see an old friend.

a/n: As always thanks to @sailoryooons for being my beta and making the banner. Huge thank you @colormepurplex2 for the Namjoon and Jungkook edit! Character asks and the taglist for Blackthorn are always open! Minors do NOT interact with my work, please and thank you.

a/n 2: I understand that some might be triggered or uncomfortable with reading about animal abuse/murder, so I have marked off the paragraphs where is starts and ends with **** if you would like to skip that part.

Taglist: @thickemadame

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Previous | Next

News in the castle traveled fast and by sunrise the next morning, every person on the Palace grounds knew that the Prince and Princess had made up for whatever fight they had. The Princess was still staying within the butterfly house but it didn’t matter much anymore once the Prince was invited to the Princess’ dwelling for breakfast. Prince Yoongi rejected the Princess’ offer and laughed when he understood where she was located. Prince Yoongi sent a letter to the Princess and requested that they have breakfast in the seventh garden. The Princess had not yet seen the garden and was excited to see what all the fuss had been for. If she remembered correctly there were only six gardens but the Prince had created the seventh garden himself and no one had been allowed to see it.

The Princess wondered why that was and why had the Prince granted her access to such a place. The Princess accepted the Prince’s request and she watched from her seat in front of the vanity as her handmaids rushed around to ready a proper outfit fit for an outing with the First Crown Prince. Wheein took her time as she made three large braids with the Princess’ hair and pulled the braids upward into an intricate updo with three hair loops in the style of a flower. Each hair loop had ropes of pearls and golden beaded chains that were different lengths attached; small glass apricot blossoms with diamonds and pink garnets were scattered on the crown of the Princess’ head and matching earrings hung from her ears. Four necklaces of different lengths, mixed with gold and diamonds wrapped around the Princess’ neck, and the longest gold one had a large pink garnet in the center of a moon shaped pendant.

The Princess was instructed to hold out her arms and she smiled as thin gold bracelets were pushed onto her wrist. Two rings with thin gold bands and three white scolecite gems on each glittered in the light from the Princess’ right index finger and she placed her hand back into her lap.

“Have you finished with the Princess’ hair? We have kept His Highness waiting long enough, Wheein!” Byulyi whined as she shifted her weight from foot to foot.

“I am sure His Highness won’t mind one bit if the Princess arrives late, once he sees how radiant she looks today,” Wheein giggles and the Princess rolls her eyes.

“Come, Your Highness, I shall assist Hyejin with your outfit today.”

The Princess stood from the vanity and followed Byulyi behind a golden partition where Hyejin waited with a beautifully decorated hanfu hung from a wooden rack. Hyejin stood with a wide smile and hopeful eyes as she looked at the hanfu beside her. It was elegant; iridescent rainbow silk and chiffon fabrics, flower embroidery and bead work with shades of light pink, baby blue and white mixed together. The more the Princess examined the hanfu the more she fell in love with it.

“Where is my iro ata buba?” The Princess asked as her fingers traced over the intercite stitch work of a jellyfish and water waves on the hanfu’s bixi. Byulyi and Hyejin both bowed low at the waist as they spoke together.

“Forgive us, your Highness!”

“We assumed that you would wear this outfit since you are having a meal with His Highness.”

Princess Keena frowned at their words. “Is there something wrong with my own outfits?”

“N-No, Princess!”

The Princess hummed and clicked her tongue. “I do not wish to keep His Highness waiting any longer, so I will wear this for the time being.” Princess Keena narrowed her eyes slightly and stepped away from the hanfu. “Do not assume in the future. I will wear what I please, not what best suits your ideals.”

“Yes, Princess!”

Princess Keena untied the loose knot around her waist and rolled her shoulders back to allow the dressing robe to drop to the floor. As she stood nude before her handmaids she kept her eyes forward and they quickly rubbed warm oils into her skin. Once the Princess’ skin was completely moisturized, Byulyi helped her into simple undergarments before she slipped on a silk camisole that had pink stitching along the collar with embroidered flowers in the center.

Over top a soft pink ru - blouse - was tied with a knot, the straight collar left open to reveal the flowers on the camisole. Multicolored flowers were embroidered onto a thick band of baby blue silk that followed the width of the sleeves, four inches above the hem. The hem itself was lined in a thinner baby blue silk band with more embroidered water waves in between the two bands.

A one-piece half-pleated skirt made from the iridescent chiffon fabric with a baby blue waist band was wrapped around the Princess’ waist, over top of the blouse and the soft pink belt was tied in front. The baby blue bixi - knee covering - had colorful jellyfish, flowers and water waves embroiled on the fabric and Hyejin carefully tucked it under the belt of the skirt before she stepped away to admire the outfit as a whole.

Byulyi held small pink apricot blossoms in her hands that were strung together with tiny cream colored beads and medium sized pink beads that made a fashionable belt. She wrapped it around the Princess’ hips and pinned the flowers four inches apart from each other which made the beads in between droop down slightly and swing freely. Two more apricot flowers were pinned to the collar of the Princess’ blouse and the beaded attachments dangled down to the Princess’ hips in different lengths.

“You look stunning as always, Princess!” The handmaids beamed and the Princess nodded her head in agreement as she looked at herself in the threeway mirror.

Hyejin crouched down onto the floor with a pair of slip-on shoes that matched the Princess’ outfit. As the Princess stepped into the pink and blue slippers, Yongsun came into the room and looked around. “Is the Princess ready? His Highness is waiting and the food has arrived already.”

“Her Highness is all dressed!” Byulyi led the Princess to stand in front of Yongsun and Yongsun nodded her head.

“Wheein and Hyejin will join me in escorting the Princess to the main gate, from there Wheein will stay by your side along with your guards,” Yongsun explained as she turned on her heel and opened the bedroom door. “Do you have any questions, Princess?”

“How far is the seventh garden?” The Princess wondered and the maids all smiled with knowing glints in their eyes.

“Not far at all, Princess. Now, shall we be on our way?” Yongsun motioned for the Princess to leave the room first and the others followed behind once Princess Keena stepped out of the room.

Outside of the butterfly house, Aga stood with Minho and Kai by his side. The three guards were dressed in matching outfits: a simple robe with gladiolus flowers stitched along the cuffs and collar with a changui on top, and the same gladiolus stitched on the collar, down the center and the hem. A wide belt with matching gladiolus were tied around their waist and a jumeoni sat at their right hip, opposite of their swords. The only difference in their hanboks was that Aga’s robe was black and his changui was a burnt orange with golden gladiolus whereas Minho and Kai had white robes and navy blue jumeonis with light blue gladiolus.

Aga explained to Minho and Kai that they were to keep any comments to themselves and focus on the surrounding area around themselves. The Prince and Princess were to meet for breakfast and afterwards, Aga did not know if the Princess would carry on with the rest of her like normal or choose to spend her hours by the Prince’s side. Either way, Minho and Kai were on duty today and that put Aga a little on edge. He trusted Kai. for he had picked the young man himself. and Minho was chosen by Hoseok; however they were not Mingi who had spent the most time outside of Aga with the Princess.

“Open the gates!”

San pushed open the main gate and bowed low at the sight of the Princess. Everyone followed his lead and bowed before her, as she stepped outside of the butterfly house’s walls. Aga crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head before he stood straight and offered the Princess a nod of his head.

“Let us depart.”

Aga stood beside the Princess while Minho and Kai stood to the right, the path behind them blocked by their bodies. Princess Keena smiled at the guards and her eyebrows pulled together in confusion when she noticed a large white tarp that stretched across the whole length of the right side of the outside. She could not see behind the tarp for it stood taller than the walls that surrounded the butterfly house.

“Aga, what is that?” Princess Keena motioned to the white tarp and Aga ignored the question.

“His Highness is waiting, Princess.”

Aga started to walk in the direction of the white banner and Princess Keena folded her hands in front of her as she followed his lead. Namjoon appeared from behind the white tarp, his blue hair pulled neatly into a ponytail behind his head, not a single flyaway in sight. His robes weren’t a style the Princess was used to seeing and she wondered why Namjoon was dressed up. An ivory cross collared shirt had grey and sand dollar tan ink stains along the thick neckline and dropped into a dusty rose skirt with the same grey and tan ink stains at the hem. A thin ivory belt was wrapped around his waist. He wore a dusty rose open cross collared jacket over top that had grey and tan plum blossoms stitched along the wide sleeves.

As the Princess approached, Namjoon bowed low at the waist and gave a dimpled grin as he stood upright. The sky above was densely blue with faceless ashen clouds that swirled about and gave those on the ground little respite from the sun’s rising warmth.

“Princess Keena, you look beautiful today.” Namjoon clasped his hand behind his back and bounced slightly on the balls of his toes as he spoke. “His Highness is waiting for you inside, but first-” Namjoon smoothly untied the black silk cloth from his wrist and held it outwards for the Princess to see. “His Highness requested that you wear this before entering.”

Princess Keena glanced down at the blindfold and bit the inside of her cheek. “What does His Highness wish to hide from me?”

Namjoon offered a smile that was hardly apologetic. “That is for His Highness to speak of.”

The Princess sighed but nodded her head to acknowledge Namjoon’s words. “Very well…” She looked over her shoulder and nodded her head for Yongsun to grab the blindfold.

Yongsun stepped forward and Namjoon placed the black fabric in her hands before he again locked his hand behind his back with a dimpled smile. As Yongsun placed the blindfold over the Princess’ eyes, Princess Keena spoke up, “Those dimples will not protect you forever, Namjoon.”

Namjoon laughed and bowed his head. “They have not let me down yet, Princess.”

Aga was careful and he took the Princess’ hand in his and Kai took the other. Minho kept watch from behind as everyone entered behind the white tarp and once he stepped inside he was amazed by the sight in front of him.

"Ale dousman, Princess." Aga muttered as he helped the Princess follow the lush path of green grass and large smooth stones. Aga was thankful that the stepping stones were flat with the earth so that the Princess wouldn’t trip.

The world around the Princess was dark and cool, the rising temperature of the sun cut in half the farther she walked. Sun spots of warmth touched her in scattered patterns that she couldn’t understand and when she finally came to a stop, she strained her ears for any hint of where she might be. Running water was faint in the background as leaves rustled in a soft breeze, but everything else was silent. The Princess’ heartbeat was the loudest thing she heard and when Aga and Kai pulled away, she tensed.

"Ou ka retire banday la, Princess." Aga’s voice was close but distant enough for the Princess to know that he was no longer right by her side.

Princess Keena reached behind her head and tugged at the knot of the blindfold. “It won’t come undone,” Princess Keena announced and before she could struggle any more a set of hands covered hers. Princess Keena lowered her hands to her side and waited until the blindfold loosened and dropped away from her eyes. Her vision was blurred and she blinked a few times as the sunlight created a warm halo around whoever stood in front of her. Once her vision started to clear, the Princess took in the sight of familiar blond hair and when she blinked once more the Prince’s face was before her.

