#they are very. ‘i am the shape you made me filth teaches filth’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kastlequill · 9 months

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wrath of the lamb

pairing: sebastian krueger x f!reader word count: 6.9k synopsis: your first time hunting with dr. krueger tags: hannibal au, haunted hoedown, dark, serial killers, a couple that kills together stays together, enemies and lovers, unreliable narrator, unholy mentions of god, religious imagery, no y/n warnings: violence/death, blood/gore, mutilation, body horror, cannibalism, voyeurism (except the voyeur is dead), killing as foreplay, smut (blood + murder kink, hair-pulling, biting) ao3: read here ← prev

“I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.”

— Sophocles

Bait; that had been your role. The lure, the dangling bit of appetizer to ensnare prey on behalf of another. This particular catch of the day had believed you to be the fish to his fisherman, but you nonetheless had been bait, he the fish, and Dr. Krueger—

The fisherman.

Soon, you would be a fisherman yourself, capable of priming, reeling in, and fatally securing a wide array of aquatic life all on your own. Before that, however, there was much to learn about the sport and the art of choosing one’s hunting spot, of casting one’s net. Naturally, Dr. Krueger had been ever so enthusiastic to help bridge the gaps in your knowledge.

Currently, the fish was tied up in the foyer, bound by his wrists and ankles to a wooden chair, the same in which you’d sat years ago as Dr. Krueger’s temporary patient. At the insistence of Agent Blaustein and your undiagnosed encephalitis, you had given therapy a shot. These visits had eventually increased in frequency, more so for the psychiatrist’s company than his pseudo sessions.

Some attributed the progression of your relations with Dr. Krueger to be a product of fate and circumstance, but you knew better than that. Over the past several months, a deliberate and intentional hand had guided you to this very moment, everything meticulously planned and orchestrated by someone with a vested interest in your ascent.

In your. . . becoming.

What started as a chance meeting snowballed into a partnership between professionals, identifying and apprehending serial killers across the state together. Thereafter, a friendship did blossom, though this too evolved since your pure empathy made you highly susceptible to internalizing others; him. The line that separated your psyche from his thus gradually became muddied and blurred as you vacated your mind and beckoned in this monster among men.

You would be hard-pressed to forget just how fervently he had appraised the order and disorder of your headspace. How worshipingly he had looked upon the ever-encroaching darkness that you kept shamefully hidden within the crevices of your bones, stowed away for fear of the day your worser nature might rise to the surface. How eagerly he had called forth that wickedness, that sin, happy to watch you partake and take.

How easily he had metamorphosed you into the person you’d unwittingly been pursuing throughout all your years of existence.

“The throat is a double-edged sword. It makes life possible, housing the airways, overseeing the safe passage of air into the lungs. But so too does it make death readily accessible, boasting the jugular vein, exacting a swift end if cut at just the right angle, the right depth,” an accented voice sounded from behind.

Hopelessly obedient to the pull that locked your soul and his in perpetual orbit of one another, you cast a glance over your shoulder then looked down at the knife in his hand. It was an ordinary carving knife, blade sharpened and thrumming with excitement at the prospective union of steel and meat. More importantly, it was an offering.

A gift.

Dr. Krueger quite enjoyed showering you with lavish presents, and he preferred the intimacy of being the craftsman in addition to the sender. To court you, he’d sawed off the tongue of the reporter who’d mocked your condition in her crude tabloids, coated the severed organ in poison, and shoved it down her throat until she choked on its toxicity. To express the extent of his devotion, he'd torn out the vocal cords of a suitor who’d made lewd comments about you at the opera house, fashioned them into a noose, and left him dangling from the ceiling to be discovered in the morning by a screeching primadonna.

And to apologize for spilling your blood on his kitchen floor, he’d Frankensteined together a beating heart, openly baring his affections despite the penetrative gaze of all who sought to imprison the Cut-throat Killer. The sculpture, composed of a decapitated corpse’s inverted musculature instead of typical granite stone, had told a tale of repentance and of yearning.

My heart is yours. Broken and maimed though it might be, you have managed to assuage its ache and mend its pieces. This foreign object no longer fits properly in the cavity of my being, so do what you will with it. Even if you decide to break it once again, the resulting shards are still all for you only, just as it was.

The twisted love letter had resulted from months of deceptive intentions, divided loyalties, and belated sacrifices. Your inevitable betrayal had struck dead the fantasy of a shared future. In his mourning, Dr. Krueger had gutted you to bestow a matching wound, yours a physical representation of his own intangible pain. However, contrary to previous prey, watching your face lose its vibrancy and a red puddle form around your twitching body had inspired not satisfaction, but fear.

A certain desperation had seized him then. Losing you, a kindred spirit who had known and seen him, would have damned the man to a lifetime of loneliness. For someone incapable of thriving in total solitude, that was a terrifying notion.

So though the urge to slit your throat and cook you into a feast might occasionally possess him, though he might periodically contemplate cracking your skull open to reveal the beautiful brain that tormented him day and night, such calls-to-action would go unanswered.

During periods of separation, he could easily convince himself that his feelings for you were an unnecessary suffering. A fruitless agony; a beacon of masochism. Ready to put an end to this mounting misery, a murderous plot would begin to take shape until your mere return resolutely derailed any plans of excising you from his destiny.

Cyclical, the way he grew hungry in your absence, champing at the bit, gnawing on bone, only to find his stomach brimming with contentment upon spending a single moment in your presence.

The rude were nothing more than livestock to a refined man like Dr. Sebastian Krueger. Just as the average non-vegetarian viewed chickens, cows, and pigs as rightful staples of their omnivorous diet, he believed disrespectful folk were no different to poultry, cattle, or swine. At least in death, these subhumans could transcend their lowly stations and reach new heights of beauty and value as his culinary masterpieces, as elaborate displays of mutilated art.

Like God, he played judge, jury, and executioner, wielding the power to decide the earthly ends and undead beginnings of those he deemed lesser.

Between equals, however, consumption was to him the pinnacle of humanity’s capacity for love. Diligently preparing a delicacy of the vessel that housed a loved one, transforming their anatomy into a gourmet meal, was the supreme method of honoring them. Further still, intaking a pound of their flesh meant immortalizing a beloved by becoming the very urn in which the remnants of their existence could always be found. Whether they should depart by nature or by circumstance, a piece of them would forever stay inside this biological graveyard.

The mixing of bloods, two pulses beating in synchrony, a dialogue between gullets. An irreversible breach of one’s external layer of protection that said, you are mine, and I am yours; the proof resides in the pits of our stomachs.

By his logic, if he were to eat you and satisfy his craving for fusion, then perhaps whatever hold you had over him would denature, eliminating the threat that this love posed to his livelihood. In actuality, a glimpse of you was plenty enough to sate his normally-raging appetite.

To daily feel a stab of hunger and then obtain nourishment at the slightest bit of eye contact. . . that was how viscerally he loved you.

Of course, Dr. Krueger hadn’t overtly verbalized these sentiments, but you nonetheless recognized and understood the unspoken truth. After all, pure empathy did not just expose you to the onslaught of his expert manipulation—it also unveiled his best-kept secrets.

“When hunting, one must always consider efficiency. Time is of the essence, as they say. It’s better spent on the artwork itself than on gathering your materials, wouldn’t you agree?”

Your eyes jerked up to meet his appraising stare. Not the type to waste air on rhetorical questions, he raised a single scarred brow, and it only lowered once your fingertips answered by brushing the palm of his hand. As you plucked the knife from his grasp, its heavy weight took you aback. The hefty task of reaping an unclaimed soul added at least a few extra pounds to the blade, but you adjusted your grip until wielding it became effortless.

At its core, killing was a fairly quick and simple endeavor. Humans often exited the world as fast as they had originally entered it, and, in a manner of speaking, your lives were just preparation for the inevitable return to that shadowy limbo from which you’d all been birthed.

The fish had yet to regain consciousness, and you were determined to ensure that his eyes would never again open to anything but a dark abyss.

You weren’t apologetic in the slightest for what was about to come. This bound asshat had been selected because he’d had trouble understanding the word no at a pub and spilled wine on an intervening Dr. Krueger’s prized coat. Such unprincipled behavior warranted an equally-indecent fate.

Out like a light, his head was tilted back to rest on the back of the chair, displaying a ripe throat, fresh for the taking. And take you did, aligning your blade at the corner of his jaw and dragging it across the jugular, slitting his trachea, causing it to collapse unto itself. Liquid beads of crimson bubbled to the surface along the laceration, and the macabre necklace enraptured you.

Your psychiatrist-turned-mentor had earned the moniker of Cut-throat Killer due to his apparent fixation on the neck and its surrounding regions. His kills were linked by this common denominator, whether a body was headless, or had a ripped-apart larynx, or had died by asphyxiation. Sometimes, Dr. Krueger liked to experiment with different finishing blows to keep the FBI on their toes, but his modus operandi never failed to involve the throat.

It made sense, then, why you too had developed a similar appreciation.

“Well done,” praised the doctor, now beside you, and the words set alight your bloodstream. His tone held no surprise; your profession had revealed your natural aptitude for the hunt and erased any reservations he might’ve had. From the very first day your paths crossed, he’d recognized what you were, what you could become. “Now, where do you wish to go from here?”

A loaded question, one that dictated how the rest of the night would unfold. If you stayed in the foyer, cleaning up the grime and gore out from between each plank of wood would be an absolutely dreadful ordeal. If you went to the main room, splatters and stains on his Persian rug and fine fabric drapes would undoubtedly irk the man, and you quite preferred staying on his good side for the time being.

That left his extravagant kitchen. It was the ideal location—the freezer was conveniently placed, and the tools for harvesting meat were at your disposal. Also, in the not-unlikely event of blood running off the table’s edge, you could simply scrub the tiles spotless.

“The kitchen.” You diverted your focus from the dead man to the one who had mastered death itself. Although you were unsurprised to discover Dr. Krueger’s deep brown eyes already intent upon you, a chill cascaded down your spine nevertheless. He’d sooner gouge out the organs that granted him sight than stop his lingering stares, you knew. “Removing the skin from a fish this slimy is messy business. I wouldn’t want to ruin your nice hardwood floors. Black walnut?”

His wide smile told a tale of predation tempered with adoration. “Wenge.”

You softly shook your head in fond exasperation. Of course he who settled for nothing but the best would choose one of the most rare and expensive species of hardwood in the world.

The doctor held your gaze as he removed his outer layer, not wanting to sully a tailored, dry clean-only suit jacket. Once it was safely out of range, he cut loose the body from its restraints and dragged it to the kitchen with you trailing behind him.

After hauling the corpse onto the center of the marble island, Dr. Krueger rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt to his elbows and slipped on surgical gloves from his vest’s pocket, handing you a pair as well. He used scissors to reveal the man’s flesh beneath his clothes, took the murder weapon from your fingers, and made an incision that started at the collarbone and ended at the navel. Wrenching open the ribcage, snapping any resistant osseous matter, the doctor efficiently primed the carcass for harvesting before it could stiffen in rigor mortis.

His work done, he unsheathed a sizable butcher knife, handed it to you, then stepped out of reach, content to watch you pick up from where he’d left off. You imitated his previous motions, careful not to sink the blade too far in lest you ruptured any organs. The last thing you wanted to do was accidentally ruin the meat.

Meat.

You’d discovered a couple of months ago that the delicious protein scrambles shared with you by the kind Austrian man had actually contained bits of strangers. Initially, the revelation had repulsed and angered you in its violation of your right to informed consent. But now, while you didn’t see the appeal of human cuisine, you could admit there was something uniquely intimate about a shared hunt, about the subsequent communion, the breaking of bread and bone.

It was with this logic in mind that you proceeded to dissect the body according to the anatomical direction given by the doctor. First, you extracted the lungs, then the spleen and liver, next the stomach and gallbladder, the intestines and kidneys, and, lastly, the heart.

The turn of the hour quickly came and went. You moved to push back some hair that had fallen out of place, wishing you had worn a hairnet, when you caught a glimpse of your lover’s current state. He stood to the side of the counter a few feet away, hunger plain on his face, erection evident through the fabric of his slacks.

As ravenous for your fill of him as he was for a taste of you, you set the knife on the cutting board and started to walk over to—

“No.”

The lone, measured syllable echoed throughout the large kitchen, ringing in your ears, and you instantly halted mid-step. A trait that separated the doctor from so many other men of his stature was his refusal to resort to yelling. He’d done a lifetime’s worth of it in the Austrian Armed Forces, had been his explanation, and it was beneath him. It signaled that one lacked omnipotence and control, that they didn’t have an effortless dominance with respect to the masses over which they resided.

Dr. Krueger, however, had no shortage of charisma and no trouble garnering an obedient audience. The personification of sin beckoned you forward. “Crawl to me.”

Without hesitation, you slowly descended to the floor, gaze steady and stuck on his looming figure. Your clothed knees met tile first, then your palms followed suit as you navigated your way towards him through a pool of blood and innards. Something unnamed coiled tight in your stomach the nearer you drew to him who looked down at you, stoic and unfazed. From here, a passerby might think you a worshiper bowed in supplication to her god.

For what purpose did you plead?

If I should die, let it not be his blade that strikes the finishing blow.

To what end did you pray?

If he should rot in a cell, let it not be my testimony that sends him away.

When your fingers brushed against his shoes, imprinting red on the fancy leather, the doctor leaned forward to snake a hand around to the nape of your neck, lightly massaging your scalp. The soothing pressure made your eyes roll back, but the false sense of security it had given you evaporated at the following sharp tug on the roots of your hair.

His grip firm, Dr. Krueger pulled you up until you were on your feet once again. Before you could properly calibrate to the change in orientation, he spun you to face the kitchen island then sandwiched you in between his pelvis and the counter. Squirming against him, your instincts commanded you to escape, but you remained steadfastly in place. Trapped.

Ensnared.

Skillful hands made quick work of your attire, throwing your belt to the ground, shoving your jeans and panties to bunch at your ankles, unbuttoning the flannel he’d called hideous yet endearing, snapping free your cheap bra. Satisfied with your current state of undress, Dr. Krueger used his teeth to tear off his gloves so that he could begin exploring the treasures he had uncovered.

You never let him touch you with gloves. The sensation of latex on skin was too reminiscent of a butcher prepping slaughtered livestock to be further chopped up into refined cuts of meat. And you were not foolish enough to think you could ever be the butcher in this scenario.

His hands journeyed up your front to your neck, rubbing at the splatter of blood there that had yet to be cleaned. Adamant on dirtying you further, he smeared it downward as he cupped the heft of your breasts and rolled your nipples between his fingers. You must’ve looked like a sacrificial offering to some deity, back bowed, though the only who would partake in the enjoyment of your flesh was him.

Once you were sufficiently marked, the man wiped any excess blood off his right hand and onto your stomach then continued his descent to the epicenter of your heat. When he finally reached your mound and dipped an explanatory finger inside, he found you wet and wanting.

“Filthy thing,” Dr. Krueger admonished with a click of his tongue. “I’ve barely touched you, and yet here you are, already dripping onto the floor. Tell me, how long have you been like this?”

“Since you—” The rest of that sentence died in your throat, cut short by the featherlight brush of his thumb against where you wanted him most. A sudden jolt traveled through your body, and you struggled to form a coherent thought, let alone string together a sensical series of words. “Since you rolled up those stupid fucking sleeves, you bastard.”

His answering smirk could be heard in the gravel of his voice, smug and self-assured. “I didn’t know my forearms had such an effect on you.”

Said forearms came into view as he encased you, both of his hands relocating to either side of yours, flat on the countertop. A knee replaced where his hand had been between your legs, and he ground it upward, pulling back whenever you tried to reciprocate, relief just out of reach.

“Like hell you didn’t,” you snapped, your frustration getting the better of you. “Don’t play dumb, Doctor. It’s not a good look.”

All traces of his humor evaporated at the snark. Announcing no warning, your lover sank two fingers into your weeping core, curling them to stimulate the spot within that never failed to make you see stars. He scissored you open and gathered enough slick to begin working in a third finger, intent on making you plead for forgiveness. Absolution.

Most nights, Dr. Krueger prided himself in his patience, in his ability to draw out one, two, three orgasms from you before his cock got anywhere near your cunt. But tonight, you knew, would be different. It would be hard and fast.

