#But his fear is the sort that calms the mind and fills it with gritty determination | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

happy-pencil · 4 years

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Infirmos Caritate

Warning: Mentions of Violence, Non-Con and Mild Spice. You have been warned!

Darkness.

That seemed to be the first thing you’ve gained conscious of before you awoke to the sight of a cold, dim-lit room.

The more you blinked, your eyes started to adjust to your surroundings. You were placed carefully on a soft white bed. To your side, you saw a desk with books and papers scattered on it. The walls, by the looks of it, were gritty and pale. One wall by the bedside had various of plants & trinkets inside mason jars that were placed on top of the shelf. The room itself smelled faintly aquatic, like you were visiting a beach.

You tried to sit up and observe the room you were in before you felt a sharp pain on the right side of your torso. Hissing, you lifted up your crinkled shirt to see large bandages covering over waist. By the looks of it, you also caught note of the bandages that were wrapped around your wrists and forehead. Whoever put you in this room, they made sure to treat you with the upmost care.

To add on, this wasn’t your bedroom was it?

Who put you in their bedroom?

Why were you in their bedroom?

Before you could begin to comprehend the situation, the door suddenly creaked open letting in yellow florescent light onto the floor and to the bed where you were laying at. A large shadow took up almost the entire door frame, barely making it possible to see any light that would’ve entered the room. It seemed to be the figure of a tall man. The one thing that struck out to you was the one shimmering gold light that was twinkling in the darkness where the shadow-man’s face, or eye, was.

The man then started to speak.

“Good Morning. I see you’ve started to wake up.”

You recognized that voice.

The ‘Shadow-Man’, to your horror, was none other than Jade Leech: The Vice President of Octavinelle & the infamous twin of Floyd Leech.

Jade’s a mastermind at both intimidation & manipulation; and he knew it too well. On the outside, he presents himself to be nothing but a gentleman of sorts; always using his charisma and witty thinking to help aid him in the Lounge or with Azul’s contracts.

However, once someone hasn’t fulfilled one of Azul’s deals, a switch seems to flip. That gentlemanly persona of his gets thrown out the window, showcasing a ruthless and feral sadist. Heaven forbid if you ever try and betray him. Jade would love nothing more than for you to go through hell and back just to torture you for his sick pleasure. Once he was done toying with you he would drown you in the ocean, never to resurface again.

It wasn’t like you and Jade were exactly ‘buddy-buddy’ with each other. The two of you barely ever talked face to face. When you did speak with him however, he made it very obvious that you were nothing but another anemone for his personal entertainment. He wasn’t like Floyd by any means. But they both always got a kick out of seeing you struggle with tasks Crowley would set up for you. Even if he was suppose to be the more “polite” twin.

With a man like Jade, you begin to wonder why on Earth you were in his room.

Maybe you just passed out and he was kind enough to lend his bed. You pondered.

Your eyes were then drawn to your wounds.

But you had bandages.

Bandages.

…

Did you get into a fight with him?

The thought of getting into a physical argument with the ‘timid’ Leech Twin filled you with horror. There would’ve been no way you could even beat his ass to the ground, especially with the major height difference between the two of you.

To tell you the truth, it would’ve been hilarious to have witness a tiny non-magical human try and fight a 6′3 merman.

You almost chuckled at the thought, but then another dreary thought popped into your mind.

What if you got in a fight with Jade and he wasn’t done-

His deep honeyed voice clears out into the dark room. The voice leaves you startled as you almost forgot the merman was standing at the door frame in that moment.

Jade turned on the lights & gently shuts the door behind him.

“How are you feeling? Your covered head to tail–head to foot in bruises and scratches. I hope you didn’t mind me patching you up while you were unconscious.”

Jade chuckles at his humorless joke as he puts away his fedora he was wearing from his shift at the Monstro Lounge. He pulls up a chair next to his bed and sits next to your weakened form. You then start to ask him where you were, which he responded to your answer that you were in the Octavinelle dormitory & were resting in his dorm room.

You almost asked him why you were in his room but the moment he sits down next to you, the heavy scent of ocean breeze and copper filled your nostrils. Confused, you tried sitting up to look for the source of the scent but Jade gently pushes you back down.

“Oya oya, Please don’t strain yourself. It would be best if you just laid down a bit. Whatever is the matter?”

You turn to fully look at Jade to ask him why you were in his room-

Until you saw his uniform.

His dormitory clothes, unlike his usual groomed-self, was ragged and crinkled like he was hard at work doing another one of his ‘tasks’. His bow tie was almost undone and his hair was frizzled and unkempt like his twin brother’s.

However, there was one detail that stuck out to you that made you paler than the ghosts that resided in your dormitory. Thick red blood stains, to your horror, drenched his black dormitory coat & some parts of his scarf & gloves. You wanted to believe that it was substance other than blood, but you knew better from how metallic it smelled.

Jade’s expression was calm and reassuring; as a tender smile was graced on his lips. But you knew from the way he stared you down something dangerous lied in those gold & olive heterochromic eyes. His presence at that moment made you sick to your very core.

You knew something wasn’t right and you assumed the worse:

He wasn’t done fighting you yet.

But you would like to ask if he was alright out of concern. Maybe if you play dumb you could get out of this. It would be a risk taker, but you could only see what happens.

Jade followed your sickened gaze to his clothes to which he pointed out the blood stains on his uniform.

“Ah, the blood?”

With a million thoughts and scenarios going through your head, you ask the merman if he was alright & if he needed any of his wounds treated.

He smiles stretches ever so slightly as he chuckles again, catching you off guard for the millionth time that evening.

“…I’m fine. I feel humbled to know that you show concern for me. But I’m afraid the blood isn’t mine.”

You gasp and you face becomes ghastly.

You started to ask if the both of you got into a fight and apologized for anything stupid that you started with him before you passed out. He lets out a laugh to add onto your horror.

It was starting to become harder to breath in that moment.

Before you could even get an answer to who’s blood was on his coat, Jade clasps his large hand over you mouth. He shushes you quietly and puts an index finger up to his lips.

“Quiet down now. Some of our dorm members are asleep at this time. It would be rude to wake them up at this hour.”

Calming down for a moment he releases his hand over your mouth. You apologize for spewing nonsense at Jade and asked him to tell you what happened while you were unconscious. There could be a million reasons why Jade has got blood on him. You hoped and prayed that it wasn’t for your stupidity or for any malicious intentions. You could only hope.

Maybe you were a free bird-!

You snap out of your thoughts and turn to Jade- to which he gives you a puzzled glance.

“…What happened? Don’t you remember, prefect-san?”

Shaking your head ‘no’, Jade sighs quietly as he begins to tell you his tale.

“Last night while you and your friends were at the Lounge, I happened to stumble upon a few certain anemones that just so happened to be visiting today. They were the ones giving you trouble a while back during the Scarabia incident, yes?”

You thought back to what happened yesterday as the memories slowly started to pop up in your mind.

You were visiting the Monstro Lounge that evening after Deuce’s Track & Field practice with himself, Grim, Ace & Jack. You remember seeing the Scarabia students you encountered before Jamil’s Overblotting incident during your stay. As it turns out, they were still pretty upset with what happened back in the past and they wanted a “rematch”, in their words.

With this in mind, you slowly nod at this information allowing Jade to continue further onto the story.

“Grim saw them and tried to insinuate a fight, which ended rather horribly. You tried to break up the fight, but you got knocked out along with Deuce-san.”

Your memory starts to become clearer and your eyes widen.

Grim.

Oh how you wanted to bite that little twerp’s head right off. If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be here with Jade & Deuce wouldn’t have been hurt. You made a mental note that he was going to get his punishment as soon as you healed back up. No more tuna for him for a month.

You nodded in agreement once more & Jade continues.

“It was so terrible that Azul asked for me and Floyd to step in. I had to escort the men out of the Lounge and properly dispose of them. Needless to say they won’t be giving you anymore trouble from here on out.”

Jade smiles in content. You didn’t really want to question why he was smiling at that moment.

“I must say, they did put up quiet a fight. But they didn’t even land a scratch on me since Floyd was there to help.”

He looked like he wanted to say more but he stopped himself. He continued when he had found the words he needed to say. He must’ve wanted to go more into depth about the corpses he mutilated- not that he wanted to tell you, but was in fear of your scared reaction. (He wouldn’t mind but he would like to keep you close Prefect-san (; ).

“Once we got back, I offered to let you rest in my room until you’ve awaken and were back to your well-being.”

Jade finishes telling you what happen as you get lost in your thoughts. With this newly found information, you just feel so…

Confused.

Why the hell would some merman that had no business butting into your fight get that physical with those students? For sure, Azul had told him and Floyd to take care of those same students as they were in the Monsto Lounge wanting to fight.

You briefly remember back when Jade and Floyd had to take care of the Scarabia students when you crashed into their dorm a few nights before Jamil’s incident. Other than the occasional bruises or marks he or Floyd left on the students, they never got physical to the point where they got bloody. Though maybe with the exception of Floyd because he’s insanely moody and unpredictable.

You weren’t positive for sure.

You decide to ask Jade why he would even bother to go into all of that trouble just for some silly fight. Jade seemed to tense up the moment you asked & repeated your question in conformation.

“…Why go through all of the trouble?”

You nodded. He remained silent before letting out another deep chuckle in amusement.

“Well, I thought it was obvious, prefect-san.”

…Huh?

Your eyes widen.

What was obvious?

“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I felt my chest being tugged towards you.”

You were starting to feel scared and it was becoming harder to breath in his room. From the sounds of it, he talked about you like you were an infection. Jade carries on his one-sided conversation leaving you to process what he was all saying.

“At first, I ignored the feeling; believing that it was annoyance I was feeling towards you. But as the days progressed I suddenly became more and more invested in you to the point where you occupied my thoughts almost entirely. Truly irritating if I might add,”

He pauses and looks at you to see any response or reaction you might have. You, of course, looked somewhat confused and worried.

You didn’t know if you were going to get out of his bedroom alive or not.

Jade continues.

“-However, I must blame you for some of the effects you have on me. My heart speeds up whenever I hear the sound of your voice. It’s so soothing- so…refreshing,”

…

…oh…

…OH.

Your face heats up.

You knew where this was going & you were nervous.

His face, while calm, you could tell how delirious the eel merman was by just his smile alone. The more he seemed to talk about you, the more his grin grew to reveal those sharp shark-like teeth. He slowly started to become in a dream-like daze the more fixated he was about his feelings over you.

The fact that Jade could ever be daydreaming made you shake a bit.

Was he trying to confess his love for you?

…

…Pfft! No! Of course not! There’s no way~!

But he seemed to be serious about his current feelings for you.

Then again, you weren’t sure if this was another one of his tasks Azul had him do. With Jade, or Floyd, they were both unpredictable. But you knew damn well that this wasn’t the Jade you knew.

“-And you’re always so feisty. Who knew that the school’s only magic-less student could have such courage? You were always unpredictable when you were talking to fellow students or handling certain issues. You always left me wondering what you were going to do next.”

Jade paused again before discussing more in detail his enamored passion for you. His voice lowered ever so slightly as he mumbled. It would’ve been soothing to hear had he not said what he was going to say next.

“I’ve started to follow you around to see what your schedule is like on and off campus grounds,”

Your heart stopped and your blood turned cold.

…What was he doing?

“I would check your Magicam account every-so-often to see if you would post anything new. I got to say, you looked…irresistible in your last post. Why, I could just eat you up.”

Jade chuckled at his last sentence and you became much more alarmed. Being uncomfortable around Jade at this moment would’ve been the understatement of the year. You were so uncomfortable that you couldn’t help but give a nervous laugh yourself; whether or not Jade seemed to notice, you didn’t really care.

He then sighed and brought himself back to reality after daydreaming.

“-But this school is filled to the brim with sharks just wanting to eat you alive after all. I was only trying to ensure you safety by getting rid of those perpetrators. You’re just so delicate and small, it was hard to not defend you right there and then. Not to mention cute~” He purred.

“I was barely lucky enough to have brought you to my dorm room with Azul’s & the Headmaster’s permission,”

He then stopped the conversation and turned to you, as your face revealed to be shocked and displeased. Concerned, he raised his bloody gloved hand to caress your cheek gently. It felt cold to the touch as it made you shiver.

You had no absolutely idea Jade felt this way towards you, and you weren’t sure if you should’ve accepted his “confession” or not. It would’ve been a wholesome moment between the two of you had he not brought up his stalking habit to you.

Maybe if he worded it differently, there would’ve been a different outcome. Or maybe even wait a little longer to confess? You weren’t sure, you were too shocked to even comprehend what you wanted to do.

You were in pain from the fight that had occurred earlier and now that Jade has brought his feelings about you into light, it just made you feel overstimulated. You knew in your heart, however, that Jade was in the wrong for hurting those students like he did and he needed to know that whether or not he was aware of it. Jade starts to question your feelings on the matter.

“…You look upset. Are you unsatisfied?”

After zoning out from his touch, you take his hand off your cheek and found the words you needed to say.

He didn’t need to hurt those students.

“…I didn’t need to hurt them?”

You nodded. He thought for a moment but quickly responded to your statement.

“Ah, but I’m afraid there was no other way around it.”

“Even if I tried to confront those idiotic fingerlings peacefully, they still would’ve gone out of their way to hurt you afterwards. So I made sure to put them in place. Permanently.”

Permanently.

He said that last word with venom and it made you churn anxiously. You weren’t positive is that meant the Scarabia students were dead or alive by how vague he sounded. By how Jade talks about them, he sounds like they were either dead or that he wanted them left for dead.

Either result frightened you to no end.

“It took everything in me to not tie them down and drown them in the darkest depths of the ocean.”

He’s only ever mentioned that once before when it was established that Jade was not to be tampered with.

He kept going on and on, and the more he talked, the more dreadful you felt.

So you decided you wanted to break free and get out of his room and back to your own. You needed to find Grim and your friends and get away from this…weirdo.

So you thought about trying to leave.

Not wanting to stay in Jade’s room anymore, you thanked him for patching you up and looking after you and tried getting up. Not remembering the pain you felt when you first tried to get up, you immediately collapsed back onto Jade’s bed.

Jade tilted his head in confusion.

“…Where do you think you are you going?”

You told Jade that you needed to know where Grim and the others where, as you would like to see them at that moment.

You needed someone there other than Jade.

“Oh? Your friends?”

You nodded.

“I’m afraid they’re not here right now,” Jade stated.

“Floyd and Azul are keeping them busy while you relax for a bit. It’s only for the best.”

That bit of info only made your anxiety worsen.

You knew that things would get out of hand if you left your friends with Floyd and Azul. You weren’t feeling too good and you needed to find them. Now.

As if he was a mind reader, Jade seemed to have caught on to what you were wanting to do.

“You weren’t thinking about leaving in this state, were you?”

You hesitated in that second and told him ‘no’ as you begun to sit up properly by fighting back the pain you were in. You told Jade that your worries would be at ease if you went to see how your friends were doing, especially with Deuce being knocked out.

You went to stand up once more but Jade quickly, and roughly pushed you back onto the bed; his arms and hands pushing down on you shoulders making the pain worsen.

“Ah Ah Ah, Angelfish, back to bed for now. I can’t have you leave while in this state. It would be inappropriate. Not that I would mind~”

Growing aggravated, you told Jade to knock it off as you tried to push him off of you, but he was keen on keeping you in place. You told Jade that there was something wrong and that you needed to see your friends immediately. Jade now started to get annoyed with your behavior and gave an irritated sigh .

“Must you be this stubborn? I told you they were with Floyd and Azul.”

You wouldn’t take that as an answer.

You would be damned if something bad where to happen to your friends.

You then started to wriggle out of Jade’s grasps, causing him to grow more frustrated. He started to raised his voice at you.

“Angelfish. Back. To. Bed. I insist-!”

A harsh ‘SMACK’ echoed through the room. Jade stopped trying to fight you as he lifted his hand to feel the stinging sensation you have made across his face. He was in a state of shock and completely became silent; almost motionless.

As creepy as it was in that moment, it gave you the chance to escape from his grasps.

You pushed Jade out of your field of vision and started to make your way towards the bedroom door. As painful as it was to even get off the bed and make a run for it, you were determined to get the hell out of Octavinelle’s dormitory and back into your own. You would have Crowley look into this issue, regardless of whether or not he actually wanted to.

You made it to the door and were just about to put your hand on the door handle when Jade suddenly cooed out ‘Angelfish~’; his honeyed voice sounding more eerie and cold like a harsh blizzard.

Not wanting to turn around, you felt Jade harshly clasp a hand over your mouth and pick your entire body up. You kicked and tried to scream- even trying to bite his hand, but Jade would not budge one bit. As determined as you were to get to the door, he was damn-near persistent that you were to stay in his room. For however long, you weren’t sure nor did you want to know.

If this was a dream, you’d wish you would wake up.

But you could’ve only beg for mercy in that moment as Jade tosses you back onto his mattress. This time, he decided to get on top of you and bound your hands onto his headboard with his tie. He then moved his hand over to his bandstand and pulled out yet another tie and ties it around your mouth, somewhat silencing your screams. Once finished, he stares down at you with satisfaction.

You both knew you couldn’t get out.

Chuckling once more, Jade leans down to give you a quick peck on the cheek as he caresses your face.

“You know, I find it very inconsiderate to slap someone that happened to save you from such a dreadful incident.”

Jade says that to himself thoughtfully as he stared down at you with hungry eyes.

Even if he didn’t say it, but to him, you looked simply delicious. He wanted to savor his meal as much as he could in that moment without too much interruption or distractions. He just hoped that you would be just as eager to please him like he was about to do to you. In that moment it was made obvious that he was the predator and you were his prey.

In Jade’s eyes, you needed to be punished. You were being ungrateful to him for saving your life from those students. Without him there, you would’ve already been dead, would’ve you? He did all of this for you and you didn’t even thank him once!

Jade starts to speak up.

“They could’ve killed you the moment you lied on the floor unconscious without me there to get rid of those vile guppies, wouldn’t you agree?”

His powerful, icicle voice becomes a soft whisper as Jade then started to kiss your face and make his way down to your neck and collarbone; occasionally leaving a few playful nips with his jagged teeth. The feeling makes you moan and wreath in pain. Jade’s grin widens in victory.

This wasn’t happening.

This has to be a dream-!

“So at least give me some appraisal for my hard work, if you would be so kind.”

You could feel his breath against your pulse as he bites down rather harshly on your neck. You let out a whine and try to squirm away from Jade, but he keeps you in place. His hands were starting to wonder and roam all inches of your body and even in places no other man has touched. You could feel a bulge start to form in Jade’s crotch area as you teared up.

Jade caught wind of this and grinned wickedly.

“Unless, you have other means of showing appraisal?~”

You screamed.

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#tw: yandere #tw: murder #I had to reupload ;-;#it wasn't showing my posts #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #yandere jade leech #jade leech #jade leech x reader

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izupie · 3 years

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I can't post anything from my current werewolf Richie wip chapter because it's basically all spoilers :):):)

but here's some Reddie interaction from the second chapter that I still adore.

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“Yeah. That’s what we all are. Losers together.” Richie tilted his head to one side as if deep in thought. “Now we’ve got a gang name I feel like we need to seal it with some kind of handshake.” His ears perked up as he opened his eyes wide. “Blood pact-”

“Nope. No no. No. No blood pacts. Jesus.” The bed springs creaked as Eddie curled himself up and gagged.

“Okay, we can just spit in our hands and shake on it. No biggie.”

Eddie made a disgusted sound and swatted at Richie. “Oh my god- no! That’s just as bad!”

As Richie bent over in a fit of uncontrollable giggles Eddie leaned back over and swatted playfully at him again, but his hand flicked over one of Richie’s wolf ears. Richie jolted upright, his heart hammering in his chest. Every hair on his tail felt like it was standing up as if he’d been struck with an electric charge, and he could still feel the ghost of a touch on the soft skin of his ear. Fear constricted his throat, and he knew he’d made a mistake by reacting so abruptly and dramatically. Shit!

Eddie blinked at him in confusion as he watched Richie’s reaction and slowly sat upright himself. He looked down at his hand and then his gaze slid up to somewhere just above Richie’s head. His brows were intensely furrowed, and Richie could almost hear his mind struggling to make sense of the contradiction between sight and touch. The enchantment over Derry worked on the mind – erasing and compensating for anything that didn’t look human, but it did nothing for the other senses. The human mind amazed Richie because it was so good at explaining away something it didn’t see, but he’d always suspected that Eddie’s natural desire to understand and ground everything in fact would make him harder to convince if he ever suspected something was off.

Nervous laughter bubbled out of Richie’s mouth. “What?”

“‘What’ back to you – what happened?”

Richie pushed all thoughts of his bristling tail and ears out of his mind – all Eddie could see was his expression, and he kept it schooled into a calm mask he was familiar with. “You caught one of my curls and it tugged. I’m being a big baby about it, and I jumped.” His voice was casual, and he thought he was doing a surprisingly good job of not looking like he was about to puke.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed and he looked down at his hand again. “I thought I felt…”

Richie swallowed down the nausea and laughed, pleased that the sound of it was more natural than before. “My hair’s even messier than usual today, okay I get it, geez, thanks for pointing it out. I’ll have a shower before we go to the fair, alright.” Richie shook his head like a dog for emphasis – shaking out his curls.

His tail was still bristling uncontrollably, and he longed to smooth the fur down flat.

Then a loud growling, gurgling sound filled the room and for a horrible second Richie wondered if he really was about to throw up, but both of Eddie’s hands flew to his stomach.

“Holy shit, was that your stomach!?”

Eddie leaned away and groaned. “I’m fucking hungry okay.”

Any residual tension was finally released as Richie laughed loudly and Eddie laughed alongside him even through his reminders to shush and be quiet because his mom was still downstairs.

“Your stomach-” Richie wheezed “-sounds like an angry bear.”

Eddie looked like he was trying to pout, but because of his smile it just made him look like he was in pain. “Thank you, asshole. I’m starving to death and you find it funny.”

“We could record that sound and put it on a nature documentary, dude.”

He managed a glare. “Fuck you. I’ve been pretending to have stomach flu, it’s not like my mom was going to bring me anything to eat, and it’s not like I can go down and eat anything or she’ll know I’m faking it. Or think I’ve had a miraculous recovery or something.”

“Your stomach sounds even angrier and more feral than you-”

“I’m not angry or feral,” Eddie said.

Richie pulled up his glasses and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes. “It sounds like it’s saying-” he pinched his nose and spoke in a nasally voice “-Eddie, why are you treating me this way? Where is our sustenance?”

Eddie snorted and gestured a hand wildly. “What is that? My stomach wouldn’t sound like that. You just said it sounded like a bear. Yours would sound like that.” Eddie pinched his nose and tried to copy Richie’s voice as he said, “Richard, please, we need fruit, vegetables, vitamins…”

Richie nearly lost it. He was nearly crying now and having to stifle the sound of his snorts of laughter behind his hand. Eddie joined in and it was like all the tension had been forgotten. “I eat vegetables,” Richie protested between laughter, “y’know, like, that pointy orange one.”

“Jesus, you know what a carrot is, you loser.”

“Sure, those things you pick out the ground and just-” Richie jumped to his feet and mimed pulling a carrot from the ground as if he’d picked it up and crunched his teeth straight into it.

“But you wash it first, right?” Eddie cut in, laughter fading.

Richie continued to mime eating his imaginary carrot and made satisfied humming sounds to accompany his pantomime.

“Richie. You wash it first? Please tell me you wash your fruit and vegetables.”

Richie mimed swallowing it down and licked his fingers, enjoying the wince of disgust Eddie threw him, and winked. “If you wash it first you don’t get the crunchy surprise gritty treats.”

The sound of Eddie gagging made him fall back into uncontrollable fits of laughter again.

“You- You can get all sorts of nasty shit from not washing fruit and vegetables. Oh my god. Have you not heard of e-coli? It’s- It’s a scientific fact – fact, Richie – that you can get fucking- all sorts of fucking germs from them. You could get salmonella or listeria- food poisoning!” Eddie accompanied each of his broken sentences with a hand gesture. His brows were low over his dark eyes and his nostrils flared with each of his dire warnings.

Richie loved it.

Richie loved him.

He smiled as Eddie calmed down enough to realise that Richie had played him. “Fuck off,” he said petulantly, making Richie grin. “I’ll kick you back out the window.”

#*awkward tap dance*#writing them is my favourite part of writing reddie fics #that sounds like a 'well duh' moment but I mean that they're just so FUN yknow?#reddie #werewolf richie tozier #they make writing fun #my fanfiction #reddie fanfiction #IT stuff

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corona-the-nightcutter · 4 years

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Blood Notes

Logan’s schedule for the night was simple. Tidy up around the house, make herself an easy meal, watch the latest episode of her favorite monster-hunting show (however inaccurate and obscure their methods may be), then go to sleep. One of her more laid-back evening as of late, but she couldn't be more thankful for it. This past week has kept her a little too busy for her liking. The sudden rush of adrenaline that the human body produced when you tried not to die was not something that Logan particularly enjoyed. Dealing with high strung angelic beings wasn't too high on her favorite’s list either. Just a casual night with nothing but the outcome of the show to worry about.

That was, of course, after she cleaned up like she was asked.

She walked into the hallway bathroom in search of a brush and tie for her hair. She had the longest hair in her family by far (well as far as she was aware), so doing almost anything gritty was next to impossible with it let loose in all its glory. Her mother had constantly, and recently an “acquaintance”, had recommended cutting it shorter. But she had cut it short when she was younger, though the ridiculous bangs she had with it were the biggest issue she now had with the look, she still refused to cut it after she has spent years growing it out.

She pulled open the top drawer of the sink and reached into the tiny woven bin where she kept them, pulling a fairly tight elastic band out. As she reached for the brush, she glanced up at the mirror, and froze.

How she hadn't noticed this earlier was a mystery to her, but she was always one to absorb herself in own thoughts, whether she chose to or not.

Her reflection was covered by fresh, dripping, dark crimson blood. The viscous, liquid trails slid all the way down to the wood framing, staining the orange brown with an almost eerie dark maroon and had begun to drip onto the ceramic sink top. Someone with any sort of rational thought would have called the police to report a breaking and entering, and mostly like a suspect of murder. Logan would have snorted at the thought of a religious person seeing this and preparing an exorcism with salt.

She only groaned deeply and buried her face her hand. “My god ...Anoroc!” she shouted out, seemingly at nothing but a random shadow at first glance. When she didn’t get an answer, she marched out to the living room, completely foregoing her first task as usual, and glared at another, larger shadow that looked suspiciously dark to her.

“Alright, you can come out now. I know you’re there.” she said sternly, placing her hands on her hips, hair tie clutched in one.

The shadow she was looking at begin to move, the darker filling begin to shrink and condense into a tall form, a beastly one with massive wings, a curling spiked tail, and a row of horns that sprouted from the top and sides of its head. The form continued to shrink until Logan could make out every row of spines that littered the creature’s face, and the sharp tips of its claws on its paws. (or hands? Logan couldn’t tell which.)

But that wasn't important now. Her arms crossed over themselves and her mouth pursed into a high, short line as the creature “walked” out of the shadows. Its entire form barely fit in the living room. The jagged tips of its horns lightly scraped against the ceiling; its wings would have knocked the tv off its stand if it was not careful. The claws that tipped it’s hands ...or paws… looked as if they had to power to slice cleanly through steel, and the deadly golden amber eyes on its face contained a fire that could melt even the firmest of wills, reducing them to begging for their lives on their knees before the demon.

“You called me, Eldritchess?” The demon’s deep, masculine voice addressed, revealing rows of sharp, frightening teeth that were concealed in his jaws. He stared down at her with a stern gaze, as though she had done something wrong, or unexpected.

Logan, despite all this, just sighed and put one hand up to her face again. The demon’s stern gaze turned to one of confusion, tilting his head as she looked through her fingers up at him.

“Why is there blood writing on my mirror?” she asked as if it was a completely normal thing, which while this wasn't a common occurrence as of yet, she had been told to expect “out of the ordinary things” by a certain angelic king. She supposed this was the start of them.

