#a little I think due to the miasma on the arms | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kiame-sama · 4 years

Note

Could you do a Yandere Silva where the reader is getting hit on by a butler with a death wish and Silva freaks and it ends with rough sex where reader won’t be able to walk👀🍵

Warnings; lemon, rough behavior, yandere relationship, yandere behavior, mentioned non-con, reader gets threatened, reader has female parts, oral (female receiving), oral (male receiving), 69, peak into the yandere mind of an assassin,

~~~~~~~~

You sat quietly in your room, relaxing back on the large couch and idly listening to whatever was currently on the TV. It had been a fairly quiet day, but most days were quiet (other than when Silva decides he needs attention). You were rather bored, slightly considered taking a nap or even calling for Silva just for some kind of entertainment.

Just as you were in the middle of deciding what to do, the door slowly began to open. This immediately put you on guard since the only ones who would enter your room tended to fling it open despite how unbelievably heavy the door actually was. You were quick to retrieve your panic button, a distress alert Silva had given you just in precaution for someone getting to your room. It only happened once that some fool decided to kidnap you without anyone knowing until you were already gone, but he made certain it would never happen again.

You fiddled with the small device nervously, watching the door with great anticipation for whoever it was on the other side. You were surprised to see a man you had never met before. He wore a suit identical to that of the butlers that worked in the manor, but all of the butlers should know better than to even come within twenty feet of your room.

"So you're the famous Zoldyck treasure. I can certainly see why."

He looked you up and down, making you feel far more exposed than you actually were. The man was blond and had bright blue eyes that seemed to glimmer in the light of your cell. He was fairly tall, though not as tall as Silva, and he had sun-kissed tan skin. The way he looked at you like a piece of meat made your skin start to crawl, so you subtly pressed the button and hoped that this man wouldn't have the time to do anything to you.

"You're quite the big mystery. Most here don't know what's in this room, and It's even one of the most enforced rules; don't go near this room. I can see why you're considered a treasure, a lovely thing like you would attract a lot of attention. But, I don't see why you're kept away from everyone like this. Can you tell me?"

"..."

"It's okay, I don't bite, unless you want me to. You must be such a fragile little thing, being locked up like this for your safety."

"I'm not locked up for my own benefit."

"Oh?"

"I'm here because my husband doesn't like sharing."

This, instead of making the man back off like you thought it would, the man only seemed to become more interested in you due to your words. He began a slow approach towards you, making you retreat until your back was pressed against the wall and he was mere inches away from you. You tried to turn your head away from him, keeping as much distance as possible between the two of you, knowing just how Silva will react.

"He doesn't have to know... Isn't it exciting, though? Sneaking around like this."

"No."

"Oh come on, live a little, sweetheart."

"Leave me alone."

"Nah, I don't think I will. In fact, no one even knows I'm here, so no one will come check on you. I could do so many things to your tight little body with the time I have... And no one would even hear you cry for help."

"Stop- Stop it."

"So scared. Good. I like 'em scared. You're gonna be so much f-"

He was suddenly cut off by the door slamming open with enough force to make the walls shake, him turning on his heel to confront whoever just arrived. You were quick to slide past the stunned man as he turned away from you, hurriedly making it to Silva's side and hiding behind him. The man had a look of pure terror on his face, clearly not expecting the terrifying assassin to appear.

You gripped tightly to the back of Silva's shirt, pressing your forehead against his broad back as you hid from the intruder that had threatened you so gleefully. The small glimpse you got of Silva's expression was enough to tell you everything you needed to know. He wasn't just mad, he was furious. Luckily, none of that fury was directed towards you.

Not only were his burning blue eyes filled with pure hate, they seemed to glow in the light of the room with a predatorial glint. He never really seemed to smile anyway, but his expression wasn't his usual scowl, it was akin to the stone-cold expression of a wild animal ready to kill. There was a palpable hate in the air that made it quite clear Silva had no intention to let the man live.

"Did he do anything to you?"

"He threatened me."

A low hum that sounded more like a growl rumbled from his chest, clearly displeased. The man had yet to move from his original spot, frozen in terror at the intimidating visage of your furious husband. Had the situation been different, and had the man not threatened you, you would have felt pity for him, but you felt no pity now.

"Explain."

"Wha-What?"

"Explain just what you are doing in my wife's room."