Carnal.

Upon deeming you ready to take him, you heard the unclasping of a belt buckle followed by the zipper of his pants coming undone. A soft caress along the notches of your spine, and then he aligned himself with your entrance and immediately surged to erase the distance between your bodies, filling you to the hilt.

The force of it caused you to double over, and your elbows buckled at the sudden shift in weight. With the side of your face now pressed against the counter’s cold surface, you couldn’t help the way your ass slightly elevated and protruded. This position felt explicit, dirty, and you gleaned from his sharp inhale that you looked as much from his perspective. Rather than allowing you to rise, Dr. Krueger dug a hand into your hair and pushed you further into the granite.

“Have I neglected you, mein Schatz?” Each thrust was punctuated by a tug on your hair, a scrape against the surface, the repeated motion jostling you forward, while you fucked back into him. “Have I left you wanting? Is that why you’re so needy tonight? So rude?”

When you didn’t answer, he retracted his hips until the tip was all that remained nestled in your warmth, leaving you empty and unfulfilled. Then, as though sensing you were on the verge of complaining, the doctor slammed home, yanking from you a pitiful mewl of agonized desire.

“Please.”

This particular word was a shapeshifter; it adopted a different meaning based on ite context. Here, it served as a Hail Mary, as a cry for mercy, but you weren’t sure whether you were imploring his punishing rhythm to abate or for him to give you more. Regardless of your intention, Dr. Krueger intensified his torturous movements, a dark chuckle tumbling from his lips.

Damn sadist.

“Begging will get you nowhere. Not tonight.” At your despairing whine, he laughed again. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, you’ll get your wish. Eventually.”

So attuned to the ins and outs of your body, was this man, so intimately aware of where to press, where to pinch to elicit sweet melodies and moans. And yet, he toyed with you, glossing over these erotic zones, waiting for you to confess something before he might grant you penance, a token for your suffering. The thread of your sanity was wearing thin.

“Stop teasing, or I swear to God.”

You’d expected him to ignore your pleas as he had done before, but instead, you felt him thicken inside you. “Do it, then. Swear to me.”

His ego almost earned him an eyeroll, but you couldn’t help giving into his demands. The relentless pace he’d set was very persuasive, and you were only human.

“Sebastian—”

It had the desired outcome. Hardly ever did you call him by his name, so if you did, that meant something. Due to said infrequency, using his name had a kind of Pavlovian effect on the man.

“Scheiße,” he groaned out the curse, hips stuttering forward and reaching a newfound depth that made you both gasp. “Yes, my heart, that’s right. You’ve made me your god, and I’ve made you. . .”

. . . mine.

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? Dr. Krueger had plucked a rib from the cavity of his chest, sharpened it into a blade, and carved you into his vision of perfection. In turn, you had turned him into a conduit for your enlightenment, for your becoming. He was your tangible nirvana, and you were his sole gateway to heaven.

The two of you had found religion in each other, and there was little else more dangerous than that.

“Is this what you wanted? What you were so impatient for?” At your jerky nod, he seized your slackened jaw and tilted your chin up to direct your attention towards the kitchen island where the corpse still laid. “My, we haven’t even cleared the table yet. Can’t let the meat sit out, or else it’ll go sour.”

When your brain finally caught up to what—or to whom— he was referring, an epiphany struck you with startling clarity:

This dead man was evidence of what had transpired here tonight. Better yet, he was the first witness to this taboo consummation. Perhaps it was stupid to believe that gave your relationship any real legitimacy in the world’s eyes, beyond the perimeters of this manor. Nonetheless, the thought caused you to involuntarily tighten, and you prayed the correlation would go unnoticed.

Dr. Krueger froze, because of fucking course nothing ever got past him. “Oh, you like that, do you? You like that we have a guest for dinner, that another finally sees the truth of what we are. Hunters. Lovers.”

Oftentimes, being known was a riveting experience that bridged the gaping chasm of solitude. But there came moments when you wished to conceal the ugliness. You lowered your head, mortified that he might at last realize you were unworthy of his affection, his touch.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you’re here. This home is yours, Liebling,” he murmured, reverent as he resumed his torturous ministrations, regaining momentum. “I can think of no more beautiful a sight than you happy and honest in it. Never hide from me.”

A horrific prospect, baring one’s heart to someone so well equipped to tear it to shreds, but your walls were already beginning to crumble. Brick by brick, he dismantled you, intending to undo a lifetime of repression then reconstruct you in his image.

Sex with Dr. Krueger wasn’t just a physical release. It was near ritualistic in its conjoining of two souls. It was a collision between two supernovas, a calamity in progress.

It was an inevitability.

What a pair you made—serpent and Eve. Ravisher and ravished, entangled in a web of debauchery and death.

In spite of everything, you didn’t believe that he made you worse. He made you real.

Time after time, warnings that this should never happen again would echo throughout your mind, but time after time, you found yourself in this same position, wrapped up in him. Coaxed by his sweet nothings and consumed with the way he alone understood what you still refused to speak aloud, it was through this union of flesh and bone that you elevated each other to art.

And hell, if he made you worse, then you accepted that to be worse was to be honest. In this realm, you were closer to God than to the Devil.

And was it not so that every devout follower hoped to be in league with their god, to be rewarded for their unshaken faith? What better way to actualize that hope than to devour?

A well-angled thrust brought you back to the present. Man or monster, God or Devil, neither distinction mattered as he pummeled into you, a fusion of the ultimate caliber. In this room, he was not your enemy, just the equal who helped you ascend to great heights, who guided you until your eventual arrival to the precipice.

Lucifer before the fall.

“I—” The word broke off in an airy gasp. Second attempt. “Sebastian, I’m—”

That too went interrupted, for it was then that your lover decided to circle your swollen clit with his calloused fingers. Dazed and nonverbal, you felt him wrap your hair around his fist and use it as leverage to assist in his corruption of you, tugging your head to his chest, baring your throat, arching your back.

“I know, it’s alright,” he lovingly hushed your cries, lips nibbling on the rim of your ear. The wet roughness of his tongue licked away the tears that had begun to flow freely from your eyes, glossy and unfocused. “You can let go now. I’ll be here to catch you, yes? I’ll always catch you.”

It shouldn’t have been a comforting sentiment. This was a man who killed people for being rude, who had seriously told you it’s only cannibalism if we’re equals. And yet, hearing that he would be there to envelop you in his arms if and when you plunged into the deep end was what at last sent you over the edge.

Before him, no partner had successfully brought you to an orgasm. He loved to lull you into a state of la petite mort, compensating for his inability to actually kill you by inducing several little deaths whenever you laid together. But he had your brain short-circuiting as you came apart, your thighs trembling and jaw unhinged, your nails notched into the muscles that rippled across the expanse of his back, a bright light behind halfway-closed lids.

Thick fingers crawled across your left cheek to enter the black hole of your wet mouth, and you instinctively closed your lips around the intruding appendages. As you sucked and lathered them with spit, you pushed your ass further back into his pelvis, wordlessly encouraging him to use you to chase his own release. Several strokes later, his pace grew desperate, erratic, and he removed his fingers to cup your face, angled it just right, then bit down on the side of your neck, drawing blood. The brief flare of pain made your walls flutter and take his cock even deeper, your bodies reluctant to separate.

Harvest me, and don’t waste a single drop.

The moment of stillness that ensued when he at last emptied his seed in you was something holy, you decided. Ropes of cum seemingly endless, the pulsing of his member combined with his low groans brought you unparalleled bliss. While he descended from his lustful high, he lapped up the metallic trail along your throat, and the pressure of his tongue soothed the wound’s mild ache. Dr. Krueger, the man who had no qualms about eating within his species, was content to stop his consumption of you here, at a bite and a drop of ichor.

Is my taste as divine as you imagined?

His hips continued to jerk and lurch in the aftershocks, and the noise of skin ricocheting off skin was more audible now that your senses were starting to return. Some might consider it to be an obscene sound, blatant and crude, but its obviousness appealed to you. Anyone who heard these echoes of anatomical convergence would have no misgivings regarding the recreational activities in which you and the doctor participated.

I fear I would give you the most tender parts of myself, if only you were to ask.

One hand caressed the top of your head, smoothing back your sweat-slickened hair. The other used his pristine white shirt to wipe the sweat from your brow, the gore from your body. Its fabric was rough against your overstimulated skin, but his movements were gentle.

So please—

The doctor finished remedying the mess he had made of you and tossed the clothing aside, murmuring something about how he would have to explain to the lady at the dry cleaner’s that he’d spilled red wine again. Wrapping both arms around your waist to pull you impossibly closer to his chest, he then pressed a soft kiss to your nape.

Your eyes fell shut.

—do not ask.

The manor was silent save for heavy breathing, yours and his. A sudden foul stench of rot and decay reminded you of the gruesome company on the kitchen island across the counter. You forced yourself to meet the vacant stare of the fish whose death had started this spontaneous coupling session, passion fueled by elevated adrenaline and a godlike rush of power.

“I thought you didn’t get off to killing,” you murmured, energy half spent.

An affirming hum vibrated through your bones, and you felt him rub his forehead against your back, up then down, nodding. “You thought correctly. I do not.”

A snort escaped from your throat since very recent evidence pointed to the contrary. Still inside you, his cock twitched at the sound.

Perhaps he found the noise undignified and the response rude. The man had probably killed people for far pettier reasons; nonetheless, you continued to push the envelope because he continued to let you.

This risky game would someday reach its limit. Someday, you might cross a non-negotiable line, and then you’d be dead before you knew what hit you.

But today was not that day.

“There is no sexual gratification in my hunts,” he further clarified. “Such perversion indicates one who is subjugated to the whims of his more primitive nature, one who is being controlled rather than doing the controlling.

“Arousal at its most basic implies common ground. It drives us to seek a favorable mate with whom we can sire offspring to carry on our legacies. Should the hunter find this kind of pleasure in the hunted, it would mean a debasement of the self. Dethroned from the top of the food chain, he would forever live among his lessers. Since my prey are not and never will be my equal, killing is a strictly nonsensuous act.”

You are my equal, my mate, were the words you heard him omit.

“But I keep discovering how much you defy my logic. I did not expect to be so. . . moved by that insatiable look in your eyes, by your presence in my kitchen, holding my knife.” The sigh he exhaled contained genuine frustration, not at you, but at himself. At his lack of self-control, at his underestimation of your ability to undo him.

His right hand strayed from your midsection to ghost over the swell of your ass, vexation having seemingly passed. “And what a lovely painting you made of yourself. The only improvement is for you to coat your bodily canvas with my blood instead of that unworthy pig’s.”

Your brows furrowed at the thought of him gravely injured, stained red, and you grabbed his wrist, gave it what you hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sebastian.”

The rare occurrence of you using his first name outside of sex had him nuzzling deeper into the crook of your neck and lightly nipping at the soft skin there. Although his teeth were eager to pierce flesh, his canines maintained a respectable distance. In the afterglow, he was always so, so careful not to cause undue damage. You were at your most vulnerable, and he was at his most untamed; a dangerous combination, like fire and gasoline.

Who was the struck match that would sacrifice wholeness to ignite the other, and who was the ignited that would disappear without a trace post-explosion?

Did it even matter?

“Very pretty lies, Liebling, though not quite as beautiful as you.”

Despite his sardonic delivery, the fondness with which he uttered the term of endearment betrayed his affections. Complicated relationship with the Cut-throat Killer aside, none could deny that there was genuine love between the two of you.

An unconventional, tempestuous love, true, but love nevertheless. It made the dichotomy between your loyalties all the more messy.

Because yes, you appreciated his craftsmanship and were awed by the artistry behind his kills. Yes, you had moments ago indulged in your first hunt alongside him and had enjoyed it.

Yes, you would probably do so again in the future.

Yet somehow, the FBI profiler in you still felt obligated to confront the man, to put an end to his reign of terror. Why your lover would forever be visited by the need to eat and savor every inch of you, why you couldn’t ever entirely relax in the breadth of his embrace. . . it all tied back to this:

You couldn’t reconcile your ethical code with your want for him. The enormity of your desire approached suffocatingly-absurd levels, and the extent to which you ached for and craved this man was sickening.

No matter your personal feelings, the bitter reality of the situation remained unchanged. Before you could irreversibly walk the path of either love or duty, you needed to perceive your brain as something other than deformed, to conceive that the unnatural was a natural product of the universe in its own right. You needed to believe that the person who returned your stare in the mirror was not a disfigurement of humanity, nor a bastardization of goodness.

But what constituted good, and what qualified as evil, anyway? Who had the right to decide which was which? Was it Agent Blaustein, who had pushed you to the point of breaking, who saw your mind only as a tool, caring not if he damaged you beyond repair in the field?

Or was it Dr. Krueger, who had made you question your sanity, who wished for you to access and become indivisible from the rawest pieces of your marrow, even if it damned him in the process?

One thing was for certain: until you unabashedly accepted the darker elements of yourself—the same facets that he reflected back at you—this game of cat and mouse was cursed to resume and repeat, over and over. The roles seemed to reverse each time; you had first been the mouse to his cat, then you’d briefly turned the tables as the cat to his mouse.

Recently, neither of you could puzzle out who was who.

And the scariest part about all this was that you had never known yourself as well as you knew yourself when you were with him, a fucking serial killer. How frightening, that your ability to acknowledge and make sense of your own existence might hinge on whether or not he was in your life.

Even a fool could see how you had changed under the gravity of his influence. In the beginning, you’d shunned the ugly bits, the chunks of you that proved too abhorrent to swallow. Now, you were learning how to indulge, how to see the beauty in the so-called horror. During the day, outsiders reminded you of your malignancies, of the shame that accompanied the sin of authenticity. However, at night, with him, you at last shed these social shackles and basked in fantasies of what could be, for the mere weight of his stare had the power to propel you toward self-actualization.

Obviously, Dr. Krueger was well aware of this war between your moral duties and your innermost shadows. You expected as much, considering he had almost killed you for it.

In your quest to unmask the Cut-throat Killer and confirm your suspicions, you’d nurtured a budding friendship with the doctor. You had wormed your way into his good graces by telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, nevermind that it had been you at your most honest. When the scheme eventually fell apart, murdering you had surprisingly not been his immediate reaction. Instead, he had offered you the chance to come clean so as to leave all the secrecy in the past and move forward anew.

Together.

It made perfect sense for Dr. Krueger to try holding onto his one true companion in life after getting a taste of reprieve from loneliness. Except, oblivious of your blown cover, you had doubled down, giving him no choice but to clutch you to his chest and carve his heartbreak into your gut. As you drifted toward Death’s door, as regret and fear willed him to frantically press onto your wound, the man had realized just how much you’d changed him, too.

Although you were indeed the harbinger of his ruination, he’d concluded that imprisonment paled in comparison to the grief of losing you. He loathed to imagine spending the rest of his days in a jail cell, but he could not commit to killing you, his greatest weakness and threat. You sought to cleanse this town of him, but you too could not pull the trigger on this evildoer.

Two halves of a whole, locked in a stalemate.

Can’t live with him, can’t live without him. A grotesque and ghastly piece of work, this man you called lover. And yet, you wouldn't dream of leaving his side.

Because Sebastian Krueger was never going to get better without you. And you were never going to become better without him.

“Apologies, but I insist we skip our entrée tonight.”

That caught your attention—an absurd statement from someone who would probably make the time to properly dine even if the FBI was actively storming the gates of his manor. You twisted your spine to at last come face to face with him, and awaiting your curiosity was his hungry brown eyes, his dark blond hair freed from its gelled confines.

“I know you worked hard to provide us this meal, and the meat will not go to waste,” the doctor assured, expression neutral, the perfect picture of calm if not for the way his fingers dug further into the meat of your hips. “The problem is me. I simply cannot curb my craving for dessert anymore.”

You nearly scoffed. “Was this not dessert?”

“No, mein Schatz,” he chuckled, as if you had just told a funny joke. The low timbre of his laugh caused a wave of desire to pool in between your legs, and you pressed your thighs together to trap the renewed heat.

Ever intuitive, Dr. Krueger moved one arm away from your body to rest flat and steady on the countertop then dragged the other down to pinch your inner thigh, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

“That was only the appetizer.”

fin.