The demon’s ears perked up in surprise, the scaled brows on his face raising slightly. “Aziza informed me that your generations sense of humor was based around the aspect of ‘randomness’. Was this not... random enough to be humorous to you?” He asked, looking down at her with something of an earnest and sincere look. Well, it looked like it was sincere. She could tell it was strained, but he was trying. That was at least somewhat calming her irritation.

“Random enough? Well yeah this is random, but not in a good way! Whose blood is on my mirror? What did you kill? You better not say chickens.” She eyed him suspiciously and leaned forward, although it did nothing to help that she had to look up at least two feet to meet his eyes.

Anoroc scoffed and looked away from her with a deadpan in his fiery eyes. “Oh please, chickens are a coward’s target. I used lamb’s blood that I had stored away.” he stated formerly, his hands that dangled at his side like willow limbs folded behind himself just under where his wings were attached.

“I don't think that makes you any less of a coward to have blood stored away,” she forced herself ignored how his gaze was on her, looking like something short of annoyance, “and why would you store blood in the first place? I thought you were a dragon. Are you part vampire or something?” she asked, leaning back to her normal height.

“No, I am not part vampire. It’s for research and ritual purposes.”

“Uh huh… well, whatever. Stay there.” she said and walked back toward the bathroom. She reached her hands to her hair and chose to just gather it into a low ponytail. A higher ponytail would have been preferred, but this would work for now. She regarded the stained mirror again for a second, noticed how the blood had begun to brown and dry. She didn't waste any time in getting the glass spray and a roll of paper towels, walking back out and all but threw them to her “assigned protector”.

“Um...Eldri-”

“Logan. My name is Logan, so please use it. Since we’re partners now, or whatever Orion said, it would be better if you weren’t so formal.” Logan said, then looked down at the two items in his clawed grasp. “You made the mess, so you have to clean it up.” She asserted, but she was taken aback by the confused look on his face as he turned over the aluminum can and cylinder of paper in his hands.

“I’m confused…”

“By what? You just push here, and it sprays.” she pointed to the pressured spot atop the canister.

“No… well yes, that as well, but usually when I made… a mess I was escorted back to my chambers.” Anoroc explained.

“Oh yeah, you had servants. Must have been nice.” Logan remarked with a smirk, but it dropped immediately when she saw the hard look on his face.

“Escorted by guards, because the staff feared I was too wild.” His eyes went dark and they almost looked as if they turned into a dark orange color. He brought the canister to his muzzle to sniff it and snorted and shook his head as the fumes of the cleaner entered his nostrils.

“Hey.” Logan looked up at him with something of a reassuring grin. “That was when you were classified as ‘a danger to the fortress’, but with you as my guardian, and with me as your connection to the mortal world, we can change that, right?” She said.

Anoroc regarded her statement for a moment. “I suppose that’s how this is going to work....” He agreed, looking back to her.

“Great! Now go get that mirror cleaned before it stains anymore, and maybe I’ll teach you what the whole “randomness” deal with my generation’s humor means, huh?” She patted his scaled and fur-covered arm and walked past him, beginning to de-clutter the coffee table. She picked up a stack of old mail and cast a glance over her shoulder, spotting her counterpart edging his way carefully to the bathroom, minding that his bulky wings didn’t knock down another picture. She smiled to herself. Though she still was a little irked about the blood note, it was hard to find anything too irritating when all she could think about was that he had written “got any grapes?”. It was a clumsy effort and even slightly embarrassing to think about how stupid it must seem to someone at least three hundred years her senior, but Anoroc was trying to understand humans, and her, better in order to protect them. That alone was enough for her.

Suddenly, there was a loud growling and hissing noise from the bathroom, followed by a deep, pained whining. Logan cringed, knowing fully well he probably just sprayed himself in the eye.

“Logan? Could...could you come assist me with this… cleaning utensil? I think it might be sentient.” Anoroc called. His voice was strained, like he almost hoped she wouldn’t hear him.

“Did you aim it the wrong way?” She called with a high bounce in her voice, dropping the stack of letters on the table as she passed. She may not have enough time to watch her show before she had to go to sleep now, this might turn out to be a more exciting night “alone” after all.

#welp posting it anyway #cuz why not #my post #my writing #anoroc #logan #logan tyson #anoroc the annoyed #funny #funny demons #demon #dragon #demon dragon

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paladin-pile · 6 years

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What “Pilot Personality” do each of the Voltron Characters fall into?

This has been sitting in my docs for exactly a year under the title “stupid freaking meta” cause it was a pain to write. But it’s been on my mind so I thought it was time for another post, based on my experience as a pilot and member of the aviation community.

As I was making this I realized that this might be some good fanfiction material for y’all, so enjoy. (Fyi: every pilot-related example or description I use in this post is a real life true story/situation that I have heard or experienced! Nothing made up.)

I began learning to fly at age 16, before I learned to drive. I got my pilot’s license at age 19 which was almost 6 years ago, and it’s safe to say I’m just a little obsessed. I spent years around pilots from all walks of life, and very quickly caught on to the fact that there are different types of pilots, but still a common thread that goes through everyone.

When I sat down one day in July 2016 and watched Voltron for the first time, I was immediately smitten. It was everything I loved: space, flying, technology, awesome characters, all rolled into one. Interestingly enough, I can pinpoint the EXACT SECOND I first fell in love with this show...

I literally paused the episode here and texted my friend about how I had found the new Big Thing in my life. This was it, this show knew us. As I continued watching I was thrilled to see each character be such a fabulous example of the different types of pilots and have a lot of deep threads I resonated with. I’m going to go through each main character and describe what “type” of pilot they fit and why. So buckle up folks, this post is Hella Long. First up,

Lance

It may be hard to believe, but I speak from experience when I say the vast majority of pilots are exactly like Lance. Even if your normal personality is not like his, he amplifies the traits that are inside every one of us. It doesn’t matter what your personality is like on the ground, your pilot personality can be a lot different,

Lance isn’t scared.

These are the kind of people who live for dives and stalls, pitching down the nose and laughing maniacally as the engine builds up to a whine and the ground fills the windshield. In order to get to this point, you have to be really comfortable with the aircraft, know what it can do and what it can’t. This kind of boils down to the first point about pilots in general that are illustrated nicely in the show:

Pilot thing #1: You have a healthy fear of what you should be afraid of, but you know you don’t have to be afraid of much.

Personally I have learned to fear only three things as a pilot: birds, fire, and myself (the ‘myself’ point we’ll come back to later when we talk about Shiro). Most everything else is a non-issue and might even be considered a thrill. This doesn’t mean we’re not cautious and responsible, but we’re not scared.

True, imidately following this scene, Lance crashed the simulator (which I also theorize he did on purpose), so it could be argued he’s not that great of a pilot, but the point still stands. He’s in training, we all did stupid stuff in training, I did stupid stuff in training. It’s the attitude we’re talking about here.

* Side dish for thought: I see a lot of the fandom throwing around the term ‘cargo pilot’ like it’s some sort of insult, or ‘oh that’s so boring and has no prestige whatsoever’ but let me set one thing straight: being a cargo pilot is the BOMB, and I would take that over being a fighter any day.

Flying a 180 ton aircraft filled with supplies or troops through canyons and around mountains, low enough to trim bushes and kick up sand, and the satisfaction of yelling “5 tons of toilet paper comin’ in hot!” into the comms is an end in itself. The poor grunts in the back are strapped in like sardines and trying not to hurl at your erratic maneuvers, but they don’t complain cause they know you have to stay low and move crazy to avoid enemy fire. You and your Thicc Baby are proud as anything when every load is delivered safely, whether its potatoes or tanks. (From what we see in Voltron it seems Lance didn’t want to be a cargo pilot, but I have to admit it would have fit him pretty well.)

#2 Talking to your aircraft

There is not a pilot on the face of the Earth that does not talk to their aircraft like it is a sentinent being, and treat it accordingly. No matter how big and tough we are, you can always catch us patting our ship with a dopey smile and gooey eyes, cooing “Hey Beautiful” or any other myriad of pet names. It’s a thing, everybody does it. I don’t pretend to know the psychology.

Keith

Ok story time.

A few years back, I took a nurse’s assistant course and worked in a elderly care home. It was an awful place. Elderly folks who had no family lived in small, dirty rooms, no longer able to care for themselves or sometimes even communicate. I knew everyone on the floor, and tried to show them love as much as possible in their often abusive situation.

One such person was a tall gangly man in his nineties. He was confined to a wheelchair, never made eye contact, and never spoke. Every mealtime we would take him into the cafeteria and sit with him, spoon-feeding because his hands shook too much to hold a utensil. We were encouraged to talk to him as much as we could, even though he never responded and none of us were sure just how mentally present he was.

One time I went into his room, I noticed something. On the rickety table at the end of his bed was a small, dusty photo frame. It held a picture of dashing young man in an Air Force uniform with sharp eyes and half-smirk, a curly-haired little girl in his arms. One of the nurses told me that was him and his daughter. Since we now had a little something in common, I decided to bring it up at the next mealtime.

“Sooo, I saw your picture on the end table,” I hedged, holding out a spoonful of potatoes. I didn’t expect a response, and sure enough, he remained staring at the table blankly.

“You were in the Air Force, huh? That’s pretty neat. I’m a pilot too, but I’ve haven’t flown anything very exciting.” I held the spoon to his mouth and he took it, swallowing slowly.

“P-38’s or P-51’s are my favorite,” I rambled, scraping together the creamed peas. “There’s something about the sound of that Merlin engine that can’t be beat!” I hummed and shook my head with nostalgia. The fighter planes from WW2 had always been my favorite. With the next bite ready, I turned back to him, and almost dropped the spoon in shock.

His head was lifted, back straight, staring at me with such intensity I almost thought he would leap out of the seat. My mouth hung open, spoon frozen midair, and for a moment I sat there in disbelief. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes, bright and fiery, overflowing with words he couldn’t speak. Finally, I recovered enough to smile, wishing I could hear what he wanted to say.

“I love flying,” I whispered, “There’s nothing like it, is there?” His eyes stayed locked on mine, and it was a long time before he could be coaxed into taking another mouthful.

Here’s where I’m going with this. Pilots like Keith are from an era that no longer exists. His are the type we can only find in the silent annals of history, like WW1 and 2. Pilots who were called “knights of the air,” unorthodox and brave in every sense of the word. Cutting out engines and making impossible maneuvers that pushed themselves and their aircraft to the limits and beyond. Split-second, all or nothing stunts that shouldn't have worked but did, pilots that flew by pure instinct and blood running like fire through their veins. Pilots who couldn’t let go of the controls when they landed because they had been gripping them too hard, too long. Pilots who would wait till the very last second to bail out of a burning plane so they could direct it to crash into a target, pilots who coaxed their plane to finish a mission even though half of it was missing, oil was smearing over the canopy, and hydraulic fluid was dripping down their legs. Pilots that got into a new plane that had just been designed and no one knew what it could even do, and flew it anyway. Kamikaze pilots who put their plane into a dive toward a target, knowing it would be the last thing they ever did.

They fought a war, some of them won, and they all disappeared.

The nature of air war isn't like that anymore--with the advent of supersonic jets and drones, the era of the fighter pilot is all but gone, and the gritty sword fights in the sky have become extinct. Even those who are fighter pilots today are given strict guidelines, and risks are reduced to a minimum.

Pilots like Keith don’t exist anymore because they are not born, they are only made under certain circumstances.

The closest you will get to those kind of pilots today are probably bush pilots, they’re pretty much the only ones left that push everything to the limits, fly with no rules, and rely on instinct. But for now, that spirit of Keith, that “you fight like a Galra,” drive, that extra sense and lion-heartedness...are only found in museums, in monuments, and in gravestones.

Shiro

Shiro is a classic fit to what we call a “Jet Jockey.” Responsible, hero-type, yet still a massive dork; the guy you’d see in charge of the Thunderbird demonstration team. He’s a leader, calm, charming, and fierce. It’s in the blood, in the way they walk and smile. When you hear the term ‘you got it or you don’t,” these people definitely “got it.”

They’re perfect, polished in the exterior, but what you sometimes will not notice is their vulnerability. Most all of them have lost close friends, hold some kind of loneliness or sadness in their chest, something that only the love of the air can soothe. Be nice to these guys. People like to put them on a pedestal, but they need human companionship to not let lost in the sky.

I’d like to take a moment here to share my insights from aviation relating to Shiro, namely, Pilot Error, and the Kerberos mission. I see a lot of content in the fandom of Keith and the Holts being outraged that anyone could suggest that the Kerberos crash was caused by pilot error. The typical response is along the lines of, “Shiro was the best, the brightest, most skilled and responsible student, he would NEVER make a mistake like that.”

That’s bullshit and every pilot knows it.

From our very first day in flight school, this concept was drilled into us until we could recite it in our sleep. Mistakes happen to everyone, no matter how good you are or how much experience you have. You think, “Oh I would never do that” or that just because so-and-so is legendary they can do no wrong. It happens every day and the best pilots are not immune. The vast majority of crashes are caused by errors by pilots who are not dummies. It’s the go-to answer when no one is quite sure what happened because it’s the most likely reason. It sobers the rest of us, thinking “that could easily be me,” but we don’t doubt it or get outraged cause we know it can happen to the best of us.

People are prone to make mistakes for no reason, when we know better. It just…didn’t even cross your mind at the time. You thought you were doing the right thing. It’s happened to me personally and I very nearly got killed, but it really opened my eyes to the whole issue.

Semi-related to this is a theory I’ve been toying with: that Shiro getting chosen to pilot the Kerberos mission was a controversial and even scandalous decision. Here’s the cold hard facts: There is no way Shiro was the most experienced pilot at the Garrison. Even if he was a prodigy and had insane natural talent, someone that young just does not have the experience that an older pilot that had been flying for years would have under his belt. Shiro was probably so good that some of the higher-ups at the Garrison wanted to assign him to Kerberos, but the other portion were against it, saying it wasn’t smart to be sending someone so inexperienced, no matter how good he was. When the Kerberos crew disappeared, it could easily have become a huge, maybe even public scandal, where the people who opposed the decision were crying “I told you so!” and citing what a mistake it was to assign someone so young.

The youngest astronaut NASA ever sent to space was 32 years old, and she certainly wasn’t in charge of anything at the time. The youngest person ever in space was a 25-year old Russian cosmonaut named Titov who was essentially strapped into a capsule and launched into orbit to test what happened to the human body in zero gravity for 24 hours (not pleasant, they found out). He was also the second human to go to space, when we knew pretty much nothing about anything. I can’t imagine the guts this guy had, knowing he was going up as an experiment. The whole story is worth checking out. Honestly this sounds more like something the Garrison would do, and the whole situation adds to the suspicion that something is fishy in the place.

Experience rules, I cannot emphasize this enough. It doesn’t matter how “good” you are or how fast you learn, the guy with more experience will always be better than you, no matter how old they are. For Shiro to be the most experienced at such a young age, all the other older pilots and instructors would have to be dead or medically disqualified, or something.

Short end of it is, there is no way Shiro was the best pilot at the Garrison, or the best choice for the mission. Even if he was a prodigy and at the top of his class, which I’m sure he was, that’s not what the higher-ups use to make a decision. Of course, this whole theory might be moot. The creators most likely put Shiro on the Kerberos mission for plot reasons only, but realistically is a little different story.

Hunk

Hunk’s category of pilots hold a special place in my heart: the mechanics. They probably otherwise would not be pilots, but it’s convenient to be able to fly the stuff when they’re running checks. Always covered in grease, their second home is in the hangar, tending to the planes like a kind doctor to a child with the flu. They listen to the aircraft. It’s more of a technical relationship, not quite as mystical as the other pilots tend to portray it. For the Hunk-type, it’s dissected into moving parts.

These folks are NICE. My best friend in training was a mechanic named Bob, who was a ray of sunshine and the sweetest guy absolutely ever. He was also HUMONGOUS, and it was always a kick to seem him squeezing into a tiny Cessna 150 with a squinty-eyed smile and a cheerful “Let’s see how she does!” He would never fly more than a few trips around the pattern.

“Nothing major,” he would say. “I’m not gonna do any crazy stuff like these guys,” *points thumb over shoulder at the Lance-like pilots drinking coffee* “Just little trip around the pattern so I can check out what I did without having to wait for another pilot to take ‘em up.”

They talk up a storm, they ramble. Mechanics tend to make fun of pilots for knowing nothing about how the airplane works, and have gut intuition like no one else. You LISTEN to these guys when they have a hunch or you. will. die.

Pidge

Pidge’s type of pilots are fun to be around. Curious, in the learning stage, usually teenagers, enthusiastic and eager, wanting to be a pilot for the intellectually stimulating reasons (“I read all the fighter manuals”).

I’m reminded of one of the students who was training at the same time I was. 5’4, short cropped hair, large aviator sunglasses, devouring the training books with quick wit and banter with the instructors. She also would roll up to the hanger in her sporty convertible right after getting her drivers license, blaring “Sexy Back” loud enough to shake the propellers off the nearest aircraft.

They may not have the ingrained, primal love for hardcore flying that pilots like Lance, Keith and Shiro have, but to them it’s cool and they love it for their own reasons. It’s a stepping stone to something greater, more knowledge, laid out before them like the rolling landscape far, far below.

Allura

When we’re sorting Voltron characters into pilot categories, Allura drops with a perfect little clink into the box marked Female Helicopter Pilots.

If you’re looking for folks that are Tough, who can catch grenades in their teeth while brandishing two sub-machine guns and walking through fire, you’ve come to the right place. Arnold Schwarzenegger's got nothing on these women. Don’t cross them, they can most likely bench press their own helicopter. They instantly generate mad respect, you feel like bowing whenever they walk in a room.

Fixed-wing pilots and helicopter pilots are two very different breeds, and usually are very loyal to their respective aircrafts. Most airplane pilots wouldn’t be caught dead in a helicopter and vice versa. Of course there are exceptions, but the accepted culture is for the two groups to rib each other, kinda like cat people vs dog people.

These pilots have a beaming smile and deceptively sweet twinkle eyes. These are people who have whipped the butts of every obstacle given to mankind, stared death in the face and beat it with their bare fists. I might be exaggerating here, but this is the feeling one gets when coming across these women.

Coran

Oh Coran, you are one of the most iconic pilot types, and the one folks are most likely to encounter hanging around any small airport. The middle-aged-and-older folks that fly to to other cities for lunches, dubbed “$100 hamburgers.” They are chipper, wear shorts and Hawaiian shirts, and like to reminisce about the good old days. I am not exaggerating. Most of them are hobby flyers or retirees with eccentric senses of humor and very large amounts of money, maybe more than one plane and an antique car. If you start talking to one, be prepared to spend a while. They are a bottomless well of tall stories of glory, belly laughter, and that snark and slightly odd sense of humor that can turn dark if the right subject is brought up.

All together, pilots are a colorful bunch. Most everyone fits into these basic categories, but there’s a common thread through it all. Love, almost to addiction. Once we get in and taste the crisp air aloft, feel the vibration of the aircraft beneath our fingers, hear that ethereal voice speak to us. There’s no going back. It calls and calls and calls, and the farthest star is too close to hang our dreams.

Hope this has been helpful or interesting to someone. Please feel free to come by and talk to me about anything!

#pal meta #Voltron #Lance #Keith #Shiro #Hunk #Pidge #Allura #Coran #aviation #pilots

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missnmikaelson-main · 5 years

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Addicted Chapter 15

Rebekah cocked her head, keeping an ear on the conversation happening inside the house. The majority of her attention was focused on the ground, but she could see their silhouettes through the fluttering curtains.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck. He could feel the phantom hands that had grabbed him on the porch, grasping and twisting his neck sharply to the side. “I came home late and was ambushed before I got to the door.”

“I got a look at him,” Alaric worked the kinks from his neck, “but I didn’t get much more before he killed me.”

Rebekah shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet and dropped into a crouch. The ends of her fingers traced the trampled grass and small bits of overturned earth; the trail led towards the driveway. She followed it and knelt again, this time beside Kol’s car. In the dark, before she had known to look for the signs, she hadn’t seen them.

She flipped over a rock that had been displaced by at least two vehicles that had driven over it. There was a small bead of blood staining the stone; the smell all but gone.

++++

Elena got to her feet, blinking when her heel came down on a gritty substance. Lifting her leg she saw the hardwood floor was spotless, so she bent her knee and stared at the crusted blood on the bottom of her foot.

A small shriek tore from her throat as the pain sliced through her sole. She gritted her teeth when her chin was tipped up and her necklace torn from her throat.

She released a shaky breath and turned her attention from the door her host had exited to the other two. The first opened to an empty closet, but the second revealed an en-suite.

She stepped onto the marble tile and quickly located the linen closet. Selecting a white wash cloth she moved to the sink and flipped on the faucet. She soaked the cloth in warm water and wrung out the excess before bracing her hip on the counter and lifting her leg to wash away the caked on blood.

The baby turned a lazy circle so out of character that Elena felt her heard stutter. Her wet heel slid over the tile as she rinsed the blood down the drain before casting her eyes to her stomach.

She was still wearing Klaus’ stolen Henley and her leggings, but there was something different about the material. Her eyes quickly zeroed in on the dark stain just above her naval.

She gripped the shirt’s hem with shaking fingers, willed her heart to slow down. It wouldn’t do her any good to panic until she knew for sure that there was something to freak out over; so what if the baby was moving slower than normal? She might have been tired.

Her lips formed a thin line as she forced herself to breathe and drag the shirt up.

++++

His pulse slammed in his neck, pounding wildly through his body it carried his indignation to every cell making him quiver. There would be hell to pay when he found whoever had taken her; heads would roll, blood would soak the earth, and if she was hurt – or worse – her captor would suffer endlessly.

His fingers drummed against the arm rest. The plane – racing at 575 mph – was going to slow, but it was still faster than driving or running.

++++

She braced her hands on the kitchen counter, squinted against the too bright light. Her head was killing her, and every muscle ached as if she had run a marathon without training. She was in serious need of a spa day, but she would settle for something cold to take the pain from her gums.

“He had an accent,” she murmured, swallowing, “it was faint…” she squinted, trying to summon up the hazy memory. “He had me. Elena was inside, but she came out… pushed me back in…”

“Please go on,” Elijah tilted his head. He watched her tongue run along her gums.

“I… I got back up and ran outside. She was struggling and he said something to her,” she bit her bottom lip, “and she just stopped. I tried to stop him and he…” her fingers traced her throat. She could still hear the loud snap. “I should be dead.”

“Technically you are, darling,” Kol sighed. His eyes cut to Caroline.

“It wasn’t me,” she held out her hands.

Jenna latched onto his words, fixing him with horror filled eyes. “I’m dead?”

They say there are five stages of grief, and they all watched as she cycled through the first four before collapsing on a bar stool.

Elijah was the first to approach her, slowly with one hand in front of him in a gesture of peace. He stopped a few steps away and ducked his head to meet her eyes.

“I understand that everyone processes their transition at a different pace, but I’m afraid I must interrupt. That man you saw, the one you fought, has Elena,” he saw her eyes flash. “I’m not sure how much she told you, but the father of her child…”

“Is a colossal dick,” Jeremy finished.

“I was going to say he has a lot of enemies,” Elijah held back his sigh.

“I like Jeremy’s definition,” Kol smirked.

“I told you all I know,” Jenna shook her head. “What else can I do?”

“You can let one of us,” Elijah motioned towards his little brother and sister, “into your head so we can see who it is.”

Rebekah leaned on the counter, braced by her elbow. She could read the confusion in Jenna’s face.

“It’s a neat little trick of vampires,” she explained. “Speaking of… if you want to live then you’re going to need to drink human blood.”

Caroline moved to the fridge and returned with a bag of blood.

“That can wait a moment,” Elijah murmured. He held up his hands and nodded to Jenna. “May I?”

She eyed his hands nervously and swallowed. The thought of someone in her head had never before crossed her mind and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the reality of it, but she didn’t have time to dwell on the full extent of her situation.

“What do I do?” Her teeth sank into her bottom lip.

“Just think about last night, and I’ll see it,” he nodded, “with any luck I’ll recognize him.”

++++

He should have killed her the second he laid eyes on her. She was the doppelganger. He knew it. He had met Katerina Petrova during the seventeenth century and heard rumors of another in Mystic Falls when Klaus broke his curse. He knew the girl was vital to any future plans the hybrid had and even if the tales of the child in her womb were unfounded she was possibly the most important woman in Klaus’ life aside from his sister.

He should have killed her, but he couldn’t.

There was something about her that had stayed his hand. Something that reminded him of the man he had once been before an Original had made him a monster.

She had fought him. She had struggled against him, knowing he had come for her, in order to protect the people she cared about. She had fought him to protect her baby and the last person in the world that she loved.

She reminded him of his wife. Bridget had fought him to save their child, but in the end she had not held the strength or power of the goddess with whom she shared a name. Elena possessed the same sort of fire.

He should have killed her, but he wouldn’t – not yet.

He hadn’t been able to stop from harming Bridget, his child, or anyone on his estate, but he could stay his hand where Elena was concerned; nobody had compelled him.

He was pulled from his thoughts when the bedroom door banged open, and turned to look at her. The fire in her eyes was back.

“What did you do to me?” Elena held her stomach protectively and stopped a few steps away – just out of arms reach.

“Tested a theory,” he tipped his head to the left. “Should it prove to be fruitless you are free to go.”

Elena’s eyes narrow for a second before she steels her nerves and tiptoes around the counter. The first thing she sees is an empty syringe with a drop of blood clinging to the tip of the needle. The second thing she sees is an overturned foot.

Her breath comes in quick pants as she moves closer, eyes following the length of a denim clad leg. She takes the images in slowly: plaid shirt, unruly curls, and a neck bent at an awkward angle.

“You… you…” she swallowed. Every instinct told her to spin back around and keep the vampire in her sight at all times, but her legs refused to move.

“I told you I wished to prove your child’s paternity,” he poured a glass of scotch and took a sip. “If it is indeed Niklaus Mikaelson’s child then he shall awaken soon enough as a hybrid in transition.”

“You killed him!” She managed to find her voice.

“I wish I could set your mind at ease and tell you he volunteered for this, but alas I cannot,” he swirled the amber liquid in the glass.

“You murdered him!” Elena inhaled sharply.

“You should be grateful for my actions,” he moved closer until he was in her personal space and looked over her shoulder to the dead werewolf. “If you are correct in your accusation and this young man remains dead then he will be free from the curse that plagues his pack and you will be free to go.”

She could feel her internal organs shaking, but outwardly she was calm. The only sign of her fear was the slight tremor in her voice.

“If he wakes up?”

Something dark passed behind his eyes and she tried to look away, but he caught her chin in a grip that wasn’t quite hard enough to bruise.

“I’ll make your death swift.”

Her heart hammered. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was lying. In that moment she wasn’t sure what she wanted more: for the werewolf to wake up and have a chance to live, or for him to stay dead.

“It’ll be a few hours at least and I’ve a meeting to attend,” his fingers tightened under her chin. He put down his glass, reached under her hair and unhooked the necklace in one smooth movement that was too quick for her to see until the silver sizzled in his palm.

“No,” she gasped, reaching for the chain. She didn’t have quick enough reflexes to reclaim it though. “No, please…”

“Relax, love,” his pupils dilated. “You will not go out of this apartment.”

“Not gonna compel me to not jump out the window?” She reclaimed her chin. Her feet scrambled back so fast that she tripped over the coffee table and fell into an armchair.

“There’s no need for that,” he shook his head, “we’re seven stories up.”

++++

She sat in the armchair hours later with her arms curled protectively around her stomach, her legs folded under her body, and her eyes trained on the body on the floor.

She had never doubted Klaus when he told her the baby was his in spite of her mind screaming that he was a monster and she shouldn’t believe a word out of his mouth. She had never doubted him. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do so and deny he was the father to her captor because she didn’t believe it wasn’t true.

She lifted her hand to her mouth and chewed on her nail. She had already checked the entire apartment. She had figured it would be too much to hope for a phone, but she had thought she might find something that would give her a clue as to where she was. There was nothing, and the apartment was too high up for her to read any of the street signs below.

She had also checked for a fire escape, but had come up empty handed there as well. There was a fire escape, but the only way to reach it was to climb out the kitchen window unto a precarious ledge that she was likely to tumble off of before she could reach the rickety ladder.

She had one chance at escape and he was lying on the living room floor.

She chewed at her nail until it was bitten down to the quick and moved on to another. She was chewing on her thumb nail when it happened.