The man had already been terror stricken, but now all of the color disappeared from his face as he realized just how stupid his decision had been. He had assumed you were just another family member, maybe a sister or daughter. He only began to now realize just how fucked he was. Even though he was a relatively new butler, he knew of Silva's infamous temper and he also knew to never talk about Silva's wife, lest he wish for the most painful death possible.

He had seen Kikyo around, and since Kalluto was always trailing behind, he had assumed that she was Silva's wife and did his damndest to stay away from her and stay out of her path. He had heard stories about what would happen to anyone who took any level of interest in Silva's wife, but he had just figured it was meant as a basic warning about the woman herself. Yet here he was, staring at the most terrifying man he had ever encountered after just having threatened and attempted to force himself onto the very woman he was warned to never speak of.

"Well?"

"I- I didn't- I hadn't- but-"

"You've already exceeded my patience, filth."

"I'm- I'm sorry! I didn't know who she was! I wouldn't have said those things to her if-"

"Said what 'things'?"

"..."

You pulled away to look up at your towering husband, seeing him glance over his shoulder at you, his eyes far more gentle and loving. The glance was a clear prompt to speak, and you'd rather not push Silva's buttons at that moment, given his unyielding rage about to overflow.

"He threatened to rape me and said no one would hear me scream."

There was a sudden change in the entire room the moment you finished your sentence. It was a crushingly heavy pressure that seeped into every corner like a rolling miasma, consuming everything. The pressure quickly lifted from you, allowing you to breathe though it was clear the intruder did not receive the same kindness as he choked and dropped to his knees.

If you thought Silva was mad before, he was as tame as a kitten in comparison to the rage that now consumed him. You were well aware of Silva's knowledge in ways to kill a man, but it seemed more like he was interested in a slow drawn out slaughter. He never once looked away from the terrified man, even as he spoke in a gentle tone to you.

"(Y/n), go wait in our room. Don't come out until I tell you to."

"Alright..."

Quickly scrambling to the room you two shared, you caught a glimpse at Silva's expression and felt your heart drop into your stomach. Even though you knew he was not angry with you at all, that look alone sent fear running down your spine and into your very being. You closed the door and sat on your bed, hearing a sudden shrill voice begin screaming.

It wasn't hard for you to guess the kind of mood Silva would be in once he was done dealing with the man. There was no doubt in your mind he was going to be rough as well, knowing how he got when jealous. You also knew he would be jealous as all hell due to the man being in your room. It may not have been your fault and the man may be dead, but with Silva, jealousy didn't fade away.

There were few things you could do at that point to soften Silva's mood, and honestly him being rough wasn't that bad (so long as he doesn't break your bones). Given how terrifying just a glance at him was, you figured you'd do something that should brighten his mood and help soothe his jealousy a bit. You dug through your clothes picking out your white and blue lingerie- Silva's favorite for obvious reasons- and waited on the bed.

The screams had yet to stop, though they certainly took on a more gurgling tone the longer it went. You shivered slightly, wondering just what Silva was doing to the man, since he was an expert at torturing people. Though he has hurt you in the past- most being accidental- you know just how strong he is and just how deeply his few emotions impact him. Looking from the outside, he feels nothing, but with you he is extremely expressive in everything he does.

You lay back on the bed, thinking about how much you truly impacted him and how much your wellness meant to him. Hell, the man would move heaven itself if you wanted him to. He was the dominant partner, but he was also a slave to your every emotion.

While you let yourself get lost in thought, you slowly slipped off to sleep with Silva's pillow cuddled in your arms.

Movement on the bed drew you out of your peaceful slumber, letting out an upset whine at being woken. You were slightly disoriented from your sudden awakening and blearily blinked the sleep out of your eyes. As your brain began to fully wake as well, you realized that Silva was right above you, his large hands on either side of your head.

There was a faint feeling of surprise as you noticed not a speck of blood on the giant man. You figured he would have been soaked in the blood of that idiot butler, but not a single fleck of red marred his flawless skin.

"Trying to cheer me up?"

There was the slightest of smiles pulling at his lips as his eyes slowly dragged over your barely covered figure, letting out a low hum of pleasure and licking his lips slowly. He seemed almost too calm at that moment, but you knew the beast that dwells within would easily come forth once he began.

"It certainly does help..."

"I thought it would be nice to surprise you... but I guess I fell asleep before you came back."

"You are a wonderful creature, (y/n), did you know that?"

"Well, there has to be some reason you keep me around."

"Sassy thing."