#sebastian krueger x reader #sebastian krueger #cod krueger #cod x reader #krueger x reader #cod #modern warfare #call of duty #my fic #hauntedhoedown #fic: wrath of the lamb #series: meat's back on the menu

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atinylittlepain · 5 months

Text

Filth Masterlist

Gator Tillman x f!oc

series playlist

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth. - Anne Carson, An Oresteia

series warnings | 18+ smut, discussions of domestic abuse, corrupt government, violence, murder, physical, religious, and psychological trauma, misogyny, very bad, very toxic relationships, manipulation, angst six ways to sunday, this story does not follow canon, at all

.................................................

The Hero

The Father

The Son

The Dog

The Lovers

................................................

#gator tillman #gator tillman fic #gator tillman fanfiction #gator tillman smut #gator tillman angst #gator tillman au #gator tillman imagine

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murmel-malt · 2 months

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"I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth"

It applies very well to Daemon's and Rowan's relationship, in my opinion.

Ooohhh, I really like that. And it does apply very well.

I can totally see her saying that to Daemon if/when they meet again during the Dance.

#oc: rowan royce #fic: a blade that never stops cutting

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bestgrrl · 3 months

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Hey previous anon btw, imagine the quote "I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth." but with Kujou Sara and regarding all the adult figures in her life growing up (COUGH COUGH Yae Miko COUGH Takayuki).

we are projecting into each other’s brains because I think of Yae and Takayuki’s influence on her all the time!!!

Like when Sara confronts him in the archon quest she says something like “you taught me to be a faithful servant” or something…

But why didn’t Takayuki tell Sara about his plans with the Vision hunt decree? He’s like insanely devoted to the Shogun, and he seems to have had enough influence on Sara to manipulate her into doing what he wanted

But it makes me think that he knew he failed with her— he made her into too good of a servant. Because Sara isn’t the manipulator Takayuki or Yae is, or even the political manipulators like Ayato and Kokomi. Part of it is Because She’s too isolated from other people so she doesn’t understand them.

But also Sara is too good of a person. She lets the heroes escape the prison in the archon quest, she investigates on her own the murder orchestrated by Takayuki in Heizou’s hangout, she confronts her own father and her clan when faced with his betrayal of the shogun.

Idk I wish her growth was explored more. She seems to be one of the only characters who undergoes a change or chAllenge to her world veiw during the main quest. And even though we get very little of her she still is super interesting and complex, and a good person despite all that she suffered from people who could have helped her.

#kujou sara #genshin impact #long post

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literarilylost · 7 months

Text

An Oresteia by Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, trans. Anne Carson

QUICK SUMMARY

Three ancient Greek tragedy plays translated by Anne Carson into a more modern vernacular, following a family through the cycle of vengeance.

REVIEW | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | 5 STARS

A trilogy of tragedies so enjoyable to read! An Oresteia uses language in a way that's apparently very old to the world but very new to me and I love it. Anne Carson did an incredible job at translation, keeping the language modern enough that I can easily understand it, but not so modern that it seems strange - except when used appropriately for comedic effect (Fabulous. Not fabulous. made me laugh out loud).

GOODREADS | MY OTHER REVIEWS

FAVOURITE QUOTES

(usually i'd only add a couple of quotes here, but i loved so many quotes in this book, and figured hey, it's my own post i can break my own rules if i want to. all quotes below the cut)

Old age goes its way withered, on three legs, weak as a child or a dream dayvisible, wavering.

SLAVE : You won’t kill me?

ORESTES : Go.

SLAVE : Fabulous.

ORESTES : Unless I reconsider.

SLAVE : Not fabulous.

Sing sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail.

I cannot not grieve.

CHORUS : Brave girl.

KASSANDRA : People never say that to a lucky person do they?

It is a knot no one can untie. Why are you so in love with things unbearable?

Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live.

You can have your rich table and life flowing over the cup. I need one food: I must not violate Elektra.

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.

And as he sputters out his life in blood he sprays me with black drops like dew gladdening me no less than when the green buds of the corn feel showers from heaven!

PYLADES : I’ll take care of you.

ORESTES : It’s rotten work.

PYLADES : Not to me. Not if it’s you.

For Fire and Water swore an oath—eternal enemies before—to wreck our fleet.

#an oresteia #anne carson #booklr #book review #my reviews #mine

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mikarchive2 · 2 years

Note

10-15!!!

10. poor isaac - the airborne toxic event

okay i cant exactly explain why but this one makes me batshit crazy ? [ turns to god ] i am the shape you made me filth teaches filth . or something . i love biblical themes they make me reach thinking levels that should not even be possible . + it just slaps

11. doin' time - lana del rey

one of her best songs in my opinion and its a cover ! lol . sound of the summer for real

12. simulation swarm - big thief

i love you lyrics that sound like poetry ... a line from this song was in my bio for quite a while ! theres something so sad and yet quietly magical about it

13. curses - the crane wives

i think i found this one in the context of our flag means death ? has a very mama by my chem polka-coded rhythm in my opinion which is always delicious there should be more songs like this

14. answered ! ( agnes - glass animals )

15. frankenstein - rina sawayama

okay i have no idea how this happened because i dont even like the song that much ? 💀 it slaps but it gets old quicker than songs from her previous album i think ... very #relatable #girl though i cant lie

#bowiebutch #answered #thank you ❣️ smooch

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trash-writings · 3 years

Text

Good Boy

Dom!Fem!Reader x Fem!Mahito

Another commission! If you're interested in commissioning me, please send me a dm.

Info: Mahito transforms his body so he has breasts and a vagina. He still uses he/him and I kept it that way for the fic.

Warnings: Overstimulation, dacryphilia, face sitting, bondage, spanking, sex toys (crop and vibrator), some degradation, mommy kink, dom!reader, femdom, (let me know if I missed any).

You knew his games all too well, even if he believed you didn’t. Mahito got off on fucking with you, in any meaning of the phrase, but he particularly enjoyed the way you reacted when he took a more feminine form. He even made his eyelashes grow a bit longer, giving him a full bright-eyed effect to really make you weak.

However, you knew this was all just to watch you crumble. After watching him strut around in the short dress he loved all too much and knew you did as well, you finally look at him fully. Laying your phone down on the table beside your bed, you give him your attention.

“What exactly are you up to?

Your voice makes him perk up like a puppy begging for its owner's attention. It’s adorable, the way his eyes gloss over and light up every time you speak to him.

“Nothing, nothing at all, Mommyyyy” he drags out they, making you smile.

“Mommy doesn’t like when you lie to her,” you tell him. “And I always know when you’re lying.”

He giggled, looking away and straddling your lap. “But Mommy, I just want to show you how much I love you.” He grinds against your bare thigh, and you feel he’s not wearing underwear. He coats your thigh as you let him have his fun for a moment, whimpering every time you flex your thigh under his cunt.

“Do you think you’re really going to get away with this?” You ask him while tilting your head and grabbing his hips and stilling his body.

“Get away with what?” Feigning innocence s is cute, usually allowing you to let go and let him have his fun. Especially in this form, even if he only takes it when he wants to overpower you and make you softer for him than normal.

You push him off of you, flipping his body onto the bed, and pinning him below you. He smiles up at you, and you can’t help but smile back. You raise your hand and slap his pretty face, a clean smack echoing in your bedroom.

He moans, like usual, enjoying every bit of pain you give him. “Mommy!” His whining turns you on, every time that sweet word passes his lips.

“Are you going to behave?” You trail your hand down his cheek, neck, and then caress his breasts roughly. “Or am I going to have to teach you a lesson?”

“What if I want a mix of both?” He tilts his head smiling and you laugh.

You pinch his nipple through his dress, and he moans. “That’s not a very clear answer baby. So, are you going to be a good or bad boy?”

“I’ll be good, Mommy! I’ll be so good!”

“That’s what I like to hear,” you kiss him after.

Your tongue slips in his mouth, he moans leaning up trying to take more of you. His tongue fights against yours and you slip your fingers under his dress, finding he completely forgoes wearing a bra.

“Fucking whore,” you scold slipping the loose dress up off of his body and he laughs.

“You know you like it,” you slap him again and another moan leaving his body and stirring your desire further.

You flick your tongue over his right nipple, his back arched off the bed and his head falling to the side while he moans. He’s always so loud it’s nearly disgusting, anyone less sadistic would hate the filth that passes those pretty lips of his. Slipping your arm under his arched back you pull him closer to you. Mommy leaves his lips more times than you can count, filling your ears while you tease his nipples, and he begs for more.

“You want more?” You unlatch from his left nipple and hover over him. “You’re so greedy, it’s pitiful.”

He frowns, and you laugh pushing yourself off the bed and to your knees. Looking down at him, he squirms beneath you. Your glare is enough to make him uncomfortable and ready to submit. However, you notice he’s trying harder tonight to keep his composure. He really thinks having a pussy tonight will give him some control over you.

It’s cute.

It makes you want to ruin him even more.

“Stay there, and don’t you dare move an inch.” You point at him and he nods, a large smile forming on his face.

You grab a segment of black rope to bind his hands, your favorite pink vibrator, and a ball gag… just in case. While you love hearing him, sometimes it’s fun to listen to his muted whimpers while you wreck him. However, you’ve never used it on him while he’s been in this form. You grab your crop, just in case he acts up and you want to bruise his inner thighs.

Realizing you’ve never actually dominated when he’s taken the shape of a woman, fuels this. You’ve always let him take over. Not today, you decide that’s over for now. No wonder he was so confident and giddy. You grab another length of rope, thinking he’d look better restrained but also harnessed around his breasts.

“Stay still, alright?” You tell him and he nods.

Dropping the items on the bed and sitting him up to face away from you as you begin to work. You start by lacing the rope around his chest and between his breasts, carefully tying knots and connecting the rope to create crisscrosses across his skin. After securing the rope you pull his biceps back and help him cross his arms behind him. This tie is easier, so you’re quicker at restraining his arms and connecting them to the rope on his back.

Checking one last time to ensure it’s not too tight, you then push him forward and his face hits the bed, his ass up in the air for you. You slap it once, and he yelps out louder than necessary.

“Do you want to be gagged?” You ask, irritated.

“No, no! I’ll be quiet.”

“Good boy,” you rib his cheek once more and squeeze the soft skin teasingly.

Turning the vibrator on its lowest setting you lightly press it to his clit, holding it still while he whimpers against the bedding. He squeezes his thighs together as you tease your middle and forefinger around his hole.

“You’re so wet,” you state before slipping your middle finger in and curling it inside of him.

“Mm,” he mumbles, legs starting to shake. “More, please Mommy!”

“Do you think you really deserve more?” You pump your finger inside of him, pressing against his spongy center and watching his eyes roll back into his head. “I don’t think you do, yet…”

“Please!”

Instead of answering you press the button on the end of the vibrator to turn it up a setting, pressing it harder against his clit. He groans loudly, biting on the bed cover he’s crumpled up by squirming so much. Clenching around your fingers, he starts moaning louder. He looks so pretty like this, you think. However, the sadist in you isn’t satisfied with this. Having Mahito a moaning mess below you is satisfying, but not enough to quench your desire.

“Maybe if you cum, I’ll give you another finger.” You hum, leaning down and whispering in his ear. “Is that what you want, my slutty boy?”

“Yes! Mommy, I want it so bad! Please!”

“Cum then,” you switch up the vibrator another setting. “Cum for Mommy.”

He clenches around your finger as you speak, his body shaking, and mouth open wide. You smile at the sight of drool on the bed below him. His body relaxes as his orgasm ends and he opens his eyes. They’re glossy, desperately looking for you to praise him. He’s slowly slipping into his subspace, waiting for your permission.

“You did so good, baby boy. I’m so proud of you.” You rub his thighs after pulling the vibrator away from his puffy clit. “Think you can give me some more tonight?”

He nods not saying anything, his head moving up and down quickly.

“Use your words,” you command.

“Yes! I can do it!” He’s already regaining strength in his muscles and sitting up more for you.

“Good boy,” you praise again, Mahito’s lips pursed up into a silly grin. “Now, can you sit up for me and then bend over the bed?”

He nods, pushing himself up and slinging his legs over the bed. Rolling onto his stomach, you smile. He looks so good like this, completely exposed to you, and willing to do anything you ask. Surprisingly, Mahito has always been the perfect sub for you. Bratty enough to keep it entertaining, but well behaved and disciplined to always do what you ask of him.

Your fingertips run down his back, tracing over his arms, and back down to his ass. Reaching over you grab the black crop he loves, replacing your fingers with it as you tease his skin. He sighs softly as it passes over his ass.

“Oh, did you want me to hit you?” Your eyebrow arches and you smile.

The way he shyly looks up at you confirms it. Of course, he did want you to hit him with it. A loud crack against his ass fills the silence in the room and his cries. One after the next until he’s whimpering and breathless.

“Silly boy,” you coo. “You weren’t even bad, but you just love that so much I decided to give into you. Now you owe me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mommy.” He opens his eyes, and you laugh.

You can’t help it. He looks too pretty now, bound in pretty black rope and tears threatening to spill over. You drop the crop on the bed and grab the vibrator again, turning it on the highest setting and forcing it hard against this clit.

He mewls like an animal in heat. It’s disgusting and raw. Everything you love about his reactions. You love it enough to let it go this time. But if he keeps up, you’re going to have to use the ball gag and set up a hand signal for him if anything becomes too much for him.

Slipping your middle and forefinger into his needy hole, he lets out another long whine. Thrusting them inside of him and curling your fingertips, he begins to shake. He starts begging incoherently, and you’re not sure if it’s because he wants to cum or if he wants more. Choosing the latter, you slip a third finger inside his clenching cunt, his whines boarding sobs now.

“Mommy! Gotta cum! Please, please, let me cum!”

“Go ahead,” you chuckle. “But I won’t be stopping anytime soon.”

He cries now, letting the tears slip past his eyes and onto his cheeks. He cums, cunt clenching around your fingers while you fuck him through it. His whimpering does down, but his steady stream of tears continues to fall to the mattress from his now pink cheeks.

Mahito whines, a loud high-pitched sound ripping from his throat when you keep fingerfucking him. He’s shaking harder now, and you’re glad you asked him to bend over the bed. He wouldn’t be able to hold himself up through a third orgasm.

“You can give me one more, can’t you? Just one more.”

He nods, shaking his head erratically on the bed. “ Yes,” he mutters, “I can do it.” His voice is breathless, shaking with each word while he fights to answer you.

“I know you can baby, so make me proud!” You kiss the skin on his back while your fingers continue to work your fingers and the vibrator on him. “You’re so good for me today. Makes me so proud!”

You know he does well with encouragement, especially whenever you are overstimulating him. Despite how much you want to degrade him, you know it’s better to keep the energy up until he finishes again. You press the vibrator up against his clit while you twist your fingers inside of him and start pumping them in harder.

“Mommy! ‘Gonna… cum!” He cries out and his body goes weak as his third orgasms crash through his body. His moans are quieter now, breathier and more exhausted.

“Good boy,” you slowly pull your fingers out from him and rub his ass.

Turning the vibrator off and tossing it on the bed, you then untie his arm retrains and massages his strained muscles to help him relax as he comes down. Wiping his tears away you kiss his cheek and help him relax onto the bed. He’s always quick to recover and go back to his normal childish and ridiculous personality. You don’t say anything, waiting for him to decide when he’s ready to continue.

“Okay,” he tells you and smiles. “What do I owe you?”

You laugh sitting up and slipping your clothes off. “I’m gonna sit on your face for as long as I want, got it?”

He eagerly shakes his head and reaches for you. “Please!”

“You’re such a fucking whore. Desperate to taste me, hmm?”

You sit over his face, and his tongue shoots out of his mouth quicker than you were expecting. He laps over your wet folds before his lips and tongue work on your clit. You lean your head against the headboard of your bed, breathing hard while you let him decide how to please you. Each time his tongue slips inside of you and his nose brushes your clit; you want to scream.

It feels too good.

“Mahito, fuck” you groan while you roll your hips once and he squeezes your ass. “I didn’t say you could touch me,” you smack his hands away and rill your hips again.

He mumbles something that sounds like an apology before laying his arms at his sides, hands balled into fists. He’s greedy and wants to touch you, but this is supposed to be a pseudo-punishment for wanting more pleasure than you were ready to give. You have to keep reminding yourself of that as you ride his face.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you breathe in and out as your orgasm approaches and Mahito’s tongue shoots back up into you, your hips rolling and your clit catching his nose again.