He jerked up with a gasp and sucked in greedy breaths while pushing his chin length curls from his face.

Elena didn’t know what to make of the way he stared at his hands and then the sun. She uncurled her legs and carefully placed her feet on the floor feeling the antique carpet between her toes.

“Hello,” she exhaled, “I’m Elena.”

He twisted around on his hip and stared up at her, rubbing a hand over his dark beard. Everything in the room was too bright and there was a throbbing in his head, under his gums.

The clouds rolled across the sky making the sun shine on his face. He could easily remember the last time the sun had shone on his features nearly a decade before.

“Where am I?” He asked, squinting.

“I was really hoping you could tell me that,” she swallowed, meeting his dark eyes.

His gaze landed on the syringe still sitting on the coffee table and his fingers dropped from his cheek to his neck. He could feel the rush of the blood that had been forced into his body and the hands that had wrenched his head to the side.

“I’m sorry…” Elena trailed off, biting her lip.

“Jackson,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry Jackson,” she moved her hands to her knees, “but you’re in transition.”

“Because it’s not bad enough for the vampires to persecute us,” he scoffed, “now they’re gonna turn us too.”

Elena shook her head and tucked her hair behind her ears.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but transitioning into a vampire,” she smoothed her shirt – Klaus’ shirt – over her baby bump. “A vampire didn’t turn you…” she chewed her lip, glancing down, “… my baby did, and now, because you woke up, the vampire that killed you is gonna kill me.”

“Your baby…” his eyes fell to her stomach.

Elena nodded and reached for the knife she had pilfered from one of the kitchen drawers. She pressed the tip to her thumb until a bead of blood broke the skin and then twisted her hand to let the blood drip into a glass of water.

“The only way you live is if you drink my blood,” she sighed, pressing a tissue to the wound. “It’s your choice, but I hope you do because I need your help.”

He reached for the glass without a word and stared at the clear liquid. He had felt the ache in his gums when he saw the blood on her skin; his body craved it.

“What am I turning into Elena?” He resisted the urge to down the liquid and met her eyes. “How did your baby do this?”

“You’re transitioning into a hybrid,” Elena took a deep breath and slid from the chair to kneel with him on the floor, “like the baby’s dad.”

She took a second deep breath and told him everything.

++++

He angrily punched the answer call button as he sped through the sleepy streets of Mystic Falls. The voice that filled the car made him want to hang up immediately.

“Don’t disconnect the call, Niklaus.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Klaus took a turn a little too fast. The car rose on two wheels before righting itself.

“Because I have his name,” Elijah sighed.

“Who?” Klaus slowed down as he passed the school and got caught in the lunch hour traffic. In that moment he wasn’t overly opposed to running over the students blocking his path, but he knew Elena wouldn’t like that and he didn’t have time to get waste on needless accidents.

“Alastair Duquesne.”

He swore loudly and punched at the steering wheel hard enough to dent the circle.

“Save your outbursts for Alastair, brother,” Elijah soothed. Klaus could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “She’s been abducted, and as soon as you’re here Miss Bennett will perform a locator spell.”

“Why hasn’t she done that already?” Klaus snapped.

“She has tried, but he must have gotten a witch to cloak Elena. Kol is hoping he has not cloaked the baby as well, so calm your temper until you have an appropriate outlet for it.”

“He’s going to kill her!”

“How can you be so sure? Who is he?”

Klaus took a deep breath and exhaled in an attempt to remain calm, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t calm down. He couldn’t relax. The only reason he hadn’t slaughtered the entire town in a fit of rage was the belief that she was still alive. Alastair would kill her – of that he was certain – but he would not accept her death until he was provided proof of it.

“Do you recall my anger when Katerina ran?”

“How could I forget? You drew Mikael straight to us and we were forced to flee once more.”

Klaus turned onto Elena’s street. “I thought we needed a little distraction.”

“Niklaus, what did you do?”

He could hear the exasperation in his brother’s voice. After a thousand years he was more than familiar with the sound of expectant disappointment.

“I distracted Mikael,” he gritted his teeth, “and now my distraction has returned to haunt me.”

Kol’s voice joined Elijah’s over the phone.

“Nik?”

“I turned him,” he admitted. “I then compelled him to slaughter his entire estate.”

He hung up the phone and stepped out of the car in time to see his siblings exiting the house to stand on the porch. His eyes flickered to Bonnie Bennett and the daylight ring she was spelling in a patch of sun.

“Taking Elena seems a little more personal than that,” Rebekah crossed her arms. Surprise flickered across her features when her brother actually acknowledged her statement.

“I may have included his wife and child in my compulsion.”

Rebekah’s mouth popped open. She snapped it closed a second later, biting back her question about what Elena Gilbert had ever seen in him; he was talking to her again and she was not going to risk pushing him away.

“Why are you making a daylight ring?” Klaus turned his full attention to Bonnie. “There is a locator spell to perform.”

“It’s for Jenna,” Caroline poked her head out of the front door.

Tags: @eternityunicorn @elejahforever @elejah-wonderland @morsmornte @fandomrulesall @xanderling

#klaus mikaelson #elena gilbert #klena #klaulena #addicted fic

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ks-caster · 4 years

Text

Get Out of Hell Free Card

Fandom(s): Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries

Characters: Dean Winchester, Katherine Pierce

Summary: Of all the terrible places to meet that special someone, hell has to be the worst. When a soul Dean encountered in the demonic sauna turns up topside in the wake of Lucifer’s escape, he’s not sure what to make of it. And Katherine, for her part, isn’t the sort to come back to life “for decorative purposes only.” She’s not out of tricks yet—and certainly isn’t out of enemies.

“Wait a damn second, I read this one on fanfic a few years ago - and then it disappeared!” You sure did, internet stranger; I posted it drunk, updated a few times, then deleted it after realizing I’d never have the time to dedicate to it. Outline and first few chapters are available under the cut if anyone would like to take it over!

I’ll be the Name You Call Out at Night

Dean was choking, choking on the overwhelming stench of sulfur and ash and blood and iron. With each passing moment, his mind weighed in differently in the ongoing decision: to breathe in the noxious fumes or to empty the filth from his lungs and suffocate. Sometimes he breathed, then coughed and rasped out labored, excruciating breaths. Sometimes he didn’t, and his head swam in a pool of rancid, molasses-ey filth until he gave in and made another attempt to get some oxygen.

The rough stone floor was familiar under his bare feet—cold and burning and covered in stones and blood and shards of who-knew-what-else; Dean had long ago gotten used to the fact that his feet would just always be bleeding, there was no getting around it. The gritty pain was a simple constant—a fact in the back of his mind, usually disregarded. All around him, the distorted echoes of screams repelled off the walls, forming a dizzying cacophony of collective agony. He inhaled again, holding the tainted breath a moment to try futilely to get used to it. His exhale was a loud, aching coughing fit.

Red light from fires and furnaces and demons’ burning eyes reflected eerily over every surface, and the deep shadows seemed to shift like living things, clinging to the walls in fear, trying not to be noticed. Chains hung from ceilings half shrouded in poison mist, filthy condensation dripping from the dark metal. There were people hanging, too, but they were undefined, just shapes of people, just a vague notion that there were human souls hanging all around him, trapped in endless suffering.

But one soul, one soul had a face.

Dean felt her before he saw her; her aura glowed against his back, and he smelled cinnamon and ozone and pinot noir.

“Dean,” she whispered, voice dry and broken and unsteady, either from disuse or constant screaming, he didn’t know.

“Dean,” she said again, almost a sob, almost a prayer, and he found he had to turn around; he couldn’t refuse her.

Her olive skin was spattered everywhere with blood and soot, riven open by wounds covering her body. Brown hair hung limply, coated in grease, shadowing her face. But her eyes… her huge, soulful brown eyes were perfectly discernable.

“Dean.” She murmured his name once more, heavily, then flicked her gaze up to look into his eyes through a haze of blood and pain and tears.

“You left me here to burn,” she sobbed, voice shattering as she caught fire. Dean stood, rooted to the spot, struggling against the paralysis of invisible bonds as every cell in his body strained to run to her, to put out the fire, to do something. But all he could do was stand there and watch as the flames consumed her, melting off her flesh and charring her bones until there was nothing left of her but a brittle, blackened skeleton, still billowing smoke.

“You left me here to burn,” her voice echoed off of the walls, that one whisper somehow loud enough to drown out every scream in hell.

“You left me here to burn.

Dean.

Dean.”

“DEAN!”

Dean awoke with a choked gasp, rocketing out of bed and almost wrapping his hands around Sam’s throat, but stopping at the last moment as he regained his senses.

“Sammy?” he asked in confusion, realizing belatedly that he was safe in his motel room, hadn’t been in hell for over a year, and had just awoken from a bad dream.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asked in concern, sitting down on the edge of his brother’s bed as Dean let his hands drop limply to his sides and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He hadn’t had that dream in a while—he supposed, morbidly, that it was due time she turned up in his head again.

“I’m fine, Sam,” he responded reflexively, wondering how much tossing and turning he’d been doing. He glanced at the clock—it read 3:09am. The screen of Sam’s laptop glowed from its place on the table; Sam must’ve still been up, doing research or something. At least that meant he hadn’t been loud enough to wake him.

“You sure?” Sam asked, a shadow of his kicked-puppy face appearing as he stood awkwardly back up again. After their three-month separation, they’d only been back together a few days, and the amount of tension between them was escalating to new levels of horrible.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Dean sighed, rubbing his face exhaustedly.

“You left me here to burn,” she screamed in his memory, and he shuddered. He heard Sam shuffle away, but before he could add pushing his brother away to the list of things he felt unforgivably guilty for that night, Sam’s footsteps returned, and a beer bottle appeared in his field of vision. He looked up a moment, then accepted it, bending the cap off with his ring and taking a long gulp of liquid calm.

“So,” Sam asked after taking a long swig of his own beer. “Who’s Katherine?”

Dean cursed himself internally. Apparently, he’d been talking in his sleep. Who knew what else Sam might’ve picked up?

“She’s no one,” he responded quickly, and then, before Sam could call him out on his obvious lie he added, “some girl I met years ago. A hot one.” The pale imitation of his normal shit-eating grin wouldn’t have fooled a seven-year-old child, and certainly not his remarkably perceptive, pain-in-the-ass little brother. But Sam just nodded, dropping the subject, and headed off to sit back down at his computer, his wide shoulders drooping, and head hanging a little more than usual.

Dean cursed himself again, pressing the beer bottle against his heated forehead. Of course Sam wasn’t going to push it—he wasn’t pushing anything, since Dean had invited him back. He’d been running himself ragged, like he was desperately trying to prove that he could do something right. Pushing him away was the last thing Dean had been going for.

Weren’t they supposed to be trusting each other, he wondered dejectedly?

“You left me here to burn,” Katherine screamed, her voice raging against the insides of his skull like an ocean storm trapped in a bottle.

“Hell,” he said quietly.

“What?” Sam asked, looking up.

“I met her...” Dean started in a low voice, glancing up to meet his brother’s eyes. “I met Katherine in hell.”

So, What’re You in For?

“It was my first day down there,” Dean began, then took a long draught of his beer, marveling at how much he sounded like a kid talking about a new school or some other innocuous activity. The whole thing was just to messed up to talk about—one of the many, many reasons why Dean religiously avoided the subject. He glanced up, meeting his brother’s eyes as he considered how much to tell him. Sam was unconsciously wringing his beer bottle between his hands, resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned in, perfectly attentive.

“I died. Then I woke up in hell, alone, chained up…” he trailed off, throat aching at the memory of screaming Sam’s name into the abyss, terror robbing him of reason as cold iron meat hooks dug into his flesh, preventing him even from struggling. He took another swig, then set the half empty bottle on the night stand.

“After a while,” he continued finally, “Alistair turned up. Introduced himself. Went to town on me.” He watched Sam flinch in empathy, and quickly continued, not wanting either of them to linger on that particular detail of the story. “When he was done for the day, he made me his offer for the first time—he’d take me off the rack if I put souls on. I told him to shove it up his ass, and he left, promising he’d be back bright and early in the morning…”

Dean went limp, the tiny spark of bravado he’d mustered in the end instantly drowned in the flood of pain from every part of his body. His breath was nothing more than a desperate sob; his wounds had wounds, and in spite of what he’d just said, he had no idea how he was going to survive another day of that torment, much less a month, much less a year, much less eternity. He couldn’t… he knew he couldn’t. But what was the alternative? He wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy; how could he do it to others? Strangers? People who could be just like him, doing whatever they had to do to save their loved ones. So what would happen, then? Overwhelmed, he let tears fall in rivers down his face and drip down his neck to mingle with the mess of blood and sweat that was his torso.

“You should probably reconsider that,” a dry voice suggested from somewhere off to his left. Turning his head slightly—well, more like letting it fall and hang in a slightly different direction. A curtain of chains obstructed his vision, but through the links of iron and permanent gloom, he spotted the shape of a blood-drenched, lower leg; feminine in shape, with olive toned skin. Then he noticed the shortened, mangled shape of a foot, and thought he spotted some little round things scattered over the floor. He shuddered, and stopped trying to look.

“Oh yeah?” he responded, gulping hard, and was mildly pleased when his voice came out as a raspy growl instead of a tear-filled cry.

“No one gets that offer on their first day,” the voice continued. “It’s reserved for souls who show potential. You might not be lucky enough to hear it again.”

Definitely a woman’s voice, he decided, although it sounded like she’d spent a month being force-fed sand. Maybe she had—this was hell, after all.

“Yeah, maybe,” he shot back reflexively. “But I’d hate to give that bastard the satisfaction of joining his team on Day 1.”

She laughed, a short, dry, humorless bark of a laugh.

“You’re a rare beast around these parts, kid.”

“So they tell me,” he replied wondering a little about the word ‘kid.’ She couldn’t see him any more than he could see her, so either she’d been an old lady when she died, or she’d been down here a long time.

“You got a name, rare beast?” she asked after a long silence.

“Dean,” he said. “Dean Winchester.”

“Winchester like the rifle?” she checked.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “Just like the rifle. You got a name, random hell roomie?” She laughed again, a single dry huff, just like before.

“‘Hell roomie?’ Who talks like that? What are you, a sorority girl from crappy horror-college-sitcom?”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Dean groused. But the acerbic banter was like a breath of clean air amid the unendurable fumes of hell. He was starting to feel like himself again. It wasn’t much, but it was good, and there was precious little good down in the pit.

“My name by birth is Katerina Petrova,” she introduced herself. “But later in life, I went by Katherine. Katherine Pierce.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Kitty-Kat,” Dean responded. “Although under the circumstances, I guess that’s more of an insult than anything else.”

“I suppose it’s all relative,” Katherine allowed. “So, first day in the pit, huh? What year is it up there?”

“2008. May 2nd,” Dean added. Sam’s birthday… his heart twisted. What had happened to Sam? He’d left him all alone with Lilith and a hungry hellhound. What if…? He had to halt that train of thought—he couldn’t bear it.

“So,” he continued, casting around for something—anything—to say. “What’re you in for?”

“Come again?” Katherine asked, apparently confused.

“What’d you sell your soul for?” he clarified. “I brought my little brother back from the dead. Got swindled, too—I only got one year to live after the deal went down.”

“Huh,” Katherine replied. “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Understatement of the century. So, what about you, huh? Sell your soul for money, or for love?”

This time, Katherine laughed for real. It was still dry, still broken, but it was a deep, full-bellied laugh.

“Oh, Winchester,” she said once she’d gotten ahold of herself. “You really are a rare beast. Guess that explains it though—not many actual good people wind up down here.

“What am I in for?” she repeated after a pause. “I did bad things to good people.”

The Bitter Aftertaste of Home

“Sam!” Dean screamed, straining against invisible bonds as, nearly blinded by tears, he watched helplessly while Alistair slowly flayed off what must’ve been the hundredth piece of his brother’s skin. Sam’s screams had reached inhuman levels, and Dean would’ve shed his own skin inch by inch with a smile on his face, done anything, suffered anything, to make it stop.

“He’s not as pretty on the inside,” Alistair murmured as he peeled off the flesh of Sam’s index finger like a glove.

“Please,” Dean begged pathetically. “Please, you have me, hurt me, torture me, not him!”

“Now why would I do that,” Alistair purred, “when I can hurt you so much more by hurting him? It’s ironic,” he continued, moving on to Sam’s middle finger, “that you sold your soul to save him, and then you let him get dragged down here too…”

Dean was speechless with horror, but before he could respond—or vomit—the scene in front of him distorted, and someone was standing between him and the horror show. He’d never seen her before—a twenty-something woman with long brown curls and olive-toned skin

“Relax, Winchester” she said, and he knew her voice. “You’re dreaming.” Even if he’d only heard it for the first time last week, there was no mistaking the only non-demonic, non-screaming voice he’d heard in hell. As his mind started to make connections, he realized he could see right through everything around him. He blinked, and Sam and Alistair vanished.

Katherine lingered for a moment, vague and shifting, like colored smoke suggesting a human shape. He blinked again, and she was gone. He was staring at a blood-spattered stone wall, a rack of torture instruments, and a blissfully empty room. No Alistair, no Sam, no Katherine. He turned his head, glancing out the corner of his eye to the olive-skinned leg that was all of her he’d ever seen in person.

“What the hell was that?” he gasped out, voice weak from relief.

“That, Winchester, was what we call a ‘poison paradise dream,’” she explained. “When they get bored with us, or need a break, sometimes they send one down the pipes. Can’t torture someone who has nothing left to lose.” He couldn’t see her shrug, but he heard it in her voice.

‘Poison paradise…’ it was aptly named. He’d been at Bobby’s waking up from a nap on the couch, Sam had been tickling his nose with a feather duster to make him sneeze himself conscious, and as soon as he did, he’d launched himself at the bigger man. Bobby had walked in on a massive jumble of tangled limbs and plaid flannel and denim, called them both “idjits,” and then promptly dropped dead when Alistair stabbed him from behind. Needless to say, it had all gone quickly downhill from there.

“Thanks for the wakeup call,” he murmured.

“Don’t mention it,” she responded. “It was accidental.” Dean’s relief was too potent for him to care. But after a while of silence while he caught his breath, he started to get curious.

“I saw you,” he said in confusion. “How come I could see you?”

She didn’t answer for so long that he gave up and figured she just wouldn’t tell him. But eventually, she spoke up again.

“Genetically speaking, I’m a witch,” she sighed. “I come from a line of creepy mofo’s called ‘travelers.’ Also, for most of my considerably long life I was a vampire,” she added, like it was an afterthought.

“Sorry, WHAT?” Dean choked out. Of all things, ‘vampire’ was not what he’d been expecting.

“You heard me the first time,” she snapped. “Born a witch, but never practiced, spent 500-some years as a vampire, then because of a crazy fluke, I died a human. Instead of running around purgatory with the rest of the magical maniacs, I got sent down here. Joy. Anyhow, I still have some low-level ESP. Enough to take the occasional field trip into other people’s minds. Not that it does me any good—everything in hell is suffering. A change of scenery doesn’t really help.”

“Purgatory?” Dean asked in confusion, not even sure where to start with what she’d just dropped on him, so he latched onto the most unfamiliar thing and went with it.

“Like Valhalla for monsters,” she explained with a sigh. “Lots of fighting, lots of forest, all monster, all the time. No humans allowed. No hunters, though. And no dungeons… You get the idea.”

“So… if you’d died a vampire, you would’ve wound up there, ‘stead of here?”

“Yup,” she responded, popping the ‘p.’

“Monster Valhalla?” Sam repeated, finishing off his beer and setting the empty bottle down. Dean almost laughed. His brother was doing the exact same thing—latching onto the most unfamiliar thing in a heaping pile of unfamiliar, confusing things.

“Yeah, apparently,” Dean responded, returning from the refrigerator, another pair of bottles strung between his fingers. He handed one to Sam, who took it and deftly whacked it open on the edge of the table. Dean had censored some, especially about the content of his poison paradise dream, but he’d tried to at least be mostly honest.

“It took her a long time to tell me about herself—wasn’t exactly a great environment for sharing and caring. But I got the picture in bits and pieces. She was born in Bulgaria, got herself turned into a vampire when some grade-A fugly bastard tried to use her for a blood-sacrifice, spent the next five centuries or so as one of the worst fang-bangers this world has ever seen. Ate and stole and murdered her way across the world, always running from the family of creeps who wanted to kill her as a human. Then somehow she got turned back human, and one of her many enemies killed her,” he finished.

“Spent her life being the baddest of the bad… she earned herself a one-way ticket downstairs. You know… she was everything that we’ve always hated,” he sighed. “She was a monster, even among monsters. But down there… well, she wasn’t kidding about me being a ‘rare beast.’” He laughed humorlessly, and took a long drink.

“It wasn’t like we became besties, or anything,” he sighed. “Again, not exactly the environment for it. But… sometimes we’d talk. And in a world of screams, that meant something. Three more times, she broke into my head and pulled me out of a nightmare, and in a place like that…” he swallowed dryly, and took a shallow sip to wet his throat. “There wasn’t a lot of what you could call kindness floating around,” he muttered, gripping his bottle a little tighter. “So she really stood out, y’know?” he trailed off lamely.

There was no good way to explain it—not to someone who had never been to hell. And even now, Dean knew that he’d throw himself headfirst back down in the pit before ever letting Sam have the kind of experience that would let him really, truly understand what someone like Katherine had meant to him.

“I’m hardly going to judge you for your friendships, Dean,” Sam responded when the silence dragged on into awkwardness. “Especially not under the circumstances.” Dean nodded, for lack of a more intelligent response.

“After about a year or so,” he continued heavily, “Alistair figured out that having her around was a comfort for me, so he had her moved.” Not before he’d wheeled her in, and exercised every iota of his considerable sadistic creativity to destroy her, over and over, until the image of her agonized face was seared into Dean’s eyelids. And then for months afterwards, he’d try to actually carve her picture, into whatever part of Dean’s body suited his fancy the best. “Once in a while, she’d turn up in my dreams though. I was never sure how much was her doing ESP crap, and how much was just twisted hell dreams, but I saw her a few more times over the years.”

“After I… well, once I was able to walk around a little more,” he whispered, then cleared his throat and continued in a stronger voice, “I tried to find her sometimes. Couldn’t tell you why, exactly; soothe my conscience, idle curiosity… maybe it was because, even though she was basically a horrible person, she wasn’t a demon, and I just wanted someone to talk to. Someone who… someone who was as bad as me.” His throat ached, and his eyes felt threateningly moist. No matter how much time passed, no matter what he did, he knew he’d never be able to forgive himself for what he’d done in hell. Especially now that he knew that his actions had been the catalyst for the apocalypse.

Before Sam could interrupt with some kind, gentle words that he would barely be able to hear, much less accept, he cleared his throat again and pressed on.

“I never found her,” he gulped out, sounding almost steady. “I found out much later that Alistair had her sent to a deeper circle, probably closer to the cage. I’m glad I didn’t find her. After all, if I had…” he stared pensively at his open palm, wondering what they might have made him do to her—wondering if he would have done it.

“Anyway, that’s who Katherine is,” he sighed, clenching his fist and refusing to meet Sam’s compassionate gaze. “So, sometimes I… I guess I dream about her. Y’know, the subconscious does what it wants. Besides… she was hot.” He swallowed, remembering her astral-projected self; thick brown curls framing her face, thumbs stuck casually into her pants pockets as she eyed him with one perfectly manicured eyebrow arched heavenwards.

“Relax, Winchester, you’re dreaming,” her voice echoed in her head, vaguely and without the urgency of his dream, but the memory remained. The evil vampire who’d kept him sane, and the four simple words that had been his salvation when things had been at the very worst.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced, bolting to his feet before Sam could ask any further questions. This had been a mistake to talk about, he was sure of it. He knew that Sam was overflowing with well-meaning compassion and brotherly love, but whenever Dean so much as thought about hell, he felt filthy, so filthy… he couldn’t accept anything that Sam was going to try and do to make him feel better, and even if he could, he was afraid that somehow he would taint him with the stain of hell. He shuddered as he almost ran into the bathroom, and struggled to turn on the shower delicately, rather than ripping the handle off the wall.

When the Sun Rises and the Dream Fades

“It’s more demonic omens than I’ve ever seen in my life,” Bobby’s voice signed from his end of the phone.

“Probably par for the course these days,” Sam murmured, remembering the situation with [those hunter assholes.]

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Dean called, over the road noise.

“Be careful, idjits,” Bobby called back.

“You sure you’re up for this, Sammy?” Dean asked after Sam hung up the phone. Sam nodded wordlessly, knowing that he was up for anything if it meant stopping this horrible thing he’d started, and getting back into his brother’s good graces. Dean braced the steering wheel with his knee so he could check his gun one more time, then holstered it and accelerated as the highway approached the small town. According to Bobby’s intel, half the town had been possessed, leading to bloody, destructive revels and the death and maiming of many of the remaining human residents. Sam fiddled with Ruby’s knife, eyes trained on the buildings as they drew nearer, listening for anything out of the ordinary.

However, the first sound they could pick up over the growl of the Impala’s engine was a human voice, sounding like it was over a loudspeaker. Dean frowned, rolling down the window as the words of an exorcism became clearer and clearer, and as they entered the town, a great black cloud rose up from hundreds of points, swirling together before dissipating as the demons were flung back into hell.

“...I guess someone got here first?” Dean muttered, parking the Impala and getting out, watching as people ran out of the buildings, some bleeding, some with pale, drawn faced and bloody hands, embracing loved ones or apologizing profusely for acts committed while possessed.

“Where could they have broadcasted that from?” Sam asked, following him out of the car and frowning. “It had to be audible for miles.” The brothers exchanged glances, then opened the trunk to retrieve their FBI suits.

-0-

“Far as I can tell,” the exhausted city worker explained as she led them through city hall, “that weird latin prayer thing had to come from here; but I can’t imagine how they could have pulled it off. It’s not like we have a giant speaker system in this building or anything.”

“Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Ramirez,” Sam said politely. “We just need to take a quick look around, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

As they entered the elevator and the door slid shut, Dean glanced at his brother out of the corner of his eye.

“I sense a theory,” he commented. Sam nodded.

“Well, yeah. They do have a giant speaker system. Actually, every town has a giant speaker system in a central area.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, frowning.

“Storm sirens,” Sam shrugged. “I think whoever is responsible for this must’ve hooked up an exorcism to play through the weather alert system.”

“Smart, little brother,” Dean commented with a nod as the elevator played a tone to announce their arrival on the top floor.

+They look for the hunters responsible among the pandemonium, but eventually just find a laptop hooked up to the town’s storm siren system, with an exorcism that finished playing some time ago. A dude comes for his laptop, they introduce themselves, they all shake hands, he says he’s with a group called the Hellions and they’ve been basically cleaning up the recent demon messes. He says the group doesn’t really get involved with other hunters, though, and he shrugs them off and leaves.

+They follow him, but lose him a few towns over. They stop at a bar, and lo and behold, they see the dude, and a party of people drinking, and Katherine Pierce, in the flesh, drinking bourbon straight from the bottle.

+She makes eye-contact with Dean, who silently panics because seeing her means he’s asleep and about to wake up, possibly in hell since the dream is so vivid. She walks over to him and says, “Relax, Winchester. You’re completely awake this time.”

Outline:

[4] Chapter 1, I’ll be the Name You Call Out at Night: Dean has a nightmare about hell, and at the end, he sees Katherine (description only) who says “you left me here to burn.” She catches fire in front of him, and he reaches for her only to awaken with a start, safe in his motel room, Sam typing away at his computer. Set context (approximately which episode it is) and state that Dean and Sam are only recently back together, so things are awkward. But Sam tosses him a beer, knowing that he’s had a nightmare. He asks who Katherine is. (Katerina?) Dean says she’s no one—some girl he met a long time ago, a hot one… Sam drops it, but then Dean remembers that they’re supposed to be trusting each other, and he speaks up after a long silence. “Hell. I met her in hell.”