The black scales on his jaw reflected a rainbow on her chest as the sunlight from above peaked through openings within the canopied area. Prince Yoongi smiled as the Princess stared at him and he cupped her cheek with one hand as the blindfold fell to the ground beside them. “Hello, Princess.”

Princess Keena tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. The Prince was handsome, so very handsome this close up and it made the air around them hard to breathe. He was breathtaking. The Prince’s robes were soft and light. The white cross collared shirt had a baby blue and white watercolor pattern with a baby blue strip along the neckline, tucked into an white skirt that had a grey and black watercolor speckled pattern. The waistband was grey with a thin baby blue belt wrapped around his waist. The jacket over top had a blue and cream gradient dye pattern with white, black and blue cranes embroidered on the shoulders while small black and white goldfish were stitched along the wide sleeves.

Prince Yoongi licked his lips and grinned. “Would you care to join me for breakfast?”

The Princess nodded her head silently and Prince Yoongi’s grin widened, his gums on full display as he grabbed the Princess’ hand in his hand and turned his back to lead her to where their breakfast would be. The Princess looked away and saw that they were in a garden or maybe a forest of some sort. The ground beneath their feet was covered in plush grass that looked soft to the touch and large flat stones of different shapes created a path. Palm trees, peach trees and snowbell trees were spread throughout with guelder-roses, daylilies, vinca and hostas on the ground intermixed to create a colorful blanket.

A canopy of shade was made from the leaves above and the sunlight came through playfully as the shadows danced around below. The Princess looked away from the blocked heavens and found that the Prince had led her to a small clearing. The ground gave way to black and grey pebbles, in the center of the clearing a marble table sat alone with four matching marble stools placed around it. A single golden candelabra with sunstones shaped as flames was placed in the center of the table surrounded by food and drink. Princess Keena’s steps faltered at the sight and the Prince stopped by her side.

“What is this place?”

“Hummm? This place?” Prince Yoongi stroked the back of the Princess’ fingers with his thumb as he repeated her question out loud. “This is part of the seventh garden, Princess…do you like it?”

The Princess was unimpressed by the Prince’s answer. “Would you like me to rephrase my question?”

Prince Yoongi shook his head and tugged the Princess farther into the clearing. “I made it clear that no one was allowed in this garden. Namjoon, Seokjin and myself took great lengths to ensure that this garden was perfect in every sense of the word.”

Princess Keena sat down on a stool and the Prince sat across from her. Wheein and Hyejin started to set food onto the young royal’s plates and the Princess stared at all the food. Different fruit dishes were the main focus with some noodle and meat sides. Everything looked delicious and smelled amazing, it was mouth watering. Wheein held a white porcelain cup with black and red koi fish painted on it in her hand and poured fresh ginseng tea for the Prince and Princess. She stepped away and stood beside Yongsun who had her hand folded in front of her.

Prince Yoongi held back the sleeve of his robe and grabbed his cup before he cleared his throat, “I hope you enjoy this meal, Princess. Thank you for giving me a moment of your time.” Prince Yoongi raised his cup and the Princess followed his action before they both drank with smiles on their faces.

The meal was more than the Princess had expected- it surpassed every meal that she had in her time within the Min empire. Prince Yoongi was delighted to see that the Princess had enjoyed the meal. His mother had informed him that the Princess seemed to like lighter foods to start her day, so he thought it best to have fruit be the star of the meal. The meat was for himself but he was happy to watch as the Princess tried a few pieces.

After their meal, Prince Yoongi rose to his feet and walked around to where the Princess sat. He offered his hand to the Princess and as she put her hand in his, he noticed the familiar rings on her index finger.

“Come, I have more to share with you.”

Princess Keena stood and allowed for the Prince to lead her farther into the forest garden. More and more plants, some known and most unknown lined the stone path that took them deeper. Again the trees started to thin out and the Princess noticed a break in the trees. As they got closer, the Prince slowed his steps and the Princess copied his movements. Prince Yoongi turned to face the Princess and he bit his bottom lip. One of his fangs peaked from under his upper lip and the Princess squeezed his hand.

“What troubles you, my Prince?”

Prince Yoongi shook his head and looked over his shoulder at the clearing, “Nothing…I-I just wanted you to know that I have always thought of you as so much more than just my dear friend.” The Prince looked down at the Princess’ hands in his and nibbled on his lower lip before he spoke, his voice soft as he allowed for the truth to leave his lips. “You are e-everything to me. I wish that we had meant sooner in person, so that we could have made more memories together.”

Prince Yoongi picked his head up and brought the Princess’ fingers to his mouth. “I could offer power or all the riches in the world and yet I know that you would not accept.” The smile on the Prince’s face was amused as he spoke and looked into the Princess’ eyes. “What could I offer one such as yourself, hum? What would keep a smile on your face when you are miles away from home?” Prince Yoongi pressed his lips to the Princess’ fingers and lowered their hands.

“My gift to you Princess, above all else, is your happiness.” Prince Yoongi turned and gazed out at the land just beyond the break in the trees. “May you find that once more here within the seventh garden…a home away from home.”

The Prince slowly stepped between the trees and the Princess followed behind. Sunlight spilled down from above and Princess Keena closed her eyes from the sudden brightness. She counted to five in her head and peaked open her eyes as the Prince’s hand fell away from her own. White. Everything was white, white, white. A subtle scent was in the air, light and sweet with a faint trace of almond…a copse of trees. Princess Keena’s hands flew to her mouth as she stared wide eyed at the blackthorn trees before her.

“How?” The Princess’ voice shook as her watery eyes found the Prince’s. “I…thank you.”

Prince Yoongi grinned and he turned his head to look at the trees, impressed. Namjoon really out did himself with the layout. Blackthorn trees were grouped together in clusters spread throughout the clearing while thick bushes outlined the perimeter with peonies at the bottom. White wild flowers were planted on the ground throughout the clearing and the stone path that was laid down, led to a tiny gap in the grove of trees that would be perfect to sit under and enjoy a meal or read. Prince Yoongi turned his head back to the Princess and noticed the others as they stood at the entrance to the blackthorn garden.

“Do you like it, Princess?” The Prince’s words were unstable. The pitch was all wrong and he quickly cleared his throat to which the Princess giggled. Prince Yoongi rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks heated and flushed as the Princess grabbed a hand in hers.

“In my nation we have a saying that shows our thanks…ou fè byen.” Princess Keena squeezed the Prince’s hand as he brows pulled together in confusion and she spoke again, “You do well, my Prince.”

"You do well," Prince Yoongi repeated the phrase and the Princess’ face lit up even more. “I like the sound of that.” The Prince pulled the Princess into his arms and hugged her lightly as he ducked his head down so that his mouth was next to her ear. "Ou fè byen."

The Princess melted, her body pressed against the Prince’s as he held her in his arms. She closed her eyes and inhaled the earthy scent that was simply the Prince. As petals from the blackthorns swung in the breeze, the almond scent swirled around them and a single thought crossed the Princess’ mind as she hugged the Prince.

Home.

She had found home in his arms. The Prince and Princess released their embrace of each other and Prince Yoongi refused to let go of her hand.

“I have one last gift for you, Princess.”

“My Prince, you have given me more than enough.”

Prince Yoongi laughed and started to lead the Princess into the trees. He waved off the guards as well as the Princess’ handmaids once he noticed that they had stepped farther into the grove. The rippling water that the Princess had faintly heard became louder as the greenery around them became denser. Prince Yoongi pointed out a small section of bushes that didn’t look any different but once they got closer, the Princess noticed that the bushes were slotted together oddly. She looked to the Prince with a question on her tongue but he shook his head and placed his index finger over his lips.

The Prince pulled the Princess through the miniature maze that was hidden in plain sight and once out at the other end, Prince Yoongi let go of the Princess’ hand.

“Just a little farther, we’re almost there.”

The excitement was ever present in the Prince’s eyes that glittered and danced as his body seemed to vibrate in place. Princess Keena followed quietly behind the Prince and took in the different scenery. The grass was softer underfoot, the trees were thicker and the flowers were sparse. The bubbling water sounded closer as the once soft sloshing had now become an endless roiling. Hostas, lady ferns, liverwort, tapestry and bluets appeared more frequently and the ground gave way to large flat slabs of rocks. The Princess looked over the Prince’s shoulder as he came to a stop and the sudden squawk that came from her mouth made both royals jump.

Prince Yoongi pretended as if nothing happened and kicked off his shoes. He bent at the waist and brought his knees upward to remove his socks as well before he gathered his skirt in his hands.

“Care for a soak?” Prince Yoongi’s smile was teasing as he walked closer to the large rock wall that was covered with moss. A spring sat at the base of the rocks, its water so clear that the Princess could see right down to the bottom when she looked in. The spring was well hidden from prying eyes and upon further inspection, the Princess noticed that the soft grass she had walked on was fern moss.

The Princess watched from a safe distance away from the water as the Prince followed a small set of stacked rocks into the water. Princess Keena had thought that whoever had made the stone steps had incredible foresight. Goosebumps rose on the Prince’s arms and he shivered slightly from the cooler temperature of the water as he sat at the edge of the spring and soaked his feet.

“It feels wonderful, Princess! Join me!” Prince Yoongi’s voice carried over the splashing of the spring and the Princess sighed. The Prince’s smile was wide and gummy, too sweet to decline.

The Princess bent low and removed her sandals before she walked over to the spring and stood across from the Prince. She looked around at the layout and noticed there was a smaller waterfall to the left of the rock wall and to the right the water went up the wall where three runes seemed to glow from the rocks.

“What are those inscriptions?” Princess Keena questioned as she raised her skirts and eased her foot into the water on the first step.

Prince Yoongi glanced over his shoulder to see what the Princess had meant and once he saw the glowing runes he turned back around with that large gummy smile.

“I asked Namjoon if he knew of any water magic that would help keep the water fresh and clean. Unfortunately, this would have been a stagnant spring for there was no water source outside of the rain.”

Princess Keena stood at the first step, the bottom of her feet wet, but the tops still dry. Prince Yoongi chuckled and when the Princess shot him a glare he quickly coughed into his hand and cleared his throat.

“The runes are an old magic that were used to help farmers during times of drought and stopped flooding in other areas like forests and oceanside villages. I do not recall what Namjoon had called them.” Prince Yoongi pointed to the top of the rock wall and shrugged his shoulders. “There are more at the top to direct the water downward as well.”

Princess Keena nodded her head at the information and carefully eased herself down onto the second step. She yelped as the cool water wrapped around her ankles and jumped back, her foot missed the top step and Prince Yoongi was quick to catch the Princess in his arms. Unfortunately, when the Prince jumped to his feet, his skirt dropped into the water and tangled around his legs. The sudden weight of the Princess sent him backwards and they both fell into the spring with a loud splash.