Closing your eyes and holding his head still you ride out your orgasm on his face, breathy moans and curses falling from your lips. Slowing down, you still your movements completely and his tongue leaves your sopping cunt. Hands pushing you down to where you’re sitting on his chest.

“Mahito,” you say slowly, and he looks up, face shining with your release.

“hmm?”

“Do you really think I’m finished?”

His eyes widen and a full smile fills his face. “No. I’m sorry Mommy! Let me give you another one, please, I promise I’ll be a good boy. I’ll even use my fingers if you want!”

You laugh rolling your eyes and pushing his face under you. “I guess it wouldn’t be too awful if you used your fingers too.”

#commission work #mahito smut #mahito x reader #fem mahito #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #commisionwork

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sinsbymanka · 4 years

Note

"Can you teach me how to do that?" with Reyna/Fenris or Reese/Bull? :D

Yes I most certainly can! @dadrunkwriting!

The incessant knocking, pounding really, drug him from the fade against his will. Fenris groaned and rolled over, glaring at the petite form snoozing blissfully beside him, completely unperturbed by the hoard of brontos attempting to break down her door.

“Hawke.” He growled, attempting to work up a proper glare. Hard to do when the object of all his desires was bare from the waist up, her glorious pale skin on perfect display. The sheet tangled around her waist, hiding the curve of her rear, her shapely legs, but her torso was revealed in full as she slept facing him.

He’d left bruises last night, at the juncture of her neck, half hidden by her hair. He hadn’t meant to, but they’d had entirely too much to drink celebrating the release of Varric’s newest serial. How they managed to stagger back to Hightown itself was a miracle. They should have been mugged, Champion or no, and he was going to lecture her for her foolishness, her carelessness, for insisting she wanted him home, in her bed, whispering all sorts of filth in is ear.

And he, the bigger fool, deserved punishment for giving into the temping curves of her body as he always did. Still, he couldn’t help but trace the love marks on her skin with his sword roughened fingers, half in apology, half in a mad possessive lust.

The pounding resumed again, matched only by the throbbing in his head, and he bit her name out. “Reyna.”

Her lips twitched, just slightly, and her pulse jumped to life beneath his fingers. He snarled. “I know you are awake, woman. There is someone at your door.”

“Bodahn will get it.” She murmured sleepily, opening one bleary blue eye while her petal pink lips curled into a sultry little smile. “Mornin’ handsome.”

“You gave Bodahn the day off. And Orana.” He reminded her pointedly. “When we stumbled into your blighted hallway and nearly knocked over the bench, after you woke them with your cackling.”

“Cackling?” Hawke managed a little pout. “I think my laugh is charming, thank you very much, Serah.”

Before he could continue to fight with her, the pounding resumed. Fenris frowned reprovingly at her still form. “They will destroy your door.”

“They will go away. Eventually.” Hawke yawned and buried her face even further into the soft pillows like she could sleep through the racket downstairs.

Knowing her, she probably could.

“We should have stayed at the mansion.” He snapped, rising from the bed and searching the room through swimming vision for his breeches. “Or the Hanged Man.”

“The bed in your mansion sags.” Hawke complained with a hint of a giggle curling around her words. “And Varric would have woken us up already with his bitching and you know it. I can hear it now. Why are ‘Bela’s panties stabbed to the ceiling? Who spilled ale on the cards? Where in the Maker’s chest hair did my reading glasses go?”

He did not want to laugh at her slight exaggeration of Varric’s morning routine, but he couldn’t help the slight huff in response as he located his own pants and pulled them on. Hawke let out a little disappointed sigh and he turned to find her watching him with heat burning in her gaze. “You have visitors.” He scolded.

“Not until someone answers the door.” She reminded him, too sweetly. Too temptingly. She was a desire demon, and he in her thrall.

Swearing, he left her cozy room and stalked into the gallery. The pounding resumed the minute his bare feet hit the main hall and Hawke’s mabari looked up with a plaintive whine as if to ask why every damn thing in this household was an ordeal.

A sentiment he truly appreciated.

He threw the door open and was met by a raised fist poised to continue knocking. Whoever this messenger expected, it was not one bare chested elf, corded muscles trembling with fury, glaring into his face.

“The Champion is indisposed.” Fenris snarled.

“But…but Messere…”

“Indisposed.” Fenris punctuated the word with a menacing step forward that had the messenger nearly toppling off the doorstep. “Come back this afternoon if you must return at all.”

And with that, he retreated back into the warm cacoon of the estate and slammed the door in the startled human’s face.

As he climbed the stairs, Hawke emerged from her room with a rather defeated sigh, pointing her eyes at him while she tied the sash of her finery around her waist. “Who the bleedin’ hell is it?”

“I am uncertain. They are gone.” He eyed her form hungrily, the bare legs that had been covered by her sheets finally revealed.

“Gone?” Hawke asked, a slow, pleased smile curling at her lips. “Andraste’s ass, Fenris. You made them go away? Can you teach me how to do that?”

He smirked, approaching her and snagging tie around her waist before she could finish tying it. “Perhaps.”

#dwc #fluff #dadrunkwriting #fenris x femhawke #hawke/fenris #da2 hawke #fenris #dragon age 2 #snarky fenris is best fenris

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raendown · 4 years

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Pairing: TobiramaSakumo Word count: 5482 Rated: T+ Summary: When faced with death Tobirama performs the impossible and throws himself forward in to the future where he meets two Hatake who end up being everything he was always missing in the past.

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Perversions of Honor

All things considered, he’d gotten off pretty easy. The experiments he’d conducted over the years in his never ending thirst for more knowledge, more progress, had led to some pretty devastating results on occasion. Not every trial was a success. Not every idea was a good one. Since the idea he’d pulled out of his ass this time had only been about half formed and under-researched Tobirama supposed he could be only grateful that it hadn’t ended with his corpse being strewn about the landscape in several pieces, his last moments full of pain and despair.

Under better circumstances he might have even been inclined to celebrate the success of something he’d always assumed would be impossible. Time travel; to think that he had accomplished such a feat boggled the mind even without taking in to consideration how little chakra had been left in his coils, how desperately sloppy his signs had been. He didn’t imagine many would blame him for experiencing a touch of panic with the Gold and Silver Brothers bearing down on him cloaked in the Kyuubi’s chakra and thirsting for his blood. With no other options left, his body tired and old and broken, Tobirama had gone with the first desperate plan that leapt to mind, a half-forgotten idea he never did get around to properly researching.

Looking deeper in to the spontaneous modifications he’d made to the hiraishin would have to wait, however, until he figured out exactly how far through time he had fallen and where he’d landed. The layout of the forest around him looked strangely familiar, like a path he had walked a thousand times before that had changed since last he saw it. Was this the past or the future? Should he know this place?

Such questions could probably be answered by the small body watching him intently from some bushes to his left. Tobirama very carefully did not look round, certain the presence was a child who thought themselves well hidden - and from anyone else they would have been. Whoever this child was they had excellent chakra dampening abilities already. If he were any less of a sensor Tobirama would never have known he was not alone here what with how tightly that small chakra had been pulled in and smothered. He was quite impressed, actually. Knowing he was under surveillance but secure in knowing there was no one else around for at least a mile in any direction, he allowed himself a few moments to simply breathe, to accept the loss of things he might never get back to. Jumping through time once had been a risk. There was no guarantee he would ever be able to recreate what he’d done in a moment of need. Only when he was sure his emotions were settled enough that he could soldier on as he had all his life did Tobirama stand and clear his throat.

“Can you tell me where I am, young one?” He asked. The bushes twitched.

“How did you know I was here?” a small, grumpy voice asked.

Tobirama looked over and resisted the urge to smile. “I always know where everyone is,” he boasted. It was only a slight exaggeration. “Will you answer my question?”

“Why should I? You could be a spy or a missing nin or something. A shinobi should never give information to the enemy!”

Reaching up to trace the shape of his brow, Tobirama already missed the happuri that must have been knocked off at some point. Without it he supposed it would be a little harder to identify himself as a Leaf shinobi but depending on where he had ended up that might turn out to be a good thing. One never knew what sort of grudges might exist in the future or what information he would need to hide from the past.

“I would appreciate it if you at least tell me what year it is, then, young shinobi.”

“Got your head knocked around, huh?” With a quiet snort of derision as though passing judgment on him somehow, the bushes parted to make way for an utterly tiny figure to stroll out.

Messy silver hair and dark eyes both drooped over top of a thin mask clinging to the bottom half of his face, the same color as the Leaf headband he wore on his tiny little head. Despite being clearly decked out for battle his clothing was of a cut Tobirama had never seen before and by his stature he could be no more than five years old. Which was ridiculous. Clearly he must have travelled to an entirely different universe because there was no way any iteration of the village his brother had built, present or future, would ever allow children of this age to become shinobi. Putting a stop to child soldiers was the entire reason they had founded Konohagakure in the first place.

Judging by the pride in the boy’s stance, however, mentioning any of these thoughts was not likely to make him any friends. Best to be polite. Later he could figure out who was responsible for this so he could express his very sharp displeasure to the correct channels.

“I see that you are also a shinobi of the Leaf,” he noted instead. “You show excellent caution. How would you like me to prove that I am a citizen?” That was the right question, he could tell by the minute straightening of thin shoulders. Concealing his indulgent smile took effort as he watched the boy preen with self importance.

“How many brothers did the first Hokage have? Anyone who took history in our village should know that.”

“Four,” Tobirama answered.

The calm in his tone thankfully hid the way his mind had already begun to spin. So he had travelled to the future, it seemed. Not only that but he had travelled so far ahead that his own time had been lost to history books and myths for young children to use as trivia to test a stranger’s identity. Just thinking about it reeled him so terribly he couldn’t even spare a moment to be amused at the disappointed pout that followed his answer.

“Hmph. Guess you’re really not an enemy. Konoha is that way.” The child lifted one arm to point west. “It’s still several miles out. You’re not likely to run in to anyone but patrols this close to home so I would recommend travelling at an easy pace if you’ve got a concussion.”

“You have my thanks. What is your name, young one?”

With a startled look as though he’d never encountered someone who didn’t know his name, the boy answered, “Hatake Kakashi.”

“It’s good to meet you, Kakashi-kun.”

“Right. Whatever, old man.”

“Old...man?”

Before he could even think about any lectures on propriety or respecting one’s elders the boy had already turned around and dashed away through the trees. It was only then that Tobirama finally took notice of the travel dust on his clothing, the dots of blood splashed on the sides of his sandals. Despite his age Kakashi was clearly only just returning from a mission of some sort in which it was very probable that he had taken a life and yet neither his bearing nor his voice betrayed any sort of trauma from such an act. This was not the boy’s first kill.

And that was troubling.

His viewpoint on the situation did not improve in the slightest after he made his way to the village to discover who exactly was in charge and in how many ways his once beloved student had failed him. In the moments before what he thought was his death, only hours before in his mind, he had chosen Sarutobi Hiruzen as his successor because he believed the young man to be a true student of the teachings he’d done his best to impart on the next generation. To be proven wrong so harshly was a blow that he wrapped around his heart to deal with another time. Nearly half a century in to the future and somehow possessed of a body some three decades younger than he’d been only the day before, Tobirama had quite enough to come to terms with already. Time travel was mind-bending on its own as a concept even without all these unforeseen consequences.

It took hours in conference with an ancient man who claimed to be Saru and yet seemed an entirely different person before at last his old student dismissed him with the air of someone attempting to sweep undesirable filth under the rug. Then to add insult to injury the Sandaime Hokage who did not deserve to be such added a parting shot like an afterthought.

“Many years have passed since last you were here and many more things have changed. You’ll need someone to act as a guide, of course. I have the perfect man in mind. To the east of the old Senju district there is a house that sits alone on a street; you’ll find a man named Sakumo there. Tell him I sent you.” Tobirama watched those faded eyes turn away from him, back to paperwork that his own time as Nidaime had taught him could always wait, and hoped that there was something better in this future to convince him to stay.

Leading the village had taught him a number of other things as well. He knew exactly the sort of waves it would make if the ANBU following behind him as he left the tower did not see him go straight to this glorified minder as he’d been oh so subtly instructed. For now it was best he keep a low profile. To make life easier on the ANBU only following orders he made sure to keep himself in plain sight and not simply reach for any of the numerous hiraishin markers he could still feel pulling at him from all over the village. New structures may have sprung up as the population expanded but the foundation remained the same. He could still find his way around just fine.

The last thing he expected to see as he turned on to the street with only one lonely house built on its long dirt stretch was little Kakashi hopping down from a newby rooftop, stopping to turn and look at him with sleepy curiosity in his eyes.

“What are you doing here old man?”

“Your words are as accurate as they are wrong,” Tobirama grumbled at him, taking heart in the confused tilt of a small head. “I am looking for a man named Sakumo.” He was unprepared for the boy to light up with a fierce pride.

“Tosan! Come with me!”

Kakashi leapt forward to grab him by the hand and began pulling him towards the house while Tobirama thanked whatever good fortune allowed him to continue crossing paths with this intriguing little tyke. Together they ghosted in through the front door, not even stopping to kick off their shoes, pattering down the hallways with a surprising lack of noise. Even here in his own home Kakashi was an exemplary shinobi.

Another crime that Tobirama would need to carve out of Hiruzen’s unworthy hide.

When the boy threw open a door that looked much like any other in the house things happened so quickly that Tobirama found himself reacting almost before he had properly taken any of it in. Distantly he registered the room as a study of some sort, automatically cataloguing his surroundings as he would in any unfamiliar territory. His eyes caught the flash of steel at the same time his ears twitched at the horrified gasp from Kakashi’s mouth and Tobirama was flashing across the room to stop the blade in Sakumo’s hand before the door had finished sliding open.

Dark eyes stared back at him with equal parts despair and surprise. Tobirama could see a hundred thoughts racing across the other man’s face as he very gently guided the blade down until shaking fingers released it to clatter against the ground. He kicked it aside without breaking eye contact.

“Nidaime…?”

“Tosan! Are you okay!? Was it a jutsu!? Did someone put you in a genjutsu or something!?” Kakashi hurtled in to the room and threw himself against his father’s chest for the briefest of hugs before pulling away to inspect him head to toe, assessing him for injuries.

“I’m- no, I was not in a- Kakashi, who is this?”

Distracting the boy from what he’d been about to do, that was a smart move. Regret was already there in the lines of his face, gratitude that he had been interrupted, all the signs of a man who did not truly wish to die. Tobirama wondered if there was blackmail at play here or something else but at the moment he supposed it was none of his business. Not yet, anyway. His brother had been the more infamous people person but he’d always been able to ingratiate himself with the people he needed to impress. Sniffing out whatever had driven this man to such a low could wait until later.

Explaining who he was and how he had come to be here was enough of a distraction that both Kakashi and his father seemed to forget entirely about the blade Sakumo had been about to sink in to his own belly before he was interrupted just in time. Answering their questions took hours, asking his own took several more. Sakumo was startled to hear that he had been chosen as Tobirama’s guide, though the surprise in his voice carried a peculiar tone that Tobirama couldn’t quite put his finger on, and he accepted the duty with a strange kind of relief in his eyes. Blackmail was already looking to be the less likely motivator behind what he’d almost done. A close eye would be needed to watch this one.

Luckily, without the duties he had left behind in his own natural time Tobirama was entirely free to watch as closely as he liked. When offered a place to stay in the Hatake household he accepted easily. If it came with the added benefit of making Hiruzen’s teeth grind so hard he could practically hear it across the village, well, he had always enjoyed that old killing two birds with one stone philosophy.

Making a new life here in this village that was so much the same and yet so different as well was easier than Tobirama would have thought. He spent his days dragging Sakumo from one end of town to the other, asking endless questions only for each reply to spawn a dozen new ones, more and more grateful as time went on and his companion responded with nothing but patience. Tobirama watched more than just the man at his side, however. Any shinobi worth their salt maintained situational awareness no matter where they were and even here in the place where he should be safest his eyes and ears were always open. He saw the way people moved to the other side of the street to avoid brushing up against Sakumo, heard the voices that murmured dark thoughts about their own comrade. He saw the narrow glares and heard the curses.