[4] Chapter 2, So, What’re You In For?: Dean describes his first day in hell. Alistair had introduced himself, and then gone to town on Dean—Dean trails off and refuses to describe that. He ends with the question Alistair asked every day, to which he replied “shove it up your ass.” Alistair left, and he went limp, exhausted and afraid of tomorrow. Then he hears a voice from a rack off to his left and a little aside, hidden by hanging chains and a rack of tools. He can see a pair of olive-skinned legs, female, covered in blood and ending in feet [with the toes cut off. Maybe he just says they seemed weirdly small until he realized… and then he doesn’t say more, or only implies it? Is that more or less graphic?] The voice says he should probably be smarter about that—no one gets that offer on their first day. It’s reserved for souls who show potential. He may not be lucky enough to hear it again. He says [something] and they converse a little. He introduces himself, and she does as well—but I haven’t decided if she’ll say Katherine or Katerina. She clarifies his last name, “Winchester, like the rifle?” and from then on calls him “Winchester.” He asks what she’s in for, and she’s confused. He says he sold his soul to bring his brother back from the dead. Katherine laughs and says that explains it. Good people are pretty rare down here. What am I in for? She laughs again. “I did bad things to good people.”

[4] Chapter 3, The Bitter Aftertaste of Home: Opens with another flashback—Dean having a Poison Paradise dream—vivid dreams to torment souls when their torturers took breaks. Dreams of home where everything’s perfect and then everything goes wrong, dreams of loved ones dying, worst memories relived, that sort of thing. He has one, and it’s horrific, until a woman he’s never seen before—and she stands out, specifically because he’s never seen her before—turns up and tells him he’s dreaming. “Relax, Winchester. You’re dreaming.” He wakes up, she explains how those work, and when he asks how the hell she got into his head, she says she used to be a vampire, and had a hereditary witch gene, and still retains some low-level ESP (not that it does me much good down here). He can’t for the life of him figure out how he feels about that. Cut to the present, have Dean summarize the rest of their relationship. They would speak in the evenings—if one could call them evenings—when they weren’t both completely exhausted. Once in a while, she’d appear in his dreams. It wasn’t like they’d become BFFs or anything—but in a situation like that, anything good really stands out. After the first year, Alistair figures out that having Katherine nearby is somehow a comfort for Dean, so he has her moved. Once every few years, though, she’d turn up in his dreams. One time she even completely restructured one of them so that they were basically out on a date instead of whatever was happening before. But he’s so far gone that he wonders if that was even her, or if hell’s just finding a new way to mess with his head. During his time as a torturer, he’d look for her once in a while, he doesn’t know why—to assuage his conscience, maybe? To have someone who was also—by her own admission—a completely horrible person, but who wasn’t a demon, who wasn’t all the way gone, to talk to? He’s not sure. But he never found her. He found out later that Alistair had her transferred to a deeper circle, closer to the cage. He says he dreams about her sometimes now that he’s out. He tries to brush it off as nothing, but thinking about her and thinking about hell has shaken him pretty badly. He goes to the bathroom to take a shower, and tries his damndest not to punch a hole in the wall.

[4] Chapter 4, When the Sun Rises and the Dream Fades: Dean and Sam hear about a bunch of people who were possessed in a town, and they head over, only to find out that there was a mass exorcism already. They look for the hunters responsible among the pandemonium, but eventually just find a laptop hooked up to the town’s storm siren system, with an exorcism that finished playing some time ago. A dude comes for his laptop, they introduce themselves, they all shake hands, he says he’s with a group called [name] and they’ve been basically cleaning up the recent demon messes. He says the group doesn’t really get involved with other hunters, though, and he shrugs them off and leaves. They follow him, but lose him a few towns over. They stop at a bar, and lo and behold, they see the dude, and a party of people drinking, and Katherine Pierce, in the flesh, drinking bourbon straight from the bottle. She makes eye-contact with Dean, who silently panics because seeing her means he’s asleep and about to wake up, possibly in hell since the dream is so vivid. She walks over to him and says, “Relax, Winchester. You’re completely awake this time.”

[1/4.5] Chapter 5, Out of the Frying Pan: Flashback to Katherine in hell, thinking about Dean Winchester and his ridiculous, depressing, pathetic, beautiful, impossible, self-sacrificing love for his brother. She spent half a millennium trying to find that kind of a love, but now it occurs to her, what might happen if she could love people the way he did? What if she could disregard herself and just do what she needed to do to protect the people she cared about? Not a sappy, weepy love like Elena Gilbert, but an iron-strong, undefeatable love, like Dean. What might she be like? Not that she has much opportunity for love in hell. When she hears the demons whispering, however, she figures out that Dean broke the first seal. When Castiel breaks in to rescue Dean, there’s pandemonium, and Katherine almost escapes. She winds up transferred even lower—to the inner circle. But she realizes that if the first seal is broken, once the rest go, the cage right next to her will pop open and all hell will break loose—literally. That would be fantastic cover for an escape. She starts telling every soul she meets. If all of them try to break out, then the disoriented and distracted demons can only deal with so many of them—some, at least, will escape. Finally, after over a century of planning and spreading the word, it happens, and thousands of souls break out. A few hundred actually make it, including Katherine. Part-way through communicating the plan, though, she’d started telling people to meet up once they were out. She meets with her comrades and tells them that they’re out of the frying pan, but headed right back into the fire if no one stops Lucifer. Clearly, they’re not the nicest bunch of people in the world, but since they happen to LIVE there, and don’t really relish the thought of hell on earth, they need to come up with a plan. Self-preservation is a great motivator. Flash forward to Katherine talking to the boys, explaining the seals. They’re carving seals in sets of two at 666 strategic points around the world. The first set is to re-seal the devil. The second set is a nuclear option. It’ll wipe out all magic and turn every magical creature within range human. But it’s a one-off, and any demons and angels still in heaven or hell won’t be affected. Now they just need a way to get the devil back into the cage long enough to close the door on his ass. She says if the boys have any ideas about that, they should give her a call. Sam feels relief because at least he did one slightly good thing in releasing these people who were theoretically going to help save the world. Still, he’s moody and broody, and goes back to the motel after a while. Dean and Katherine catch up, and wind up having sex in the woods. For a casual screw against a tree, Dean finds it to be pretty spectacular.

[5.5] Chapter 6, Please Don’t Raise the Bar: After Paris Hilton tries to murder the boys and Dean gets better about trusting Sam, they run into Katherine again, setting up the seals in a nearby town. She hangs out with them at a bar and while Dean goes off to take a call, she gets Sam talking. Sam admits how incredibly guilty he feels about all the shit that happened. “Okay, Sammy, I’m gonna stop you right there.” “It’s Sam.” “Whatever. You need to stop running your mouth about how all this apocalypse bullshit is ‘your fault.’ Thousands of angels, demons and humans contributed to this. You did not do this; you were just the patsy. Somehow you are simultaneously showing more hubris than any human I’ve ever met AND setting an unrealistic standard for ACTUAL bad people. And as a proud villain of 500-odd years, I refuse to try and live up to you and your ridiculously oversized conscience. Seriously, your morals match your height.” Katherine goes on to tell him that if he wants to do what he can to try and rectify this situation that thousands of people made and that cannot be fixed by one person alone, then by all means, he should do so, but that if he doesn’t, if he wants to walk away, it isn’t even actually his problem—there are people working on it. He should assume he’s required to stay to “clean up his mess;” that’s actually him running away from figuring out what he actually wants/should do. And she would know all about running away. After some further thought and conversation, Sam admits that he just wants to keep his brother safe, no matter what. Katherine gives him shit about how ridiculously pure he is, but says she kinda’ gets it. “The world must’ve been a shitty place for the four months that Dean Winchester wasn’t in it.” Sam says, choked up, that it was, it really was. Dean comes back from the call and Sam says that he needs some air, so he’s going to walk back to the motel. Dean offers to give Katherine a ride back to where her people are staying. He says that Sam seemed… lighter, somehow. She responds that she just told him the honest truth. He thanks her, they talk a little, then wind up having sex in the Impala. (This is where she gets pregnant. It’s September 14th 2009.)

[7.5] Chapter 7, Title: After Dean returns to his proper age, he straight up wants to have hot sex and remind himself that he’s young again—but instead of hitting on either of the perky bartenders, he finds himself thinking specifically of Katherine. He booty calls her, and Sam stays at Bobby’s while Dean drives across two states to meet her. They get a room this time, at the Doubletree Hotel. (Cut away to Sam and Bobby or something, because there’s another scene with them after the sex scene that I’m not showing.) After their lovemaking, they’re laying in bed, talking, kissing and cuddling—maybe she’s giving him a sexy massage? And he notices a little empty vial on the end-table. He asks what it is, and she says it’s vampire blood—a gift from a friend. She explains that she’s been taking a vial every day in case of emergencies. She says she’s not in a hurry to return to hell. Although normally Dean would have been horrified that she’s planning on going back to being a vampire, his perspective has changed, both from hell and because he realizes that, for some perverse reason, he trusts her. In the morning when Dean wakes up, Cas and Sam are there—Cas grabbed Sam and appeared in Dean’s hotel room with no preamble. Katherine wraps herself up in Dean’s discarded shirt and goes to take a shower while the men talk. Cas is there to talk about a new cult of people who broke out of hell and the way they threatened to make all magical creatures mortal, and even showed off their power in a small segment of the world to prove they were serious. He’s all worried about it, especially their leader, who he says is a legend for all the terrible things she did while she was alive, and how all the other magical creatures hate her. Sam starts to look uncomfortable, and Dean realizes that they’re talking about Katherine, and that Sam hasn’t said anything about who Katherine is. Katherine herself comes out of the shower, but fails to tell Castiel who she is.

[8] Chapter 8, Title: Katherine is with the boys when they seek out the Trickster (Gabriel) for help and whatnot—so she goes to TV land with them.

[9] Chapter 9, Title: While the boys are rushing to Chuck’s aid, only to discover that Becky called them to a Supernatural convention, Katherine gets into some pretty hot water on her own, and someone shoots her in the head. Luckily she has vampire blood in her system, as per her plan, so she wakes up in transition. However, some hunters (either Walt and Roy, who eventually shoot Sam and Dean in episode 16, or Tim and Reggie, who tried to get Sam to drink Demon blood in episode 3) find her as she’s waking up, and she doesn’t want to get killed immediately, so, knowing that she has 24 hours to get human blood in her system, she plays along as the frightened trauma survivor, waiting for a chance to slip away. However, they suspect her, and things get complicated. She barely escapes, and is stumbling around trying to find her way to the hospital to raid a blood bank—she’s been a lot more moral since coming back from the dead—but a guy tries to sexually assault her, and she thanks him (basically for being such an irredeemable bastard) before stabbing him in the throat and sucking on the cut. (Alternatively, she calls Dean, telling him she’s gonna transition and wants to tell him what he means to her while he’ll still listen to her, while she’s still human. He asks her how long she can wait, and then hangs up and drives to meet her. He lets her drink his blood.)

[9.5] Chapter 10, Title: Katherine realizes later that she has no idea how to tell Dean she’s a vampire again. She expected to be happy being a vampire again—she hated being mortal—but then she realizes that she’ll probably lose Dean over this; she remembers how uncomfortable he seemed when she admitted she’d been drinking vampire blood. She didn’t think she’d be this afraid to lose him, since they’ve only hooked up a few times, and it’s not like they’re actually in a relationship, but he means more to her than just some guy, than a boyfriend… she doesn’t know what he is to her. He’s her inspiration, he’s the person who changed her life. He’s the first soul that really touched hers. He calls her after the Supernatural convention, wanting to kind of rant about the con, and people having memorized their life story in detail, but also not sure how he feels about the fact that he’s an inspiration to so many. She gets unexpectedly choked up, and he’s trying to ask her what’s wrong, but she hangs up, can’t bring herself to tell him. (This one only if option 1 for the previous chapter.)

[10] Chapter 11, Title: x The Hell-Raisers (what is her cult called?!?!) have a presence in the “kill Lucifer” episode. Dean finds out that Katherine is a vampire again. Also, she starts noticing that her tastes have changed radically—they’re all messed up and she’s craving everything under the sun. She chalks it up to vampirism, a second time around. Possibly she confronts Lucifer, and he actually tells her she should be more careful with her life.

[x] Chapter x, Title: x

Katherine discovers that as a pregnant vampire, she can feel the dreams of her babies.

Also something happens to make it questionable whether or not the global spell will work, although the seals should still be functioning.

[x] Chapter x, Title: x

[17.5] Chapter x, Title: After the Whore of Babylon and Dean decides he’s going to give himself up to save the world and also make sure Sammy doesn’t, it’s Katherine he goes to see for his farewell tour. In a previous conversation, she’d said, “what are the chances we both survive this? What happens to our kids?” He tells Katherine he’s going to surrender, and tells her to get somewhere safe. She says that she acquired a spell to psychically link the twins so that no matter what happens, no matter who they lose, they’ll never be alone. On the one hand, Dean thinks this is weird, but on the other, he’s getting used to the fact that his little family, whether it’s his brother or himself or his girlfriend or his kids and their nebulously magical heritage, IS pretty weird. He gives her a vial of his blood for the spell. After he leaves, intending to surrender, Katherine becomes increasingly frustrated because it was supposed to be her taking the bullet this time—but she also needs to protect her kids, so she can’t keep them safe and also martyr herself to save the world—besides which, it’s now a 50-50 shot with the humanization spell.

For the purposes of this fic, Katherine died in 2002, because Dean died May 2nd, 2008. For every month of death, 10 years pass in hell, so she’s been down there for over 700 years.

#Beth's New Year's Cleaning Queue #free to a good home #Any and all parts available for general use with credit #fanfic #fanfiction #supernatural #the vampire diaries #spn #tvd #writing #writing ideas #tw hell #tw torture

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inthesummerswelter · 5 years

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recipe for disaster: chapter ten

The second time Penn wakes up, she’s uncomfortably warm, sticky and sweating beneath the mound of blankets. There’s something plastered to her forehead, and, reaching a hand up, she discovers a nearly dry washcloth, presumably placed on her head to lower her temperature.

Gently peeling it off and setting it among the pile of items collecting on her side table, Penn pushes herself up with her forearms, easing herself into a semi-upright position.

Quickly, she does a full-body scan.

Mouth: still a little dry, and vaguely stale tasting.

Head: slight pounding, presumably from residual effects of dehydration, feeling a bit hot and stuffy still.

Arms and legs: a little weak, and not responding as quickly as she would like. There’s definitely a large chance that she’d lop off a thumb or so accidentally if she were to try any high-speed knife cuts.

If she’s truly being honest with herself, better than before, but nowhere close to being ready to head back to the restaurant.

Looking over towards the chair that Ashton had previously occupied the first time she’d roused herself for a drink, she blinks, surprised.

It’s empty.

Huh.

She’d honestly thought that he’d stay the whole time.

He said he’d stay the whole time.

Trying to stave off the feeling of disappointment that’s slowly eating a hole in the bottom of her gut, she rolls over and attempts to swing her legs over the side. Or, she would have, if her foot wouldn’t have gotten tangled in the excess of sheets and caused her to flop over the edge of the mattress, face-first.

Penn throws her arms out and turns her head to the side, expecting to meet the cold, hardwood floors with a thud and possibly a sharp crack to the side of her face.

However, an unyielding floor is not what she meets when she tumbles off the bed. Instead, there’s a softly exhaled huff of air beside her left ear, and a long arm winds around her, pulling her closer to the solid chest she’s landed herself on.

Oh.

“Mmm,” Ashton hums, sleepily, shifting his body further into the nest of quilts that he’s arranged on the floor, and soon Penn finds herself clasped in his arms and tucked into the protective curve of his lanky body.

She's really not all that hefty, and the drop from the bed is nearly negligible since she's got one of those frames that sits close to the floor, so it makes sense in a way that he doesn't do more than grunt and shift a bit. Besides, he's always been a bit of a heavy sleeper anyway.

The hand that splays across her back burns a patch of warmth into the bottom of her spine, and she can feel a blush rising in her cheeks as he adjusts her so that his chin brushes the top of her head, her eyes becoming intimately acquainted with his collarbone region. Attempting to squirm out of his grip only causes Ashton's arms to tighten around her almost imperceptibly, but it's a sort of unconscious warning not to try again.

So, Penn resigns herself to her fate and reaches up through the cage of his arms to tug down the rest of the blankets that are doing their best to cling to the edge of the mattress, pulling them up over their entwined bodies.

And maybe it's the lingering fever talking, but she swears that, just as her eyelids begin slip closed once more, she can feel a thumb brushing over the exposed skin of her shoulder and a contented sigh blown out just above her ear. Penn falls asleep with a smile stealing across her lips.

The smile doesn't stay for long after she wakes up.

With the curtains drawn, it's near impossible to see outside beyond the floral print so she can’t determine what the time of day is and how long she’s been sleeping. Rolling over into the thin strip of area between the edge of her bedframe and the wall, Penn's suddenly hit by two realizations.

She's rolled herself into a bare patch of blankets.

A patch that, if she presses her nose to the quilts, still smells vaguely of Ashton's comforting mix of boy-musk, gently spicy aftershave, and the traces of anise and cloves that always seems to cling to the jumpers he wears.

A patch that is not filled by Ashton himself. And a patch that crinkles, just a bit, as she squirms in an attempt to find a comfortable arrangement of limbs on the hard floor.

Wait.

Crinkles?

Penn opens her eyes and fishes around underneath her torso with one hand, eventually grabbing paper. Pulling it out, she sits up with her back against the wall and smooths out the papers on her knee.

The top one is just a note from Ashton, scribbled out in smudgy pencil on half a ripped sheet of the legal paper he takes notes on. He's gone to class, he says, because he's already had three absences and the professor's bound to notice if he doesn't show up this time. Penn sees him writing this in her mind's eye, with his tongue peeking out of the left corner of his mouth as he glances at his watch and shoves one of her knit caps on the top of his head after a failed attempt to sort out the bedhead tangle of his waves.

There's a postscript at the very bottom, too, stating that he'd be back within an hour and a half or so, depending on how crowded the tube is today. Noting the time he'd written that his class gets out, Penn cranes her head back to catch a glimpse of her analog alarm clock.

With some rather shoddy calculations in her head, she guesstimates that he's expecting to arrive back within anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes. Fair enough. She can take care of herself for a little under a half hour, no problem. She ignores the fact that he deliberately lied to her about not having class, the bastard.

Tucking the note up on the ledge of the window, she flips over the other piece of paper caught under her body. Except it's not really a singular piece of paper, per say.

It's an envelope, addressed to Penelope, in curling purple handwriting that she would know anywhere. It's from her gran.

Eyebrows beginning to furrow, Pen slides a careful thumb under the seal, prying it open, and pulls out a thin, flimsy sheet of paper, looking as if it had been pressed with a hot iron and typed on frantically with an old-fashioned typewriter, and another thicker piece of paper folded into thirds with writing covering both sides.

Carefully, she thumbs the corner of the tissue-paper thoughtfully and sets it aside in favor of examining the handwritten letter obviously from her grandmother. There's no need to skim through any tedious opening sentences remarking on the weather or whatever one uses for filler at the beginnings of letters, as Miriam Bunting has never been one to mince words. Instead, Penn's hit with a figurative train within the first sentence.

Breath faltering, all of the oxygen now – not just half, like when her grandfather passed – has inexplicably gone missing from the atmosphere, and Penn feels her vision start to narrow until her eyes focus on three words: unresectable pancreatic cancer.

Almost unnoticeable are the tiny wobbles at the ends of the words, caused by an imperceptibly shaking pen. Most other words on the page stand solid and firm, except those three.

Unresectable. Pancreatic. Cancer.

Other crippling phrases follow.

Dim prognosis.

Wide, confirmed spread.

Eight to sixteen weeks.

She gasps now, trying with all her might to push some air into her lungs so she doesn't pass out, the spots dancing in front of her eyes a tell-tale indicator that she’s either about to faint or begin to have an extreme panic attack.

Lurching up from her position leaning against the bed, Penn takes the single step needed to cross over to the window, fumbling with the latch before throwing it up and open. Ashton's note flutters out into the cold, winter air as Penn clenches the chipped-paint window sill until the bones of her knuckles threaten to break through her skin.

She would almost feel better if that happened.

The acrid London atmosphere does nothing to help her calm her breathing, forcing chokingly cold and bitter air into her mouth until she expels it with a shout. And that singular scream feels so goddamn good that she does it again.

And again and again until there's a litany of garbled swears and unadulterated emotion pouring from her lips in filthy, frustrated phrases and even though that feels better than before, it's not enough.

Nothing feels like enough.

Instead, she lets herself hang almost halfway out the window, the sill biting into her waist, and slams her fists down on the brick face of the outer wall over and over until she can't feel the sting and bite of the grit anymore.

And she's crying now, at the sheer unfairness of it all.

There's one other phrase that sticks in her mind as well. At the end of the letter, stated almost quietly, there's an I'm not afraid, Penelope.

But Penn screams and she sobs. Because she is. She is so afraid.

A warm arm loops around her waist – so much like a few scant hours earlier in the morning, but earlier this morning Penn didn't know that her grandmother is in the late stages of a particularly aggressive cancer, so fuck that comparison – and pulls her back inside.

There's a sweet sadness in his eyes, as Ashton carries her gently into the bathroom. He turns on the taps to fill up her tiny bathtub, and, as soon as the water is warm, eases her in, even though she’s still wearing his shirt and her boyshort-cut knickers.

Penn vaguely watches him through her dampening fringe, as he peels off his jumper and trousers and slides himself into the other side of the tub, still in his boxer shorts.

She lets herself be enfolded in his arms, lets his hands run in comforting circles around her spine as her bleeding, gritty hands slowly turn the water a pale crimson.

It's easier to breathe now, in this space, with him.

Penn presses her forehead against his shoulder and closes her eyes to block everything else out but the feel of his palm soothing and calming down all fear and anxiety bubbling up from underneath her skin.

He hums to her, brings up one large hand to stroke the back of her head softly, and her bones melt, just a little bit, from the steel girders that usually support her. At some point, he scrounges up a wash cloth and makes her show him her battered fists. Tutting, Ashton begins to dab gently at the open wounds, delicately, but insistent that it be done.

Eventually, the water goes tepid whilst he's cleaning out the tiny pebbles and bits of gravel, and she starts to shake. Placing the cloth on the side of the bath, he stands up and pulls her arms up around his neck, holding her so she's forced to wrap her legs around his waist, and takes two steps over to the vanity where he sets her to perch.

She watches, quivering and numbed, as he approaches the linen closet and pulls out three towels, wrapping one around himself before returning and settling the other two around her shoulders and over her hair, before returning to his task of tending to her hands.

After removing most of the foreign material, Ashton opens her medicine cabinet, reaching around her to pull out peroxide and plasters and gauze. He soaks a bit of the gauze in the peroxide, murmuring, "I'm sorry, this might sting a bit. But I don't know what sort of shit is on that wall, and I don't want you getting an infection."

It burns. It burns like hell. But she just sniffs a bit and says, "I'm so sorry."

He pauses in the middle of peeling off the plastic backing from one of the plasters and looks at her, tilting up her chin to meet his eyes.

"Hey. Hey, don't be, okay? You don't have to be sorry."

Penn nods, and now the tears are back, slowly forcing their way out of the corners of her eyes until they roll down the planes of her cheeks, silent witnesses to her grief.

Finally, her hands are properly bandaged, and this time she holds out her arms and looks at him beseechingly. He sighs, but picks her up and takes her into the living room portion of her flat, dropping her into the only armchair in the room before heading back quickly to her bedroom to grab the contents of the letter.

Returning, he sits on the worn rag rug and begins to read out the typed letter as Penn folds her injured hands in her lap and stares out the window. He takes his time pronouncing multisyllabic medical terms that sound foreign and cold through the warm lilt of his accent, and Penn listens, rapt.

After he finishes, he places the tissue-thin prognosis down beside him and looks to her.

"What do you need?"

Taking a deep breath, she bites down on her bottom lip in a nanosecond of indecision before meeting his eyes and stating, "I need to make a call."

Ashton goes, retrieves her mobile and hands it to her, retreating back to the kitchen where he'd dropped his backpack in his haste to make it back to her bedroom after hearing her screams. She watches as he pulls out his notes, textbooks, and pencil before she glances down at the telephone sitting in her hand.

Pulling up a number, Penn dials, returning her gaze to the letters lying at her feet.

"Hi, Harry? I need to make sure you get this message to Delacroix, okay?"

There's a concerned confirmation from the other side.

There's not even a quaver in her voice, as she says, "I need you to tell him that I'm taking a leave of absence from the restaurant, to take care of my grandmother. And if that means I must forfeit the competition for the executive chef position, then so be it."

#fic: recipe for disaster #5sos fic #5sosff #5sos fanfic #updates

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inkofthedivine · 6 years

Text

Fear of Love (1/2)

The thought of love, to feel a warmth that reaches the very soul, a feeling of belonging and peace was a concept that did not seem possible for something like Dark. He is a master manipulator, an entity that feeds on despair - the false hopes of those around him to increase his control. A silver tongue to lure victims in before ending their lives in creative ways.

He didn’t need something as trivial as love.

Love was a human concept, a weakness.

The moment he was born into the world of the living, officially free from the Upside Down… that damned house, emotions were voided from the souls he merged with other than Anger and Revenge. He did not allow human souls to have any more sway over his control which led him to become expressionless, to assume the role of feeling nothing. It was not till he crossed paths with Wilford that he realized he felt the need to protect the madman, a sensation that he could not shove away when both souls held attachments to the male. He could deal with being Wilford’s babysitter, a guardian of sorts without the nitty-gritty details of being one.

But, he did not love him - not in the way Celine once had, nor the brotherly feel that Damien did.

Then, the arrival of the others started to pop up: Bim, Dr. Iplier, Host, Ed, Yan, King, Google (eventually his brothers), and Bing. The need to protect them, to predominantly secure his hold on being deemed the leader of this “family”, overtook everything at the time but it wasn’t love. He had a plan in mind, for it to be successful he would need them all to behave - to keep under his thumb just in case one would be needed. It’s why Wilford and him founded the Manor, allowed each of the egos to claim their ideal spot and make it their own within reason. It was all part of Dark’s plan for something bigger while he melts everyone content.

This wasn’t a sign that he cared, something he quickly wiped from the mind of others with an ivy personality and sending a few of them to the Upside Down. He didn’t need them thinking he was soft… weak.

Dark was anything but weak.

Over the years he wasn’t getting soft, no, he was just making new plans and letting the others do more to keep themselves occupied. The thought of Dark getting soft was lessened at the arrival of him.

Mister Glitch Bitch, the Annoyance, rabid animal, an absolute virus of the world - anything else that could be used to describe Anti. He was a menace, a thorn in Dark’s side with his warped voice… slit throat and overall animalistic behavior. There hasn’t been anyone else that brought the entity this much rage, aggression, than the glitch that constantly picked fights. He did little things that would set Dark off and more than once the two would crash into a wall, drag each other’s blood across the floor, and leave the duo separating with no real satisfaction between them. Dark would fix the mess, alter his appearance to look new again before going back to the task at hand as if he didn’t throw someone through the wall.

These occurrences between the glitch and entity became the new normalcy, an evenly matched pair that would branch away only to come back clashing harder than ever the following day.

It wouldn’t take long before these two violent forces found their limbs tangled together with ragged breaths and quiet moans. Curses filled the air, venom spat back and forth as the control for dominance continued between the fires that brewed deep within one another. It was the first time Dark noticed how warm he felt, how colors shined within his grayed aura as if he was outside on a sunny, summer day.

Subconscious, the entity was gripping to those sensations as he steadily let his control slip with each new encounter with Anti. Their hatred that heated their passion, shifted from a chaotic ball of fire to a steady warmth - similar to that of a campfire. Its glow radiating between them as touches went from drawing blood to tracing scars, from violent shoves to gently laying the other onto the bed as if they were made of porcelain. This did not mean that their toughness died off, no - the duo always kept the spark but it appeared to be tamer.

Anti was making Dark feel alive, and the entity did not know how to deal with it. He did not share emotions like the others, believed to have cut out all the cutesy, light human feelings.

So, why did his breath catch in his throat when Anti appeared a certain way… when he would tilt his head and toxic green hair would spill over his eyes offering Dark a small smirk? Why did the glitch offer him warmth when he felt only cold for all these years? The ability to see color when entangled with Anti, lazily tracing shapes and studying his soft breathing when in the past he didn’t hesitate to throw the glitch out. It was all new to Dark, he was a creature of darkness, of despair, death, of negativity. How did someone who was chaotic, improper, an abomination of sorts... bring such positivity and calmness to Dark after so long of hating one another? The entity did not know as his dark eyes studied the lazy posture of the other.