His tone was teasing, but you knew he wouldn't be teasing you for very long, not with the way his sharp blue eyes roamed your body. He sat up, now letting his hands roam your soft body and squeezing every few seconds. No matter what mark may be on you- be it a scar, a birthmark, a mole, didn't matter- he adored you and held such reverence for you. Even when you gain or lose weight, you are a Goddess in his eyes, and he made sure to treat his Goddess well.

"Mmm, you do know how to rile me up."

"Lots of practice."

You reached up to run your fingers through his hair, watching his eyes narrow in bliss from your gentle touch. When you suddenly tightened your grip and tugged on his long hair, that calm expression changed in an instant. He was now less of a man than he was a beast, moving you suddenly so your legs rest on his shoulders, your back against the pillows.

He didn't say a single word as he gripped the lacy panties you wore between his teeth, pulling back in one smooth motion and ripping the delicate fabric with ease. You were about to whine at the destruction of his favorite set but you didn't even manage to get a single word out before he buried his head between your thighs, tongue easily sliding through your soft folds. He didn't bother with being slow in working you up, he just slid his tongue as deeply into you as he could to slurp up your juices.

The noises coming from him were obscene as he sucked on your soft pussy, low moans vibrating against you as he gripped your legs tighter, pulling you closer to his mouth. You ran your fingers through his hair, gripping tightly and tilting your head back with breathy moans. He held your hips still, making it so you were unable to do anything other than writhe in the pleasure he gave you.

It was clear that him holding you still was more of a dominance thing to reassure himself and soothe his burning jealousy more than it was to show his dominance over you. He was using your presence and your sweet moans as his own validation of being your one and only. Reminding himself- and in some ways, you- that you were still his and he had no intention of sharing you in any way.

You truly have only had honest social interaction with three people on a consistent basis and your five children on the odd occasion for more than twenty years. If that didn't give you a good visualization of how deep his jealousy runs, then it would be the contempt he has for his own children. As far as he was concerned, you only truly needed him in your life and no one else would have the chance or ability to get between the two of you.

He was much like a religious zealot with how fiercely he coveted you and everything about you. His tongue was as deep in you as possible while his large thumb rubbed your clit, blue eyes closed in bliss as if he truly received deep pleasure from taking care of you and pleasuring you like a wild animal did its mate. You were his everything, and he wanted your everything desperately enough he had you kidnapped only days after meeting you, already in deep obsession and fanatical adoration for you.

Continuing with endless stamina, he brought you up to mindless pleasure and kept you there, every whining cry you made only served to fuel his desire and increase blood-flow to his achingly hard cock. In typical Silva fashion, he completely ignored his own needs to not only ensure your pleasure, but to test himself to see how long he could listen to you moan before snapping and giving in to the starving beast within him. He was quite the dominant masochist when it came down to it, always adoring every scratch and mark you make on his fair skin but also making sure he was the one on top and in control.

With a loud sucking sound, he pulled away from your soaked pussy, licking his lips with hazy bliss filled eyes never leaving your shaking form. He was completely lost in his desire to possess all of you, and he gently trailed his warm hands up your soft front until he lightly gripped your chin, holding your mouth open. You were faintly worried about what he planned on doing while in such a blissed out state, yelping when he moved you down the bed with both hands before moving so his muscular legs were on either side of your head.

He slid his large cock slowly into your mouth, your jaw stretching a bit further to accommodate the rock-hard length. A deep moan rose up from his chest as he thrusted his hips a few times before returning to digging his tongue into your slick heat. He did the majority of the work to pleasure you both, ensuring to keep himself from making you deep throat him just yet. You reached up to rest your hands on his hips for your own sake should he unintentionally begin to choke you, but to Silva the contact of your gentle hands on his pale skin was overwhelmingly intense.

He was extremely touch starved when it came to you due to his distant and cold upbringing despite how much physical contact he actually had with you on a regular basis. Just another reason for him to be obsessed with the touch of your skin and the feel of your body against his. Each small brush of your hand anywhere on his body sent intense sensations running through his very being. To feel not a hint of affection during the critical developmental beginning years of his life left him distant and made him believe all outside touch would bring only pain.

Of course, when he met you, his entire world changed drastically. Your touch was gentle and brought no pain with it, only the sweet sensation of honest care and empathy. He had to have you, and only you. Only your touch brought him such calming pleasure and consuming affection. Even as he bucked his hips into your warm mouth, he was past cloud 9 in absolute bliss, sinking his tongue into your extremely wet pussy and almost desperately trying to bring you the same level of pleasure that he felt even when simply in your presence.