The young royals swam to the surface and laughter filled the air as Princess Keena saw the wide eyed look of confusion on the Prince’s face. Strands of hair were plastered to the Prince’s face and as he treaded water, the Prince huffed out smoke from his nose and he pushed his hair back from his face. The Princess’ giggles were clear and before the Prince had the chance to ask if she was okay, a cool wave of water hit the Prince right in his face. He sputtered and hissed as he spit out water and the Princess swam away.

“Hey!” Prince Yoongi swam after her and stood straight and once his feet touched the bottom of the spring, he threw his arms out and splashed the Princess.

“Ahhhhaha!!” Princess Keena laughed and scrambled to her feet, she was shorter than the Prince, but was still able to stand with her head above the water. The two royals splashed and chased each other around while their laughter carried on the wind.

In the grove of blackthorns, Hoseok watched as Aga and Namjoon stood before one of the trees. Aga was impressed by the amount of trees. He had no idea that the young Prince had prepared such a meaningful gift for the Princess. The blackthorn was the tree of Escistan and it meant a lot to the people. To have a piece of their homeland so close within touch made Aga a little soft. He knew that the Princess would spend most if not all of her time tucked away within the sweet almond shade.

Yelling and laughter was warped as it rode the wind but Hoseok and Aga knew that the royals were safe. They may not have known the location but it was not something either of them worried about. Kai and the Princess’ handmaids sat by the edge of the clearing and chatted away with each other. Minho kept his distance from everyone and looked in the direction of where the Prince took the Princess. He did not understand why Hoseok or Aga did not go with the young royals. Dangers lurked all around the palace.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and Minho jumped at the sudden presence of Hoseok by his side. Hoseok grinned, all of his perfect white teeth displayed as he looked in the direction that Minho had watched.

“Are you anxious with them out of sight?”

“Shouldn’t we be anxious? His Highness is alone with the Princess and no one is by their side.” Minho frowned at Hoseok’s question and Hoseok laughed.

“I will let you in on a little secret, Minho…” Hoseok leaned in and whispered into Minho’s ear. “There is no dragon stronger than Agust. If someone were to attack His Highness or try to harm the Princess they would be killed on the spot. Understand?” Hoseok patted Minho’s shoulder and stepped away.

Minho flinched at Hoseok’s words and looked away from the direction that the royals disappeared to. “Enjoy the break while you can, Minho. Stop and smell the flowers!” Hoseok giggled as if he told the funniest joke.

He walked away from Minho and joined Namjoon at his side while Aga explained the history behind the blackthorn and the Escastan kingdom. Minho shook his head and walked over to where Kai was seated. As he sat beside him the laughter on the wind grew louder and clearer. Minho looked in the direction of the laughter and the royals appeared seemingly out of thin air. They were both wet from head to toe, large smiles on their faces as they stood with their hands linked together.

“We are not going to make this an everyday thing!” Hoseok scolded as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Princess!” Yungsun jumped to her feet and hurried over to where the Princess stood, her robes soaked once again much like the day before but worse. “We must get you changed right away, least you catch a cold.”

Aga shook his head and grunted as he noticed a shadow above the trees. Hoseok noticed the shadow as well and whistled before he held out his arm and Ussik flew down onto his arm. The Princess’ eyes lit up at the sight of the black eagle and before she could take a step forward, Aga shook his head once more.

“Leave her alone, she has a message.”

Hoseok pulled the small note from the eagle’s leg and sent the bird away. He unrolled the note and pinched the bridge of his nose as he handed it to Aga.

“I am going to go grey early at this rate.” Hoseok muttered to himself before he turned his attention to the young royals. “His and Her Majesty have called for an audience. They are on their way to the throne room now.”

“Let us go now, Princess!” Yungsun moved to usher the Princess away but Aga stopped her.

“Do what you can while we walk. There is no time to change.”

Everyone stared at the young royals at Aga’s words and the Princess felt heat pool in her cheeks while the Prince just frowned. He gave the Princess’ hand a squeeze and removed his outer robe and tossed it to Minho.

“An audience for what reason?” The Prince questioned and Aga handed over the note. Prince Yoongi read over the written words and sighed. Just how much longer did his parents plan on interfering with his love life? It’s bad enough they had almost caused the Princess to hate him.

“They will wait until the Princess has had the chance to change.”

“Your Highn-”

Prince Yoongi held his hand out and silenced Hoseok before he turned his attention to Yungsun. “Take the Princess back to her chambers. I will have an outfit sent right away.”

“My Prince-”

Prince Yoongi turned to the Princess and cupped her cheek gently in his hand. His thumb grazed the outer corner of her lips and he smiled. “Go and warm up. I will see you again, shortly. Do not give your maids any grief. They are acting on my orders.” The Prince placed a soft kiss on the Princess’ forehead and everyone quickly looked away.

The Princess wrapped her fingers around the Prince’s wrist and turned her face in his hand. Her lips pressed into the meat of his palm and gold started to ripple through the dark of his eyes.

“Thank you, my Prince.” The Princess’ words were petal soft as she pulled the Prince’s hand from her face and tugged on his wrist. Prince Yoongi licked his lips and lent his face down towards the Princess.

"Ou fè byen." Prince Yoongi’s words ghosted over the Princess’ lips and he sighed as the softest kiss was placed upon his lips. The Princess was gone in the blink of an eye along with her handmaids and guards. Hoseok and Namjoon stood together with smirks on their faces as they watched the Prince touch his lips.

“Come on, lover boy. You need to change as well!” Hoseok walked off unable to fight the large smile that had started to pull at his lips. Looks like the plan had worked well, very well.

True to his word, the Prince sent a new outfit to the Princess’ home and it was bold to say the least. A blush colored blouse with a high squared collar was the base with two golden buttons to fasten the collar shut. The buttons were butterflies, four in total. The butterflies on the left had a hollowed out section above its head and the butterflies on the right had a jewel inlaid above the head. When fastened together, the butterflies seemed to hold the moon above them. The sleeves were long and wide with a silk band around the end that had gold gingko leaves embroidered. A white pleated skirt with a subtle pattern of black and red peonies was next. The same red silk band and golden gingko leaves were at the bottom of the skirt and the blouse was tucked in.

A red silk bixi with a blush border was to be tucked into the waist of the skirt; black and gold peonies embroidered down the center. The hanfu was completed by a red robe with a straight white collar that was covered in embroidered gold gingko leaves. The ends of the sleeves were shorter than the blouse, so the bottom of the sleeves stacked against each other. The sleeves on the robe had a white band around them with black and red peonies and on top of the white band was a thinner blush band that wrapped around the sleeves.

The Princess didn’t put up a fight as her handmaids dressed her quickly after her bath. Her hair was touched up and kept in the same style but reversed. The loops pointed downward and hung low on the back of the Princess’ head. The accessories were replaced with rubies, fire opals and a gold tikka headpiece that dangled loosely on the forehead with a large ruby in the center. The headpiece had long elegant side tassels that draped over the top of the ears and reached the Princess’ breast, covered in rubies and diamonds. To offset the dazzling tassels, the Princess wore small golden studs in her ears.

Jooheon, Wonho and Mingi were to escort the Princess into the palace, where then the Princess would touch base with the Prince. They would enter the throne room together and from there, Hoseok and Aga would take over guard duty.

The Prince wore his traditional red, black and gold gonryongpo with his hair pulled neatly into a topknot with a black band wrapped around his forehead to keep the flyaways from his face. He stood off to the side of the throne room with his hand clasped behind his back while he waited for the Princess and Hoseok lent against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Do you know what this is about, Hoseok?”

“Not a clue, Your Highness.” The Prince shot Hoseok an unamused look and Hoseok shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the truth.”

The Prince hummed and tried to wrack his mind for any idea as to why his parents wanted to speak with him and the Princess at the same time. When they spoke to them together before, the news was not taken well. The Prince was pulled from his thoughts when Hoseok subtlety kicked his calf and when the Prince turned to scowl, Hoseok nodded his head in the other direction. Prince Yoongi turned around and his breath caught in his throat at the sight of the Princess. He had seen the Princess in red before but the hanfu he picked out was one of the most glamorous and extravagant that he had seen the Princess wear to date. She looked like the true future Empress of the Min empire.

Princess Keena was beyond pleased at the look on the Prince’s face once they locked eyes. Those dark orbs that pierced the Princess’ very soul were bright as a thin gold rings tried to expand. The Princess bowed her head before the Prince and he did the same before he extended his arm and offered his hand. The Princess placed her hand in his and Prince Yoongi wrapped his fingers around her lightly.

“You look more stunning than just those few moments ago,” Prince Yoongi teased with a wink and Princess Keena rolled her eyes.

“Thank you, my Prince. Red seems to be one of my stronger colors.” The Princess held her head high as she stood by the Prince’s side and Hoseok motioned for the guards to open the doors to the throne room.

“His and Her Majesty will see you now.”

Together, hand in hand, the Prince and Princess walked into the throne room and neither was surprised when the doors slammed shut behind them. The younger royals bowed their heads to the Emperor and Empress before they stood before them with fire in their eyes. Emperor Min eyed the joined hands of the young royals and he cleared his throat loudly before he spoke up.

“Let us try this again, shall we?”

Outside of the throne room, Hoseok and Aga stood guard with emotionless faces. Few people walked by and when they did, they whispered to themselves and bowed their heads. Hoseok inwardly rolled his eyes, he knew that every person in the palace was a glutton for gossip. Aga stared ahead blankly and he clenched his hands at his sides.

“Be honest with me, Hoseok.”

“What is on your mind, Aga?”

“Will the Princess be happy here? Truly happy?”

Hoseok glanced at Aga from the corner of his eye briefly before he looked ahead once more. “I believe that His Highness’ feelings for the Princess are candid in the purest of forms. I have known the Prince since childhood. I watched him grow into the young man he is today and I know a large percentage of his mindset is because of the Princess.”

“Love does not mean happiness.”

Hoseok chewed on the inside of his lower lip as he thought over Aga’s words. The statement was true enough.

“Well, I guess we will have to wait and see. Only time will tell.”

Aga grunted and Hoseok sighed. He hoped that the meeting with His and Her Majesty would be over soon.

There was a forest that was home to many animals and it was said to be protected by a God. The Min Emperors of the past refused to destroy the forest in fear of the Gods wrath so, they built around it. The crossroad that led to the capital of the Min Empire was where Jungkook was to wait for Namjoon and it was beside the great forest. Jungkook had arrived at his and Namjoon’s agreed upon meeting place early, too early in all his excitement. It had been a long time since Jungkook had last seen Namjoon and so much had happened.