But most of all he saw the way Sakumo quietly flinched away from it all. In the many weeks since he’d been in the man’s company Tobirama had gotten to know Sakumo quite well, enough to build a healthy doubt that whatever put a wedge between this man and the rest of the village had likely not been a purposeful act. At least not on his part. No one who deliberately alienated those around them would cower away from the results like a dog with its tail between its legs. As the days passed and the two of them got to know each other, grew to trust each other, Tobirama did what he could to hold his patience, waiting for the day it would be more appropriate and less of a nosey attack to ask his questions. Watching Sakumo do his best to pretend he didn’t exist in public while also trying not to let his son see him act with shame was almost physically painful. It was something he could not allow to go on.

A man as good as the one who housed and cared for him did not deserve to be tucked away and forgotten about, let alone rejected by those who should have venerated him.

The time for questions came after Tobirama had been living here in the future for nearly five months, any thoughts of returning to his own era long abandoned. Whether it was he himself or the way he lived his life that changed the most was indiscernible. Once he had been a political leader tasked with guiding the village and sleeping barely four hours a night as he tried to carry the weight of his brother’s dreams alone. Now he rose late each morning to enjoy a lazy meal with two sleepy Hatakes and spent his days in leisure. Conversation between him and Sakumo flowed as easily as the river and assisting in Kakashi’s training was as delightful as teaching him how to relax and play. Exploring the village, learning the many ways technology had advanced, and slowly reintegrating himself with the gossip chains, all of these helped the days fly by.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that leisure was all he’d concentrated on. A few months was more than enough time to make a nuisance of himself for the ones he now renounced as his students. The men that Hiruzen and Danzo had grown up to be were not the boys he once trained with such loving care. But that was not what he wanted to spend this second chance at life worrying about, not when he would much rather concentrate on the way Sakumo’s hair turned from silver to gold in the morning light, how Kakashi could express so many emotions with only his eyes and lie with a rarely seen smile, the sound of Sakumo’s quiet rasping laugh when one was lucky enough to earn it. For a lifetime he had watched others around him building families and only now that he had an approximation of the same for his own did he understand the joy of it, only now did he understand how his brother could have been so consistently distracted with thoughts of his beloved wife. For how little time he spent apart from Sakumo it was embarrassing how often his thoughts strayed back to the man.

Lounging on the engawa and sipping perfectly brewed tea, Tobirama looked over at the figure beside him without turning his head. Half a dozen sets of paws bounded from one end of the courtyard to the other as Kakashi chased a number of his recently acquired summons with stern words about bathtime. It was a more peaceful afternoon than he thought he would ever see, one Tobirama was loath to disturb in any way, yet the curiosity that had been gnawing at him for months now had reached a boiling point at last, unignorable any longer.

“May I ask you something?” he murmured, sliding his eyes forward again to afford his companion the privacy of not having his emotions studied like an experiment.

“You ask a hundred questions a day,” Sakumo retorted.

“And you answer them all.”

“Indeed I do; not sure why you think this one might be any different.”

One corner of his mouth quirked with a brief smile before it faded away again. “Kakashi may not see it - the unsuspecting eyes of youth - but I do. What happened to drive you away from your own people?”

“Ah.” Sakumo sighed and even without looking at him one could practically feel the way he shrank in to himself.

Wanting to provide comfort but knowing he was terrible at such things, Tobirama’s hands wrung together in his lap as he debated whether or not to reach out. If he were his brother he would have thought nothing of taking Sakumo’s hand in his own for a gentle reassuring squeeze. But he was not his brother. The very mental image of them holding hands threatened to turn his cheeks to fire even if he knew the only intentions behind such a gesture would be those of friendship and comfort.

Thrown forward in to the future for a second chance at life and still he had the urge to flee at the slightest hint of his own beating heart. He was doomed to be hopeless, it seemed. At least when it came to emotions.

“It must have been about a year ago now,” his friend began with halting syllables. “My team and I were sent on a mission which might very well have ended the war if we were successful. If I had been less foolish.”

“Hard to imagine you ever treating a mission foolishly,” Tobirama said.

“Kind words, though I don’t know if I deserve them. We all swore our loyalty to this village, vowed to do whatever became necessary, but when my team got in to a tight spot I chose to abandon the mission like some genin still wet behind the ears. I disobeyed my orders and in doing so I lost the respect of those who thought they knew me. How could I accept any other missions after that when none of my teammates could trust me to do the job I was sent to do?” Sakumo’s profile tucked in to itself in the corner of Tobirama’s eye. “If I had only continued with the mission...well. I suppose there’s no use wishing to change the things we can’t.”

Something like rage stirred in Tobirama’s breast like an animal waking with hunger in its teeth. “You’ve been ostracized for saving your teammates from death?”

“For failing perhaps the most important mission of my life,” the other corrected him.

“They owe you their lives!”

With a sigh Sakumo shook his head. “How can we know that? It’s entirely possible that they could have survived without my intervention. I could have failed this village for nothing.”

Tobirama had never whipped his entire body around so fast.

“You failed nothing!” he snapped. Sakumo blinked at him in shock.

“I abandoned my mission-”

“No, you chose to protect the lives of your comrades. That is not failure. That is admirable. Am I to understand that the people of this village treat you like some unwanted half-breed cur because you chose to value them!?”

“Saying it like that certainly makes it sound quite pretty,” Sakumo allowed. “It’s just-”

Tobirama cut him off again without even waiting to hear whatever ridiculous point he was about to get wrong. “I won’t hear it! How dare they! If there is anyone who has been failed it is you! Your actions are exactly the sort of thing my brother dreamed of when he first conceived of Konohagakure, back before that name ever existed, when this land was nothing but untamed forest and blood-soaked loam. When he shook Uchiha Madara’s hand they promised that no more children had to die and that every able bodied fighter would give their last breath to protect each other because that is what makes a village!”

Hot tea spilled across the tatami mats as Tobirama surged to his feet, pacing along the ground just beyond the engawa. Sakumo remained on the ledge with fingers curled tightly around his own cup and watched but said nothing. Barks and yips cut the silence that might have fallen, clouds of dust drifting through the air to make a haze between them and the boy Tobirama had come to see as more precious than his own students had been to him. Like a son, if he could ever be as bold as to say so.

Rage burned hot on his tongue, disappointment like a heavy black cloud in his belly. Never in his life had he been glad his last remaining sibling was already dead but now - well. It was good, he thought, that Hashirama would never be cursed to see the pale shadow his dreams had faded to.

Spinning back around sent the sleeves of his yukata snapping out around him. This time there was no hesitation when he reached out to frame his hands around Sakumo’s, feeling the warmth of the tea leaching through pale cold fingers, cradling them with all the support he could never properly offer with words alone. Dark eyes watched him in shock as he stepped forward. Some small part of his mind noted that standing below the ledge of the engawa put him at just the perfect height to bend his neck, creating a small pocket of privacy where the rest of the world did not exist for the moments in which they held each other's gaze.

“I have lived two lives and never known a man better than you,” he whispered. “If it takes the rest of my time here on this earth I swear I will help you believe in all the wonderful things that you deserve.”

“You...know what I was about to do. That day. How can you say these things to a coward like me?”

“A true coward would have run from danger. Not towards it as you did.”

Sakumo looked away, though his eyes came back shortly as though drawn by some inevitable force. “I’m glad you came here to us. Whatever god sent you must have known that you were needed. I...if you hadn’t come Kakashi would be without a father.”

“May I ask - you do not have to answer - even at the time it seemed to me that you didn’t truly want to end your own life. What put you on that path?”

“It just seemed like the only option left at the time. My honor was gone, my comrades no longer trusted me to watch their backs, and Kakashi was still so young. He would come home from the academy talking about all the things he’d learned and how much he looked forward to fighting for Konoha someday and then he came home with his genin headband and I just didn’t want him to grow up with my failures staining the way that others looked at him.”

Breathing felt strangely difficult but Tobirama refused to look away. “You bring to your son, and to all of us, the greatest honor. It is I who should be thanking the gods for sending me to your side. I’m glad that I have this chance to know what a happy life feels like as my brother once had.”

“Ah, but your brother was a married man,” Sakumo murmured. “Surely a wife and a child at home cannot compare.” Such words were a chance he was terrified yet only too happy to take.

“Do I not have you and Kakashi?” Tobirama asked.

“M-me?”

Considering how pale the both of their natural complexions were, it was very probable that the color he could see rising on Sakumo’s cheeks was matched perfectly on his own. Tobirama had never been very prone to blushing. Emotions had always been the sole exception to that, the one true foil he’d never entirely been able to overcome. He never expected to find himself in a situation where he didn’t mind this most embarrassing of weaknesses until he was treated to the sight of Hatake Sakumo blushing like a young maiden. Seeing that was absolutely worth doing the same himself.

He waited patiently for a minute or two and when his first advance was not rejected in any obvious way he felt emboldened to make another, stroking his thumbs across the back of his friend’s hands. The electric feeling in his veins as he watched Sakumo try to suppress a shiver could only be described as triumph.

“I would give many things for the chance to show you how much you mean to me,” he said.

“You have always had strange tastes,” Sakumo retorted. It was a good sign if he was able to crack a joke, although a straight answer would have been preferable. Tobirama supposed he would probably have more luck with a straight question.

“Would you allow me to court you? Perhaps it’s my pride talking but if there is anyone who could help you understand just how worthy of a man you are I think it would be me.”

“Aye, it would be you.” Taking in a shaky breath, the other man swallowed after before finally nodding very slowly. “I don’t feel as though a man like you should be wasting your time on a man like me but I suppose that’s the point you’re trying to make. Kakashi will be fine on his own for an evening; would, ah, would you care to join me for dinner? We could go to that place you like in the market.”

Tobirama had never felt so light without accidentally inhaling the fumes of his own experiments. Every nerve ending in his body tingled in a way he simply did not have the time to pay closer attention to at the moment, not when gravity seemed to be pulling him closer and closer to the quiet smile he’d been falling in love with since the day they met. When their lips met it was soft, barely a brush of skin, not hesitant but unhurried. Sakumo never seemed to be hurried by much. Yet even that small display of affection was enough for Tobirama to wonder if it was possible to expire of sheer happiness.

For the brief moments that it lasted their first kiss was unequivocally one of the best things to ever happen in either of his lives; he still couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but laugh as Kakashi’s voice rang out across the courtyard.

“Gross! Ew! Pakkun, they’re kissing! Make them stop!”

“We may have to wait until privacy is more available to continue this conversation,” Tobirama murmured.

“Pakkun will bite you if you don’t stop!” Kakashi shouted, immediately backed up by a series of sharp barks. The rest of his pack seemed content to stand and wag their tags while they watched the humans interacting.

Sakumo took a long moment to look away towards his son, smile growing only wider. “Will he? That wouldn’t be very nice of him.”

Nodding imperiously, Kakashi scrambled across the yard to push Tobirama aside and crawl up in to his father’s lap, curling as tightly as his growing body would allow. It was adorable enough that Tobirama supposed he really didn’t mind being put off for a while just at the moment that he obtained everything he could have ever wanted. If a little patience was all it took to feel those lips against his own again that was a sacrifice he was very willing to make.

“We can discuss this in more detail later,” he said, knowing that his friend was smart enough to read between the lines. The long overdue blossoming of their relationship was not the only thing they needed to talk about.

“Of course,” Sakumo agreed.

“For now”-Tobirama dropped a hand on to Kakashi’s head and ruffled the silver hair only a few shades of from his own-“how would you like to help me plan a village coup, pup?”

“Tobirama!”

Putting one hand against his chest to profess honesty, he blinked with as much innocence as he could muster. “It’s only a training exercise, of course. Just to see how his studies are coming along. I would obviously never think to depose the ones in charge and reform the entire village back to the original concept it was meant for.”

His friend - partner, now, in every sense of the word - lifted one eyebrow without saying anything.

“I would start by gaining their trust, I think,” Kakashi mused, oblivious to the conversations his elders had been having. When his father heaved a deep sigh he looked confused.

Tobirama could only turn his head away to smile in to the distance, watching clouds of dust swirl and dance in the afternoon breeze. It had taken dying and not dying and leaping through time but at long last he had found the future his precious sibling always dreamed of for him, for everyone. He’d found happiness; he found peace. The first thing he intended to do with this newfound dream was to enjoy it.

After that, well, it was only right of him to pursue Hashirama’s visions of the future and share his happiness with the others in this beloved village. When he met his brother in the afterlife he wanted to carry with him stories of a life lived to the fullest, a family that loved him every day, and courage enough to be better in the future than he had in the past.

#rae writes #commission #sakutobi #tobirama #sakumo #kakashi #fanfiction

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ffxivash · 5 years

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Your Muse’s Backstory Ashliel‘a Vallenya

OOC answers will be Italic Ic answers will be in normal text 1. Where were they born? What is the story behind their birth, if any? Mun: The alpine forests east of Coerthas. His mother Ashliel fled the Raven clan after becoming pregnant. She feared the wrath of the clan and her mother who is still the matron. She secretly was in love with the Clan’s Seer who happened to be a Seeker. Such things were frowned on, especially seeing her birthright was to be the clan’s priestess. Ash : Mismatched eyes look to the interviewer. “In the northern woods, it was just me and my mother for the first bit of my childhood.”

2. Has their living situation changed from when they were born?

Min: Yes, though after the age of 8, his living situation changed dramatically after his mother died. Becoming a Imperial Conscript, meant his tribal ways had to be purged from him. He also received a formal education.

Ash: White ears fell to the side as his eyes looked to the floor. “Yes.. Living in the Empire, even as a conscript, is a huge change. Before that I was happily living as a savage in the filth of the forest. I didn’t know any better. Now things are at least better then they were in the Empire. Living near family, having friends, and having choices.” There was a pause as he changed how he was sitting in the plush chair, leaning forward some. “The little ones like what I’m allowed to ware, personal freedoms are a big thing, once you realize what it’s like not having them.”

3. What occupations did their parents have when they were born? Did this job influence your muse in any form?

Min: His mother was a huntress, seeing she ran away before getting the blessing from the Raven Totem. That ever burning need to hunt and find stronger prey is what eventually lead to her long painful agonizing death. Ash was there for her as much as the seven year old could be, but he had no real medical knowledge to really help. Tribal remedies could only go so far. Even before he witnessing her death, Ash made some choices. One was to become a pescatarian, the second was to never follow in her footsteps Ash: “My mother was a savage tribal Huntress, it in the end that is why she died. I’m well beyond that, and I’ve no interest in harming animals for food or sport.” There was a clear tone of disdain in his voice, though Ash’s eyes still kept to the floor.

4. Did they have any childhood enemies? Any friends? Enemies that became friends? Mun: When he lived with his mother, it was only them and the woods. After he was found and conscripted, he was isolated and re-educated. Not wanting his savage ways to infect anyone else. When he was in his late teen years, his purpose was exposed to him. That purpose made him very unpopular with in the castrums his handler brought him to.

Ash: “No. it was just me and my mother.” Pausing Ash took a moment to consider as his gaze went to the interviewer once again. “After that, it was just me and my tech. No, I haven’t really made many friends, or rivals.”

5. What sort of religion was practiced in their home? Did religion play a role in their upbringing?

Mun: His mother was in line to become the next clan priestess. The belief in the gods and Menphina especially, as the Moon Mother of all Keeper Miqo'te. It did, but not in a good way. The Empire sees Gods as something the Savages cling to and use to make Eikons. The re-education Ash went through was mentally traumatic, and one of the things that turned good memories he had of his mother into painful lies. Ash: “Most Eorzans believe in the gods, my mother was no different.” Shaking his head with a small smirk, like Ash was talking about how the Easter bunny is just a made up to sell chocolate. “I no longer believe in them.”

6. How many siblings did they have? What was their relationship like? Were they an only child who wished for siblings?

Mun: None, it was hard to write such a backstory for one Muse. I was not about to put a second through this tragic backstory.

Ash: “I was an only child. I personally never really thought about siblings, I suppose I didn’t have any other children around to even know it was a thing.” Ash shrugged, “By the time my mother died, we never really had the talk about chocobo’s and the bees.” 7. What is their fondest memory? Their worst?

Mun: His childhood has some wonderful memories, not all of them were corrupted or destroyed by the Empire. The best memory he has, not including recent events, is trying to teach his mother how to fish.