“I think I’m in love with you and that scares me half to death.”

The words slip from Dark’s lips as fingers brush over Anti’s throat with a tenderness he did not know he was capable of years ago. His breath halted when black and green eyes slowly opened to stare back into his own. The glitch’s gaze roamed down the entity’s form before dragging back up ever so slowly to his face. For the first time since knowing Anti, Dark could not read his face. It was void of expression, something that had the entity retracting his touch and letting it drop to his side as he watched Anti move away from him. The grey of the world, the cold aura, eased its way back to its owner without the neutralization of the glitch to push it away.

Still no response.

It wasn’t until pants were slipped back on, that Anti disappeared in his glitched tech style that Dark let his breath go. The entity remained on the bed, gaze upon the ceiling as he felt pain without an actual injury to accompany it. Their types do not love. They only cause suffering and make others believe they cared, or well in Dark’s case that was the goal… to create a false sense of security, but he allowed him to grow attached.

To feel loved.

How foolish.

#danti #darkiplier #dark x anti #angst #emotions are hard #unbeta'd #anti #my writing #antisepticeye #anti x dark

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zoadgo · 6 years

Text

Kinktober Day Fourteen | Asphyxiation | i think you think i’m intimidated; contemplating taking stabs at your back but i don’t need to | McCreary x Clarke | The 100

Words: 2949

Tags: Breath play, Manipulation, Blowjob, Face fucking, Deepthroating, No discussion of limits, Dubcon, Violence, Sadism, Canon verse

Note that this is a kinktober prompt fill. It will be explicit smut, and quite likely, kinky. Mind the tags.

ao3

Clarke knows that Madi and her need more protection than what they currently have. War is looming, and she’s certain she’s on the winning side, but she needs to be certain they won’t turn on her once there’s no longer a greater threat. After a few hours agonizing over how to make herself more useful to a group of thugs, Clarke’s first, stupid idea still reigns as best.

She knows there’s no time to delay and come up with something better, which is why Clarke finds herself leaving in the dead of night, making her way to the home McCreary had claimed for himself. There are guards outside, but they let her pass with nothing more than a few suggestive looks. Of course, because why else would she be going to him in the middle of the night? Clarke can think of a million reasons, but the simple minded criminals aren’t exactly wrong in this case.

McCreary is still awake when she walks into the main room, sitting on the edge of his bed and flipping through the notebook that never leaves his side. He looks up at the scuff of her boot, brow curving in silent question.

“Clarke to what do I owe the pleasure?” McCreary speaks with an easy laziness that shows exactly how little of a threat he views her as. Normally that would irk Clarke somewhat, but right now, it works in her favour.

“All alone?” Clarke looks around the room significantly, stating the obvious. McCreary, for his part, simply gestures to the emptiness as way of answer. Clarke hums thoughtfully and walks over to one of the walls, making show of inspecting the knicknacks there. “You’re the leader, and there’s plenty of attractive enough women out there that you could choose from. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on Diyoza.”

“Hardly. In fact, if that bitch weren’t carrying my baby, she’d be long dead by now,” McCreary spits. Clarke has no reason to doubt him, and there’s a certain sort of lust in his voice when he talks about killing Diyoza. She can imagine hardly anything would make him happier; pain and death is his bread and butter, after all.

“Really? Then why not find someone to replace her?” Clarke inquires, keeping her voice carefully neutral, never looking directly at him. She can’t be too direct with this, otherwise he’ll guess the intent behind her actions. Even so, he probably will, but she can’t risk being seen as desperate.

“Too many…” McCreary trails off with a frown that Clarke sees from the corner of her eye, “Complications. Too much at stake to have some woman getting the wrong ideas. Not now.”

“There wouldn’t be complications with all of them,” Clarke suggests, still as calm and cool as if talking about farming reports or the weather.

“Why the sudden interest in my sex life, Clarke? What, are you… volunteering?” McCreary narrows his eyes at her, obviously suspicious. Clarke stops her idle wanderings about the room, finally turning to look at him directly with her arms crossed over her chest.

“And if I were?” She challenges him with her gaze and her words, hoping he’ll rise to the bait.

He does so beautifully, standing and crossing the room to stand a step closer to her than he needs to. Clarke tilts her head back to keep her eyes locked on his, and she has to admit, even though this is purely political, he’s not physically repulsive. Perhaps a bit on the rougher side than her past partners, but Clarke’s intrigued by the dark and gritty more and more these days.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought. You know I don’t care about you or your little kid, and you’ve seen how I treat things I don’t give a shit about. You really want to open yourself up to more of that?” McCreary warns her, eyes searching her face for… what? Regret? Fear? He won’t find anything like that. Clarke knows what she’s doing.

You might not care, but you might need. Or want. Whatever I can get.

“I’m not scared of you, McCreary.” Clarke’s voice is even, unshaken by his paltry attempts at intimidation.

“So you are stupid.” McCreary sneers, and in a flash, his hand is around Clarke’s throat.

He squeezes, not enough to cut off airflow, but enough to be somewhat concerning. Clarke’s heart races, and she swallows against his grip. Okay, maybe she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into, but she’ll be damned if she backs down now. Clarke holds his gaze, defiant, and after a moment McCreary releases her with a scoff, crossing back over to his bed and sitting on the edge of it with his legs spread.

“What are you waiting for?” McCreary gestures at his crotch, brusque and vulgar, “My dick isn’t gonna suck itself.”

Clarke hesitates, brow furrowing. She had been offering sex, but the sudden change from warning her away and choking her, to demanding she gets on her knees is a bit much for her to keep up with. McCreary cocks a brow, leaning back.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got cold feet now. And after all that talk about not being scared.” McCreary tuts, shaking his head.

Clarke feels a flush creep onto her cheeks, much as she might try to will it away. She takes a deep, grounding breath as she crosses the room, sinking to her knees fluidly between McCreary’s thighs. She looks up at him, wondering if he’s going to give her any direction or rules or anything, but he simply looks at her expectantly. Not like he’s waiting for to start, though; like he’s waiting for her to back down.

Clarke’s competitive side rears its head in a flash. Seriously, backing down from a simple blowjob, just because the guy she’s sucking off is a mass murdering sadist? He doesn’t even rank in her top ten things to be afraid of. Wasting no more time, Clarke runs her hands up the inside of McCreary’s thighs, palming him through his pants when she reaches his crotch. Not gentle or teasing, a firm declaration of intent. She doesn’t imagine he’s much of one to enjoy the finer things in life, anyway.

Clarke massages him a few times until she can feel a certain stiffness growing behind the heavy canvas. McCreary huffs a breath out through his nose, and he looks incredibly self satisfied when she glances up at him. She’s certain that no matter what, he wins in this situation. If she runs away, like he likely expects, then he’s proven he’s a terrifying monster. If she doesn’t, he gets off. Win win for McCreary, which Clarke imagines contributes to his erection as much as the pressure and friction she provides does.

Clarke smiles a little to herself at that thought as she undoes his pants, opening the front and being confronted immediately by the sight of his half hard cock. No underwear, then. Well, that works in Clarke’s favour, given that McCreary makes it exceedingly obvious he’s not going to do a damn thing to help her. It’s one less thing to deal with, as Clarke maneuvers the clothing enough to properly free him.

Clarke gives his dick a few dry pumps, feeling blood rush there in response. Without further delay, she leans in, dragging her tongue up the underside of it. He doesn’t taste as bad as she would have expected from the greasy state of his hair, simply sweat and skin. He stiffens against her tongue, and Clarke is struck for the first time by the fact that McCreary is well endowed. Like, bigger than anyone she’s had before. Perhaps not by much, but still, Clarke finds a sort of thrill running through her as she works him to full hardness.

Clarke wraps her lips around the head of him when his cock is hard under her touch, flicking her tongue over the slit there to swipe away the precum. Tangy and salty, but not bad at all. Clarke’s always sort of enjoyed it, if she’s being honest, and her body responds despite the circumstances. If this were anyone else, she might even moan a little, at the size and heady taste of him in her mouth. But Clarke doesn’t let herself get caught up in the act; she can’t, it’s too risky.

McCreary huffs another breath when Clarke sink down a little, testing the strain he’ll be on her jaw, and how far she can comfortably take him. She can tell almost immediately that if she doesn’t get him off fast, her jaw is going to get sore quite quickly. But she’s confident enough in her abilities, and if McCreary hasn’t been with anyone since before cryo sleep, hopefully that will give her some mercy.

Clarke shifts her tongue on the underside of his cock as she pulls back, dragging it along a different part of the sensitive skin with each bob of her head. McCreary grunts when she swirls it around the head, one of his hands making its way into her hair. He holds the back of her skull, rather than twisting his grip in the hair itself, and Clarke sort of hates how good it feels. It’s been too long since she felt this, being desired by someone else so much to the point that they can’t keep their hands off of you.

When Clarke’s sinks down again, McCreary forces her a bit further, so his cock sits against the back of her throat. Clarke is thankful she doesn’t have much of a gag reflex, but it still doesn’t feel the most pleasant. She’s not keyed up enough for that peculiar pressure to feel good. Not yet, anyway.

McCreary holds her there for a moment, and Clarke lets him, breathing through her nose. He only lets her back off for a few inches before he stills her head, and then he presses her back down with hardly a break. He pushes her further, testing Clarke’s limits. Clarke takes him as well as she can, but McCreary keeps pushing even when he hits resistance. Just a little bit more, a quarter of an inch, but it’s still enough to makes Clarke’s throat burn and her eyes water.

She heaves breaths in through her nose when he allows her to back off a few inches once more, and she clues into the game plan here. McCreary is in control, and he’s going to remind her of that. Clarke should feel angry about being used like some kind of a sex toy, but as he presses her down once more, even further, she feels that emotion only as a distant echo. She tries desperately not to get caught up in everything, but twisted pleasure courses through her all the same as her throat quivers around him.

It’s overwhelming, his firm grip on her head, fingers digging into her scalp, cock filling and stretching her throat beyond reason. Clarke feels like she’s simply along for the ride, only able to try not to choke or suffocate. The struggle to take his entire length sends little sparks racing through her, settling in the heat building in her core. She can’t say exactly why it feels good, but it really does, in a way. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but it’s also incredible.

While Clarke is focusing on breathing with McCreary’s dick still lodged in her mouth, his free hand makes its way to her throat. She doesn’t even realize its presence until he squeezes, fingers digging cruelly into tender flesh. Her brain struggles to comprehend the input for a moment, and by the time she understands what he’s doing, he’s pressing her back down again.

A primal part of Clarke struggles, then, as he chokes her inside and out. He holds her in place with iron strength despite her vague jerking, his laughter hollow against the pulsing of her own blood in her ears. Her face feels hot, blood trapped there with nowhere to go, and her lungs burn. She squeezes her eyes tight, unable to do anything, feeling tears leak out of the corners.

And then, just as true panic begins to set in, McCreary releases her, entirely, not just a few inches this time. Clarke flies off of him, gasping for air and coughing. She should be furious, or disgusted, or anything other than what she actually feels. As oxygen rushes back into her, it feels incredible, like a successful hunt, almost like a climax in and of itself. She can feels wetness flood between her thighs, and a part of Clarke hates it, but another delights in it. It’s awful, terrifying, and yet she craves more of it.

Clarke coughs once more, her breathing barely under control, and wipes her mouth with the back of one hand. She looks up at McCreary and sees him smiling wide. He likes hurting her, like seeing her suffer and struggle. Well, unfortunately for him, pain and suffering are old friends of Clarke’s. He won’t be the first to break her, no matter what he does.

Clarke returns her mouth to his cock unprompted, and she’s unsurprised when his hands resume their previous marks. The one on her throat constricts immediately, like he can barely resist the urge to choke the life out of her. It should be awful, yet Clarke angles her head to give him better access to her neck. The bruising pain of his grip mixes with the hot pleasure inside of her, flowing deep and dark through her veins.

McCreary barely has to force her head when Clarke sinks down again, simply holding her in place. This time, she’s ready for it when he cuts off her airflow. She counts through it, listening to the beating of her heart. Around the count of twenty, he lets her go once more, and Clarke heaves breaths, but doesn’t pull all the way off of him.

“Looks like you might have something to offer after all,” McCreary laughs above her, and impotent anger flashes through her for a moment. She has plenty more to offer than this, but that doesn’t matter to him, she supposes.

A few more times, they repeat the cycle; Clarke sinks down to the base of his cock, nose nestled in his pubes, and McCreary fakes at killing her. Each time he lets her live is a rush, and Clarke finds herself craving it. She almost lets a moan slip out, once, as her lungs receive the life affirming air they’ve been denied. She almost forgets the purpose of this, caught up in the slide of his cock down her throat, the controlling touch of his hands on her.

McCreary begins to make more noises above her; not moans, but heavy breaths and sharp grunts. He’s not loud or talkative, but perhaps that’s a side effect of being a prisoner. Lord knows if anyone got up to anything in the Skybox, they would have had to have been exceptionally quiet about it.

Clarke sinks down to his base once more, and McCreary clamps down on her throat. But instead of holding her head in place, he fists his hand in her hair. With a sharp tug that makes her scalp tingle with a sensation that probably would have been pain at any other time, McCreary pulls her head back. Just a few inches, then he force it down again. He repeats the action rapidly, still clamping down on everything vital in her neck.

The sudden changes - the frantic thrusting of his cock in and out of her throat - is hard to adjust to, especially as the world begins to fade to the heavy pulse of her heart and a deep burning throughout her body. Clarke’s throat tries to reject him, and she fists her hands on his thighs, trying desperately to hold on. Keeping her jaw open, throat relaxed, all as her vision goes a little gray around the edges.

With one last grunt, McCreary releases his stranglehold on her neck and slams her head all the way down. It feels like fire as he cums down her abused throat, and Clarke desperately tries to balance swallowing and breathing. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and Clarke is moderately impressed she doesn’t somehow die in the process. After the last drop of cum leaves McCreary’s cock, he releases her, pulling her off of his dick. Clarke practically collapses to the ground, slumping and coughing violently. Tears sting her eyes, but she manages to get herself back in order fast enough.

When Clarke can breathe rather than gasp, she straightens her hair and clothes. She decides to tuck McCreary’s cock back into his pants, since he seems more than content to leave it exposed, watching her with an amused expression.

“Well, aren’t you just the noble volunteer, hm? Have fun explaining those bruises to your kid,” McCreary chuckles, and Clarke’s hand flies to her throat, fingertips hovering over where she knows there will be marks. Although, knowing how angry Madi is at her, she probably won’t even ask. It would be for the best.

Clarke pushes herself to her feet without another word. As she leaves the room, she just hopes it’s enough, that McCreary enjoyed himself enough he might keep her around for this, if nothing else. The thought weighs heavy on her mind, but her obsession is interrupted just as she’s about to leave.

“Come back tomorrow night.”

It’s a gruff command, but it soothes Clarke’s worries somewhat. As long as he keeps wanting her the next night, they’re safe. And, as Clarke strokes the damaged skin on her neck, she has to admit it really wasn’t all that awful.

#mcclarke #paxton mccreary #clarke griffin #kinktober #kinktober2018 #the 100 #fan fic

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dovechim · 7 years

Text

instant gratification 03 (m)

➾10.8k

➾ smut, angst, fluff

➾the final part of this series, please read the first three parts if you haven’t!

instant gratification 01 | 02 | 2.5 | 03

It’s like time has slowed to an ambling crawl, and all that ever exists has ceased to matter; except in this room with the three of you standing, facing each other like fighters in a ring. All you’re aware of is the way your breath has frozen over in your chest, and the way Jeongguk is clutching something so tightly in his hand, mirroring your own fisted palm.

“Jeongguk, no,” the sound of your voice pierces through the tense atmosphere, and is that really your voice? Why does it sound so unconvincing, so lacking in resolve, so broken? You clear your throat and attempt to try again, because your eyes are locked on Jeongguk’s own milky caramel ones, filled with a murky rage that threatens to break past the surface. “Jeongguk, this is not what it looks like, I swear-“

He only responds with an acerbic laugh that’s short and cutting, and it makes every breath you take feel razor sharp.

“Not what it looks like?” Jeongguk’s features twist into an ugly mix of jealousy and fury as he crosses his arms over his chest, partly to emphasize the muscles of his chest to make himself feel bigger, and also to form some sort of barrier between himself and you. “Babe, if you’ve only known how many times I’ve said that phrase myself, only for it to mean the exact opposite.”

Suddenly it’s as if all the air has been sucked out of the room, and you choke back a sob that bubbles up in your chest, digging your nails into your palm to remind yourself to keep it together. He always knows just exactly how to hit your weak spot all the damn time, it’s as if he knows you so well from the inside out. This is his reminder that you will always be just another notch on his belt, another faceless girl to add to his collection, just one more body to warm up his bed for him. You watch as Jeongguk’s gaze travels between you and Jimin, and you thank your lucky stars that he happens to be here now of all times, because this is how you’ll get back at Jeon Jeongguk.

This is how you’ll hurt him, for all of the times he made you feel like nothing more than dirt at the bottom of his shoe, good enough to fuck in his bed at night but not good enough to acknowledge in the hallways.

“You know what? You’re right.” Your words have an immediate effect on him as you see them register on his face like whiplash. Let his own words come back to haunt him, and you don’t even have to do anything but watch as he struggles to compartmentalize his emotions.

“What? What did you just say?” His voice is the calm before the storm, and you’ve never seen him like this before. You’re used to his irrational outbursts of anger along with the most creative swear words you’ve ever heard, but never this kind of quiet rage that might just be the scariest kind there is.

“You heard me.” But you won’t back down no matter how terrified you are; you’ve spent long enough toeing the line and there’s only so much you can take. The rational recesses of your mind is screaming at you to stop, to resolve this simple misunderstanding before it escalates, but you’ve waited far too long for an opportunity like this to come along to let it go to waste just like that. And besides, your entire life might go down the drain because of Jeon Jeongguk, so he deserves this.

Right?

Jimin makes a noise of protest in the back of his throat, and you glance at him to quiet him, and somewhere within you there’s a shred of guilt for getting him involved in this again.

“Are. You. Pregnant.” Jeongguk says through gritted teeth, and you belatedly realise that the results must be out by now.

But your hesitation is all it takes for him to cross the room in two of his long strides to grasp your wrist with a firm hold, and the look on his face has your heart skipping a beat, and you reflexively jerk away from him. The fear must have been evident on your face, because for a second Jeongguk lets a look of regret flit across his features and loosens his grip on you, angling the test toward him.

Two lines.

You see it the same time as him, but before you can react, Jeongguk jerks his hand away from yours as if scalded. You can almost see the resentment in his eyes as he backs away slowly, tossing something onto your bed as he lets the door slam behind him, and that’s the last you see of Jeon Jeongguk.

Your legs give out and you crumple onto the floor in a heap, breaths coming in panicked rise and falls of your chest, and the test clatters onto the ground uselessly. Jimin hesitantly approaches you, taking a peek at the two blue lines before gathering you into his arms, whispering words that you don’t hear.

The worst part of it all is just that when you think you’ve come to terms with the whole thing, with all the nitty gritty details of doctor’s appointments, texts to parents, potentially dropping out of school, it all comes crashing down on you again. Repeatedly over the next few days you find yourself back at square one, struggling to keep your head above water trying to figure out just where and when things went so, so wrong.

Every time you look at the cactus with its pink flower and broken pot sitting on your desk, reality starts to close in on you again.

You even resort to Google and all its million search results that lead you to various online teenage pregnancy websites, and they all say just about the same thing. Step 1: Think positively.

Okay. You can do this, there must be some pros in every situation, no matter how bad it is right?

No periods for 9 months, and that means no cramps too, but the thought alone only makes the anxiety in your chest worsen. You’d rather have your period every single day of the month than have to deal with this.

Step 2: Tell someone you trust, set up your own support system.

That’s a fucking no-go, you chuckle bitterly as you toss your phone onto your bed in resentment. Of the two people who know about this, you don’t trust one of them further than they can throw you, but ironically, Jeon Jeongguk probably could lift you up and toss you across the room easily enough. At this rate you wonder if you should be calling MTV right about now, and if you play out your sob story enough, this will be your ticket to fame.

Step 3: Find some way to tell your parents.

The next sentence that you read almost makes you want to throw your phone across the room and pretend that all of this doesn’t exist, that you’re not currently knocked up with fucking Jeon Jeongguk’s baby and worse still, that he never saw you as anything more than just an easy fuck. But your eyes stray down to the paragraph that accompanies it, and hope flares in your chest; it’s just a tiny spark, but it’s enough.

If you used a store bought pregnancy test, make sure to visit the doctor to confirm your pregnancy before telling your parents. False positives, though rare, do occur and the most likely reasons are due to expired pregnancy tests, or even reading the results of the test after the suggested time, which can cause inaccurate results due to the evaporation line that forms. It’s best to double check so that you don’t do any unneeded damage!

With that the remaining hesitation about setting up a doctor’s appointment vanishes, and you start searching for nearby clinics.

The autumn afternoon brings chilly winds and a hint of the sun’s rays that peek out behind the voluminous clouds. You bury your hands deeper into your coat pockets, quickening your step so that you can get out of the cold. Jimin has insisted on accompanying you to the appointment, and as he lengthens his strides to walk slightly ahead of you, he slides his jacket off and drapes it around you, quieting your protests with a soft hush of his plush lips.

“Jimin, you really didn’t have to come with me, I know you have that History midterm today.” You reach to close his jacket around you, and for some reason it makes you feel a lot warmer, even though you’re not wearing it properly for it to make much of a difference.

“It’s no big deal, I rescheduled it. I’m pretty tight with my History TA,” he gives you an easy smile, hovering his hand on the small of your back as you head up the stairs to the clinic.

The small room smells unpleasantly of antiseptic and bleach, but thankfully it seems rather empty for a Tuesday afternoon. Jimin makes you sit down on the waiting chairs while he takes care of the registration, and as you watch him scribble something down onto a piece of paper, you can’t help but fidget in your seat.

“She says you’re the next one up, so it shouldn’t be too long of a wait,” Jimin says as he takes the seat next to you, studying your features with concern that makes a wrinkle appear on his forehead. “You okay? Nervous?”

“I’m okay, and no, not nervous,” you lie through your teeth. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right? It can only get better from here, not worse.”

Jimin only grins at your optimism that is somehow pessimistic at the same time, and reaches to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as he leans in closer. He’s so close that you can feel his breath on your cheek, and you can count every single individual eyelash of his.

“I wanted to tell you something.” He looks straight into your eyes, and with his arm on the back of your chair, he exudes a sense of security that makes everything feel okay again, makes you feel safe, like nothing else matters except for him and you. “I wanted to tell you that no matter what happens, I’m willing to take responsibility for everything. I really like you and I hope you’ll give me a chance. To make everything better again.”

Jimin looks so hopeful and radiant as he gazes back at you, and the honest sincerity on his face makes you grip his hand tightly, because honestly you don’t deserve his selflessness. His willingness to stay by your side and potentially raise someone else’s child only proves that he really loves you no matter what.

Just as you’re about to reply, the nurse calls your name, and your attention is momentarily drawn to the direction in which she points you to. When you look back at Jimin, he only smiles back and stands, your hand still in his as he leads you to the doctor’s room and knocks on the door.

The doctor is a middle aged man who looks to be in his thirties, but despite that, the wrinkles around his eyes make him look about 10 years older. He glances up when you walk into the room, and upon taking in both you and Jimin’s presence, he sighs through his nose, but his gaze is sympathetic as he gestures for you to take a seat.

A part of you wants to just run out from this room immediately, away from his pitying gaze and away from this horrible reality. He’s probably seen and dealt with lots of teenage pregnancies before, and now you’re becoming just another one of them, just another statistic to be tallied up and added to the bottom of condom packages or those religious cults promoting abstinence.

The thought sickens you to your stomach.

“What can I do for you today, Ms ____? And I assume this is your boyfriend?” He casts a cursory glance at Jimin.

“U-Uhm no, he’s just a friend who accompanied me here.” If anything, your reply has a pronounced effect on the other two males in the room. The doctor’s frown deepens as he raises his eyebrows, but to his benefit he doesn’t probe or ask any more questions. Beside you, you can feel Jimin slouch in his seat a little, but his grip doesn’t let up on your hand.

Steady, comforting and warm. Just about every single thing you need right now, so why is it so hard to just say yes to him?

Your eyes land on his nameplate on his desk. “I’d like a blood test, Dr Kwon. I used a home pregnancy test, and I- I read that they can be wrong sometimes. I just want to be sure before… before…”

Your voice trails off and you can’t continue, because you simply have no idea what comes next if you really are pregnant, and as much as you hate to admit it, this is your last shred of hope. Dr Kwon is looking at you with sympathy etched between his brows now, and you hate the way he smiles at you gently, as if preparing to let you down.

And let you down he does.

“Of course, we’ll get one done right away, and the results will be out in two days. But the chances of a home pregnancy test being wrong is only about 3%, so I suggest you don’t get your hopes up, that is, since this is an unplanned pregnancy, am I right?” He scribbles something down onto your card, before interlacing his fingers together.

“Right.” The single word is like a stab to the gut, and your admission out loud makes everything so much more real, like you can’t hide from it anymore.

Dr Kwon seems satisfied with your admission. “A nurse will be in shortly to help you with the blood test, and she’ll also pass you some brochures with useful and important information that you need to know if you’re pregnant.”

You nod mutely and allow the nurse to usher you into a separate room. The prick of the needle barely registers as she draws a decent amount of blood, and while you’ve always been terrified of needles and blood, this time it doesn’t seem to garner much of a reaction as you sit there numbly and allow her to clean the wound and stick on a plaster in the crook of your elbow.

“That’s all for today, we’ll call with the results after 48 hours. Dr Kwon also asked me to pass these to you, please read them well in your own time, and feel free to call if you have any questions! I hope you have a happy pregnancy!!” The nurse doesn’t seem to register your situation as she beams happily at you while guiding you back to the waiting room where Jimin is perched on one of the seats, springing to his feet once he sees you.

“See you in a few days’ time!!” The nurse’s words chime out behind you ominously as you head for the door, and so the wait commences.

You’ve never been good at waiting.

Not even for trivial things like waiting for packages to be delivered, which is why you almost never shop online; or for your instant noodles to be cooked, you’d rather eat slightly crunchy noodles rather than soggy overcooked ones anyway.

The hours pass by painfully slowly, and at the end of the 36th hour and 48th minute- no, you haven’t been counting- you decide to call the clinic in hopes that your result might be out sooner than expected.

“Ms _____? You’re calling about your blood test results, I assume?” The same nurse from the other day picks up and immediately greets you with her cheery voice.

“Yes, I know it hasn’t been two days yet but I just wanted to check-“

“Oh, I do have your results ready with me, I was just about to call you actually.”

You grip your phone so tightly that your knuckles have turned white, and you just manage to form a coherent sentence. “Wh-what is the result?”

“The result of your blood test is… you’re not pregnant.” Her voice rises and then falls in disappointment like a crescendo, and the sympathy is evident. “I’m so sorry, if you need anything like counselling, I’d be happy to…”

But the adrenaline that rushes through your veins makes it hard for you to hear the rest of what she’s saying, and you blurt out something before hanging up, feeling relief in every single square inch of your body. Tears of joy flood your eyes, as you clutch your phone to your chest, and the elation that fills you to overflowing makes you scroll through your contacts to Park Jimin’s number.

“Jimin, my answer is yes,” you gasp into the phone breathlessly.

“Huh? Wh- ______, are you okay?”

“My answer is yes, I’ll go out with you.”

You sip on the beer with relish, and while you’re not usually such a fan of alcohol, the beer somehow tastes unusually sweet tonight. Jimin wraps his arms around your waist as you perch on his lap, and nuzzles his nose into the dip of your collarbone.

“You okay babe? I thought you hated frat parties,” he says with his lips pleasantly against your skin, and you close your eyes in enjoyment.

“What better way to celebrate? The fact that I’m not pregnant and can drink as much alcohol as I want to,” you grin at him as you take another sip. “Hey, let’s do body shots later!!”