Jungkook was no longer the wistful kid that fell in love with his best friend…well he still loved Namjoon, that would never change. Now, after traveling around the world, Jungkook felt more mature. He felt like he could finally get Namjoon to notice him in a different light. Jungkook had changed, not only was he more worldly, but his appearance was different as well. His long dark hair was cut short and cropped close to the scalp on the sides of his head. Jungkook also got his eyebrow pierced by a tribe he met during his travels.

Jungkook was all grown up and he couldn’t wait to show Namjoon just how much he had matured. However, Namjoon wouldn’t be there for a while, so Jungkook decided to leave his belongings by the road and explore the forest to pass the time. The moment Jungkook entered the dense greenery, the temperature dropped slightly since the leaves of the trees hid the sun. The shade was welcomed and Jungkook hiked the cloth pack on his back up a little higher. Maybe he would find something interesting to sketch while he waited for Namjoon. As the thought crossed his mind a large swallowtail butterfly flew into Jungkook’s view and he grinned.

“Hello, there.” Jungkook bowed kindly to the butterfly and rolled his shoulders. “Could I have a moment of your time?”

The butterfly landed on Jungkook’s shoulder, close to his neck and he huffed a laugh as the wings tickled his skin. The butterfly took off and Jungkook giggled to himself as he followed the butterfly, all alone farther into the forest. It was midday and the sun was high in the sky. The air was warm and fresh, filled with the scent of grass, dirt and flowers. Jungkook felt alive as he chased after the little butterfly. His art supplies jostled around on his back as he skipped about. The butterfly seemingly rode the breeze as it glided through the air and landed on a fallen tree. Red Spider Lilies rested around the rotted tree and Jungkook’s dark eyes lit up at the sight. What a pretty picture he stumbled upon.

“Stay right there, please?” Jungkook softly begged the butterfly as he quickly lowered himself to the ground. He plopped down on the plush grass below and shrugged off the pack on his back before he swung it into his lap. Jungkook kept his eyes on the butterfly, determined to burn the image into his memory just in case the small creature decided it didn’t want to stay.

All of Jungkook’s art supplies were laid out in front of him and he smiled to himself. Luck had been on his side lately. First he was commissioned to repaint the butterfly house, one of the many smaller developments within the Min court and now, Jungkook sits with a pretty butterfly in front of him just waiting for its beauty to be captured. It was a great start to Jungkook’s month and he was looking forward to seeing his dear friend, Kim Namjoon once again. Silently, Jungkook sat and started to outline the view in front of him. Lost in his own world, Jungkook failed to hear the pounding of feet that grew louder and louder.

The butterfly felt the vibrations and flew away which made Jungkook sigh. He stared at the empty log in front of him and frowned; its beauty wasn’t the same as before.

“It’s getting away!”

“Get it!”

Voices echoed through the air and Jungkook’s head whipped around just in time to see a large tiger. Its eyes were wide in fear, as it growled at the sight of Jungkook and tried to backtrack. The voices were louder now and the tiger looked hurt. Jungkook slowly rose to his feet and looked around for anywhere he could hide the tiger. The tree!

“I-I won’t hurt you!” Jungkook whispered as he pointed towards the fallen tree. “Please, hide! I will protect you!” Jungkook’s voice was desperate as he finally realized what was taking place around him.

“Please!” Jungkook begged.

He might have been human but he loved animals and he didn’t want this majestic creature to be harmed or worse killed. The tiger seemed to understand Jungkook’s intentions and scurried over to the falling tree. The tiger paused by Jungkook’s side and nudged the side of his knee with its large head in silent thanks. It whined low in its throat as it squeezed its body into the hallowed entrance and Jungkook sat back down in front of his art supplies. He picked up one of his charcoal sticks with shaky hands and took a deep breath. He forced himself to ignore the voices that were now practically right behind him and started to draw again.

“Hey!”

A voice shouted out and Jungkook jumped, the charcoal stick in his hand snapped in two. Jungkook turned his head and his eyes widened at the sight of five men all dressed in black hanboks with quivers and bow on their backs. Machetes were in some hands while others held bows with arrows notched.

“Boy! Have you seen a tiger?”

“A-A tiger?” Jungkook stammered and quickly shook his head as he licked his lips. “I would be dead if I saw one…right?” Jungkook forced himself to lower his art supplies and slowly stood up while he dusted himself off.

“We got ‘em good. Stupid beast couldn’t have gotten very far.”

“It’s weakened. Are you sure you haven’t seen it?”

The men all stared at Jungkook and he shook his head once again before he snapped his fingers. “Oh! I heard something in that direction-” Jungkook pointed a little off from the way that the men came. “I wasn’t sure what it was, so I didn’t pay it much attention.”

The men looked at each other and the one that seemed to be the leader stepped forward with narrowed eyes. “What are you doing out here, boy?”

Jungkook bent down and grabbed his unfinished artwork. He held it out towards the men and cleared his throat. “I’ve been commissioned by the royal court. I’m collecting references for my pieces.”

The leader looked back at his group and spit at the ground before he snatched the artwork from Jungkook’s hands. He looked it over and Jungkook chewed on his lower lip in silence as he waited. His lie was flawless, there wasn’t any reason for them men not to believe him.

“What’s that on your leg?” The leader nodded towards Jungkook and when he looked down sure enough, there was a patch of bright red on the side of his grey and white robes.

“It’s from the sketch. I thought a red butterfly would look-”

“Hold him down.” The leader smirked and his crew quickly surrounded Jungkook before they grabbed him. They kicked the back of his knees and sent him crashing to the ground roughly.

The leader threw Jungkook’s sketch to the ground, the only color on the paper was black. “I don’t like liars, kid.” He looked around the forest and licked his lips. “Where’s the tiger?”

“I didn’t see a tiger.”

The leader pulled his machete from his hip and placed it under Jungkook’s chin. Jungkook stared up at the man with large eyes.

****

“I will slit your throat and leave you here, since you like nature so much. I’m sure the other beasts in this place will be happy for a fresh meal.”

Jungkook gulped and felt tears burn his eyes. This was it? He would never see Namjoon or his parents again. He never even got to meet the Princess. Jungkook closed his eyes and readied himself for the deadly blow. The man above him sucked his teeth and kicked Jungkook in the stomach. Jungkook gasped as the air was knocked out of him and he groaned, while the two men that held him tightened their grip on his arms.

“Where is the tiger!?”

Again the man kicked Jungkook and it felt like his spine would snap in two just like the charcoal he was so fond of. A broken roar came from behind Jungkook and everyone froze.

Jungkook weakly looked over his shoulder and the tiger was no longer hidden in the fallen tree. Its eyes were round and wild, all fear replaced with rage. It growled and Jungkook could see that it was in so much pain. “No! R-Run!” Jungkook begged as tears started to fall from his eyes. “Run!”

“Shut up!” The leader punched Jungkook in the face and pain spread from the center of his face to his temples as blood gushed from his broken nose. The tiger roared loudly and pounced on the man closest to it.

“Kill it!” Someone shouted and Jungkook was thrown to the ground. His vision was spotty, his equilibrium off from the sudden punch to his face and loss of blood. Jungkook could hear the tiger fighting for its life and Jungkook tried to clear his vision with a shake of his head. That only made things worse, it felt like he was going to throw up.

“S-Stop it!” Jungkook grumbled. He blinked hard and noticed that there was an abandoned machete in front of him. Jungkook had never held a weapon in his life, yet alone attacked anyone. He grimaced as he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. There’s a first time for everything. Jungkook struggled to pick himself up off the ground but when he heard the tiger yelp in pain, he jumped to his feet and swung the machete with full force. He spun in a clumsy circle and nearly tripped over his own two feet. Someone shouted and Jungkook blinked his eyes quickly. His hazed vision cleared for just a moment.

The tiger had its mouth around the leader’s neck and the sickening crunch that filled the air made Jungkook’s stomach turn. Jungkook felt nausea and when the tiger dropped the man from its mouth, it started to limp towards Jungkook. Jungkook blinked and he noticed movement from behind the tiger.

“NO!” Jungkook’s body reacted faster than his mind. He jumped in front of the tiger and blocked the poor beast with his body. An arrow pierced his skin and sunk deep into his heart. Jungkook staggered back with a pained gasp and another arrow hit him just below his heart. Jungkook fell backwards with a thud. The tiger yelped as two more arrows were released, both hit the tiger in the neck.

“Now, none of us will live.” The man that had shot the arrows, dropped his bow and fell to his side, dead.

Blood dyed the whites of Jungkook’s robes a deep red with traces of black. Jungkook looked down at the arrow in his chest and started to cry. Large fat tears rolled down his face, the pain was horrible. It felt like he had been burned from the inside out. It was excruciating as his heart kept beating. Slowly, Jungkook rolled over onto his hands and knees, the tiger was in no better shape. The poor thing was covered in gashes and arrows. The blood that seeped from its body was almost black and Jungkook crawled over to the tiger. It whimpered sadly, its eyes watery and wet which made Jungkook cry harder.

“I-I’ll get help. My friend…he-he’ll know what to do.” Jungkook’s words were slow and felt like lead on his tongue. Jungkook patted the tiger on the head gently and tried to stand but his legs wouldn’t work. He had little to no strength left. “I’ll get help…” Jungkook looked around and felt his blood run cold, he didn’t remember the way he came. “Help…s-someone!”

Jungkook whimpered as he settled himself on his knees and wiped at his nose. Blood and snot mixed together on the sleeve of his robes. “N-Namjoon…” Jungkook called for his friend, he didn’t want to die. Not here, not like this…he wanted to save the tiger as much as he wanted to save himself.

The tiger made a gurgling sound and Jungkook shook his head. “I’ll stay…I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

Jungkook moved around slowly so that he could sit with the tiger and rested his back against the falling tree. Bright red spider lilies were scattered around them, unharmed while Jungkook pulled the tiger's head into his lap. Carefully, Jungkook pulled the arrows from everywhere that he could reach and the tiger whimpered.

“I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” Jungkook cried as he held onto the tiger. Blood soaked into his robes more and Jungkook slowly petted the tiger’s head. Through his tears Jungkook couldn’t tell what was blood and what was a flower, it all blended together. “I couldn’t save you.” Jungkook’s eyes grew heavy. It was hard to keep them open as his tears continued to fall and his energy faded little by little.

****

On the ground the half finished sketch laid forgotten, splotches of red bloomed and spread like the flowers that surrounded Jungkook and the tiger. A single swish of reddish black smeared the paper in a messy swirl of wings. The tiger in Jungkook’s lap started to breathe slower and slower until Jungkook knew it was no longer breathing. He smiled sadly and wailed; his cries carried on the wind as he gave up all hope of being saved. A cooling breeze sent falling leaves up in the air and created a gentle twister a short distance from Jungkook. He blinked slowly and his eyelids refused to open again.

“Jeon Jungkook…what have you done?”

A warm hand cupped Jungkook’s cheek and he felt a light pressure on his forehead.

“Open your eyes, Jungkook.”