As for worse, Ash was forced to do things for the Empire that he will never speak about. He has witnessed things that no one should ever see.

Ash: “After I sworn off meat from animals, I tried to show my Mother how to fish. I was never really taught how, but as a clever child, I fashioned some netting from plant fibers. I didn’t learn there was a tool for that till I was in Eorzea.” Ash’s gaze hardened, and featured darkened as he remembered some of his worst memories. “As for worst, how about I save you the nightmares and keep that to myself. No you don’t have to thank me.”

8. If they could name the worst moment of their life, what would it be? Did this change them as a person or change how they perceived the world, themselves, and others? Mun: Well I would say it would be The Allagan Experimental Weapons Project. Yes, this changed him, the events of it and his initial refusal to follow orders. He realized freedom was not something he would ever achieve. He accepted he was a slave, and a monster for his heinous acts. He will not talk about what he did openly, only to those who he believes needs to know.

Ash: “I was sixteen.” Ash’s white ears flicked back seeing the interviewer had to push the topic. “The Empire had plans for me, those plans, made up the worst moment in my life.” Pain showed in his eyes, and regret. “Yes, it changed me, made me a much colder person, numb to the consequences of my actions. Even though I didn’t have a choice, I feel it has somehow...” There was a pause as he looked down. “...corrupted me. I don’t talk about it unless I feel I have no other choice. I know people will start seeing that as who I am.”

9. If they were to make a timeline with their life events, which ones would they list? Which would they leave out?

Mun: His first and only hunt, his mother’s injury and eventual death, being found by the Empire, the aforementioned worst moment in his life, the day his Father died, the day he escaped the Empire during an attack on Castrum Abania, Aunt Talrhin summoning a void-sent in to his hideout, going to the Scarlet Bloom Inn, meeting his niece, and meeting Lucerna.

He would leave out much that has to do with the artificial Allagan echo, exactly what was done to him by the Empire, things he did for the Empire, the Re-education process, and his first murder.

Ash: “Timeline of events? You’re writing a book aren't you? My first hunt, My mother’s death, being conscripted, escaping the Empire, arriving at The Scarlet Bloom, and trying to understand what it feels like to be in love.” Shaking his head as Ash rubs one of his temples lightly. “I’d leave out a lot of things, as you’ve figured there are things I don’t really want to remember or talk about.”

10. What was the hardest lesson they had to learn as they got older?

Mun: I’d say the hardest lesson was accepting he was a slave.

Ash: “Accepting my purpose within the Empire.” Ash glanced back at the interviewer. “The Empire had a significant impact on my life.”

11. What occupation did your character want to have growing up? Is this the same as what they wish to be, or are in, now?

Mun: He had a lot of dream of what he wanted to be when he was still with his mother. Fisher, taking care of animals, just being a Keeper and exploring the world. No, he didn’t even know about any sort of Tech, or even his own affinity for magic. Now he wishes to learn all there is to know about Allagan tech, find a way to help people with it. Ash: “Growing up?” Pausing for a moment thinking back. “I just wanted to be a savage just like my mother was. Tech wasn’t even a word in my mother’s language. I truly feel I’m destined to work on Allagan tech, my innate abilities should not be wasted. I plan to use it in some way, hopefully to make someone's life better.”

12. Did they face any kind of bullying or abuse growing up?

Mun: Not till he arrived in the Empire. Now I know some Imperial writers out there may try to brush off the brutality of the Empire. In the game there is plenty of lore bits to paint me a pretty straight up picture of who the Empire is. The extend of the abuse, Ash had to endure in the Empire. Is with in my head the same lines as the Re-education I’ve seen in history books done to people in Germany. Even to some extent in Russia with in the last 50 years. Ash: “Yes...” Leaning to the side as his arm rested on the chair, it was clear that was all he was going to say.

13. Are there any moments of their past they keep secret?

Mun: Yes.

Ash: “Yes.” Ash then just stared at the interviewer waiting for the next inquiry.

14. Did they live near extended family in the past? How did this shape their environment? Are any of their relatives near their age? What are their feelings towards extended family in general? Mun: No he only had his mother growing up. He has since met his Aunt Talrhin, and he was not impressed. She however has her own story on how she became such a twisted corrupted person. He has recently met his niece, Akyhi Tyme. His feeling on his extended family is tainted by the Empire, however he does want to know more about her. Ash: “I only recently learned that I had an extended family. I have no interest in meeting the Raven clan, my mother saw it fit to run away from them.” This question didn’t seem to bother him like the ones before, he looked much more relaxed. “Akyhi isn’t around my age, she is younger by a decade, and still has a lot of the clan’s savage ways.”

15. Would they rather go back and relive their childhood? Why or why not?

Mun: Yes and no. While he does treasure many of the memories he had with his mother, he knows with the good memories comes the bad ones. Can he change things? Can he bring his knowledge of medicine and save her life? Ash: “No, it’s painful to think about my childhood, even the good times with my Mother. She suffered for three months...” He rolled his eyes and corrected himself. “...I mean Moons.” Feeling the need to explain he lowered his voice some in regret. “I don’t know if I’ll ever will get past the Imperial words for the passing of time.” With that out of the way he went back to the question at hand. “My memories and my feelings of my childhood, have been corrupted by my time with the Empire.”

Source:blackcreatiives

#ash #Ashliel’a Vallenya #scarlet bloom #ffxiv rp #ffxiv balmung #FFXIV Screenshots #it may as well be a short story #Oh how we make our muses suffer

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surveys-at-your-service · 7 years

Text

Survey #67

“i wanna grow up, i wanna be, a big rockin’ roll star!”