Jimin only chuckles at your excitement. You hand him your empty beer can as you get up from his lap, straightening your bandage skirt in the process and grab his wrist. “C’mon, let’s go dance!!”

You lead him all the way to the center of the living room, and the sheer number of people around the two of you presses Jimin right up behind you, and you can feel his hips against the curve of your ass. You glance back at him, expecting to find him shy and blushing as usual, but it seems like you’re not the only one who’s celebrating with alcohol tonight, as he grips the flesh of your hips with his hands and pulls you into him, his eyes glinting with desire.

You grin back at him and make your way deeper into the crowd, enjoying the feeling of Jimin right against your ass, and it seems like somewhere along the way he’s lost the rest of his inhibitions because he’s even starting to grind against you, and you can’t deny how every thrust of his agile hips makes the ache between your legs more and more noticeable.

Until you crash straight into a wall, and you didn’t realise that you’d been going so far as to hit the walls of the living room already. But when you turn around, you realise that the obstacle in your way is not the cream coloured walls of the frat house, but instead Jeon Jeongguk’s chest. He’s wearing a plain white shirt and his hair is styled off his forehead so you can see his eyebrows as they arch at the sight of you, and that little smirk that always drives you crazy.

He takes in the sight of Jimin’s hands on your hips and his half lidded eyes.

“Should you really be here?” He asks with a raise of his eyebrow and a tiny little smirk, his eyes trailing down to your midriff. Jeongguk tries not to let on that he’s actually studying your stomach for any hint of a baby bump, although he has no idea when women start to show physical signs of pregnancy. But he plays it off as disinterest even as he feels slightly nauseous at the sight of Jimin’s hands on you.

“I can be wherever I fucking want, Jeon.” You nearly spit back at him, and the venom in your voice is just an overcompensation for the empty hollowness in your chest at seeing him looking so delectable, but he doesn’t need to know that. Jeongguk raises his hands in mock surrender, pasting an amused smile onto his lips.

“Woah, looks like someone’s PMSing- oh wait, I forgot you don’t PMS anymore.”

“Fuck off Jeon,” Park Jimin nearly growls, and Jeongguk feels his hackles rise in response. He’s about to spit out a hell of a comeback when Jimin’s hands slide around your waist, pulling you into his embrace and away from him, and his voice gets stuck in his throat.

“C’mon babe, let’s go somewhere else,” Jimin whispers into your ear, and you acquiesce, allowing him to lead you upstairs instead.

He leads you into an empty room, and you’re suddenly consumed with the urge to feel his lips against yours. You reach over to tug on the collar of his shirt, pulling him into you and moaning when his plush lips finally meet yours. Your tongue slips out to lick at the seam of his lips, and he whines against your mouth even as you reach to close the door behind you.

Your hands reach under his shirt to feel the hard ridges of his abs, running your fingernails lightly across them and enjoying the way his muscles tense up under your touch. Reaching to slide the hem of his shirt over his head, you follow by ridding yourself of your own shirt, and Jimin’s eyes immediately take in the sight of your bra clad chest, and he bites his lips.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers even as he scatters kisses over the tops of your breasts, and you smile in response, because he always makes you feel so secure, he always knows just the right thing to say.

You guide his hands to the back of your bra, urging him to unclasp it and he does, slipping the straps off your shoulders before taking one of your nipples into his mouth. His wet tongue teases your bud just right, and you arch into him with a moan.

“Jimin, don’t tease please…” You pant as he switches to the other neglected breast. You reach down to tug off your skirt, and in your impatience, you grope at the front of his jeans as well, delighted when your hand is met with a tell-tale bulge. “Jimin, I want you, please…”

He hesitates as you continue to palm him. “______... are you sure?”

“Mhm, I need to feel you inside of me Jimin, I want that so badly…”

Jimin takes a second to look at you properly, and that’s when he realises that you’re drunk. He sighs as he draws away from your alluring touch, causing you to pout in disappointment.

“Jimin? What’s wrong? Don’t you want me?”

“I do, baby, I want to feel you around me so fucking bad, but not like this,” he says as he reaches for your clothes. “Not in some random frat house, and definitely not when you’re drunk. When we have sex for the first time, I want to do it right.”

He helps you slide on your bra and even clasps it for you, kissing you on the shoulder sweetly. “Let’s get you home, okay? I’ll go get a cab and you just wait here.”

You can only nod as you watch him slip on his shirt again, and head out the door. Sinking down on your bed, you realised that you should have tried a little harder to convince him that you’re not drunk and propose going back to your dorm instead, but for some reason you don’t really feel all that disappointed.

Instead you just feel empty and numb.

A shout from downstairs interrupts your thoughts, and you jump to your feet when you realise that it sounds vaguely like Jeongguk and Jimin. Racing down the stairs while inebriated may not be the best idea you’ve ever had, but you manage to make it safely to witness Park Jimin punching Jeon Jeongguk right in the jaw.

Jeongguk is wincing slightly as he fingers the rapidly swelling edge of his jaw, but he only smirks as he staggers towards Jimin. “What happened to your girl? I thought you finally grew some balls to get laid, dude.”

“I said, fuck off Jeon,” Jimin’s eyes narrow dangerously.

“Can’t get into a girl’s pants without getting her drunk as fuck?” Jeongguk is throwing his head back and laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “Let me teach you some tips buddy: try not being a fucking loser for one.”

Jimin’s fist moves so fast that you barely see it as it makes contact with Jeongguk’s nose, and with that the larger boy is knocked onto the floor, groaning as he cups his face. Panic surges in your chest as the people around you cheer and jostle against each other in order to get a better look. You fight to keep your view of the two boys, but you only catch a glimpse of Jeongguk as he pushes himself back onto his feet and lunges as Jimin, hitting him hard with a blow to his cheek.

Jeongguk staggers back after the hit, be it from blood loss or the alcohol in his system, and you elbow aside some frat boy who’s standing in your way just as Jeongguk falls onto one knee. You hear Taehyung’s voice from the other side of the room as he helps Jimin up, trying to restrain the pink haired boy who’s still snarling in aggression.

You grab Jeongguk’s chin and tilt his face towards you. His nose is bleeding profusely and you nearly gasp in horror. “Oh fuck, your bloody nose!!”

“Stop swearing at me!” Jeongguk wipes at his face with the back of his hand, only to realise just how much blood there is.

“I’m not swearing at you- I’m just describing it- oh never mind,” you reach for his arm and drape it around your shoulder, helping him to stand as he places most of his body weight on you.

“Wh-what are you doing with me? Shouldn’t you be fussing over pretty boy over there?” He grunts in pain as he gingerly explores the swollen area of his jaw.

“For once in your life, shut up, Jeon, or the swelling’s gonna get worse,” you say as you help him over to the bathroom upstairs.

You place your hands on his chest to push him back against the counter as you assess his condition.

The bleeding doesn’t seem to be stopping, and it’s just your luck- or his- that the bathroom is out of toilet paper. You curse under your breath, brushing your fingers against his swollen jaw subconsciously as you consider how to stop the bleeding. Belatedly you remember the tampon that you’d stuffed in the waistband of your skirt in case of emergency, since you were expecting your period to come any time soon.

You reach into your skirt and feel around for the tampon, watching as Jeongguk’s eyes widen when he sees you apparently feeling yourself up.

“Uh, babe, I don’t think that’s gonna help much, I think it’ll just make it worse-“

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” You grit your teeth at him as you pull out a colourful wrapped tampon and begin to unwrap it.

Jeongguk shrinks back in horror immediately. “I-is tha-that a... is it what I think it is?”

Amused by his reaction, you pause in disposing of the wrapper as you eye him up. “What do you think it is?”

“A ta-tam-tampon.” He’s stuttering and stumbling over his words, but there’s no mistaking the fear in his eyes upon seeing the small object made of cotton in your hands.

“Yeah, it is,” you confirm his fears with a smirk playing upon your lips, and he recoils with such immediacy that you’d think you were holding a nuclear missile in your hands.

“And… wh-what are you gonna do with that?” His voice is reduced to a hoarse whisper, and a part of you is actually enjoying this- seeing Jeon Jeongguk squirm in terror just because of a feminine hygiene product, and his fear of such a harmless object makes you want to lord it over him for as long as possible, just to torture him for being such a typical teenage boy.

“I’m going to stick it up your nose to stop the bleeding,” you say cheerfully even as you place one hand around the back of his head to steady it. Jeongguk jerks away in fear, but unfortunately for him, he’s trapped between your body and the counter, and in any other situation he would be more than happy, but not when you’re about to shove something that goes up your vagina up into his nose.

“Hold still, or it’ll hurt more,” you threaten, and he almost whimpers helplessly as you push the cotton into his nose, hoping that it’ll stem the bleeding. Jeongguk whines as you try and get the tampon to go deeper to soak up all the blood, and he leans forward, attempting to bury his forehead into your shoulder for comfort. You allow him to stay there for a few seconds before you push him away.

“Fuck, is that what you go through every month?” He winces as he uses his fingers to explore the area underneath his nose.

“Um, well… I guess?” It’s too bizarre to even begin to compare putting in a tampon to sticking one up his nose, so you try your best to keep your answer vague.

He actually whines in complaint when you move away from him, and he reaches for your waist to tug you back to him so that he can bury his cheek into your neck. “It hurts,” he says in a small voice.

You’re fully aware that he’s just milking this for all it’s worth just to get some sympathy out of you, and your hand hovers over his head hesitantly for a few seconds before giving in and stroking his hair a few times.

“Actually, I wanted to apologise for that night,” Jeongguk murmurs into your neck, taking you by surprise; and when you pull away to make eye contact with him, he only tugs you back into his embrace, as if trying to hide from you, and his sudden shyness is somewhat endearing. “I didn’t mean what I said. I should have handled things better.”

Your hand stills over his head, and as the silence stretches on, you can feel the way his hands are tightening ever so slightly on your waist at your lack of a response. Jeongguk is not always the best with words, and in fact, you’ve never heard him apologise so outrightly like that before.

“I know,” you say in a near whisper back to him, and that’s when he can finally bring himself to look at you. “I didn’t mean what I said too.”

Jeongguk almost sags in relief as his eyes stray down to your midriff, and his thumbs stroke your sides ever so slightly. “And I just wanted to say that I-“

The door to the bathroom swings open just at that moment, and Jeongguk’s grip tightens around your waist in response as he tries to move your body behind his. But when you turn around, you see Jimin with his bruised cheek and swollen eye, and jump away from Jeongguk guiltily.

Luckily, Jimin seems to be in too much pain to have noticed the intimacy between you and Jeongguk. To distract him from the fact that you were just in an enclosed room with another man, you grab his hand and tiptoe to kiss his cheek, sparing Jeongguk a last parting glance as you usher Jimin away.

It’s not often that Jimin doesn’t have a smile on his face or his bubbly laughter filling the room, but when he tells you one afternoon that “we need to talk”, you automatically deduce that it can’t be anything good.

Those four words might as well be harbingers of doom.

His pink hair has been fading gradually over the past few weeks, leaving a golden blond that illuminates his skin like a halo. He’s running his fingers through his hair repeatedly, one of his habits when he’s nervous or anxious, and you reach over to pull one of his hands into yours.

“What is it Jimin?”

“Did you tell Jeon yet?” He glances at the cactus plant in your room briefly, still in its broken pot and sitting on your desk. You curse yourself for not getting rid of it yet, even though you were always meaning to. “About you not being pregnant.” He clarifies when you raise your eyebrows at him.

“Um… no, not exactly, but...”

He takes a deep breath and pulls his hand from your grip. “I think you should tell him.”

“Um, okay. I will, if it means that much to you.” His rejection stings a little and you fold your arms tightly against your chest instead. “But… I thought you hated him.”

“I do.. and it’s just…” He lets out a frustrated sigh as he squeezes his eyes shut, holding a hand to his forehead and massaging his temples. “This is so fucked up, because that night at that party I thought I was finally something more to you. When you wanted to have sex with me, I was so fucking elated, don’t get me wrong. I thought maybe we were starting to become something more. But when I saw you in the bathroom with Jeon, hell, how you even went to him and not me; I realised that I’ll always be your second choice, just another option.”

His words hit you right where it hurts, and the progressive guilt that has been building up ever since you sent Jeongguk a picture of Jimin with his face in your neck comes crashing down in one big avalanche. “Jimin, no, you’re not- you’re not my second choice, and I-“

“No, I’m okay with it,” his voice cracks halfway through his sentence, and he gives you a watery smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and he doesn’t have a single trace of bitterness or anger on his face at all. “I’m okay with being your second choice, as… as long as I can love you like this.”

Your seat on the throne in Hell has just been reserved.

A sound of protest starts up in your throat, although you have no idea what to say in response, but Jimin only shakes his head.

“But… I can’t let you go on like this. I know that you don’t… you don’t love me back like how I love you, and that’s okay. But I can’t just pretend like I don’t notice the way your smiles are a little more forced, or the way you always try so hard to find something to fill the silence in between us. I can’t be with you if you’re not truly happy with me.”

The ache in your chest grows into a large void that threatens to consume your entire being, and you’re struggling to find the words make everything okay again, even though everything he’s just said is true. There’s only one way this will end, and the thought of Jimin leaving you, the thought of being alone is almost too overwhelming to bear, and you clutch onto his arm tightly.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like a rebound or a second choice, but I promise I can do better, just tell me how I can change!” You’re aware that you sound pathetic even to your own ears, but the desperation to keep Park Jimin by your side overrides anything else. “I need you Jimin, I need you in my life.”

He only gives you a sad little smile, and you wonder if a million years in Hell will even be enough to repent for breaking his heart like this. “No, you don’t need me, you’ll be fine without me.”

You’re a disgusting person. A horrible excuse for a human being with a penchant for self-sabotage.

The same few sentences are all that run through your head for the next few days, and even though a part of your brain is crying out for help, you can’t help but indulge in the non-stop self-flagellation as you wallow deeper in your unmade bed.

Normally at this time of the day Jimin would be over and you’d be cuddling with him and watching a movie or something, and he’s over so often to the extent that Sejeong even jokes that you have a third roommate now. But without his presence to distract you, all you feel is the hollow nothingness, and you stare into space blankly with no motivation to do anything.

Sejeong peers over at you in concern when you finish off your second tub of ice cream in a day. Although usually she’s incredibly strict with the team’s diets, girl code dictates that when your bestie is burying her face in an ice cream tub, you don’t stop her.

“_____... you okay?” She asks cautiously. “You don’t have to come to today’s game if you don’t feel up to it. I’ll get one of the other girls to replace you.”

Somehow, her sympathy only makes you feel worse, because in the past Sejeong has never offered to sub for you even when you were down with that nasty cold that one time. You’re sure that the entire cheer team knows about your breakup by now, but giving in and not attending that game would only make things worse.

So you suck it up and toss aside your spoon, reaching back to tie your hair up. “No, I’m fine. I can do it, don’t worry.”

It’s one of the basketball team’s major games today against their rival school, and there’s even been rumours that scouts from the professional sports teams will be in attendance. There’s a lot at stake for both the basketball and cheerleading team today, but somehow you can’t bring yourself to be nervous as you drag yourself through your routine of getting ready.

Things get even worse when you get to warmups and realise that Jimin has requested for a change of flyer, and you’re paired up with a freshman named Jinwoo instead.

Jinwoo is the worst base you’ve ever worked with, his hands are always sweaty and he seems unable to lock his elbows to provide you with the sturdiness you need when he’s tossing you up into the air. He always grips your waist with a superhuman strength that you wish could have been invested into his elbows instead, although it’s all in goodwill because he’s terrified of dropping you.

You look over enviously at Jimin and his partner instead, one of the newer additions to the team who’s a freshman called Yejin. She seems delighted to be partnered up with him, and even though her flips and tosses are less than perfect, as she lacks strength in her core and her muscle control is average at best, Jimin makes their stunts look absolutely stunning and professional.

This time your routine takes place concurrently with the first half of the basketball game, and you have no idea exactly which idiot decided this, because it’s hard enough to focus on your stunts without hearing the shouts of the basketball team to each other, the scrapes of their shoes against the court floor, or the fact that Jeon Jeongguk just scored again.

You place your hands on Jinwoo’s that are on your waist, getting ready to be boosted up onto his shoulders with your teeth gritted in determination. You’re supposed to go up in a stagger formation before dropping back down to resemble dominoes, and you can’t mess up the timing or else the whole team will be affected as well.

When Sejeong lands on her base’s shoulders beside you, you bend your knees and jump a few times, and combined with Jinwoo’s strength, you’re lifted off the ground and in midair for a few terrifying seconds, struggling to find Jinwoo’s shoulders because he’s a lot taller than Jimin, and you’re not used to the height difference. When your feet hit his shoulders, you’re thrown off balance for a second and you teeter dangerously, causing the crowd to gasp and hold their breaths. Jinwoo’s iron clad grip on your calves does almost nothing to stabilise you, and you tighten your core to stay upright.

It feels like the gameplay behind you has stopped as well, because suddenly you don’t hear the squeak of shoes against the polished floor anymore, and the silence screams in your ears as you tense every single muscle you have and somehow manage to stay on his shoulders.

The crowd breathes a sigh of relief in response, and you spare a glance to your right, meeting Sejeong’s worried gaze and giving her a small smile in return. Your heart is pounding in your chest even as you can feel Jinwoo trembling under you, and you scrunch your eyes shut, praying to whatever deity above that you’ll make it through this routine alive.

Your cue to hop off his shoulders comes sooner than expected, and even though fear spikes in you at the thought of jumping to the ground from this height, you just pray and hope that Jinwoo catches you on the way down. You grit your teeth and bend your knees as he boosts you up, completing a single toe touch before descending.

His hands catch your waist a little clumsily, but he prevents you from taking the full impact of landing and you almost sob in relief when you realise that all that’s left is the dance routine to end it off. You’ll definitely be having a word with Sejeong after this, because Jinwoo definitely needs more training before he should be allowed to cheer like this, or even be partnered up with another flyer, he needs a fuckton of strength training, and-

Just as you slide into your finishing pose of a front split on the floor, there’s a multitude of shouts and yells coming from the court behind you, followed by a heavy sounding thump. Despite what Sejeong has always told the team- never take your eyes off the audience during a routine, ever, no matter what happens- you turn around involuntarily to see Jeon Jeongguk lying on the floor, clutching his knee with pure agony etched on his sweaty features.

Hospital rules are fucking bullshit.

You don’t even get to see a single glimpse of Jeon Jeongguk before word has it that he’s been relocated back to his dormitory to recover. And the whole patient’s privacy thing means that the usual harmless rumours surrounding Jeon Jeongguk have mutated into a gory battlefield of gossip and people trying to outdo one another in a competition to see who can come up with the best- or worst- sob story.

Long story short, you have no idea what happened to Jeon Jeongguk after that day.

Paramedics and ambulances were already stationed on the scene as per usual, and they descended on the school’s star basketball player faster than bees to honey. It’s since been more than a week, almost 14 days of worry gnawing at the pit of your stomach, trying your best to look disinterested as you pry for information from his team mates.

But Taehyung sees right through you, so you don’t even pretend with him when you approach him again in the common kitchen. He’s in the midst of devouring a bowl of cereal, and you don’t even have the patience to wait for him to finish his mouthful before you ask him the same question again.

“Can I see him today?”

And you expect his usual shake of the head- his parents are with him today, or he’s at physical therapy, or sometimes even just a flat out rejection because Jeongguk doesn’t want to see anybody. The way he says it, it sounds like Jeongguk is moping in his room like an angsty teenager, and you wonder just how bad his condition is, because he’s definitely not the kind to sulk like this, ever. Even when you ask Taehyung to mention your name to him, his answer is always the same, although you suspect that he doesn’t tell you what Jeongguk really said in order to save you from further heartbreak and embarrassment.

But today he nods, and you inhale a sharp intake of breath.

“Wait, really? He finally agreed to see me?” After two weeks of flat out rejection, it seems a little hard to believe, and now that you actually think about it, you have no idea what you’d say to Jeongguk even if you did meet him.

“No,” Taehyung admits with a guilty look, averting his gaze back to his soggy cereal. “His parents are leaving at 4 today, and he doesn’t have physical therapy. So I figured…”

You throw your arms around him in gratitude, nearly knocking over the bowl of cereal in the process. Maybe it’s a stupid fucking thing to do, barging your way into Jeon Jeongguk’s room when he clearly doesn’t want to see you, and when you’ve already established that you mean nothing more to him than a used rag, but at this point you don’t even care anymore, because you just have to see him in the flesh, make sure he’s okay, and then you can go on living your separate lives again.

Just one more time, you say to yourself.

“Just wait till his parents are gone, they tend to linger for a while,” Taehyung warns with a small grin on his face as he sees your features light up again, and you toss a careless smile his way in thanks as you throw open the kitchen doors, heading for your room in a dead run.

Your appearance when going to see Jeongguk has never fared worse than you do now, and you blame that stupid florist. What’s so difficult about repotting a tiny little cactus that it has to take an hour and a half? And that price that she charged you was plain ridiculous, bordering upon extortion, for that matter.

You’re clutching the brand new brick red pot in your hands with the utmost care as you place a hand on the doorknob. Taehyung told you that the door would be unlocked after his parents leave, and your best bet is to literally barge in without knocking. Taking a deep breath and praying that he’s not naked or jerking off in there or whatever, you push open the door and peek in, only to meet his eyes immediately.

Jeon Jeongguk is on his bed with a heavy looking leg brace around his left knee, and his eyes widen as he takes in your windswept hair and makeup free face, eyes trailing down to the pot in your hands as he registers your presence. The sight of the pink flowered cactus in your hands seems to have triggered something in him, because he grabs the covers that are bunched up beside him and tries to cover his bulky leg brace from your view.

“Um, hi. I’m sorry I didn’t knock, glad you weren’t naked or whatever,” you mumble while averting your gaze to look around his room instead, noting the wheelchair that is parked neatly in the corner.

“Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to jerk one off with the door unlocked like that?” Jeongguk raises an eyebrow while scrutinising your figure in the doorway. “Why did you come like that?”

A part of you takes immediate offense to his statement, reaching up to try and tuck your hair behind your ear to make it look the least bit presentable, but then he continues. “Isn’t it like cold as fuck outside?”

Oh. “Um, it’s alright, it wasn’t that bad,” you say nonchalantly, even though your teeth were definitely chattering on the way up here.

“Get in and close the door, you’re letting the cold air in,” Jeongguk sighs through his nose, seemingly having accepted the fact that you’re just going to stand in his doorway and stare at him.

You close the door gingerly and make your way over to him, setting the cactus that he gave you all those weeks ago on his bedside table.

“What’s that?” It’s a stupid fucking question, because he may be injured but he isn’t blind; of course it’s a fucking cactus, the very same one that he crushed in his hands when he was trying to give it to you back then, and it feels like he’s only just asking this to fill in the awkward silence as he scratches the back of his neck.

“It’s a cactus,” you deadpan back, but a part of you is screaming at how awfully uncomfortable he seems to be around you, the way he avoids eye contact with you for more than a few seconds at a time, and the way he crosses his arms over his chest to act as a protective barrier around himself. “And you know what? I named it after you, because you’re a fucking prick.”

“What?” Jeongguk wrenches his stare back to you. “You named a cactus after me? Why the fuck does a cactus even need a name?”

“Because…” you run your hands through your hair in frustration. “You’re missing the point here! The point is, you’re a fucking prick. I spent the last two weeks worried sick over your stupid ass because you’re up here sulking like a high school kid who didn’t get past tryouts. I know you hate me and all and whatever we did in the past means nothing to you, but I’m just selfish like that because I needed to see you at least once to make sure you’re still alive.”

Taking a step back from him, you attempt to keep the tears at bay by digging your nails into your palm. “Thanks for letting me do that, I guess. Bye, Jeong-“

Jeongguk is gripping his sheets, and his knuckles are rapidly turning white. “I don’t hate you.” He risks a glance up at you. “And what we did… it doesn’t mean nothing to me.”

He looks like he’s struggling with his next words as he turns to look at the cactus beside him. “That day after you came to me and not Park… I wanted to tell you how I really felt. But I didn’t get a chance to say it. I guess I just wanted to say that… I want to try things out with you. Ever since we started fucking in the bleachers freshman year, there’s just something about you that makes me want more, and at first I thought it was just your smoking hot body, but it’s way more than that. It’s how you always push yourself to do better, be better, and that makes me want to be a better person too, if not for myself, for you.”

Jeongguk is worrying his bottom lip as he plays with the hem of his oversized hoodie, and you can barely bring yourself to take a step closer to the edge of his bed. He always has a way of saying the crudest things and then taking you by surprise by putting a surprisingly romantic twist on it, and your gaze softens as you take in the boy with the messy bedhead who looks at you as if you’re his entire world.

“And when I found out that you’re pregnant, there was just this raging jealousy inside me that took over everything, and before I realised it, I’d hurt you and said those things I didn’t mean. But after I’d had time to shut out all those irrational thoughts, I realised I want you by my side, and I don’t even fucking care if that’s Park’s baby, because as long as it’s you, it’s okay, everything will be okay.”

Your knees are slightly weak, and you have to sit beside him on the bed. “Wait, Jeongguk, th-there’s something I need to clear up. I never slept with Park Jimin. I just made it seem like I did to make you jealous, and that was irrational thinking on my part too.”

He grips your wrist even as he glances down to your waist, covered partially by your oversized sweatshirt. “Wait, that means… the baby is mine?”

“Wait, what?” Confusion stalls your mental processes for second. “Jeongguk, I’m not pregnant.”

Your confusion is reflected on his own features, a frown marring his brow as he continues to stare at the relatively flat expanse of your stomach. Adrenaline surges into your chest as you take in his genuine expression of puzzlement.

“I- I thought you knew! That night when I used the tampon for your bloody nose, I thought you figured it out. When you asked if this is what I go through every month, I thought you knew I was on my period or something.”

Jeongguk looks at you as if you’re crazy. “Do you think I’m the fucking CIA or something? What kind of inference skills did you expect me to have??”

“It’s not inference skills, it’s just- wait, you’ve seen me around pretty often the past few months, did it never occur to you to wonder why I wasn’t showing yet?”

Jeongguk only shrugs. “Um, no, I just figured it’s like what my mom always used to say. ‘Every pregnancy is different’.”

Oh god. Jeon Jeongguk is an idiot.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” you tell him, but the fond smile on your face says otherwise. “You’re an idiot for not joining all those dots together, and for not letting me see you sooner.”

“I was ashamed,” he admits, and you can almost see him start to withdraw into himself again, and it’s so unlike the Jeon Jeongguk you know and love, and you reach over to press your lips to his cheek, fitting your body next to his cautiously on the bed. “I didn’t know how to face you or anyone else after that. The doctors say it’s a torn ligament, and I might not be able to play basketball ever again.”

He doesnt have to say it, but he's fucking scared as hell. Basketball is all he has, it’s all he’s good at, that’s what his parents and coaches and friends have been telling him from young. And now it’s been ripped away from him in a split second, the fates are nothing if not cruel. His voice is quivering slightly, and you reach out to stroke his cheek, and he responds by burying his face into your chest in the most non-sexual way possible for Jeon Jeongguk.

“I thought everyone only saw me as basketball prodigy Jeon Jeongguk, and without basketball, who am I even? What am I even good for?” He laughs humourlessly.

“You’re an idiot, Jeon Jeongguk,” you whisper into his hair for the countless time that afternoon. “I’ve always wanted you for that amazing dick actually. Fuck basketball.”

Despite himself, Jeongguk is chuckling, and hearing the sound of his genuine laughter in a very long time makes your heart want to dance on the drifting sea breeze that is his happiness, and you grip his shoulders tighter.

“Well, guess you’ll be leaving me now, because I can hardly fuck you right in this state,” he deadpans even as he rests his head on your chest in contentment, fingers idly stroking your tummy and sending shivers up and down your spine.

“Really? We’ll have to see about that,” you let your fingers wander down his chest and teasingly brush over his nipples, feather-like touches that elicit a light whine from him. They brush over his stomach, and even through his hoodie you can feel the ridges of his abs, and you frown in distaste. “Get rid of these abs, I want you to get fat with me. No more dieting.”

His protests are cut off when you push the hem of his hoodie up to reveal his toned stomach, and you shift from your position beside him to tease your tongue up and down, enjoying the way his muscles are flexing underneath your wet laves.