Jungkook whimpered, he was scared. What would he see when he opened his eyes? The pain in Jungkook’s chest lessened and Jungkook could breathe a little easier. He inhaled softly and his eyes popped open.

“You are such a foolish mortal. Foolish with the most tender of hearts.”

There crouched before Jungkook, was Namjoon. He was different yet somehow still the same. The robes he wore were a cloud white with hints of leafy greens and sky blues. His skin was flawless and seemed to glow from within, a pale green light; those familiar brown eyes had a green ring around the pupils that quivered with life. Jungkook wondered if it was a dream, a trick of his mind as he crossed over into the afterlife. Namjoon smiled sadly and pulled his face away from Jungkook’s.

“I was going to tell you everything. Once your work at the palace was complete, I wanted to tell you everything. This is who I really am.”

“God?” Jungkook whispered and Namjoon laughed with a shake of his head.

“No, not God. A dryad.” Namjoon stated and Jungkook looked confused. “I was human like you but right after I called on your help, my soul fused with a hamadryad that was dying and I became a dryad.” Namjoon explained softly as Jungkook stared down at the tiger in his lap.

“I look after those who cannot speak for themselves. I was too late for this one,” Namjoon stroked the head of the tiger in Jungkook’s lap. He looked up into Jungkook’s eyes and frowned as he saw the fear on Jungkook’s face.

“Are you here to take me to the afterlife?” Jungkook questioned and Namjoon seemed to hesitate.

“I can give you that option…you cannot return to your old life because you have died.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened and Namjoon nodded his head.

“You may cross over if you would like. You will be reborn like any other who lived a good life and kept a good soul-”

“Or?” Jungkook licked his lips as reached out for Namjoon’s hand.

“Or-” Namjoon laced his fingers with Jungkook’s and squeezed lightly, “you could join this beast in their new life. They are willing to share it with you after your sacrifice.”

Jungkook looked down at the tiger in his lap and hugged the beast close to his chest. He was grateful for such an offer, he felt honored.

“Do you know how ginkgo beasts are created?” Namjoon asked though he knew the answer was no. “A ginkgo beast is born from an unjust death. Myself or another dryad hears their call and we answer. It’s another chance at life and this time they have the power to protect themselves as well as those around them.” Namjoon spoke softly as he squeezed Jungkook’s hand once more.

It hurt to see that Jungkook had died such a tragic death but he was proud of Jungkook. This was one offer that Namjoon hoped the foolish mortal would take. Jungkook thought back to a few moments earlier when he tried to comfort the tiger, he told the beast that he would stay and wouldn’t leave it behind…he would keep his promise.

“I-I would like to stay with the tiger…”

Namjoon grinned and pressed his lips firmly to Jungkook’s forehead. When he pulled away a small yellow ginkgo leaf rested between Jungkook’s eyebrows.

“When you wake, you will be in a new body. You won’t remember anyone from this life an-”

“I-I won’t know you?!” Jungkook looked at Namjoon and his eyes filled with even more tears. “Will you know me?” Jungkook forced himself to ask the question and Namjoon smiled, his dimples deep as he rested his forehead against Jungkook’s once again.

Namjoon reached out for Jungkook’s hand and linked their pinkies together tightly as he whispered, “I could never forget you, Kookie.”

Jungkook smiled through his tears and looked down at their joined hands. There wrapped tightly around their pinkies was a thin red thread and Jungkook felt his heart clench. Jungkook closed his eyes and inhaled softly. “Okay…I-I’m ready.”

Jungkook flinched when he felt something warm and wet hit his skin. He refused to open his eyes, he understood that Namjoon was crying. Jungkook leaned forward and pressed his lips to Namjoon in a cotton soft kiss.

“I love you, Namjoon. Always.”

When Jungkook opened his eyes, he was surrounded by the brightest white he had ever seen. The tiger sat a few feet from him, clean and unharmed. Jungkook smiled and walked over to the tiger.

“Sorry, I kept you waiting.” Jungkook placed his hand on the tiger’s head and scratched behind its ear. “Let’s go start a new life.”

#dragon yoongi #emperor yoongi #bts fantasy au #blackthorn ch 10 #bts ambw #yoongi x oc #yoongi x black oc #friends to lovers #daechwita yoongi

27 notes · View notes

perplexingluciddreams · 7 months

Text

Mending special safe grey hoodie, part 1

I start with the holes around the hoodie strings. They originally had metal rings, but mum took them off because I had an MRI a while ago, and no metal allowed! Under the metal rings was silicone/rubber rings, and mum originally loosely stitch this back around the hole, to protect the fabric and keep the shape.

I decide to keep this when I fix it with better stitching (in nice dark green colour thread!). It gives more structure and helps me with tension when sewing it.

I use a buttonhole stitch, and this is my first time, I learn it just for this! I am quite proud of myself.

Before:

[image description: close up picture of hole for a hoodie string, with silicone eyelet around it, loosely stitched with grey thread to match the colour of the hoodie. End ID.]

I use four strands of thread for this, because I need it to be quite thick (two strands, threaded through the needle and doubled over, then knotted at the ends).

[image description: close up picture showing partway through the process of doing a buttonhole stitch around the edge of the hole. The silicone ring is still there, being covered with the dark green thread as it goes around. In the image, the needle is partway inserted into the fabric and the thread is wrapped under and around the needle, as is necessary for a buttonhole stitch. End ID.]

[image description: a now completed ring of dark green buttonhole stitch around the edge of the hole. It is slightly uneven at the outside edges, and there is some gaps between lines of thread where the silicone ring shows through. The knots that a buttonhole stitch creates are neat around the inside edge of the hole. End ID.]

I decide that I don’t want gaps, or uneven edges, so I decide to go around the perimeter with a backstitch (only two strands of thread for this - aka one strand threaded through, doubled, knotted at ends). As I get to a spot where there is a gap in the ring, I do a few loops around to fill the space.

[image description: the needle inserted through the ring, about to make another loop around to fill a space. The thread is not looped around the needle this time, because it is a whip stitch, not a buttonhole stitch. The part of the ring that has already been done is much more evenly covered in the green thread, with no visible gaps. End ID.]

[image description: close up front view of the finished ring. It is evenly covered in the dark green thread, with neat knots around the inside edge of the hole. It looks sturdy. End ID.]

[image description: very close up view of the finished ring from the side, to show the still slightly uneven perimeter. However, this is no longer visible from the front view because of the tight backstitch to secure everything properly. The image is slightly unclear because it is zoomed in so much, but you can see where the thread was knotted off by a slightly larger spot at one part of the perimeter line. End ID.]

😊 (smiling blushing emoji)

15 notes · View notes

honeybyte · 7 months

Note

didn't want to ask this in the replies but what is your process like for designing clothing for characters bc not only do they look gorgeous but you always put so much thought into your stuff, esp the historical kind. it smthin i've always kind of struggled with tbh and you make it so interesting

oh man it kinda. varies? depending on what kind of clothing i want out of a character. this gets kinda long too but bear w me lol

the fashion pieces i do, i spend a lot of time going thru fashion editorials for poses and pick up pieces of different outfits or silhouettes that i want out of a piece. for stuff like a set occupation (hunter, butcher, blacksmith) it's abt knowing time period and finding the pattern between different photos.

the more complicated ones are like. odelia and euan. where im creating a whole piece that's frankensteined from a couple different styles (rococo, georgian, regency, etc). i think the three main types of information i depend on are Goal, Silhouette, and Fabric.

so Odelia and Euan. the goals for them are very different, bc Odelia strives to be the center of attention while Euan tries to blend in with the background.

Odelia needs something extravagant and flashy, maybe brightly colored and shiny; pastels and wide skirts would be good for her, and rococo is a good place to find both. satin is good for shine and lace is good for detail, and both are relatively light materials. Euan would want something a little more subdued, possibly a tighter silhouette so he's not taking up much space. i found a picture of a russian noble while i was sifting thru various noble clothing designs, and i liked the way the silhouette was tighter and cleaner. he'd also need darker colors if he wants to hide in the shadows. i like the way darker colors look in velvet, and it's a thicker, heavier fabric, which was another trait in the photo i was referencing. i also like the weight and thickness of quilted fabric so throw that in there for fun and detail. lastly, being as they're twins and high priests, they need a way to tie the designs to each other, and i settled on a thicker neckline that suits both styles in different ways. the finished concept looks a bit like this.

granted this is always subject to change, and its a v simple version of the design i want, but its a good start

with designs like that i also like looking for textiles! rococo patterns are so pretty too, so i picked one for Euan as well. the off white would be shared between the two designs, the lighter blues for Odelia, and the darker blues for Euan

wheeze that's a rough estimation of how i go thru designs, there's a type of practicality and personality i want out of most of them so i try to research what i can when i want smth specific. part of this is admittedly bc i. am a lil obsessed w period clothing, so i already have some of that in my back pocket, but i also think just typing in "[year] fashion" is a fair place to start. regardless, having fun is a Must when you're designing clothes for a character so dont forget that bit lol. i wish you luck and godspeed, friend!

#ask #i once again got in depth with it but i LOVE designing clothes #i dont do super complicated stuff often bc low energy BUT #when i DO #i go a lil nuts w it bc its a lot of fun for me

11 notes · View notes

norithepigeon · 1 year

Text

I’ve been really busy and unable to post much recently, but Nori and Kombu had their first eggs together and just finished sitting on them! (They were swapped with fakes, the eggs not hatching doesn’t bother pigeons).

More about their setup:

They live in a 48” x 30” x 32” dog crate with double doors, one on the end and one on the side. I hung an old sheet on the back to protect the wall from the birds.

On the left side they have two perches, both from Flat Perch. One is a corner perch while the other is a rectangle attached to the front door. Some various hanging toys with different shapes and textures, along with bells because they really enjoy these sorts of things. I plan to replace some of the older ones soon, I’d like to change them out every so often. They also have some cat toys on the floor, balls with bells in them. They have a mirror, since pigeons don’t have issues with mirrors this is a great option for them to get some brain stimulation as well as to help Nori divide his attention instead of completely focusing on wowing his lady all of the time, because he is very intense, in front of the mirror is a brick, if Nori is bow-cooing in the mirror he spins on the brick which helps him file his nails down so I have to cut them less often

I use a stainless steel dog bowl for their water since stainless steel pet bowls have been shown to harbor the least bacteria, between them and glass + plastic. The bowl is also big enough for them to sit in and bathe if they wish, which can be messy but I would like for them to have the option. For the food dish I use a flower pot saucer, although I would like to get a larger one to help prevent them from flinging seeds out of it more. They are good dishes for food, because they help wear down the beak tip! However they are porous so I would recommend cleaning them with vinegar every so often. They also have a cheap hanging plastic bird dish that I cut the perch part off of, these are intended for parrots but aren’t great because they don’t stay put anyway. I used a soldering iron to poke two holes in the plastic to zip-tie it into place and I just cut the zip-ties when I need to clean it. It doesn’t get dirty very quickly because all I put in it is grit.