did you pay attention to anything you were being taught in health class? i always listened, yeah, but it scared me a lot because my anxiety around that time was mostly health-focused. i was afraid i was going to get everything somehow lmao. what are your feelings regarding shopping? i like shopping for myself, but not for vitals. like grocery shopping, nah man. shopping for stuff like clothes, bueno. do you think people have any misconceptions about you? i'm not certain about many things, but i am certain about that. have you ever worn fishnets? no, but dey sexy. do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? occasionally i'll go to get them done, and the woman who does them is actually my hairdresser. do you believe prayer really works? boy, isn't this relevant to some things going on... the answer is, i don't know, but i'm leaning towards "only if god for whatever fucking reason deems you more worthy than someone else who's prayed for something for a fucking year but i don't want her to have that." the people whose prayers come true just seem so fucking cherry-picked. do you have one best friend who is always there for you? apparently not. only when she agrees my issues are "valid." describe one of your most emotional farewells. well, the one that affected me the most was certainly when jason left, but it wasn't the most emotional in that moment of all my farewells. the one i would define as most emotional was when my lizard shadow died. he was old (i had him most of my life) and wasn't moving much, but i finally realized he was dying. it was so. fucking. slow. and he was obviously in agony the last day (yes, this shit lasted days), as he kept writhing and opening his mouth to gulp in air... oh my god, i don't even like talking about it. i sobbed and sobbed and talked to him so much, and any time i sat by his cage, he always looked at me. he was such a sweet little boy. have you ever been tied up? no. i really don't know how i'd feel about that. how many times have you been cussed out? online, PLENTY. irl, i only remember one occasion. does it bother you when people ask personal questions? who's asking? do you know anyone who’s been in jail? i do. have you ever considered acupuncture? noooo. have you ever watched the same sex undress? she undressed in front of me, but i didn't watch her. have you ever seen the last person you kissed cry? i've seen him tear up, but never totally cry. have you ever seen your mom or dad drunk? my dad's a recovering alcoholic, so i saw him drunk a lot. i'm pretty sure i've seen mom drunk once, but she denies being drunk. do you enjoy mario games? not particularly, but i mean, i'd play something like mario kart for family fun. do you think that necessities should be free? (ex. food, toilet paper) hm. debatable. does it bother you when dogs lick you? no, unless they're licking my face. do you feed your pets human food? occasionally. which is worse: being sexist or racist? oh jeez. do you think suicide is selfish? i mean, yeah, it is, but if this makes sense, it's not a damnable kind of selfish? like you truly are thinking about yourself and not how it would affect others, but sometimes, y'know, you need to think about yourself. i'm not saying suicide is ever necessary, but i understand why it happens. would you take a dirty picture of yourself for someone you are dating? heh, probably. what are the most embarrassing songs in your itunes library? lmao i think i have one taylor swift song. OMG I DO IT'S "PICTURE TO BURN" KILL ME. how picky are you when it comes to choosing who to kiss or not kiss? VERYVERYVERY. i have to be sincerely interested in you. do you feel that having sex anywhere but a bed is more exciting? i'm sure you've heard this enough in my surveys, but never had sex, done sexual things. but i mean sure, doing things in places other than the bed was usually more fun, but i ALWAYS felt way, WAY more vulnerable and paranoid. in your opinion, is it ever okay to get back with an ex? of course it is. people change/learn. what's the first animal you go to see at the zoo? it would be a meerkat if my zoo still had them, buuut... what's the strangest or rarest creature you've seen at a zoo? a white (not albino) alligator! o: what animal is at a zoo that really, in your opinion, shouldn't be? oh, i'm sure there's many if i was more knowledgeable about this subject. do you like zoos or aren't you bothered? i have mixed emotions. i offer you a cigarette, you say... "no thanks." why do you think you were put on this earth? i go back and forth between god planned me very intricately and uniquely to my parents just decided they wanted a kid. is it ever okay to hit a child? when is this? NO. YOU DO NOT. TEACH YOUR CHILD. THROUGH FEAR. do you think violence in video/computer games influences the nation also? oh boy, this question. no. it doesn't. pretty sure we didn't have video games since humanity began, and we've had violence since the start. are you in any shape or form, racist? no, i'm not. are you in any shape or form, sexist? no, i'm not. how do you think the world will end? the world itself, or humanity? humanity will end whenever god feels like it. the earth itself, well, i guess if it explodes somehow. what natural phenomenon do you find the most beautiful? WHAAAAAAT, I HAVE TO PICK ONE?! would you kill someone who killed a child? how about YOUR child? i know without a doubt you killed a child, mine especially, i kill you. what is your favorite cover of a song? "hurt" by johnny cash. bar none. have you ever been in love with someone who was fatally ill? holy fuck, thank god no. have you ever received or given a make-over? ... oh god... yeah... i gave jason a make-over lmfao and got him to pose for a picture after like 30 minutes of pestering him. i'd show the picture, but i have too much respect for him ha ha ha. do you know anyone who is HIV+? not to my knowledge. have you ever been to a desert? nope. do you know any trans* people? not irl what is your favorite beatles song? "hey jude." i'm honestly not a big beatles fan whatsoever. what is the poorest you have ever been? probably now, really... i'm sure you know of the gamer fad on youtube. who's your favorite? markiplier! is there something written on your shirt right now? "we're all mad here" what is your favorite song to play on guitar hero or rock band? "king nothing" by metallica!! \m/ where do you find the surveys you take? as of right now, i've been getting my surveys from a lad over at livejournal who has a good 2k surveys stockpiled up. i'll occasionally pick some up from tumblr, too. if i'm truly desperate, i'll just google search and find random webpages. what's one weird/annoying thing your pet(s) tend to do? OMGGGGGG YAAAAAAA'LLLLLL. okay so my dog teddy has this super weird habit of, totally out of the blue, trying to climb onto me and lie directly over my face. like i have to physically hold him back to stop him, and he still fights against me to try and get on me. i haven't the slightest idea why he does it, but it's super annoying... i always have to bring him to his room so he'll stop and calm down. what's your favorite song by your favorite artist? YOU SHOULD NOOOOT BE ASKING ME THIS QUESTION OH GOD. i have a very, very difficult time picking favorite songs. i'll go through my fave artists regardless though and try... ozzy osbourne: probably "trapdoor." metallica: oh god. uhhh. "king nothing," i assume. otep: eeeeek!! i really, really love "special pets" and "apex predator" like the same!! marilyn manson: yikes. errr. "heart-shaped glasses," maybe. WAIT. "angel with the scabbed wings," perhaps. cradle of filth: i guess their cover of "mr. crowley." rammstein: "donaukinder," pretty easily this time. a day to remember: "i'm made of wax, larry, what're you made of?" fuckin' rocks!! do you have an "original character?" well, as a forum role-player since i think 2007, i think last time i counted, i have over 200, lmao. and yes, i'm attached to them all too much to kill off half of them. fuck my life rip rip rip. what about a persona/fursona? ye, ozzkat. do you ever MAKE your own surveys? not an entire survey, no, but once in a blue moon i'll think of a question i think's really good and add it onto a survey. why's it the woman who have to give birth anyway if the man is physically stronger in most cases? i mean, besides the obvious, are you asking why it was ever made this way to begin with? *shrugs* who really knows? do you get good internet there? nnnnnope. it goes out pretty frequently. ever had a cavity? how many? i sure have, but idk how many. ever broken a tooth? indeed. when i passed out as i was scrambling out of the shower because i felt dizzy, i landed dead on my chin. a good number of my molars shattered. the feeling of all those broken fragments in my mouth when i woke up... ewwwww. ;D; for a while, they went untreated as they were not causing much issue. eventually though, they needed to be filled, i think because the microscopic cracks that were formed were expanding. it could've ruined those teeth. what did you do on the playground at your school as a child? for a long, long time, i mainly swung if there were any swings open. it was the one thing i actually enjoyed doing outside. in my older elementary school years, i actually started a trend, ha ha: digging tunnels with our hands in the sand pit. idk why exactly i liked doing it, but i did. my friends and i would always be the weirdos digging the entire time we were outside. i remember once we made a pretty intricate system. are you into comics? no, i don't read them, but i still sometimes enjoy who the subject is. ex. i like batman, but i've never read his comics once. would you ever like to work on a farm? i would not. i don't like outdoor labor, honestly. did you ever have computer disc games you played as a kid? sure did! we had "putt-putt," "freddy the fish," "i spy spooky mansion," "odell down under," "oregon trail," i personally had vet-oriented games, and i remember there was one about going up the amazon river, and it was the third in the series. that one was my all-time favorite. OH OH OH! and i had this wicked cool dinosaur game that taught you about various dinosaurs and looked sooo realistic!! what do you think of people who have therapists? i think they're brave as fuck to admit they have a problem and need help??? like what else would i think??? do you have any of those adult coloring books? i do. i don't use 'em a lot, though. don't enjoy coloring like i used to. ever ridden an elephant? no, but that'd be REALLY cool. deserts: dreary or beautiful? beautiful!!! ever seen a panda? i don't believe i have, even in a zoo. what kind a camera do you have? nikon d3200 do you have stretch marks? where? don't be shy, they're tiger stripes! i'm much convinced they're not tiger stripes. all they tell you is i'm overweight, not that i'm a warrior. and honestly, the better question is where don't i have stretch marks. i gained weight way too fucking fast when jason left, so... they're kinda all over the place. they're fucking gross and i've tried so hard to get rid of them using bio oil (which was working, but we don't have the money to keep buying) and another cream that doesn't do much. ugh. lobsters: cool or scary? both. they're honestly pretty creepy, but i do believe they're still quite cool, too. opposoms: total vermin or cute? CUTE AS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK what tv channel dominated your childhood? ha ha animal planet!!! if nicole was picking what to watch it'd be disney channel, but me, animal planet. (: it's such a shame how much animal planet has changed, though... now it's all about people and how to survive a fucking animal attack... ever actually seen a snake in the wild? here in the rural south, plenty of times. i have two noteworthy occasions, though. once, when i was being dropped off at home from school by a family friend, we stopped short because of something in the driveway. my sisters and i got out of the car to see a rattlesnake- a HUGE one- curled up, head raised, hissing, and rattling its tail vigorously. we called for our mom and dad, who came outside and immediately called somebody; i don't recall who, but they were not going to harm the snake. they came quickly and, with a shovel i think, moved the snake to the large tobacco field right across the road of our house. the snake was quite compliant, i was surprised. second, also many years ago, i was taking a walk and found a pretty small snake in the middle of the road, which is just a gravel path. it didn't want to move, but it seemed perfectly alive and healthy. i couldn't identify the species, but i don't think it was venomous. regardless though, i refused to be stupid and touch it, but i still stayed by it and directly a car once around the snake because i didn't want it run over. my friend came over, however (they were whom i got around the snake), so i abandoned the serpent and went home to play. after she left, i went to check on the snake, and he'd been run over. :( i was sincerely sad. have you ever had a PET snake? what kind? i've had two! my first ever was a ball python named mona lisa, and wow... i never knew it was POSSIBLE to love a snake so dearly. i mean, "it's just a snake," right? no, she was family. she was going to play a big part in my senior project actually, but she sadly died due to the pet store's own negligence (there was a tick on her when we adopted her, and it apparently made her ill). after mona, i adopted another snake quite a while later; it was too young to distinguish gender, so i gave it a neutral name: cato. it too was a ball python, and we had little cato for a very short period of time... it never deficated, and when it passed and its tailbase swole up, we took its corpse right to petsmart because i had a feeling they were to blame. again. apparently, we'd adopted a sick snake: something was wrong with its bowels, no doubt, and the employee assumed it had to do with bacteria. i absolutely refuse to ever adopt a reptile from petsmart or petco ever again; they just don't treat their reptiles and rodents (i've got a gooood story about rats...) like family in my frank opinion. i've located a ball python morph breeder instead, and i plan on adopting from him very, very soon. (: ever had an encounter with a snapping turtle? they're scary! ha ha ha omg guys my older sister ashley once fished up a HUGE snapping turtle!! it was liiivid! i can't remember how my dad did it, but he got it off suuuuuper-duper carefully. wait, or maybe he just cut the line, i don't remember. do you like oatmeal? eh, i have to be in the mood, and it needs JUST the right amount of milk or it's too liquidy. i also only eat it with milk, not water. wherever you live, have you ever seen your national bird? i have once in the wild! :D i live in north america, so it was the bald eagle. it was SO BIG. ever had a reptile as a pet that you had to feed crickets? did you ever pick up the crickets? i sure have: a chinese water dragon lizard named shadow. for a very long time, i couldn't touch the crickets, no. eventually though, i would pick 'em up and drop them into the cage. later in shadow's life though, it was much easier (and convenient for him) to just dump the whole bag of them into his terrarium. it was so cute how he'd get so excited every single time he saw a cricket! i miss him. :( ever play hearthstone? i have, but only to get the "i won three games" mount in world of warcraft, lmao. it's an okay game, but i don't love it. i'm not the best with tactic games like that. ever gone hunting? biggest thing you've ever shot? i do not go hunting, no, i can't stand the idea of killing an animal for sport. my little sister does sometimes, though. i don't think she's been in a few years, however. coolest place you've ever been hunting? n/a. how about fishing? biggest thing you've ever caught? heeeeeell yeah, man! been fishing since i was a little girl! :D i never keep anything i catch though: i kiss my hand, touch the fish's head with it, and gently place it back into the water from whence it came. i caught my biggest many summers ago while catfishing one night... i hooked a blue catfish in the eye. whoooops. o.o; i ended up catching it, and it was huuuuge! wish i had the picture dad took to show you guys. with its size, dad said i could certainly keep the fish to cook up for dinner, but i said no, to let him go. watching dad take the hook out though was horrid; the fish ended up losing its eye. :( so i called him "'ole one-eye," hehe. 'ole one-eye was just fine when he got back in the water, thank goodness. i almost caught something i KNOW was even bigger once, though. same fishing spot, catfishing again. fought with it for a while, and holy SHIT i wish i'd seen how big it was. ended up breaking my line pretty quickly. i wanna go catfishing again. :( coolest place you've ever been fishing? i've never been fishing outside north carolina, and not far from home, either, so i haven't really been anywhere necessarily "cool." there's two places i consider quite interesting, though. the catfishing spot, for one, is at a dam. i don't know what about it, it's just real cool there. the second spot, though, is much more wild. it's in the middle of shitfucknowhere and you have to brave through some pretty thick woods to get to the river. It's also connected to a dam, but you can't see it from where you fish. it's a great place to fish for striper. boy, is it pretty there, too... wish i had pictures. i love how untouched it is. i watched a mink, i think it was, dive into the water once. this fishing talk is making me so nostalgic! which is cooler: african or asian elephant? i wouldn't say one's "cooler" than the other, but i find an african elephant to be more proportional with the size of its ears. the asian elephant's ears look too small. craziest thing you've ever eaten? i honestly don't think i've ever eaten anything considered strange. i'm VERY picky and don't really risk much with food. i mean i guess the "weirdest" thing was i took the smallest, smallest bite out of deer jerky once. what's in a camel's back? fat. it's not water, if that's what you wanted me to say. do you believe in any cryptids? i think i do, yes. there's just been too, too many sightings, and i don't believe that many people are liars. i think i believe in sasquatch, chupacabra (not the "omg it drinks blood" bullshit, but the coyote/??? mixed creature), the dover demon, mothman, hellhounds/the many ghostly hounds people have seen in the world, olitiau if i spelled that correctly, i'm iffy with the jersey devil, and i'm sure i'm forgetting some i think are plausible... i am VERY interested in learning about any cryptid. i mean c'mon, a good portion of our world is entirely undocumented! who knows what's out there! "lost tapes" was my shit back in the day, until like the last season where everything looked too fake. steve irwin: foolish for messing around with animals or brave for teaching us? steve irwin was anything but a fool. he was an inspiration for all us people who love and are fascinated by animals. he was my teacher, despite never meeting him. he put his safety aside to teach the world about creatures big and small so we could respect and honor them. god bless that man, and may he rest in peace. you were and still are my hero. what do you think of people who put their whole life on social media? some things need to be kept quite, sure. like i'm not gonna go on facebook and proclaim, "i just had sex boiz!!" or "just took a shit, ya'll!" some things, keep a mystery. your whole life isn't everyone else's business, you know? if you post a lot, i have no issue with that, just know your boundaries. don't you think it's a bit deceptive to wear a push-up bra? no??? is wearing certain pants to make ya dick look bigger deceptive, too??? perhaps some people are more comfortable with the cushioning. or maybe they could only find their size as push-up. or, just maybe, a woman likes to feel better about herself. do you truly believe we came from chimps? why? no, i don't. and i have a plethora of reasons, but the underlying belief of mine is that it's just implausible and i don't believe our body can "pick" the "right" trait to pass on to increase odds of survival. to believe we all came from one organism just seems... very unlikely. well, what do you think of extra bones and even organs in our bodies? why do we have them? if you're talking about the appendix, it actually does have a use. it's vital to survival in the fetal stage. I don't remember what it does, though... extra bones, i can't entirely tell you with certainty. my own sister had an extra bone in her hand, gross stuff... i like to think of them as god fooling around in the sims creation page *wink* if you could choose anyone to be your mother, who would it be? i honestly don't think in any case i'd want another mom. if you could choose anyone to be your father, who would it be? ... i honestly want to say james hetfield, but i think incest might be a problem because fuckshittits i'd fuck him and he's in his 50s kill me pls end this madness. weirdest video game you've ever played? hmmm. i personally don't think i've ever played a "weird" game. the first "silent hill" is pretty damn whacky, but far more in a scary sense than weird. it just really throws everything you've ever thought about the world into chaos. we're having a pig-pickin'! whatcha eating? oh god... i hate those... please no... D: ever been on a scary hay ride? i have indeed, at the old church-oriented cheerleading and basketball place ever been to a castle? i have n- wait! i've been in cinderella's castle in disney world! :D what's your favorite kind of penguin? i think they're called emperor penguins. they look very majestic but silly simultaneously! whales. should they be allowed in sea world? i don't think so, honestly. if so, they'd need a WAY bigger aquarium than i remember seeing them in... ever seen an albino? whether it be human or animal? pretty sure i've seen albino mice, but that's it, i think. what do you think of the song "miss jackson" by panic! at the disco? good song very good a++ what is the wallpaper on your best friends cell phone? i'm pretty sure her lock screen is she and her husband, and her home screen is a bible quote. do you feel comfortable singing in front of others? nope, no one. do you like using big words when you talk? if i believe this word to be more descriptive/accurate when explaining something, sure? do you EVER use caps lock? yes, i do, for emphasis. i'm extremely passionate and talk exactly how i type, so there's gotta be emphasis!! are you loud when you’re having sex? i wouldn't know, but i was always quiet doing sexual things because i was sooo nervous about being loud, even if no one was around. have you ever wanted to drop out of school? definitely. i was suicidal in high school partially because of school, and i really considered it in order to potentially save myself (i ended up having to drop all but one class when the issue was brought to my principal). i did drop out of college. when was the last time you watched south park? well over a year ago. i watched it with jason occasionally, he enjoyed it. are you italian? i am not. are you interested in photography at all? well, i'm hoping to be a photographer, so. any survey takers that annoy you on tumblr? not at all. there are some whose answers i disagree with very much, but honestly, every survey taker i've seen seem pretty cool. do you like bob marley? OH MY GOOOOOD NO I HATE HIS VOICE can you talk to your parents about anything without them judging or bickering at you? i don't think so, honestly. are you interested in art? very much so. don't you think we're spending too much money on exploring the mere theory of climate change? lmao who made this, donald trump??? no. climate change is important as fuck and if we keep this shit up, could very well end or nearly decimate humanity. everyone always wants to know your favorite animal. what's your SECOND favorite? probably rhesus macaques. very mischievous and social. who’s your favorite disney character? probably mulan, but i have no real preference. have you ever taken the eharmony personality quiz? YES AND I HAD ZERO MATCHES GG do you take vitamins? if so, what kinds? not anymore, no. how much was your prom dress? what’s the most you’d spend? i'm not sure how much either of them costs... and i really don't know how much i'd pay, but not too much, i mean, it's just prom. would you marry someone of a different religion? depends on the religion, really. like some religions have beliefs i would never respect, such as some religions believe the woman is far lesser than the man. i wouldn't marry someone with those beliefs. how did you learn the word “fuck”? school, i'm sure. if you could make one of your enemies your best friend, who would it be? why would i want to be friends with my enemy, as anyone who i consider my enemy is obviously so for a reason? what is the last movie you saw in theaters? trolls. soooo cute. (: have you ever got into a wreck? i've been in an accident, not a wreck, i'd say. do you think you are an argumentative person? no. to avoid confrontation, i usually just keep my opinion to myself to avoid this whole issue. can you admit when you’re wrong? i'm quick to admit that honestly. i doubt myself. are you easily confused? VERY VERY VERY do you think you would make a good wife/husband? i hope... have you ever caught a butterfly? omg i forgot this story... a few days after jason left (it may have even been the next day, i don't recall), i found a yellow-and-black, crippled butterfly. i tried so hard to nurse it back to health, but it was useless, it was going to and did die. i buried it in my back yard among crysanthemums (i probably murdered spelling that). honestly, part of me getting my semicolon butterfly tattoo relates to that butterfly. have you ever deliberately tried to get someone drunk? no, that sounds... really wrong. do you like being kissed on the neck? if you want your clothes ripped off, sure. favorite song by the band the offspring? uh-oh, i'm not sure! i reeeaaally love "why don't you get a job" and "pretty fly for a white guy" about the same. how many times each morning do you press the snooze button? i never use an alarm, so. when you go out to eat, what sides do your order with your food? fries because i'm a fat american what video game or computer game are you best at? am i best at? idk, really. how do you normally come across new music? youtube's recommendations what subject in school do you feel is the least necessary? it depends on what you want to do in your future, really. they all have purpose, just not for everyone. do you enjoy power outages or do you get annoyed? i wouldn't say i "enjoy" them, but i'll usually get excited a bit for like a minute just because something different is going on. are you pretty politically correct? yes and no. have you ever behaved like a stalker? ... i think so, honestly. do you appreciate other people’s opinions? appreciate, yes. it's part of what makes us unique. if you could pick your own pet name, what would it be? *shrugs* do you care what’s going on in the world? i'm one of the idiots that lives on it, duh i do. how many partners is too many? having any more than one do you examine the tissue after you blow your nose? yeah, ensure there's no blood or anything. do you prefer boys to shave down there? no preference. whatever they're comfortable with. how much does your mother know about your sex life (or lack thereof)? all she knows is i almost had sex once but didn't. i talked to her about it because i felt VERY guilty. are any of your siblings married? what are their spouse’s names? only ashley is married, and her husband's name is nick. have you ever had a pet bird? no, i wish. how many times have you moved in your lifetime? i've moved twice. if you could get one piercing and one tattoo, where would you want them? piercing, labret. one tattoo... ohhhh man... i think it'd still probably be what i'm starting next: the painting "denialism" by da's tatchit on my right upper arm. it doesn't have a personal meaning to me, honestly, i just think it's fucking awesome. would you consider yourself to be adventurous? depends, really. what're the risks of what i'm doing? has any part of your house ever been flooded? no, only our yard. is there anyone that you're worried about right now? who and why? well, jason is the obvious. i always worry about him, whether or not he's happy and moreso if he's being loved enough... because i can guaranfuckingtee ashley will never love him like i do. if you won a lot of money, would you donate any of it? to what organization would you donate it? i'm sure i would, but idk where. describe the best friend you've ever had, or the best person you've ever known. jason, quite easily. he was both my boyfriend and best friend. he just kinda... changed one day. have you ever adopted a stray animal? MANY cats, yes. if you were seriously ill and couldn't find the necessary help or treatment in your home country, would you ever travel abroad to get treatment, expenses aside? who wouldn't, honestly? what time did you wake up this morning? i'm woke 24/7, motherfucker. ever wonder if you’re someone’s everything? i have. apparently, i wasn't. would you ever bleach your hair platinum blonde? i actually kinda want to, but it's another hair color mom won't allow. my hair is like supremely healthy and she doesn't want me to ruin it. what is your mom’s middle name? marie do you know the color of your ex boyfriend/girlfriend’s eyes? yes, a very mellow dark brown. have you had your wisdom teeth out? no, but it looks to be inevitable soon. your appendix? nope, i still have it.

#survey #quiz #questions #asks #answered

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atinylittlepain · 5 months

Text

Part Three | The Son

gator tillman x f!oc

series masterlist | series playlist

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth. - Anne Carson, An Oresteia

wordcount | 4.2K

content warnings | 18+ this is a work of fiction exploring dark themes related to domestic abuse, corrupt government, physical/religious/psychological trauma, murder, canon-typical violence and depictions of injuries | dark smut, violent smut, verbal degradation, depictions of dissociation-like behavior | gator is gross and toxic and what goes on in this fic is a depiction of a toxic, unhealthy dynamic | THESE ARE BAD PEOPLE DOING WRETCHED THINGS

.......................................................

This is very simple. How this works is very simple. If she is good, does good, she is rewarded by the omnipotent hand of her boss. If she fails, fucks up, the noose around her neck is pulled a little tighter, tugging her back to DC and back to boxes of paperwork and back to squeeze right past you, sweetheart. But she is doing good again, getting rewarded again. Another week. She offers up an informant, and her boss gives her another week to secure them, him. No longer failing, finally, something to hold between her teeth and bite down on.

The days are spent doing research. Roy worked hard to keep his son off the record. But she knows his name now, and it wasn’t too difficult to find something at a hospital a few counties over. Isaac Larson was born to one Cynthia Larson in April, 1996. She wonders if he knows that Tillman isn’t even on his birth certificate, if he knows that his father raised him as a walking lie. An idle thought, that there is another version of this world in which his mother could have taken him with her. Another world in which there was a boy named Isaac, and then a man named Isaac, who wasn’t raised on poison, whose body wasn’t a map of faults. What would that man be like? The thought was there and gone though, because alongside the birth certificate came all the records of pain.

What makes a person like Gator Tillman? Three broken noses, a few cases of bruised ribs, a variety of pain over the years that tell a story. The dates on the records tell her that there was a flame of pain in his early teens, a little lick of rebellion, of no, that was met with a much bigger and bolder no from his father. And from around the time he was seventeen, the records of pain grow sparse, few and far in between, something else breaking and resettling in such a way that there was no need for pain anymore. He was his father’s then, and has been ever since.

She gathers what she can from what records she can get her hands on, but truthfully, most of the day is spent pretending to work, watching the light fall across the wood paneling in her makeshift office, creep across the floor until it’s evening, time to go. Time, she has found, when real information can be collected. When she told her boss she had a lead she was rewarded with an extra two weeks to pursue it. And she is. Building a routine around her pursuit.