“Fuck- what are you- oh god- what are you doing? I can’t-”

“Shhh baby, let me take care of you,” you silence him with a smirk even as you feel for his length, already half hard, in his sweatpants. Satisfaction blooms through every single nerve ending as you revel in your ability to arouse him to this extent with just a few touches.

Pulling down the waistband slightly, you reach and pull him out, laying him flat on his stomach so that only his tip protrudes out from his sweatpants. Concentrating only on his engorged head, you flick at it with your tongue, watching as beads of precum start to emerge and you dutifully lick him clean, not allowing the precum to pool on his stomach like you normally would. When he whines and arches his hips for more, you oblige and enclose your warm mouth around him, and he nearly sobs.

“Oh fuck, that’s it, I’ve missed your mouth so fucking much, fuckkkk,” Jeongguk strokes your cheek with one hand and rests the other on the back of your head. “Baby please, I need more, I need-“

You push his sweatpants past his hips to reveal the rest of him, and taking him into your hand, you slide your mouth down on him, making sure to massage the underside with your tongue even as you relax your throat. Seeing as he has limited range of motion, you make things easier for him by letting him stay in the depths of your throat for longer, swallowing repeatedly around him. He feels so thick in your mouth and so heavy on your tongue, and you’re aching to feel him fill you up again. Your warm, convulsing throat around him has him on the edge faster than expected, and you’re fully prepared to loosen your throat to swallow his load when he stops you with a gentle tug on your hair

“Stop, stop, I don’t want to cum yet,” he reaches to brush your damp cheeks, and you nod, throat slightly too raw to speak just yet. You give him a few leisurely strokes as he pants, trying to stave off his orgasm. “Can you take off your shirt?”

The way he asks so shyly is as if it’s his first time asking to see you topless, and it’s so endearing that you can’t help but laugh in response. You tug off your sweatshirt, revealing your breasts clad in a navy blue lace bralette, and Jeongguk’s hands descend on you immediately, kneading your soft and supple flesh with his large hands.

“You’re always so pretty… so pretty and perfect and all for me,” Jeongguk murmurs even as he tugs you down so that he can mouth at your chest, and you gasp when he flicks his tongue playfully over the thin lace. He occupies himself with unhooking your bralette and sucking bruises all over your chest even as you straddle him carefully, feeling his length settle between your ass as you grind slowly on him.

“Fuck,” he whines as you teasingly make sure that he can feel how ruined your panties are through the thin material of your shorts. “You’re so wet baby, and I didn’t even touch you. Sit on my dick?”

You bring your eyes up to meet his even as he places his hands on your hips, stroking the generous curve with his fingertips. “You sure?”

“Yeah, just go slow? Never thought I’d ever say that in my entire life, not when it comes to sex,” he grumbles, but you know he’s only trying to reassure you.

You shimmy your shorts and panties off, reaching back to take him in your hand and pump him a couple of times.

“Wait, do you need some prep first? I can finger you or eat you out or-“

“I’m soaked, babe, don’t worry,” you brush his head against your drenched core to prove it, and he inhales through his teeth in response. Just as you’re about to angle him just right and slide down on his cock, he stops you again with a hand on your waist.

“W-we should use a condom,” it’s the first time Jeongguk is suggesting that you use one, and you know he hates the feeling of latex around him, so you raise your eyebrows in question. “It’s just… that last scare was…”

“Now you’ve ruined the mood,” you tease as you run a thumb over his head. “Maybe you should just cum inside me bare and knock me up for real. That’s what it took to get your head on straight anyway.”

“That’s hot in theory,” he admits even as he reaches into a drawer, rummaging for the box of condoms he has somewhere inside. “I’m all up for roleplaying that as a kink, but the realms of imagination are as far as that fantasy will ever go.

He hands you a foil wrapped packet, and you tear into it, unrolling it onto his length before giving him a few test strokes. As you line him up with your entrance, you lean down to meet his lips with a playful smirk, playing along with him. “You do know that condoms aren’t fool proof right?”

You sink down onto his length, and his response is nothing but a long, drawn out moan as your walls tighten around him. He feels entirely delicious inside you, weeks of not feeling his thick length stretch you out like this makes the sensation so much more toe-curling. Jeongguk has his head thrown back into his pillow, his forehead scrunched up, and his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows hard, hands gripping your hips as you continue to clench around him.

When you start to move- focusing more on grinding and slow rotations of your hips instead of slamming up and down so as not to hurt him- he keens and whines. “I’ve missed your pussy so much baby, fuck yes, always so tight, always taking my dick so well.”

His praise makes you moan even as your clit pulses, in constant contact with the rough skin of his base. When you incorporate your Kegels into the mix, he nearly goes insane as he pants and sobs, desperate for a faster pace and just dying to flip you over and pound into your pussy so hard that you’re both seeing stars, but he has to settle for this for now.

You raise yourself ever so slightly on his dick and slide down again, making sure not to land on his pelvis even as you oblige him by riding him the way he wants you to. It’s putting a strain on your thigh muscles, and for the first time you thank Sejeong for her killer leg day routine, and the pure bliss etched on Jeongguk’s face is more than worth it.

“I-I’m so close baby, are you? Are you close too? Please tell me you are,” he nearly begs as he reaches down to rub your clit.

You answer with a whine and further tightening of your walls even as he rubs your clit with just the right amount of pressure. “I’m so close Jeongguk, you feel so good inside me, just wanna feel you cum inside me.”

“Fuck, I can’t- I’m coming,” he warns with a gasp as he pulls you to sit down on him, and you can feel his length pulsing despite the thin layer of latex, but he doesn’t let up on your clit, sending you over the edge as well as you imagine him spilling his cum deep inside you, without the condom in the way.

Your walls close down around him, heightening his pleasure even as you writhe on top of him, and your name falls from his lips repeatedly in reverent cries of his ecstasy. The white hot pleasure extends all the way to the ends of your toes, burns up the length of your spine, and sears the pit of your stomach, and you collapse boneless against his chest.

Jeongguk wraps his arms around your sweaty body, breathing hard as well.

“You okay?” You shift your weight off him to curl up beside him instead, and he brushes aside your concern with a touch of his lips to your forehead.

“’m more than okay,” Jeongguk murmurs against your skin, his senses innately tuned to the way your chest rises and falls against his, the feeling of your bare skin on his that feels so right, and your scent that fills his nose. With you in his arms like this, it feels like he can forget about everything for a while, and even though the future that looms is uncertain, it’ll all be okay, because it’s you by his side. “Perfect, actually.”

a/n: this is the last part for this series!!! thank you for all your love and for waiting so patiently, i hope you enjoyed it :”)

addie

#bangtan bookclub #bangtanwriters-net #btswriters #btsmaknaenet #kwriterskollection #bts scenarios #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts jungkook #bts jungkook smut #jungkook smut #bts x reader

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ariya-167 · 6 years

Text

Spirit Talker sneak peak

This was definitely outside of Bolin’s comfort zone.

Of course, many things had been pushing Bolin from said comfort zone as of late, but even this was a little too far. The streets closest to the Spirit Portal had devolved into chaos, since Kuvira’s attacks on the city. The homeless had taken up residency in the abandoned, skeletal buildings, and criminal activity in the area was well on the rise. The streets were unmaintained and filthy and smelled nothing short of awful, and Bolin leapt over a suspicious puddle as he padded down the broken concrete. Even when he and Mako were homeless together, struggling to get by, they’d never had to deal with the danger and mess that was everything Republic City’s downtown had turned into.

Granted, Bolin had been a little too young to remember the gritty details. Mako had done almost everything for him then. Sometimes, Bolin considered asking his brother for stories of when they were younger, but each time the subject was brought up Mako’s face closed off and his brows furrowed in a way that was so Mako, and Bolin would give up.

Bolin eyed his older brother now, scouting a couple feet ahead of him with Beifong, the moonlight glistening off their twin uniforms. Bolin briefly appreciated the juxtaposition of the smooth glistening plate against the grimy and graffitied walls and felt a surge of pride for his brother. Mako was so cool. And Beifong was, well, Beifong. He felt much safer down here, with the two of them as his escort.

Bolin concentrated on following their smooth movements with his eyes. He tried to focus on their practiced walks, the way they would peer down the cross street and make some sort of minute hand communication back to each other before stepping out of the sanctuary of their little alley into the exposed area. On a different day, Bolin might have even been flattered they were treated him like such a precious escort subject, but he was distracted by the feelings pummeling him from all sides; a man just inside the broken doorway to his right was vomiting up his dinner of liquor, two women a story up prepared for a night on the streets. This part of the city was all horror and desperation, and that wasn’t even counting the now-familiar whispering of spirits in his ear. Bolin screwed up his eyes against the piercing feelings, the noise, the-

“Bro. You okay?”

He opened them again. Mako and Beifong had stilled. Mako was wearing his now-usual look of concern, and Bolin grimaced- he hated for his brother to worry about him. Even Beifong’s brows had drawn together in concern, which Bolin figured must have been a first.

“Yep. Doing just fine.” Bolin stretched his face into the smile he’d practiced in front of the mirror that day, and he whispered a silent thanks to the spirits that Mako seemed placated by it; perhaps the dim moonlight made it seem less fake than it had under the harsh fluorescents of his tiny bathroom.

Several minutes and countless suspicious-looking puddles later and Beifong stopped beside a shabby door. “This is it.”

“Are you sure?”

She consulted a scrap of paper from her pocket. “Absolutely.”

Thank the spirits. “And you sure this guy will tell us where they’re keeping Asami?”

“Nope.” A corner of her mouth lifted. “I thought that’s why we had you along, though.”

Mako snorted a laugh beside her. Bolin only grimaced.

Beifong knocked on the door; three sharp taps. “Police,” she called loudly. “Open up.”

They sat in silence for a minute; nobody answered. Bolin looked to Mako questioningly, who only shrugged. “We have to give them an opportunity to open it for themselves, first.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then-” Beifong breathed. She stepped back, cracking each of her fingers- “We do it the hard way.”

She placed a hand flat on the door, closing her eyes. Inside the building, Bolin heard a yelp of surprise.

They entered the little building after a series of quick jabs on the door had knocked out its locked handle- really, Metalbending was so amazing- to find a haggard man bound to the stone floor by long metal tendrils that had shot out from what looked like the half-standing table beside him.

“He tried to run.” Beifong shrugged.

Bolin knelt by the man. He was dressed in a scrappy suit, his brown eyes wide and terrified. “You could make this easy for yourself,” he told the man, hoping it didn’t sound too much like a plea. “Tell me where you’re keeping Asami Sato, and we don’t have to do this.”

“I’ll never tell you,” the man spat back at him.

Bolin sighed, squeezing his fists to keep them from trembling. A warm, familiar hand touched his shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mako said from behind him. He sounded desperate, too. “We could find her another way, we could take him in for questioning-“

“No.” Bolin leaned forward, touching the man’s forehead. His fingertips were glowing purple. “This is the only way. For the sake of Asami. She’s worth it.”

Bolin concentrated on his breathing. On the third breath, he plummeted into the man’s mind.

There were flashes. There always were. Lights and sounds and smells Bolin had certainly never experienced before rushed through his mind, but they were mild and weak as Bolin carded through the memories, searching, looking for information on Asami.

Her glittering green eyes were staring at him resentfully from a dark, musty cell and Bolin spat on the ground before her, walking away.

He approached a second man in a long, dark hallway. “Finally got the Sato bitch to calm down. Screaming for hours- it’s no wonder the Avatar likes her so much.” He snickered. The second man laughed back roughly.

“We moving her tomorrow?” He asked Bolin. “It’s too public here.”

“Yep. Taking her to-“

Bolin concentrated. Taking her to- where? He couldn’t hear the man talk. He glanced around, but the tunnel was indistinguishable. A spike of fear coursed through him. Where were they taking her?

The memory faded into a sea of green and Bolin was surrounded by touchably soft dry grasses and little yellow wildflowers and the chirping of birds was loud in his ears. He crouched before a woman, holding out a little blue box and her breath caught and-

The noise of the Republic City Hospital was suffocatingly loud and the scent of blood and antiseptic filled Bolin’s nose as he ran down the corridor and into a room filled with the screaming of a baby and his wife held it out to him and it was his, his daughter, and he lifted her into his arms and he was a father and-

His breaths were coming out too quickly, the smell of blood was filling his nostrils and the sound of birdcall turned into screams and the colors, there were so many colors and he couldn’t think anymore, he couldn’t breathe, and Bolin finally wrenched himself from the man’s mind, gasping, falling on the ground.

Everything was hurting, his palms were glowing the terrible purple and Bolin looked across the floor at the man. His stomach dropped to see a pool of blood streaming from the man’s nostrils, his eyes bloodshot and bulging.

“Bolin!” Mako dropped to his knees. “Bolin, are you okay? Please, bro. Answer me. Please.”

Bolin was silent, watching Beifong as she crouched over the man, touching two slender fingers lightly below the man’s neck. “He didn’t make it,” she whispered softly. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Bolin moaned, crawling to the man and grasping his already cooling hand. “No, no, he can’t be dead- he can’t!”

“Bro, it’s okay.” Mako moved to the body with him. “We’ll find someone else, we’ll rescue Asami-“

“This isn’t about Asami!” Bolin screamed, pushing away his brother’s hand from his shoulder. He didn’t deserve to be consoled right now, he didn’t deserve to feel the warmth of another person. “This man- he’s a husband- he’s a father! I just-“

The room was spinning, his blood was pounding in his ears. No matter how much air Bolin forced into his lungs, it wasn’t enough.

“I just killed someone’s father!”

“Bolin.” Mako’s face was green as he moved, again, towards him. “You couldn’t help it, please calm down, please, I can’t see you like this.”

“Get away from me!�� Bolin stood, shaking. “You get away from me, you don’t have any idea what I could do! Please, don’t make me hurt you.”

Mako’s stared at him, broken, speechless. Bolin backed into the wall, feeling blindly for the door. His hand pushed outward and he stumbled backwards into the musty street.

And Bolin ran.

#korra-of-the-south #submission #bolin #mako #lin beifong #spirit talker #the tension in this is really good #can't wait to see more

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amertsi · 7 years

Text

To Hell With It - Chapter 2

The newly deceased finds his way to Hell. Gilbert thinks there’s been a mistake. Roderich knows there hasn’t.

Heaven and Hell AU of sorts. Eventual PruAus. Chapter warnings: descriptions of gore and torture, mentions of eye gore but it isn’t explicitly detailed.

Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

Gilbert shook his head, incredulous. No, no, this was impossible. Hell didn’t make mistakes. Not now, not ever. He rubbed his eyes, squinting, as if somehow that would make the words appear on the page, and he would laugh and turn to his patient, apologize for the wait, then read out that list of sins that had to exist.

But there was nothing.

Like a flipped switch, Gilbert’s features twisted, brow furrowing, and he grabbed his patient by the collar, lifting him out of his chair, but only so far as the restraints would allow. “If this is supposed to be some kinda joke, Mister Edelstein, it’s really not funny. Where’s your file?” His voice came out a snarl, and the man in his grip only looked at him with a frown, that same calm serenity in his eyes. Gilbert longed to snuff it out.

“The file is there, Doctor. Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, there’s a huge fucking problem! Why the fuck are you here?!”

His patient remained unperturbed. Gilbert found it infuriating. “I really don’t think it matters why I am here. That’s not your job, now, is it? To know why I’m here. Your job, Doctor, is simply to deal out whatever punishments I have earned. So, if you don’t mind, I’d be grateful it if we could get on with it. This waiting has me anxious.”

Gilbert stared into unwavering eyes, then, scoffing, released his grip on him, his patient wincing as he was dropped back into the chair. “Fine. Whatever. Don’t tell me. It’s not like it matters. Just don’t--” He sighed. “I don’t wanna hear any complaints from you, y’here?” He began rummaging through drawers, making a ruckus as he searched for his tools. “If you’re not supposed to be here, now’s your chance to say it.” He turned, a small scalpel in hand, meeting the gaze of his patient once more, meeting the same eyes, not a trace of regret to be found in them. “I’m serious. I don’t wanna find out there was a mistake and I’ve spent lord knows how long fucking up a guy who’s innocent.” Roderich only looked back at him, and Gilbert wondered how long he’d last, what with those delicate features and dainty figure.

“I assure you, Doctor, there have been no mistakes.”

Gilbert’s expression lingered on one of confusion and utter bafflement for a moment longer, before he shook out those feelings. There was no room for pity in a place like this. And Roderich was so different from the norm, so interesting despite it all, that maybe he could have fun with a patient for the first time in years. Slowly, a wry smirk crept to his features, and he approached the chair, flipping the scalpel between his fingers.

“All right then, whatever you say.” The metal of the scalpel blinking in the fluorescent lights of the office reflected in Roderich’s eyes, and Gilbert’s smirk grew as he saw the first signs of fear in that insufferable gaze. “Better hold on to your stockings then, Pretty Boy, ‘cause this is gonna hurt.”

I need a new couch.

It was an old couch, gifted to him by his brother when he’d moved into his new place. Gilbert loved the damn thing. It was just perfectly soft, just perfectly colored. But the cushions were beginning to fade, and, with his face pressed into them, he could smell the remnants of some stain. Groaning, Gilbert rolled onto his side, narrowing his eyes into a glare. If his brother were here, he’d be getting an earful about getting blood on the couch, his doctor’s coat still hanging off his shoulders. But he wasn’t, and Gilbert was too lazy to move. On any other day, he would have been just as neat and tidy as his younger brother and thrown his coat into the laundry straight away; his brother had to get it from someone, after all. But today, he simply lay there, glaring at a spot on the wall across the room.

Never before had a new patient left him so goddamn tired.

He’d wanted to start with the eyes. Those hateful violet eyes that Gilbert both loved and found himself watching, looking for those emotions that betrayed an otherwise neutral face. But, as he always said, save the best for last. So he let the pretty boy keep his eyes and started on his hands instead.

What Gilbert had thought to be soft, unblemished hands were riddled with callouses at the fingertips, and he inspected each with a critical gaze. Roderich certainly didn’t seem the type to do hard work, and yet, despite the marks and scars, they were still elegant hands. Long fingers, pristine and perfect, if not for the callouses that marred them. Gilbert longed to destroy that perfection.

So he did, and screams filled his office. He crushed the beautiful elegance away, finger by finger, filled with a rush he hadn’t experienced since the beginning of his career. And perhaps it was a bit out of form, to start with the hands like this, but Gilbert found he didn’t care. How could he, when such an unorthodox start gifted him with such an entertaining sight? Such a soft face becoming hard and contorted, surely slate white teeth gritted tightly as if doing so might somehow help Roderich endure the pain just a little better than if his jaw were slack. Tears dotted those too expressive eyes, and his patient even cried beautifully! Gilbert wondered; was there anything this man could do that would not be beautiful? Such as shame, he had thought, that such an elegant creature such as Roderich could end up in a place such as this. Hell, with all its dark edges, its gritty corners and shadowy rooms. And wasn’t Gilbert lucky that he had fallen here, despite a blank file? If he hadn’t, if he’d claimed a mistake had been made, then Gilbert wouldn’t have been allowed to experience such beauty, such refined pain and suffering. Roderich’s dignity would only make the coming days and weeks and years more sweet. Gilbert was going to chip away at it, piece by piece.

He’d checked his watch then, leaving Roderich with hands now broken and bloody, and himself with gloves stained. Several hours still till the end of his shift. He was certain that he had some quota to fill, a requirement to perform such and such experiment, but how could he, when he had such an entertaining new plaything?

And so he’d decided to fill in quotas and check off boxes later. Today would be simply for himself. Only his own experiments he’d perform, and perhaps he’d leave early, to let the new patient rest a little longer. The first day was always the hardest, after all. Though usually, Gilbert didn’t bother to give them extra time; might as well just throw them hard and fast into the bloody fray. But such a delicate man would surely need more time, he reasoned. So Gilbert did leave early.

Not before allowing himself the joy of finally snuffing out those eyes, of course.

He’d left his patient still strapped to the chair, as was protocol, bid him goodnight, then left, locking the door to the office behind him. And he’d made his way home as if it had been any other day.

But it wasn’t. The sudden lack of energy in him was proof enough of that. After the climb was the fall, after all, and now Gilbert lay on his couch, still staring at the wall, and wondered just how his pretty little patient was doing. If the first day was hard, then the first night was harder. He couldn’t remember if he’d left the lights on or not, but supposed it didn’t matter. His brow furrowed in thought, and he wondered if there really was a quota for eyes. He hadn’t collected any in a while, so surely it wouldn’t hurt to get some more.

And oh, how he couldn’t wait to see those eyes again. That was the beautiful thing about Hell. No injuries his patients suffered were permanent. Come morning, when he’d unlock the door to this office again, he’d find Roderich brand new, as if nothing had ever happened, the only signs that Gilbert had done his job the day before being the bloodstains covering the man. He would clock in next morning, and grin at the bewildered face of his patient, who must have spent the night trembling and in fear, unable to cry for his lost eyes, his lost vision, for his hands that could no longer do whatever it was he did to get those callouses. Briefly, he felt a bit guilty for not explaining the entire process to the man.

Gilbert let out a loud, exhausted groan. Why feel guilty now? This job, this new patient, they’d granted him more fun that he’d ever experienced, at least more than he’d experienced in a long while. And it wasn’t like he had a habit of explaining everything to his other patients, anyway. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling. That empty file and questions unanswered flashed in his mind like a curse he couldn’t dispel.

He couldn’t pretend the file wasn’t empty. That much was certain. But that was also so unprecedented. No one came in with an empty file. Gilbert supposed that if they did, then it really must be a mistake, for those without sin cannot go to Hell. But there he was, a man with no sins, no reason to be eternally damned, none that Gilbert could think of. Even more puzzling, Roderich had shown no regret, no signs that he wasn’t meant to be there. And Gilbert couldn’t help but believe him. Something had to have sent his newest patient to him, but he couldn’t even begin to fathom what.

With another groan, Gilbert rolled over again, this time so he was falling off the couch, landing on his back on the floor so he might glare at the ceiling instead. He wished to see those eyes again. Those emotional, gorgeous eyes. He wished to stare into them, silently ask, why are you here? But he knew he’d receive no answer, and he’d begin to wish to tear them out again instead.

Gilbert sighed and finally sat up, running his hands through unkempt hair.

“...I really do need a new couch.”

#mertsi fic #hetalia #pruaus #aph austria #aph prussia #to hell with it #eye gore /#gore /#torture /