On the right side of the cage is where they have their potential nesting spots, since it’s good to offer two. There is a cat hut on top, and a cat bed below. The cat hut is not machine washable which is why it has a towel inside, although I can vacuum it out with a brush attachment to agitate as much of the dust out of the fibers as possible. The bed below is partially machine washable, the cushion being the part that is. The PVC pipe structure used to have its own bed that attached to it properly, but due to that not being machine washable and having a white interior, I threw it out. The moon hanging down is apart of the original stuff the structure came with, as it is attached to the fabric that creates the top “platform.”

There are more toys on this side, some various bird toys including the well-loved seagrass one, as well as some beads I received at a pride festival that Nori seemed interested in. In front of the hut up top I would like to put a concrete perch with a rough underside, to help them file their nails more as well as make it slightly easier to jump from the perches into the nest. On the floor there is a tissue box in which I place strips of cut up cardboard tubes, which my birds like to use as nesting materials. I feel that this is a good way to recycle these otherwise “garbage” objects. In front of the tissue box I placed a brick to give them some leverage over the box, help file their nails, and help keep them from flipping the box.

I am always open to questions or ideas! Thanks for reading.

#pigeon #pigeons #pet pigeon #avian #bird #pet bird #cute

41 notes · View notes

renstears · 1 year

Text

1𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, 2𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 — 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐒, 𝐈

𝐩𝐫𝗼𝗺𝐩𝐭: “𝐲𝗼𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝗼𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝗼𝐰 𝗺𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬, 𝐲𝗼𝐮 𝐝𝗼𝐧’𝐭”, “𝐢 𝐤𝐧𝗼𝐰 𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠”, “𝐲𝗼𝐮 𝐠𝗼𝐭 𝗺𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝗼𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬?”

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐭𝗼𝐬, 𝗺!𝗺𝐜

𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝗼𝐫𝐲: 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐭𝗼 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐫𝗼𝗺𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡, 𝐛𝐥𝗼𝗼𝐝, 𝗼𝗼𝐜!𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐭𝗼𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐲

𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝗼𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝗺𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝗼𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐝𝗼𝐧’𝐭 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐰𝐡𝐲 (~‾▿‾)~ 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝗼, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝗼𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 1 𝐚𝐬 𝐢 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐲𝐲 𝐭𝗼𝗼 𝐥𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐞𝐡𝐡𝐰𝐛𝐰𝐯𝐬𝐯𝐯𝐳𝐠

For the first time, he experienced the warmth of the sun. His emerald eyes swiveled around his surroundings.

A small, dark room contrasting the bright light shining through the window down upon his form. The heavy scent of lavender filled his nostrils with the plants flowing out from the creaks of the floorboards. Multi-colored glass bottles with different labels were stocked on every shelf; most were half-full or nearly finished. Weaved baskets were sitting on the window sills with some of them left unfinished and untouched for what seemed like ages. The ceiling was adorned with grape vines as the branches twisted in all directions to completely cover up the top part of the room.

He inhaled the smell and regretted it immediately when a piercing pain shot through his throat.

Slowly, but surely, he raised his slender hand to his view and blinked several times. The male looked down at his attire and touched the soft, white fabric that covered his chest and lower parts. It seemed as though he was wearing a white tunic and pants. He brought his knees to his chest with his orbs traveling to the clock that was hanging on the wall. His fingers rapped on his patella whenever the machine made a tick sound.

A sigh released from his dried lips as his head dipped down with his eyelids fluttering shut. He felt as if something was lacking, but what was it? His mind racked ideas to form possibilities, but it was only empty and clear, but he didn’t retort to anger immediately, rather, he only drowned himself in the heat of the sun and the music the clock created.

“Another day another pain—what the fuck—”

The viridescent orbs peeked through the gap of his knees and focused on the figure before him. He stood frozen in their spot with a bag full of red fruits hooked through his arm with his mouth wide open from shock and exasperation.

The person had strands of h/c hair that complimented his e/c pupils that shone with concern and horror when he saw the gradient-haired male. He wore a white shirt and simple black pants that went past his waist along with dark shoes. Around his shoulders was an inky-hooded coat that covered nearly most of his appearance, preventing the green-eyed male from seeing more of the person’s face.

A tense silence embedded between them. Both didn’t say a single word as they continued to stare at each other; one was in absolute shock and the other simply held curiosity. The male could see a bead of sweat rolling down the person’s face and didn’t point it out about it.

“Apologies for my language,” said the person and took a step towards him gingerly, “But may I ask how you got into my residence?”

His eyes nictated and opened his parched lips to respond, “I do not know.”

“E-Excuse me…?”

“I don’t seem to have the faintest idea where I am or what I am.”

“I see,” nodded the said male, “Do you not know what species you may be? A demon or a mythical creature perhaps?”

“I do not seem to have a clue.”

“Ah…may I know your name?”

The unknown man started to pick on the strands of his tunic and stopped looking at the male, “I do not have one.”

Though he could not see it because of the hood, he could tell the male furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“Then what do people call you?” he asked; bit by bit, he started to make his way towards the enigmatic stranger.

The sound of the strands snapping on his tunic filled the room. His eyes still fixated on it and took a while to answer the male’s question.

“Nothing.”

That word explained everything he felt and thought. He doesn’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t know how he got here. He feels empty and he does not know why. Everything was too new and confusing for him.

The h/c haired male took a seat next to the gradient-haired and raised his hand nervously which made the other raise a curious brow. He felt something touching on…whatever he felt and flashed a bemused expression. It didn’t feel uncomfortable, so he allowed the male to continue doing whatever he was doing and waited patiently for him to speak. He then felt a hand tussling his hair and he automatically nestled on the person’s palm—enjoying the pleasant sensation taking over his chest.

“I’ll call you…” started the person but trailed off, “Barbatos?”

“Why ‘Barbatos’?” he asked and tilted his head.

“Please do not ask, an image appeared in my mind and now I can’t seem to get rid of it,” the h/c haired said grimly, “Oh and did you ever notice a pair of boned-wings on your temples?”

“Pardon…?”

According to the human called ‘Mc’, he explained to Barbatos that he was supposed to do an experiment on summoning the dead back alive but instead that led him to create the one and only Barbatos, a demon with unknown abilities. Mc wasn’t miffed of the fact his experiment failed; rather, he was much more fascinated at his new creation. On most days, he would politely ask the demon if he could do some tests; such as doing regular human acts or seeing how his body is different from humans. If the dual-haired male ever felt uncomfortable, he was allowed to speak out loud about it, which will make Mc stop and apologize before returning to his notebook as he aggressively writes in the newfound information.

Barbatos had no opinions or comments when he spawned into existence. His regular routine was to wake up from a spare room Mc had gifted him, eat food and explore the human’s house or area that surrounds it. He had taken a liking to gardening when Mc watered the plants one afternoon and ever since then he was the one that expanded the flower garden. The gradient-haired demon would continue to learn several things from the human as weeks went by. He didn’t dare to investigate any further out of the close area of the house as he knew he would only get lost and danger would come after him.

On several occasions, he couldn’t help but let curiosity take over him. This led him to cause disasters such as almost burning the entire kitchen down and cooking the most taste-sickening food ever. He learnt from his mistakes with the help of Mc, but from there he would randomly pick up any books he finds lying in the house and would read it. Some of the information was helpful, especially the time when he casted a water spell when the human accidentally caused an explosion in the attic, much to the h/c haired’s surprise. It’s safe to say that Mc then started to teach Barbatos spells and tricks like a teacher, but even that didn’t necessarily make Barbatos feel any connection between the two. He felt rather detached from the human; he himself didn’t know why, but he allowed this side of himself to be indulged. Barbatos rarely felt any attachment towards anyone if anything at all. The activities he does are just for him trying to stay entertained as he gets disinterested in most things. Once he does something and learns his mistake, he already perfected it after one failed attempt.

Which is what he was doing now, he was now writing a summary of a thick book he read 20 minutes ago. He was rather more restless on that day and for the past few hours he locked himself in his room mindlessly writing a random story that came into his mind or summaries of books he read before. There was a pile of cracked pens near him with strings of ink running down the table, but he didn’t mind it. He let himself bask in the sun’s rays and listened to the birds chirping nearby.

A knock interrupted his quietude, he pushed the paper away from him and failed to remove the ink from his hands before getting the door.

There stood the h/c haired human with his signature, soft smile, but an alarmed expression painted across his face when he saw the condition of Barbatos’ hands. Deep gashes littered on his hands that made him wince just by looking at them. Splotches of ink dirtied his palms and fingers with some of the substance seeping into his untreated wounds. Mc did know that Barbatos was immune to feeling pain, but when he received wounds, it would heal itself immediately which didn’t worry the human too much.

Immediately, he took his hands into his own and eyed the ink and the injuries with his eyebrows only furrowing more and more as every second passed by. Seeing the injuries, Mc dreaded how many moments Barbatos didn’t take care of himself and didn’t inform him anything about it. Were there certain times the demon couldn’t automatically heal himself? If so, how does it work? Can he not heal himself at the most random times? Or were there specific dates that his healing abilities were not activated?

“Who did this?” asked Mc and glanced at Barbatos.

“Myself,” he replied calmly and gently tried to remove his hands from the human but he refused to do so, “I tried to pick the roses today; however, I was idiotic to not realize that I wasn’t wearing any gloves.”

Mc released a sigh that was caged in his chest, “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“My apologies,” said Barbatos, trying to take his hands away but Mc didn’t budge, “Please let go of my hands this instant.”

“Forgive me, but I cannot let you do that,” said Mc, “Just for this once, you’ll have to feel uncomfortable as this is mandatory.”

His emerald eyes narrowed at the shorter male, “And what would you do if I refused to do so? You realize by now that I am physically and mentally more stronger than you, yes?”

The h/c haired blinked rapidly and pursed his lips. What Barbatos said was entirely true, but how can he just not treat his gashes? Does he even realize that infected injuries will break his immune system bit by bit? Or was he too arrogant and thought he could handle such wounds? Demons were much more interesting than Mc had realized.

“Then please stay here,” said Mc and curtly nodded at the bed in the corner, “And I beg you not to do any drastic activities that will only open your injuries more.”

Barbatos wretched his hands away from the human with much more force, but did what the human said and sat on his bed, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor with a rather tired expression. After a few minutes, he heard footsteps approaching his room as he opened his eyes.

Mc had a small suitcase in hand along with a notepad in his other. He sat next to the demon and opened the bag, which contained various medicine and healing potions. He gestured to Barbatos to show him his hands, to which he did so without saying a word, and used a cloth to clean off the ink off his hands before applying ointment over the wounds. The two didn’t say a single word; one was too concentrated on healing the injuries and the other just didn’t feel the need to speak.