Nothing is said, a silent agreement instead that yes, this is the way the nights go now. When she walks out of the station, he follows. She unlocks her car and he gets into the passenger seat, shadows making anonymous movements. Winter now, and the sun setting so early is a mercy, making this a secret between only them and the darkening bruise of night.

It’s the same every time. She tells him to get a shower, and while he goes into the bathroom with the utmost obedience, she leaves her body, as easy as stepping out of her clothes and laying back on her bed and tilting the angles of herself in such a way that it starts to look like want.

She has found that he likes to be told what to do, to a certain extent. Likes her hands on his skull making him move, pain made perfect in little tugs, little pulls, little pinch and just like that and just like that, his mouth open heat against her cunt and a huffed laugh that makes her hips twitch, her fingers curling a little tighter and she hopes it hurts. It feels good, the crash, the slow simmering melt on his tongue and on his fingers. Good enough that by the time he is crawling up the bed and pressing himself inside her that she wants it, she needs it. Tilts her skull back so that her voice is a strung line in the taut arc of her throat when she tells him that she needs it, baby, need it, baby, need, baby, baby, baby.

And he’s a man when he grabs the hilt of her hip and holds her down and makes her take it, made bigger by smalling another, skin against skin. But he’s a boy when he tries out a few choice words on his tongue, stammering to get them out as if he’s working to remember exactly what he heard, what he was taught. He calls her a slut, a fucking slut, hair hanging in his eyes, uncertain, and she laughs at him, curl and flash of her teeth making his face fall, making him stop still inside her, absurd. And his arm is winding back with a well-worn violence, but she is sharpening fang of her own, the splay of her open palm making contact and his head jerking to the side. She has learned that she has to be quicker than him, always a skittish accounting of his own violence inside of hers. He’s predictable, so it’s never difficult to act first, snarl and snap first.

She gets him on his back with his jaw pinched in her hand, little shake, be good, and that’s what he really likes. The rest is play, pantomime, but he likes being good, sigh of relief and a nod and his eyes unblinking on her curled over him. He likes being good for her. And he likes being told just how good he is and she tells him that he’s so, so good for her while her hips hook and jolt against his. A deep disease inside her, deep ache that seems to have become permanent, and this is like digging a thumb into the wound and twisting until it sears and singes.

Always a broken sound like a hiccuped cry when he comes, and she works her hips until hers settles and simmers too. And there is always the struggle in the after, her trying to pull away while everything still feels numb and him with heavy hands and limbs and petulant grunts pulling her down against his chest. She kicks her legs out twice and he simply hooks his ankles around hers, holding her down in the slick and grit of damp, humid skin, coarse hair and smeared need.

“You got food?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well I am.”

“You can look. I think there’s eggs.” Heavy hands, heavy limbs, he finally lets her go, rising in all his gnarled softness and padding out of the room, still bare, showing the full expanse of his mottled back and she knows that’s a good sign, a sign of comfort, ease, maybe even trust. And while she’d mostly like to stay very still, very limp, she knows better than to let this go to waste, so she gets up and inches over to the crumpled pile of his clothes and plucks his phone out of the back pocket of his pants. Five missed calls from Roy blink on the screen. The prince has started to pull away, and the king is angry.

She can hear him rummaging in her fridge, easy enough to slip his phone back where she found it, the slow unfurling of muscle and ligament back onto the mattress, stretched in a long line on her side, her back to the door. He’s drying cool on the insides of her thighs.

“Eggs are expired.”

“Did you throw them away?”

“No, let’s go get something.” She keeps her eyes settled in a dull droop on the opposite wall, quick tensing of tissue when the bed dips with his weight, his hand dragging from shoulder to hip and squeezing there in a gesture that is startlingly not unkind.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat. Getting kinda boney.” He punctuates his words with his hand skating down to her ass, light tap that makes her reach back and blindly twist his wrist in her grasp, do not. She turns around on her back to look at him, his brow heavy, his mouth still swollen and parted. And again, something lurches inside her that any part of him is paying enough attention to notice that. Because it’s true, belt pulling a notch tighter and everything sharpening slightly. She hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. But she knows that this is an opportunity, another fissure that she might be able to dig her fingers into, a chance to get him talking and keep him talking. So she gets up, gets dressed in the same clothes she wore all day, a film starting to build on her skin. Lets him drive while her eyes unfocus on the open blackness of the night, streetlights eating up what they can of it.

He pulls into a drive thru, asks her what she wants and she tells him again, not hungry, though he still orders enough for both of them. It’s bitter cold but they still park, small shivers while she watches his jaw work around a burger, grease shimmering on his fingers. There is something blunt about him, crudely drawn shapes, but at the same time there is something that has been whittled down sharp, a thin blade held deep inside of him. A vigilance, she thinks, not uncommon for boys weaned on poison.

“Eat.” He’s still chewing, lips smacking in her ear when he leans over the console and unwraps the burger he had placed in her lap, as if that was the problem. Still, she picks it up, the soft give of bread, a little sweat from tomatoes and meat dribbling down the inside of her wrist, into the sleeve of her coat. She takes a bite and resists the urge to gag, mouth moving around matter, and salt, caught in her throat until she takes a sip from the strawberry milkshake he got. He seems to like that, a hum and a thin, close-lipped smile, though his attention fissures when his phone starts to buzz in his pocket.

She’s surprised that he would answer a call from Roy with her present, but he does, and she tries not to look at him, letting her ears prick and strain to hear the low rasp of the king muttering into the prince’s ear.

The king is asking where the prince is. Nowhere, the prince says. Out, the prince says. Nowhere, she thinks, how apt. And then the king says something about a meeting that the prince was supposed to be at, but isn’t. Something about a deal. Something about an exchange. And the prince apologizes, a huffed sorry that he forgot. The king says something about strikes, and how many the prince has acquired, and then the king hangs up. The prince is left with a pinched expression, frustrated shake of his head, heel of his hand hitting against the steering wheel. She swallows hard around another bite.

“What was that about?”

“Fucked something up.”

“What?” Maybe she pressed in too fast, his eyes flickering over to her, a dark blade narrowed.

“It’s none of your business.”

“You were supposed to be somewhere.” Flooding, new tactic, just keep him talking.

“Yeah.”

“Somewhere with your dad?”

“Yeah.”

“What does your dad do? When you fuck something up?” His face drops, shadows skittering up beneath his eyes, a small sound in the back of his throat.

“You know what he does. I told you.” He did tell her, one night, with his cheek resting in the hollow between her breasts, the damp puff of his breath against her bare skin, the first time he had shown her his back without it ending in violence of their own. Yes, she knows what the king does to the prince when the king is displeased with him. And she is working very hard to remind the prince of this, every chance she can get.

“Isaac, do you like working for your dad?” And it’s intentional, the for, and not a with. For his dad, beneath his dad. A broken laugh that sounds more like lungs deflating leaves his throat, his head tilting back against the headrest, something very tired in the drop of his eyelashes.

“That’s a stupid question.”

“It’s not. You can do something else, you know.” He laughs again, and it is a sad sound, a surrendering sound. He lolls his head to the side to look at her, placid, unblinking.

“No, Mel, I don’t think I can.”

…

The following day is much the same. Gathering what she can from a flimsy trail of paper. She calls her boss, tells him that she feels a break coming, that she’s going to need backup soon, and her boss agrees, tells her to call again when she has a date, time, place.

Before she leaves the station she stops in the bathroom. Looks at herself in the mirror, but has a hard time settling on the eyes, so she lets her gaze settle somewhere at her shoulder instead. She feels as though she is being whittled down, thinned out, streamlined sharp and singular into this one thing. She blinks hard, washes her hands, and steps back out of the bathroom.

Normally, he is waiting idle somewhere toward the station entrance, leaning where he shouldn’t be, smoking where he shouldn’t be. But he isn’t tonight. She stops only briefly, a cursory glance around and nothing, until she catches sight of a familiar figure, familiar hat, washed white in the flood of street lamps and fast-coming snow outside. The king is here.

And the prince is with him, she sees, stepping outside, the world gone quiet in all the cold and white darkness. That same posture she remembers of him at the rally, that smalling, the prince’s eyes held in a steady deference to the king’s feet. And the king speaking in a low-muttering clench of teeth, his hand gripped into the prince’s jacket.

The king is very angry, she can see. On a losing streak, son, don’t know where you’ve been running off to, fucking around, acting like a fool, making me look a fool. Not thinking, are you, not thinking at all. Always did have trouble with that. Low and grinding and shoulders curling with each lick of poison. No, she should not be watching this, should go to her car, get out of here before the king sees her. But the prince doesn’t stay small, something unfurling, a quick dash of heat, enough for his chin to tilt up and his eyes to narrow on the king.

“I’m thinking just fine.” It shocks her, the spat of it, and it seems to shock Roy too, a scoff, shake of his head and what did you just say to me?

“You heard me.”

“Well why don’t you say it again.” It’s a challenge, both men shaking out their shoulders, feather and flare and the prince, for once, is not backing down, jaw rolling, stiff sniff of his nose.

“I’ll say it nice and slow for you. I’m thinking just fine.” Roy laughs, spits, and the rest happens like a brutal flash. His hand rears back, and the prince smalls again, assured violence, and as he jerks into motion, her body moves with him.

“Hey!” And that’s it, a shout into the night, into the snow. The realization of what she has done settles in a cool prickle along her scalp, both men turning to look at her, something like surprise frozen in both their faces.

Roy smooths himself out first, because of course, all appearance, offering her a smile that curls his lip into a sneer.

“Agent Harris, I wasn’t sure if you were still in town or if, well, you had given up yet.” She doesn’t look at Gator, she can’t, keeps her eyes on the brim of Roy’s hat and feels muscle pulling her mouth into a thin line.

“Not yet, Sheriff Tillman, no. Is everything okay here?” Slip, her eyes daring over to him and he is watching her with an unreadable calm, but she doesn’t linger because she knows that Roy will know. No, she can’t linger.

“Just some family business. Nothing that concerns you.” And that would be a good cue to leave, to start moving away from whatever this is and toward her car. But she doesn’t, stuck where she stands, an uncertain freeze. And Roy doesn’t like that, letting go of his son’s jacket and taking a step toward her instead. That thing, again, shunting his hips forward with his hands hilted into his belt, taking up more space than he’s worth as he looks down his nose at her.

“It is awfully late, and cold, and dark, for a woman such as yourself to be out here. You best be getting back to wherever you come from.” And he means it in both of the ways he could mean it, she can see that. She doesn’t look at the prince again, sniffs and nods once at the king.

“You have a good night, Sheriff.” Her hands are shaking and it is and isn’t from the cold. Her hands shake when she opens her car door, when she grips the steering wheel, when she pulls out of the station parking lot, not another glance for the two men.

She returns to the clean white condo, something unfeeling rippling under her skin. There’s plastic covering the couch in the living room that she never took off. It crinkles and pinches when she sits down on the edge of the couch, perched, spine set in a steeled line. She is not sure what comes next, what she is waiting for. But that’s answered promptly enough in three sharp knocks on her door.

Neither of them speak. He comes in hot, brushing right past her, making all kinds of sound with his boots, paces the length of the living room before coming to stand in front of her again, his eyes doing a strange daunt up from the floor to hers, and then back down again.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“He was going to hit you.” An afterthought that she breathes out, do you know how wrong that is? And he doesn’t like that, not at all, speaking to him like a child, speaking to him as small as he really is. He scoffs, eyes squinting shut and yeah, I know, and she doesn’t think that’s the truth. Using language that he knows he’s supposed to, but she doesn’t think he believes that. Whatever that was that she saw, that was normal, for him.

“He’s vile, Isaac, do you know that? He’s–” Quick no, quick don’t, her words get choked in her throat with the way he lurches for her, hands closing around her arms and he’s breathing hard in her face, shaking shock into her body, too shocked to react before he’s shoving her back and it’s enough of a stumble that she ends up on the ground. The room spins and fingerprints ache in her skin, and she looks up at the prince, whose face has turned ashen, everything starting to slip with the needling realization of what he just did. He looks ashamed, and she’s glad for it, lets out a bitter laugh as she stands, something starting to zip and bite up her spine, a snarl settling in, livewire in her hands, in her hands grabbing him by his jacket and making his feet skid with how she hauls him back, back, back until his back is pressed up against the long wall of windows looking out at the half-finished house corpses. And she speaks to him in a way that she knows he will understand, his eyes wide and unblinking, wincing every time her grip chokes up on him. She speaks through gritted teeth in a low calm voice, speaks slow so he will understand exactly what she says. You don’t touch me like that, ever, you don’t touch anyone like that because you’re not him, you’re not him, you don’t do that to people, not like him, not him, you’re not him, and thank fucking god for that.

There is silence. Both of them breathing hard, and it takes a mechanical precision for her to let go of him and take a step back, willing each line of ligament to move until he is slumped against the windows on his own, staring at her where she stands on legs that feel close to buckling.

It happens slowly, a crumpling. His lip starts to tremble, the dark fan of his lashes starting to dampen and clump together between each hard blink. And then a single blade of sound, a keening high in his throat that fissures into hiccuping sobs. He is crying, and this is her chance, she knows.

To a child weaned on poison, anything other than violence is a miracle. Anyone offering anything other than violence, a god.

And she can give that to him, knows exactly what she must do. Reaches for him, takes the back of his skull into her palm and guides his damp face down to her chest, salt bleed through her shirt as she curls her body around him. She takes them down to the floor, her other hand secreting under his jacket, his sweater to press warm against his spine, cradling his torso in her lap. His breath hitches and jerks in fits and she holds her lips to his ear, flushed red and hot beneath her mouth, murmuring okay, it’s okay, okay, okay, okay.

He isn’t finished, not nearly. Every time his breath starts to smooth and calm, another wail seems to shock and shudder through him, sending him into fits again. She thinks, a bit idly to herself, that he probably hasn’t cried in a long time. So she can wait, she can sit this out with him, can even rock him gently in her arms while his hands grasp at her clothes like a desperate child, his legs kicked out to the side, awkward in his own size.

She is patient, going through the motions of it, a numb rhythm, and she has no idea how long it takes, and it doesn’t really matter. She catches her own eyes in the washed reflection of the window and this time she can stare back, unflinching, watching her mouth move around easy comfort for him, watching her hands care for him. This, she knows, is how she wins.

And eventually, he wears himself out, breath evening into the sodden fabric of her shirt. His face is swollen, flushed pink and red, watery eyes that can’t quite focus when he lifts his head to look at her. And she is so gentle with him, brushing his hair out of his face and cupping his cheek in her palm, not so much as flinching when he presses closer into her touch.

“Let’s go to bed, baby.” A strange sound threatens up his throat, somewhere between another sob and a sigh. He nods, lets her help him up, take off his clothes while steam builds and clouds in the bathroom. She steps into the shower with him, relief slackening out warm through her muscles while he curls himself against her, his forehead resting against the sharp line of her clavicle. She washes him, makes him smell like her, and lets her palms linger along the puckered skin of his back. He lets her, and she knows that he’s hers now.

They get into bed, bare, skin still damp and pink, and when he pulls her closer and presses his face into the stitching of her throat she doesn’t squirm, doesn’t fight, her fingers threading back through his hair while his breath fans over her skin.

“I can take care of him, for you.”

“You want to catch him.” He says it so plainly that her breath stops, single beat, his chin lifting so he can look at her in the thin slants of moonlight. He sighs.

“I’m not that stupid, Mel. I know what you want.”

“You wouldn’t have to deal with him any more. You could have a different life.” And then she uses a word that she knows is both a prayer and a curse. She says we and she says something about the future and she is lying through the stark white of her teeth. But he likes that, she can tell. He likes we, his brow smoothing and the slightest smile threatening, hope threatening.

“What would I have to do?” She imagines ice slicking and smoothing over her heart, keeping her breath even, her body placid beneath his as she tilts her chin up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth sweet, sweet, sweet. Yes, he is hers now.

“Talk to me. Answer some questions. You can do that for me, can’t you?” For a moment he seems to waver, his brow dropping and pulling together, a silence that makes her stomach lurch. But he nods, a small, quiet yes, I can do that that she rewards with another kiss. To be expected, she thinks, a little hesitation. It’s never easy when a dog changes masters.

#gator tillman #gator tillman fic #gator tillman fargo #gator tillman fanfiction #gator tillman angst #gator tillman smut

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