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dazzledbybooks · 5 years

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Title: CURSE OF THE FAE QUEEN Author: Delia Castel Pub. Date: February 14, 2019 Publisher: Delia Castel Formats: Paperback, eBook Pages: 231 Find it: Goodreads, Amazon A Huntress of Faeries. Five cursed Fae Princes. An evil that will destroy the world. When Eighteen-year-old Neara saves a villager from the clutches of a deadly faerie, the Fae Queen sends warriors to abduct her dying father in revenge. To gain his freedom, Neara must venture into the Shadowlands and obtain three enchanted objects under the supervision of the bestial Prince Drayce. As Neara and Prince Drayce grow closer, she discovers the Queen’s scheme to release an ancient evil and enslave the mortal world. To thwart these plans, she must break the curses of five Fae Princes, but the cost of doing so is her Father’s life. Torn between saving the human realm and saving her father, Neara must navigate this treacherous world and choose between love, liberty and power. Curse of the Fae Queen is a reverse harem fantasy adventure for fans of A Court of Thrones and Roses and A Song of Ice and Fire! Excerpt: Ch1 Wherever there was commotion, there was a faerie. Wherever there was a faerie, someone was about to die. I rushed after the crowd of merrymakers toward the tavern’s exit and the source of the commotion. The fresh scent of wildflowers wafted in through the open doors, a welcome respite from sweat and sawdust and sour ale. Someone’s booted foot stepped on the hem of my skirts. I snarled and yanked it free. A leprechaun darted through the throng, slashing purses and swiping gold pieces. He stuffed his pickings into the openings of his blood-red tunic, eyes gleaming, handsome features twisted. I clutched my basket of burn salves and stared ahead, avoiding eye contact with the leprechaun, avoiding his clever fingers, and most importantly, avoiding his notice. The folk in the Isle of Bresail say a maiden who can see the fae is twice-blessed. Blessed to behold beings of beauty and blessed again for the chance to bargain for health, riches, and immortality. Whoever said that had obviously never met a faerie. The fae, creatures of hideous power and beauty, revel in human misery, beget bad luck, and feast upon mortal lives. Every encounter with the monsters carries the risk of being killed. Or worse, a repeat of that horrific Samhain night seven years ago, when the fae slaughtered an entire village trying to find me. Terror still grips my heart like the jaws of the hound of Culainn. I see the fae. I fear the fae. I’m powerless to stop the fae. And I can say I am thrice cursed. As I neared the exit, the baker’s apprentice bumped me on the shoulder, and I stumbled across the gritty floor. “Sorry, Neara!” My gaze dropped to the salves. They lay in the basket, nestled in muslin cloth I’d wrapped around them for safekeeping. “I’m looking for Eirnin. Is he here?” “Have you tried the forge?” “They told me he’d be having an early dinner here.” “Can’t say I’ve seen him.” He raised his massive shoulders. “Maybe he’s watching the spectacle Shona is making of herself in the square.” He rushed ahead, shoving through a group of sailors stumbling toward the doors. Dread rolled through my belly like a summer thunderstorm. Shona, the haughty eldest daughter of the mayor of Calafort, would never even sip a tankard of ale in public. If she was doing something to attract the attention of drunken louts, there could be only one cause: the fae. I stepped out into the warm evening, inhaling a lungful of fresh air. The sun hung behind a dip in the Fomori mountains, a burst of daffodil amidst clouds tinged the color of blood-red poppies. Its yellow haze reflected off the whitewashed timber framed buildings lining the cobbled thoroughfare. My gaze traveled down to the crowd gathered at the end around the village square. Shona, the center of the attraction, wasn’t exactly a friend. Since Father and I moved to the port town of Calafort, she had sullied my name with allegations about my associations with the blacksmith, the retired soldier of fortune, and the local priest—people vital in my private crusade against the fae. Two young men sprinted past. The smaller of the pair yelled, “Hoist me up on your shoulders, Colman!” “As if!” The taller gave his companion a playful shove. A warm wind swirled around my hair, blowing vibrant, copper strands into my eyes. As usual, its color brought back memories of the night I had been willing to bargain to look… less peculiar. The night I had doomed an entire village. Guilt clawed at my gullet, and I gulped. Even if Shona had soured my existence with her gossip, I couldn’t leave anyone, not even her, to become a faerie’s prey. I strode after the rush of drunk men, only for the familiar pull of dread to weight my steps. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, faeries had become more commonplace in Calafort and more malevolent. Benign household spirits and mischief makers were replaced by malicious beings of unusual and tremendous power. The innkeeper’s wife stormed out of the crowd, skirts swishing, shooting sharp glares at the men rushing through the cobbled thoroughfare. “Don’t think I won’t tell your wives and mothers about your disgraceful conduct!” she screeched at their backs. “There should be a law against giving an audience to a public harlot!” An iron fist clenched my heart. “Mrs. Martin?” “What?” She whirled around, auburn locks falling from her bonnet. “Are you talking about Shona Mulloy?” Her thin lips twisted. “She’ll never be able to put on airs and graces, that one. Not after revealing the wanton hussy beneath that false piety!” My pulse throbbed in my throat. Not waiting to ask any further questions, I broke into a run. The only cause for Shona to make a public spectacle was magic, and no one could stop it but me. Hoots and cheers and roars exploded from the podium, louder than a clap of thunder, making me trip on a loose cobblestone. Splaying out my hands for balance, I slowed my steps. What in the name of all that was holy did I think I was doing? Father’s words echoed in my skull. Every encounter with a faerie increased the chance of being captured. The creature behind Shona’s shameless display could be one of the horsemen from that terrible Samhain night. What if he recognized me? I brought my feet to an abrupt stop. After six years of moving from place to place, we had a mere week before the dense mist covering the coast of Bresail would clear. No merrow could lurk in the waters, calling people to their deaths with their enchanted music, and no kelpies would board the ship and attack. Father and I planned to gain passage on a ship to Hibernia, the land where holy men slew monsters to protect the innocent. Guilt crawled up my back and clung to my shoulders like the talons of a night hag. If I did anything to ruin our chance, Father’s sickness might not grant him another seven years “Get ’em off!” cried one drunken reveler. “What kind of lass can’t even undo her own corset?” shouted another. Guffaws filled the air, and someone bellowed, “The pampered sort!” My eyes widened. Before good sense could prevail, my feet pounded the cobblestones, and I reached the edge of the crowd. Pushing my way through the eager men, I caught a glimpse of the spectacle. The bodice of Shona’s dress hung around her waist like a shed skin, her breasts jutting out of her under-bust corset. She had hitched her skirts, revealing her thighs and glimpses of a thicket of mahogany, pubic hair. “Higher!” screamed a drunkard. Blood surged through my ears, dulling the men’s lascivious shouts. My jaw clenched so hard, it throbbed in time with my raging pulse. I turned my head away, understanding why Mrs Martin had been so incensed. No-one, not even Shona the gossip, deserved to be humiliated in such a fashion! Using the bodies of the leering men as cover, I receded into the crowd and studied the men in the direction of her glazed stare. The usual village louts and ne’er do wells jostled each other about in the front, but one male stood out from the rabble. Not because his silk jacket was too fine for the village of Calafort, not because he was the only man remaining calm amidst the scandalous display, but because his face was devoid of features and did not even have a nose. His eyes, fathomless tunnels of black, stared at her with a cold amusement. Around his unlit pipe, one corner of his lips curved into a whisper of a smile. Gancanagh. The word popped into the forefront of my mind. It came from the leather-bound book Father insisted that I study for hours every evening. The gancanagh was a silver-tongued, shapeshifter faerie who could morph into a woman’s heart’s desire and drive her into a frenzy of wantonness. While a gancanagh enjoyed sexual contact with women, what really nourished them was the ensuing despair he caused from withdrawing his affections and ruining her reputation. Ostracized, isolated, and full of despair, his victim would commit suicide, providing him with a condemned soul upon which to feast. “If you can’t manage the corset, open your legs and give us a good show!” bellowed the inn-keeper to a roar of drunken cheers. Shona’s head lolled to the side, and she moaned. “Please… I need you!” The gancanagh nodded, indicating for her to do as they said. Disgust curdled my stomach, making me want to spit. That was as much as I could stand. Delving shaking fingers into my pocket, I gathered a heavy pinch of salt. It soaked up magic, rendering the attacks of many faeries useless. Then, I put it under my tongue, suppressed a grimace, and pushed through the crowd, making sure not to look at the gancanagh. “Shona Mulloy,” I shouted, making my voice as shrill as Mrs. Martin’s. “Your father would be ashamed of you!” She ignored me, as I had expected. Those in the thrall of a gancanagh became powerless to do anything but his bidding. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she hiked her skirts to her waist, eliciting ear-ringing catcalls. “That’s a bushy tail if ever I saw one!” yelled a voice from within the crowd. Affecting a shriek of outrage, I slapped her hard across the face, ensuring that my iron ring made contact with her lip. The salt remaining on my fingers must have either gotten into her mouth or into the tiny cut my ring made, because her eyes focused. “Get yourself home,” I screeched. “You’re giving all the womenfolk of Calafort a bad name!” I yanked on her arm, hoping to convince the gancanagh that I hadn’t noticed it. “Neara, show us your ginger muff!” shouted a heckler. I ignored the drunken dolt and headed to a gap in the crowd. A few of the men, now shamefaced, stepped aside. Rage seared my veins. Any one of them could have intervened, but they had chosen to let a neighbor debauch herself. According to the information in my book, the gancanagh’s allure only affected women and only if they touched him of their own accord. There was no reason, apart from malicious lechery, that they couldn’t have stopped Shona from falling to ruin. A hand wrapped around my wrist, its chill seeping through my skin, permeating my bones to the marrow. I suppressed a shudder. The fae, immortal creatures that were neither alive nor dead, were nothing like humans. My leather-bound book said they were the offshoot of a supernatural race called the Fomorians, but from what I had seen over the years, and I had seen a lot, they were hungry spirits made flesh. The only thing that differed from one type of faerie to another was what satisfied their appetites. Gritting my teeth, I turned my head and glared at the hand restraining me. It was an effort to keep my voice from trembling, but I focussed on my anger and said, “Let go of my person, sir.” “Permit me to introduce myself.” He released my wrist, gave me a gentlemanly bow, and held out an elegant, smooth-skinned hand that could have belonged to an artist or a Prince. “I am Gerald Canice, and I wish to commend you on your valiant rescue of that young lady’s virtue.” “I would be doing a better job if you didn’t keep me here talking,” I snapped. “Excuse me.” Most would have lowered their hand and stepped away at my rudeness. This creature did not. He glided closer, still with his hand outstretched, now turned as though he wanted to take mine and press a kiss on my knuckles. “Please… I must know your name.” “It’s Neara,” shouted a drunk. “And she’s interested in nothing but stinking herbs and withered old men!” My face heated, indicating a blush as red a hawthorn berries, one of the many disadvantages of having skin the pallor of diluted milk. The drunks snickered, and I pressed my lips together, trying to exhale my anger through flared nostrils. “Ignore those louts.” His voice soft and cultured, just as I would imagine a storybook Prince. “Won’t you at least look at me?” As though of its own volition, my gaze lifted to his face. It was no longer the characterless visage from earlier. He now resembled the raven-haired faerie whose presence had cursed me with the sight. A bolt of shock shot through my heart as fast as lighting, jolting it into action. I drew in a sharp breath between my teeth. Everything vanished from my attention. The crowd of drunken men, the sobbing girl at my side, the fear of being discovered by the fae. It all faded now that Gerald had caught me in his mesmerizing, viridian-green gaze. His full lips split into a breath-stealing smile of even, white teeth, rising up to high cheekbones, and leading to eyes so longing they wrung my heart. “Neara…” My name sounded like supplication on lips that begged to be kissed. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance.” One of my hands twitched toward his still outstretched hand. My mouth dried, not because of the salt, but due to the warmth pooling between my legs, creating a fire that only he could quench. My throat dried, partially because of the salt under my tongue, but mostly because of the male’s beauty. If he had chosen any other face, I would have ignored the gancanagh, but I couldn’t resist this dark-haired, green eyed apparition. A tiny voice, as quiet and persistent as a midge, whispered that it was a trap. The monster wanted to infect me with the venom coating his skin and see me debased before my village. “I…” A gulp interrupted words that had already withered in my throat. I had come prepared, wearing a bracelet of iron with a matching torque and ring, but I hadn’t anticipated being faced with the being who haunted my dreams… my deepest, most oft-denied desire. “Neara,” said a voice hoarse with tears. I turned to lock gazes with Shona, her eyes bloodshot and brimming with tears. “Will you take me home?” Her voice was the splash of saltwater I needed to break gancanagh’s spell. Without a backward glance, I pulled her away from the lecherous gazes of the crowd, trying not to succumb to the pit of dread wrenching open my stomach. Once again, I had attracted the attention of the fae. The gancanagh likely wouldn’t work out that I had seen through him, but my awakening of Shona from her stupor would have at least aroused his curiosity. Shona and I walked unmolested through the crowd of degenerates, many were now slinking back to the tavern. Without his audience, the gancanagh would not pursue us. He fed on the humiliation of his victims, delighted in their ruin and not their lust. His gaze, heavy on my back, turned my steps to lead. The gancanagh was likely evaluating me, wondering why I could resist his magic. My throat thickened, and I gulped down my rising panic. This was exactly the kind of thing Father had warned me against. We could not flee Bresail if we attracted the attention of the fae, and I had done exactly that! If the wicked creature stayed to satisfy his curiosity, we were doomed. A curious faerie always attracted others, and I of all people would know that arousing the interest of the creatures was deadly. ***** The folk in the Isle of Bresail say a maiden who can see the fae is twice-blessed. Blessed to behold beings of beauty and blessed again for the chance to bargain for health, riches, and immortality. Whoever said that had obviously never met a faerie. The fae, creatures of hideous power and beauty, revel in human misery, beget bad luck, and feast upon mortal lives. Every encounter with the monsters carries the risk of being killed. Or worse, a repeat of that horrific Samhain night seven years ago, when the fae slaughtered an entire village trying to find me. Terror still grips my heart like the jaws of the hound of Culainn. I see the fae. I fear the fae. I’m powerless to stop the fae. And I can say I am thrice cursed. About Delia: Delia Castel has loved fairytales for as long as she can remember. The books she writes under this pen name are steamy, reverse harem retellings of classic stories. To download a free copy of The Big Bad She-Wolf as well as the exclusive chapters that follow the tale, visit: www.DeliaCastel.com Facebook | Amazon Page | BookBub | Goodreads Giveaway Details: 1 winner will receive a $10 Amazon GC, International. a Rafflecopter giveaway Tour Schedule: Week One: 2/11/2019- Mythical Books- Excerpt 2/12/2019- Bookbriefs- Review 2/13/2019- Dena Garson-Real... Hot... Romance- Excerpt 2/14/2019- BookHounds- Excerpt 2/15/2019- PopTheButterfly Reads- Review 2/15/2019- Journey in Bookland- Review Week Two: 2/18/2019- Character Madness and Musings- Spotlight 2/18/2019- Dazzled by Books- Excerpt 2/19/2019- Kelly P's Blog- Excerpt 2/20/2019- Smada's Book Smack- Spotlight 2/21/2019- TMBA Corbett Tries to Write- Excerpt 2/22/2019- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt

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3amigo-blog1 · 5 years

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Tangled IN YOU

Book#1

IN YOU series

Author: Cassandra Night

Genre: Emotional Woman’s Fiction

Date of Publication: November 7th, 2018

ASIN: B07JW72KHG

Number of pages: 237 pages

Word Count: 68,026

Cover Artist: Danielle Dickson @Vixen Designs

Tagline: Sometimes the only way out is through

Blurb:

How do you begin to live when an unbearable tragedy only allows you to exist? You become me. A construct of perfect lines and shields built to protect the heart, allowing only short gasps of air and small rays of sunlight, to endure the pain. My life was left in ruins when I lost everyone I loved. I forfeited everything I once was to keep their memories protected from everyone else. To survive, I pushed it down, kept it locked away, desperate to forget the truth. Then he showed up, willing and daring me to feel again, to raise me from the ashes of despair. It was a mistake to let myself believe I was ready, because now, through the fissures in my armor, she is trying to return and take it all back by force. Eventually, all secrets are bound to unravel revealing terrible things about the past. Can I, survive the gale of sorrow, after I let them in again?

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Amazon AU

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Tangled IN YOU teaser EXCERPT:

I feel a twinge of guilt as I kiss little Ethan goodbye. “Have a nice day, munchkin, listen to your dad.”

He embraces me, meshing his body tightly around me as I hold his small form, and then raises his arms for Daddy to pick him up. My heart sinks in my chest at Nate’s disheartened expression. “I’m not going, love. Have fun with your dad, all right?” I wink at him, trying to lighten up his mood, then kiss his cheek and squeeze his shoulders.

He nods his head, smiling sadly, then hops down the steps to the car without a single word. Sam straps Ethan in and gives me a kiss, but Nate ignores me, sulking in the back seat. I watch them as they drive away, and wave before heading back into the house.

Late in the evening, the bell buzzes, demanding my immediate attention, and I get a terrible feeling; a sense of foreboding churns in my guts. The ringing bell is a warning. Growing dread stirs my heart into skipping a beat and my stomach coils into a tight fist, but I refuse to acknowledge any of it. At least this way, I can pretend and hope.

Unwillingly, I walk towards the door, trying to shake the fear rapidly encasing my senses. My heart squeezes in warning, as if attempting to prevent unlocking the gates to the agony.

Before I reach the door, I stop for a minute to compose myself, as the bell sounds a second time. My legs start to shake and my anxious heart races in my throat. The air, saturated with sharp dread, presses on my shoulders. Warning tingles in my limbs, making them feel heavy. An erratic pulse thrums loudly in my ears, and I start to sway on my wobbly feet. Black spots begin to appear before my eyes.

Then I open the door. I know I shouldn’t, but somehow, I do. With a numb smile plastered on my face, I welcome the dark messengers.

I can’t hear their voices, the mind that floats with cold detachment refusing to understand. Cocooned from the truth, I am shrouded in the welcoming silence. Nothing can touch or break me. It makes me feel content to stay in here, and I don’t fight it.

“Sandra, can you hear me? Where have you been? Are you ok?”

From afar, I can hear them calling me, but I am unable to form any sort of reply. As they stand before me, trembling, they grip my hands, demanding for me to hear them out. My paper white-colored face is frozen in limbo, incapable of grasping what is happening. I watch people rushing towards my home, shouting, crying.

The message was grave.

Soul-shattering. Unraveling. Unmaking.

My eyes fill and overflow, pouring hot substance down my cheeks. Rivulets of the hot tears meet at my chin.

Burning. Freezing. Undoing.

The vision of my little boy, like a message from the other world, comes to me.

“Let’s go, Mummy…” The phantom voice of my child distracts me from the reality happening in front of my eyes. A small hand envelops mine. I look down, and Ethan is smiling at me, a peaceful reflection in his eyes.

“It is ok, Mummy. He won’t cry for long. I am waiting for him, you know? You should go home and rest.” Astounded by his calm and heartwarming smile, I know that he is right.

The vision fades and the overwhelming need to block the rushing world crashes into me. Willingly, I surrender to the nurturing darkness, afraid to accept the truth. This way, I can still pretend my family will come back home, that this is just a nightmare.

“They died in the car accident…” the policeman’s sympathetic voice tells me. I feel like screaming on the inside, thrashing, my soul bleeding, as I refuse to accept the reality. It doesn’t seem real to me.

But when it finally did, my family was horrified by the darkness, and my inability to cope with grief.

“We think you need professional help, Sandra. The hospital might give you a break from grief…” That was what my mother’s determined voice said before my family broke my trust.

I should never have let them see it—my pain and my shattered soul. I had no time to hide. They subdued me and took away my freedom, locking me away in the mental hospital.

The fear remade me, agony imprisoned me. After that, I hid my pain from everyone. Darkness became my shelter. She became me.

But then I hear them. My children, calling me back. I will reunite us, Cassandra better let me.

“Nate! Ethan! Where are you?” I hear their giggles, and then screams mixing in unison. Their fear is shattering my heart. I can’t reach them, she is fighting me. I will have to force the memories into her heart.

“Mummy please, I am scared!”

Nate’s screams echo, calling me to save them, and I whimper. I abandoned them, but no more. We are coming back to reclaim our rightful place—the heart, where we should be.

Soon I’ll be free, and we will reunite. The terror, shame, and guilt will remake or break us. Everyone will see who we are. I belong to her, she belongs to me. We both are the same. I refuse to stay in the darkness. I will claim back my life, even if it kills us both in the process. I have nothing to lose, but she does.

You can taste my rage, Cassandra.

I can feel your fear. It’s choking you. You can be free, just give in.

Never! Enough!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassandra Night

Cassandra Night is a new author of unusual heart-breaking, soul healing stories full of hope and love.

She lives in England with her two sons and very patient husband, enjoying coffee mornings and books like chocolate desserts. Cassandra Night is an obsessive reader of romance, and since she found a new passion in writing, she loves to submerge herself in her own stories too.

She loves to write real, flawed characters that you can peel layer by layer until their souls are wide open. Cassandra writes realistic, gritty, and raw romance with all the feels.

If you are a lover of deeply emotional, flawed and realistic stories with lots of anguish and complex characters, her books are for you!

Social Media Links:

BookBub:

http://bit.ly/2yX74pD

Join the tribe:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/mazeoftangledhearts/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CSandraNight/

Twitter:

http://bit.ly/2NvE6St

Instagram:

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TBR – Tangled IN YOU (book#1):

http://bit.ly/2OYYehh/

TBR – Entwined IN YOU (book#2):

http://bit.ly/2yLQDLN/

Goodreads authors profile:

https://www.goodreads.com/CassandraNight/

Amazon profile:

https://amzn.to/2zh8FH0/

Tangled in You Tangled IN YOU Book#1 IN YOU series Author: Cassandra Night Genre: Emotional Woman's Fiction Date of Publication: November 7th, 2018…

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lizmckague-blog · 6 years

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Excerpt from The Paper Boat

by Elizabeth McKague

O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...

He made them in crafty, rapid gestures, folding the pages of a manuscript he’d carried to the river. Thinking he would read it, he planned to sit on his favorite rock until the mud of the bank crept into his only pair of leather shoes and the October dusk erased what light was left in the sky.

The white sheets of paper were slick and delicate. His tiny boats easily drifted from the water’s edge in measured breaths and sailed down river in a balanced breeze. The Arno looked murky and heavy, a green shade in the last pale slants of daylight. He creased and folded his stanzas and cantos, turning the corners of each page into lips that held a silence. A silence before voyage, a silence released from the futility of whatever permanence he had originally intended by attempting to write the damn thing. He started to work faster in a synchronized fury, setting each paper boat upon the water as soon as it was made. He got a paper cut, then another, and his fingers grew cramped in the sharp, cold air hovering over the river with the approaching night.

At last he folded his hands together in a buckle around his knees and relaxed. His posture copied the shape of the rock. He stared hypnotically at the flotilla of paper boats he had made. Spreading out along the river’s dreary current, they passed beneath the Ponte Solferino until page one was a white speck in the distance. Then page two and page three, until the entire paper fleet, like defeated warrior ships, slowly disappeared into a blinding mist, moving westward toward the Mediterranean Sea. The sun sped away and the Arno became gray and opaque.

As a child, he had made paper boats with such concentration that nothing existed in his mind but the movement of his fingers against the sheets of paper. He tore them from a random notebook he had discovered about the house. They felt at once flimsy yet stiff, soft and cold. It was the autumn of 1802. He had left his sisters to their music lesson and wandered out of doors alone. He descended the wide steps in the front of the mansion, crossed the circular drive of gritty stones where the carriages came in, and continued through a maze of clipped green hedges in the courtyard. He was not even aware that he had left the house without a guardian. He remembered a sense of freedom and the sad scent of his mother’s neglected garden. Fading, pink chrysanthemums and frosted white colored roses danced, nonchalantly withering in symmetric rows. He walked beside the white washed fence that was then twice his height and passed the stables without being noticed. The horses were being let out from their stalls into the meadow. He strode over a damp, grassy hill and finally came to Field Place pond. The gray-green water quivered in a slight breeze. He found a flat spot of dry pebbles situated amongst tall yellow reeds at the edge of the pond. He sat down and felt hidden. He watched some fallen maple leaves drift in the water, aimlessly spinning this way then that. He sat there that day for hours, making boats and watching them float. At one point, the sun broke through the late afternoon clouds and illuminated the pond. His paper boats shone. He took a stick and made ripples. He was ten years old.

Perhaps he was punished for wandering about the Estate alone that day. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember much from his childhood. Just the boats, the ghost stories he wrote with his eldest sister, the airless smell of the perfumed ladies who visited his mother’s tea room, the fear he felt each time he passed the door to his father’s stale library, a book of poems by Thomas Chatterton and that particular day when he sat at the pond alone. For something happened in the late hour of that afternoon. He sat watching the rings of ripples grow around his tiny spinning boats in the water, listening to the croak of a concealed, lone toad and the hoots of wild geese hunting for their winter home across the gray sky. Then it happened. It lasted for a moment but a moment that appeared to throw away all time.

He looked up to watch the flock of geese pass by. The black branches of an ominous oak clawed at the sky like some ancient, crippled beast scraping its tentacles against a pane of silver light. He looked down into the water for a sudden burst of light in the atmosphere nearly blinded him. He saw his reflection in the pond. He held his breath or could not breathe, maybe he had shrieked for the image terrified him. He was standing now and could see his entire figure in the water; a thin little boy with messy golden locks and blue eyes like gleaming sapphires and... wings! The whole world seemed upside down. He saw himself as an angel and it horrified him. He dared not look back up into the clouds for he was afraid he’d find a hole through which perhaps his subtle body had fallen. He never saw the angel again.

A discarded light from the street lamps along the quay beside the Arno made sharp arrows over the river that had by now gone black. Shelley rose and ascended the bank, snatching his long gray coat at the collar where buttons were lost and tried to bow his head under the harsh current of the wind.

He reached the Piazza Solferino where the very last rays of a tangerine sunset seemed to singe the edges of brown leaves drifting clumsily off chestnut trees. The square was fairly empty. A few parked carriages, a street musician wrapping his guitar in a tattered wool cloth, the shadowy lamplighter making his rounds and the rose colored glow in the two tall windows of a crowded restaurant. The bells of San Nicola struck at six o’clock. He stopped to listen, a habit he had developed since his exile into Italy, to simply stop and stand still for those few moments of ringing. He didn’t pray, he didn’t think, he didn’t speak, just breathed and listened. San Sepolcro, Santa Croce, Saint Marks, Saint Peters, San Giorgino Maggiore; the bells of each church unique to his attention. The bells of Westminster Abbey or any cathedral he’d lived by in England only reminded him of time, wrung his nerves, made him worry. A sort of bell toll anxiety he experienced even on his wedding day, or rather, both wedding days.

He turned onto the Lungarno Pacinotti, a wide avenue that traced the river. The chilly air forced him to quicken his stride. He watched a fisherman ahead, dragging his net out of the water and onto the shore. It was filled with silver perch flapping away. But that’s not what Shelley saw. He saw a woman’s body; silver, bloated, frozen, dead. The same body he saw in his mind when Mary returned from the post that afternoon and read him the letter, the only way she could, quickly, without expression, her voice laden, calm and dry.

“Harriet Westbrook, age 26, found drowned in the Serpentine. Cause of death, suicide.”

He had neither seen nor communicated with his ex-wife for ten years. The news did not shock him and his demeanor remained as blank as Mary’s. He went into his attic den alone for an hour. Then tucking the manuscript in his jacket left the apartment quietly, telling her he was off to Byron’s early. Instead, he went to the river, knowing ‘the haunting’ was about to return. He had seen ghosts all over Field Place as a child. He even discovered their hideouts and would often sneak into the pantry, the coal cellar or beneath the stair just to sit with them for the moments before he was found out. In college, in London, in Whales, in Ireland... wherever he’d traveled since, the ghosts would follow. By now such episodes had become a kind of state that was so familiar, that although it made him ache, like bouts of loneliness or sadness, he saw the spectral visitors as natural invitations into the enigma of the mind. He accepted his visions as markers or signs, invisible notices of eviction from one house of the spirit into another. The doctors called his visions ‘hallucinations,” but Shelley believed more in the ghosts than the doctors.

“Good evening!” The happy fisherman called up to Shelley who was scuffling along the road above the riverbank.

“Good evening.” Shelley echoed, “Looks like you have a good catch there.”

“A very good catch. Buona sera, Signore.”

He felt free of the haunting as he crossed the Ponte della Fortezza where the reflection of the street lamps blurred on the dark river. He walked on until he reached the steps of the Palazzo Lanfranchi, which he had named, “Lord Byron’s Circean Palace,” for the enormous rooms were forever littered, with not only a tropical menagerie of plants but also all kinds of exceptional animals.

“What a sorcerer you are, my Lord.” Shelley had commented when he first encountered Byron’s collection of pets in Ravenna, “I see you’ve brought Cicero back from the underworld in the form of a ferret and metamorphosed the old stoic Seneca into an owl!”

Byron had laughed, then added quite seriously, “You know, when I was at Cambridge I kept a grizzly bear in my rooms and I must confess that at one point I truly believed he was Marcus Aurelius Antonius himself.”

Although the bear was no longer a part of Byron’s zoo, the spectacle of his domesticated animals never ceased to amaze Shelley. As he crossed the Palace’s threshold, even though he’d done so one hundred times before, the scenery helped to lighten his thoughts and soon enough he became almost giddy.

In the foyer he was greeted by two German shepherds, composed as the Queen’s guards, while a majestic falcon perched on the head of a statue of Hermes in its center. Next, in the front hall, he paraded past an army of cats curled up upon the embroidered cushions of French rococo chairs that were set flush against the long frescoed wall. Byron’s three white monkeys were swinging in mocking gaiety from a monstrous glass chandelier. One of the monkeys bounced down into the corridor and the cats hunched up and hissed. He turned into a gallery where he was spied upon by the incandescent eyes of peacocks opening their feathers like a lady’s fan and when he reached the stairs to the second story, he was forced to experience a philosophical confrontation with a wandering Egyptian crane. At the entry to Byron’s private lodgings, a set of purebred Russian wolfhounds lounged on wooden benches at either end of an enormous hearth, perpetually oblivious to the sporadic swarms of yellow canaries flying in and out of the lush green ferns of potted plants. And finally, as he climbed the stairs, the echoes of fiery red and mint blue parrots aligned along the banister sang out in scratchy harmony, “The King is dead! The King is dead!”

Byron’s butler informed Shelley that the gentlemen were in the billiard room. He entered through the open door very quietly, clinging to the shadows elongated against a paneled wall by a blazing fire. They were playing a close game, Williams and Byron against Trelawny and Robert Southey. He sat down in a green velvet chair that was tucked into a discreet corner. Across the room sat Thomas Moore, crouched on the sofa, reading the fresh ink of Byron’s newest poem with a crinkled brow. They were all sipping sherry out of thin crystal glasses whilst Robert Southey captivated them with an animated review of his recent encounter in Switzerland.

“And just as we were leaving the hotel with the predicted blizzard upon us, Mr. Wordsworth wrapped his scarf around his long neck and ended our conversation about ‘Mad Shelley’ by saying, ‘A poet who has not produced a good poem before the age of twenty five, we may conclude, cannot and never will do so.’ In all earnest, I mentioned Shelley’s Queen Mab but Mr. Wordsworth just growled and said, ‘Won’t do. This hairy fellow is our flea trap!’ The words of William Wordsworth I tell you! Straight from the mouth of the man who is sure to be England’s next poet laureate.” He then grew silent to watch Byron nudge his last ball just to the edge of the middle bumper. Southey grinned, tapped his cue stick three times on the floor, then bent over the table, squinting through his awkward monocle and biting a mole that hung, gathering spittle upon the bulb of his lower lip as he muttered, “Sorry, old man,” and pounced forward on his stick to win the game. The rest of the group laughed at the amusement but Byron did not. He rolled his dark eyes about the smoky room and noticed his friend hiding in the green chair and limped toward it instantly.

“Shelley! We didn’t hear you come in.”

“I didn’t want to disturb your game.” He stood and took a deep breath. The room was stuffy and smelled of burnished wood.

“Southey here had a run-in with Wordsworth in Geneva.” Byron gripped Shelley's slim wrist.

“I heard.” He warmly shook his hand.

Robert rushed to meet the young poet, his face pink with embarrassment, “I don’t think he’s ever even read your work, really. And the weather was abominable that day, we were all out of our wits, truly.”

“Pleased to see you again too, Robert.” Shelley bowed his head slightly, “But my dear sir, there is no need to apologize. Now I know what England’s finest contemporary poet has to say about my work and I respect him all the more for it.” He leaned toward Southey’s quivering shoulders and whispered bitterly, “As a matter of fact I never did write a good poem before I was twenty-five. I suppose that means the last four years have been quite a waste of time.” Shelley straightened his posture and tugged at his waistcoat as he turned to Byron with a clandestine wink and announced, “You know, I do believe that as of this very moment I shall throw away my quill and commit my life’s work to perfecting the art of bird watching.”

Southey’s meaty shoulders began to shake. Byron chummily slapped his back, “Come now ol’ chap, let’s don’t get unruffled. Shelley is teasing us. Let Wordsworth have his say! Our boy here probably doesn’t give a damn!”

Robert’s eyes widened then narrowed into slits like a snake before its prey. Byron quickly leapt between them and challenged Robert to another game. Trelawny offered Shelley a glass of sherry that he declined. Instead he accepted the loose pages Tom had finished reading, the seventh canto of Byron’s Don Juan, which he took to the green velvet chair with a sense of relief. But as he settled down to read it, Byron, who had crossed the room to obtain a better cue stick, stopped abruptly behind Shelley’s chair and whispered, “Shall we throw him to the dogs?”

Shelley grinned, “No. Let the monkeys have him.”

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