His eyes snapped wide when he felt the human’s lips pressed against his clothed palms after the other bandaged his hands. The gradient-haired demon blinked dumbly at the gentle physical contact and proceeded to gawk at Mc.

Mc noticed this immediately, “Ah, sorry if I made you uncomfortable again. Force of habit. I used to do this with my siblings’ injuries whenever they got hurt.”

“…What did you just do a few seconds ago…?”

“It’s a kiss. I just kissed your injuries. ‘Tis all.”

“‘Kiss’…?”

“It’s when one puts their lips against something,” explained Mc.

“I see…” frowned the demon and retracted his hands, “Why would one do this ‘kiss’?”

The human raised an eyebrow, “I’m not sure why you’re so deep about such a topic, but there’s many reasons why one kisses. Most commonly one does it to show their love towards their lover or family. Others do it for no reason other than to amuse themselves and there’s others that kiss another as a sign of warning.”

“…”

Mc mentally smacked himself for forgetting the reason why he came to see Barbatos. He was so worried about the demon’s health that the exciting news strayed off his mind.

“Ah I completely forgot,” he groaned and covered half of his face with his hand, “I should inform you something. It is more of an invitation, actually.”

Barbatos finally stopped inspecting the spot where the human pecked his hand and drew his attention towards him.

“Since we don’t actually spend time together other than doing experiments and lessons, I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the market this week and look for a place we can dine in. I thought this could be a great experience for the both of us. Of course, if you’re not feeling up to it, you can stay at home.”

“…”

work by @coquetteky (only on Tumblr), prompts by @nightprompts

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me barbatos #barbatos obey me #obey me mc #obmswd #male mc #male reader #x male reader #barbatos x reader #oneshot #whatamidoingwithlife #iamsimpingovera2dbutler—

47 notes · View notes

arcadiasfiction · 1 month

Text

Can the Son of a Villainess Ever Be Happy? Ch 1 Pt 2

~This is an alternate universe fanfic where Adrien's deceased mom was the notorious villain, Mayura.

---

"Claws off! I'm exhausted!"

Adrien landed in his room and threw himself on his bed.

Plagg busied himself with a piece of Camembert that he had stashed under the bed. Adrien scrunched his nose at the smell of the cheese and rubbed his hands over his face.

"Today's akuma wasn't the most powerful one we've faced, but it was crazy hard trying to out-think him. My brain is burned out."

"That's why you should think more about cheese.”

There was a knock on the door, and Plagg hid himself. Adrien sat up.

"Come in."

Adrien's father cracked open the door and peeked in.

"I'm not interrupting your studying, am I?"

"Uh--No, Dad." Adrien glanced around, hoping there were no signs of his outing. "I'm just taking a break.”

"Good. You need to do that more often." Gabriel sat on the bed next to him.

"And so do you."

Adrien had no clue if his dad ever took a vacation from creating designs for his self-named luxury fashion brand, Gabriel.

Even after marrying Nathalie, he insisted on postponing their honeymoon until next year, after he finished his latest collection. Nathalie, being Nathalie, insisted that a honeymoon was unnecessary and that she would be happy with assisting him as always.

Sometimes, Adrien wasn't sure what to think of those two.

Gabriel ruffled a hand through Adrien's summer blond hair. "I need to get better. I've been teaching you bad habits."

"I think you might be too late."

Gabriel wanted to enjoy Adrien's banter, but he could only think of the gravity of their situation. "Nathalie and I saw the news about the akuma attack today, and we wanted to check on you."

Adrien's heart grew warm at the words. The loss of Adrien's mom was very tough on his dad, and he struggled to let her go. But now, he was gracefully moving on. Having Nathalie as part of the family seemed like the most natural thing.

Adrien gripped his knees, rubbing circles into the fabric of his jeans.

"Night Moth has already stolen the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous that belonged to Mom. I'm not letting him have her ring too.”

Gabriel placed a hand on his shoulder. "The ring. Do you have it secured?"

Adrien paused for a moment, not sure of how much he should say. He spoke slowly.

"It's under Cat Walker's care."

Saying the name of his alter ego in front of his dad felt strange. Adrien looked up into his father's blue eyes.

"Is it ok that I put the ring under the watch of someone else for a little while?"

Gabriel gazed into the distance and nodded. "That's a smart move on your part. Next time anyone asks, we can simply say that we don't have it. And Cat Walker is a steely young man. Anyone who wishes to take the ring from him will be in for a tough time.

Nathalie and I have been discussing your schedule, and we feel that right now, you need some space. I've cut back on your modeling gigs. As far as Chinese class, fencing, rock climbing and parkour training, that is up to you. But we would prefer it if you took a break."

Adrien sighed. He really didn't want to cut back on anything. Not being out there taking action in some form made him feel like he was falling behind. Behind on what? He wasn't quite sure.

"Okay. I'll take a break from everything else but fencing."

Gabriel gave Adrien a firm pat on the back.

"Will do. With an itinerary like that, are you sure you aren't planning on becoming an action film actor?“

“No way, Dad,” said Adrien with a laugh.

"Just making sure. You know I'll support you with whatever you want to do. Remember, you do not have to handle things alone."

Gabriel had spent so much time obsessing over fixing the broken Peacock Miraculous, alone. But then Nathalie came along and helped him to not only repair the priceless magical broach, but to see that the most precious things were already in front of him.

"Trying to handle everything alone nearly destroyed me. I do not want that for you."

Adrien understood. His voice came out softly.

"Yes, sir."

Gabriel crossed his arms and exhaled.

”And Adrien, I'm sorry I wasn't able to help your mother.”

He felt it was impossible to apologize enough. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for Adrien to face every day knowing that his mom, despite having a career as a gifted actress, became Mayura, one of the worst villains Paris had ever seen. Gabriel wanted to give Adrien something so much better than this.

“Dad, don't blame yourself. You did the best you could.”

Gabriel sighed.

"Regardless of what happens Adrien, keep in mind that your mother's mistakes are not yours.”

He looked into his son's soft emerald eyes. He was so much like her, and that worried him a little.

"I'll try to remember that.”

---

Next is Chapter 2: The Start of a Crush

Marinette rolled over in bed, hugging her pink cat pillow. All night, her brain kept playing on repeat the glint in Cat Walker's eyes as he glanced back at her over his shoulder. As she mentally rewound the image again, she let out an exasperated sigh and pulled another pillow over her face…

Click here for the next chapter and archive of this story.

Click here to read my much shorter fanfic, Chat Text

#adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #miraculous plagg #plagg kwami #ml fanfic #miraculous fanfic #mlb fanfic #sonofav #cat walker

5 notes · View notes

professorpski · 1 year

Photo

Big Blooms Print Dress Complete: Butterick 6582

Here is the final result of all that effort. Effort which included altering the pattern, underlining the whole dress, and finally creating a sash to make sure the hint of a fig-leaf got lost in the print as a whole. It has the small waist, and full skirts which were still fashionable in 1960 after a whole decade of being fashionable. Their popularity probably owing, in part, to the ease they had for dancing. By 1960, they had crept up from lower calf to a bit below the knee.

This is a simple sash which you can make yourself by drafting on the fabric. It is 3 inches in width when finished. The fabric can be cut on the bias, or slightly off bias, if the bias is very slippery, or in this case weirdly off bias because I had almost no fabric left. So you need to estimate the length because you will need more or less your waistline, depending on the give of the bias-cut fabric, plus enough to seam. Pinning it around your waist over the dress is really the only way to make sure you are getting the right length; and remember you need to ponder seam allowances, and the placket with the fasteners on each end. I always mark where I think the ends should be, but cut it a bit bigger in case I am wrong. It is easy to cut off fabric, much harder to add fabric.

You will need 12 inches in width plus seam allowances, because you are going to seam it into a long tube. Once seamed it is 6 inches in width and then you will gather the width down to three inches. This will give it some draping. Then you will sew each end to a placket that should be 3 inch plus seam allowances and then as wide as need be to accommodate the fasteners you want to use. One of my plackets here is a larger because I wanted to make sure I could make the whole thing longer if need be. But it turned out perfectly comfortable as is.

I have started work on the silk organza overdress. So there will be more on this coming.

#Butterick6582 #1960sfashions #1950sfashions #vintagesewing #vintagesewingpatterns #buttericksewingpatterns #sewing #dressmaking #vintagedressmaking #diy #diyprojects #diysash #costumehistory #dresshistory #fashionhistory #makers #making #bigbloomsprint

14 notes · View notes

marvelsimp97 · 2 years

Text

The Broken Princess (Loki x Reader) Part Six

Summary: Reader is a princess of a kingdom where women are expected to sit at home, cook and be pretty. She was never like that to her mother's dismay and disappointment. She is forced into a marriage with the Asgardian prince, Loki and neither of them likes the idea. However, not because of the same reasons.

Word count: 2710

Warnings: angst

The bright sunlight was warming up the room as you were standing on the footstool in the salon where your wedding dress would be soon made. You were wearing a simple gown similar to a nightgown as the seamstress took your measures and hummed each time she got the results. Scribbling it down quickly onto a notebook on a desk at the corner before she forgot it. Frigga was checking out the dresses the salon had and was sporting a satisfied smile. Their works were exquisite and it was perfect for the princess she grew to like so much.

Your wedding would be a week from now and things seemed to speed up. The children you taught were soon to be added to the royal school near the palace and you would get a new bunch of them in a few weeks. Frigga announced a tea party for your honor which would be held tomorrow and you were eager to see Lielia and Yuna. You were in need of telling someone about your inner turmoil which you couldn't share with Sygin nor Loki. They both considered themselves your good friends but they didn't know how you truly felt and that was a secret you were willing to take to your grave if needed. You couldn't hurt Sygin by taking her lover and you knew Loki wasn't seeing you more than a friend.

"Auch!" you yelped when the seamstress accidentally poked you with a needle.

"Excuse me, my princess." she smiled up at you apologetically.

"These dresses are beautiful, Tylda! I bet you will create something even more exquisite for the wedding!" Frigga walked up to you and the seamstress. Tylda was done with the stitching to show you what kind of dress it will be in the end. She secured the fabric tightly around your waist and pulled the sleeves down your shoulder to expose some of your skin.

"I have a few sketches and designs but I couldn't find the perfect yet. With the measures maybe I can start off a little bit closer to the goal." she replied. "I think we are finished for now, so I will not keep you from your duties any longer. Come, my princess, let us take it off of you and put you back in your dress."

You followed her into the changing room and was soon coming out in a more casual wear. The queen and you then went to meet the wedding planner at the palace to decide the seating order. To your surprise the garden was already upside-down to be finished on your wedding day. The gardeners were digging the ground placing the old flowers to other flowerbeds and putting the new ones in their places. They started at the front and when they would be finished with the whole garden it would be the last day of the week. One of the man, who was cutting off the dead roses of the rose bushes, cut off a blooming one and offered it to you and another to the queen. It seemed that since you arrived and the people learnt more about you, they started to like you. Maybe it was because whenever you went out to the city – and you visited Sygin often – you gave a few golden coins or some sweets to the children. Sometimes even pulled one or two of them onto your horse in front of you and rode with them on a short distance.

Oh, Sygin. Each time you visited her she seemed to be in a worse condition. If she looked a little weak when you first saw her now she seemed to be quite ill, coughing almost non-stop and having a fever every now and then. You asked the palace healers to give you something for her coughing and fevers and gave it to her when you visited. She was happy to see you everytime you showed up which was a nice change from the first time she met you.

"How is Sygin?" the queen asked, when you arrived to a quiet part of the palace.

"How can you see what I am thinking, my queen?" you chuckled sadly.

"My son does not answer me and avoids the question which means she is not in a good health nowadays." she replied with a small smile. "Have you visited her lately?"

"Every second day." you replied. "She is happy to have company but yes... she is quite ill and it is worse from day to day."

"You two have grown fond of each other. Loki told me she talks about you quite some and tried to push him towards you." the queen replied furrowing her eyebrows. "Does she know of...?"

"No. I could not tell her and worsen her pain." you shook your head quickly your heart throbbing with pain. "She deserves better."

"Other women would have gotten rid of her from the start already." mused Frigga. "She is blessed with you."

"Like how Lady Lynn tried?" you asked.

"That woman is too insufferable for any of us in the palace yet because of her power in the court no one can get rid of her." the queen frowned. "Lady Sif has told me about you planning something."

"I wish to plan something but yet I have no information about her I could use... but that will change soon." you flashed her an evil smile making Frigga laugh and pat your shoulder.

"My son and you are a good match." she said stopping you. It was a shock and you tried to not let those tears fall from your eyes you so desperately tried to hide from everyone. Why did it hurt so much to hear those words? Why were you so depressed by them? Probably the queen was right and you will marry him in a week... but the knowledge that his heart belonged to someone already was hurting you. Those words hurt because they could never become truth. You weren't his match. Sygin was and he already found her.

You sighed softly continuing your way to the dining hall where you would meet up with the wedding planner. Of course the hours just passed on too slowly with the old lady who kept blubbering about tablecloths and flowers, plates and cutlery, chairs and decorations for the room. Finally, when you thought you would never get to the end of the patterns and colors she picked out a long parchment with the invited guests' list. Your family was of course invited and would arrive with ministers and council members of their court. They were placed to sit with the All-Father and his family at the largest, front table. Other noble people and royal siblings were placed according to their title and closeness to the royal family. When everything was settled you sighed in relief and after a quick dinner went to bed in hopes of a good night's sleep.

Oh, how wrong you were. Despite your tiredness you just tossed and turned restlessly in your large soft silky sheets trying to fall asleep. After rolling in bed for more than an hour you tossed the sheets off of your body and jumped to your feet angrily. You pulled a robe over your nightgown and went out to the balcony to get some air.

You kept thinking about your wedding which was closer than you could imagine and it made you depressed instead of excited. The thinking out in the cold didn't help and only resulted in your shaking like a leaf so you decided to go to the library. Everything was quiet just like all those times you visited the place at night. Your bare feet slapped against the cold marble of the floor but other than that, no sound was heard. The palace guards bowed to you and averted their gazes as you passed them but you paid them no mind at all. Your head was too occupied with thoughts.

You reached the library and pushed the heavy wooden doors in with a huff and a smile on your face. You went further inside right to the section where you knew you would find something which could occupy your mind. The dim light was soothing and the quiet was calming you. You arrived to your usual spot with a heavy book in your hands about a long forgotten realm with golds and pearls, pirates and princesses, ships on the sea and adventures on the back of the oceans. You were soon engrossed in your book but your concentration was broken because of a certain raven haired prince. Loki sat on the other sofa quietly with a spells book in his hands.

"Good evening." you quipped quietly and turned back to your book.

"Indeed." Loki smiled at you with a nod. "I have not seen you in the library since that first time. Is it for the children again?"

"No... I could not sleep and thought a book would occupy my mind until I would feel tired." you shrugged. "Your mother asked about Sygin. How is she?"

"Was better." Loki sighed putting his book aside and you followed his example. You stood up and walked to him sitting on the other side of the sofa he was sitting on. The raven haired prince looked up at you, sadness clear on his handsome face. "I am sorry I left all the duties of the wedding to you but... with the paperwork, the visits and meetings I have to attend, I could not join you and mother if I wanted to see her."

"I can understand." you smiled at him. "I will take a healer to her on my next visit."

"There is nothing we can do about it... she will only get sicker." Loki shook his head as a teardrop rolled down his cheek. You couldn't help but pull him into a hug resting his head on your shoulder as you rubbed his arm. You felt his arms pull you closer to his body by your waist and a quiet sob left his lips. Not like you were far from crying. Oh, how much you loved this man and how you were hurting for him. It hurt so much to see him in pain and you couldn't do anything to make it better.

"But if we know how long she has left... you will be able to stay by her side and say goodbye properly." you said knowing it wasn't helping but what could? Nothing. There was nothing you could do to stop this pain.

"And if it is our wedding day?" he asked pulling away looking at you.

"Then we call it off and wed on another day. I will not celebrate anything on the day my dear friend died especially not a wedding." you furrowed your eyebrows. Loki cupped your cheeks with his hands tears rolling down his cheeks as his lips parted breathing heavily. His blue eyes were snapping from your right to your left eye in disbelief.

"How can you be so good?" he breathed. "How can you do this? How can you understand so much?"

"Because I hold both of you close to my heart, Loki." you smiled weakly up at him your own tears blurring your vision. There it was. Your confession as truth and lie at the same time. You never thought you would feel this sad, this depressed... this hurt nor did you ever think you would fall for him. You always thought about him like a faceless person who would never care for you nor would he look at you after marrying you. And maybe your fate was still to be treated like that after the wedding but it was cruel to let you see what you could never have. It was cruel and you wanted to claw at your chest to ease the pain that was constantly there. You did when you were alone in the darkness of your room and you fell asleep crying many times. But here you were supporting the one you loved because you loved him so much and wished you could take his pain too and suffer instead of him.

Soft lips touched yours making your shining (e/c) eyes widen in shock. His hands were gripping your face pulling you close and you melted into the kiss falling quickly and weightlessly into an abyss you knew you would never get out nor would you survive the fall. You kissed Loki back eagerly grasping the collar of his jacket. You wanted to feel those lips so much and on so many other places on your body. You craved for his touch to feel his skin on yours, to feel his heart beat with yours. You kissed him so hard that you were feeling dizzy. However, realization hit you. He had Sygin. He should be by her side. What would she think? How would she feel if she would know what you were doing? Your eyes snapped open and quickly pulled away.

"L-Loki... it is not right... Sygin..." you mumbled. Tears were already streaming down your cheeks, your voice trembling. Loki's eyes widened and pulled away completely wiping his mouth with his hand. He stood up and left you there without a second glance. His footsteps echoed in the library until you heard the large doors slam shut behind him. You sat there frozen in place as your tears kept flowing. If there would've been someone in the dark library, they would've heard your agonizingly painful cry echoing off the walls.

Time skip~

Asgard woke to a sunny, warm day. The sun was shining brightly down on the capital city bustling with life as vendors shouted over each other to gain costumers' attention, small children run around playing and adults hurrying to fulfill their duties whether that was to buy grocery or carry heavy boxes from one place to another.

The Asgardian palace was just as busy with the preparations for the wedding two days from now. Your dress was finished which rested on a Paris doll in a salon guarded by the Einharjar close to your chambers. It was still early but you were preparing to depart and visit Sygin. Frigga noticed the change in your behavior as well as Loki's. He barely spent time at the dining hall to eat meals with the royal family and rarely left his chambers. You on the other hand were always staying outdoors till late hours. You enjoyed reading out in the garden at a spot hidden by thick bushes and was shadowed by a large cherry tree.

You wore your riding attire of leather pants with laced boots and a white linen shirt under a brown leather west. Your long (h/c) hair was pulled up in a tight pony tail to the top of your head highlighting your protruding cheekbones as your skin tightened on your jaw. You lost a lot of weight since you realized how you felt for Loki and now it was showing on your figure. The queen and even Sif pointed it out which you just waved their concern off by telling them you just wanted to look good on your wedding day. It was a lie, they knew and it made them worry even more.

You grabbed your cloak and the basket you usually brought filled with muffins or sponge cake or anything she asked for and left the palace. You hurried across the training fields towards the barns and soon you were riding through the gardens wind blowing in your face. You needed to be away from the palace if just for a few hours. Today you didn't stop for children to pull them onto your horse and play with them a little. Today you just rode through the streets fast until you reached your destination. You secured your horse to the tree at the front of the house and knocked on the door. Holena let you enter and went to boil some water for tea. You gave her some fruits she asked for last time you visited and went up to Sygin. She was drawing again in the window seat, the warm sunlight giving her cheeks a little color. Her blue eyes were shining as her eyebrows furrowed in concentration and she bit her lower lip. You stood there in the doorway just admiring how beautiful she looked. You had no doubt she was truly a good catch.

"Will you just stand there or will you come in and give me a hug?" she asked without stopping what she was doing. Your lips pulled into a smile and you walked closer to her. You took off your gloves and cloak before embracing her after Sygin stood up. She pulled away with a frown on her face looking you up and down closely. "Are you eating at all? You are so thin."

"I... honestly, I am sad." you smiled at her apologetically. "How would you feel if you would have to marry someone who has someone already and that someone is your good friend?"

"You should not blame yourself, (Name)!" she scolded you. "It was forced on you. Oh, Norns... Please, do not feel so sad about it. Maybe after the war you can break the engagement if you two can stall for long enough."

"The wedding is two days from now, Sygin. My parents are coming and they will make me marry Loki. They will make sure I cannot run away nor hide anywhere until that ring is on my finger." you shook your head.

"There has to be a way for you to not suffer... it breaks my heart to see you so sad." Sygin pulled you to sit on her bed. Her cheeks suddenly took a pink hue making your eyebrows furrow in confusion. She averted her gaze before she continued speaking. "Maybe there is a way..."

"What are you talking about?" you asked in confusion.

"If Loki sleeps with someone before the wedding... you can break out of the engagement." she looked up at you. You couldn't breathe and you were frozen in place your mind blank. You blinked speechless before you felt the world start to spin around you and everything went black as you started to fall towards the ground and heard Sygin's voice call your name faintly in panic.

To be continued...

Taglist: @caniputmyballsinyojahws

#romance #angst #loki god of mischief #loki laufeyson #loki x reader #loki x you #mcu loki #asgard #frigga #sygin x loki #thor #odin

47 notes · View notes