That's what he always tried to do.

He felt so much from and for you that he couldn't help but attempt to reciprocate that pleasure any chance he got. His addiction to your touch was likely why you two were still so sexually active even after decades together, that and Silva used that intimate connection to soothe his own mind consuming anxiety. It was why he became so irritable whenever he is away from your side for more than 24 hours. His mind drowns him in anxiety with every outcome of you being attacked while he is away.

It would destroy him to know something hurt you or you were unwell in some way while he was gone. He would feel like he failed you as your husband and that he failed you as your protector. He refused to fail. The cost would be too great.

You, on the other hand, happened to be lost in the feelings of pleasure running through your veins, to the point you didn't honestly notice much other than the warm cock in your mouth and the hot tongue on your pussy. Every moan you made only made that large length twitch and throb, feeling the slide of your tongue against his flesh as you let your fingers slide over his hips. It was clear he enjoyed it as he let out deep moans and growls of pleasure, holding himself back as long as possible.

Just when you felt the pulse of his heartbeat flutter, he pulled away from you, leaving you confused and slightly dazed. He was watching you try to collect your thoughts, proud he made you so delirious with pleasure that you needed time to return to awareness. His movements were slow and methodical as he positioned himself between your legs, raising your hips up so he could slide through your soft folds.

"Look at me, (y/n)."

His deep voice drew your scattered attention, staring up into his intense blue eyes in an almost questioning way. There was a moment of silence as he stared at you in adoration, not looking away from you as he slowly slid his firm length into you, watching the way you gasped and writhed on the bed. He gave you only a moment to adjust to his size once more before he began to thrust into your welcoming body, drowning in the tight embrace of your warm insides.

You moved up and down on the bed with each rough thrust, clawing at the sheets beneath you. Silva pound into you with such intensity you could barely draw in a breath before it was being forced back out with another rough thrust. He leaned over your writhing and mewling form to start pressing open mouthed kissed against your neck, biting down a few times to hear you yelp and whine. You wrapped your arms around him and let your nails bite down on his fair skin, shivering from his rumbling moan directly against you ear.

As you felt your orgasm creeping up with alarming speed, you reached up to his hair and gripped on the long locks, tugging hard enough to remove his lips from your neck. You had to stop tugging on his hair and just cling to him as his thrusts became rougher, pressing one of his hands against your soft stomach and feeling the way he moved inside of you. The increased sensation of his large cock rubbing against your tight walls practically made you scream in delight, your pleasure overwhelming and consuming you as your orgasm flooded your body.

"So tight..! You are mine. You will always be mine. I'll never let you go. I'll never let you forget."

You barely registered his crooning words due to your overstimulated nerves sizzling in your brain. He adored the hazy look in your eyes as you were consumed by the pleasure he provided you. That sweet expression on your lovely face was enough to push him over the edge, his hot cum painting your soft insides with every intense pulse.

When he finally pulled out of you, you were still trying to catch your breath and clung to his body with all of the remaining energy you had. The low humming chuckle that came from him was a soft and soothing rumble that was quite like the purr of some feral beast. You curled close to his warm body, snuggling down into his grasp as he pulled the blanket over the both of you, kissing your forehead gently.

"Mine."

#Yandere silva #Yandere silva x reader #Yandere x reader #Silva Zoldyck #hxh silva #daddy silva

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shini--chan · 3 years

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I love you're writing skills! How would be the reader react when she travel the time back so like the 1600 in England?. And England would she see her in modern clothes. She want go back to her time(2020). Im so sorry for my bad English

Thank you, that is very sweet of you. Also don’t worry – your English probably isn’t as bad as you think.

If you want to see anything else set in that period, go and check that Pirate AU! Post. Now on to this here.

Yandere England – 1600s/Timetravler

Whether you would like it or not, you would find yourself hurtling through time and landing in England during the 17th century. Right in Puritan England to be precise, literally the worst decade to land into right after ending up in the middle of a battle. You would be wandering the countryside, in total confusion as well as in complete panic. That would be how Arthur would find you. He would be heading back home, utterly disgruntled by the state of affairs that he would have to suffer under. Then he would notice you, an alien entity by all means, in your strange clothing and foreign manners. First, he would consider just leaving you to your fate (which could be very gruesome) as the loon you would appear to be to him. Then he would remember the supposed Christian values of hospitality and altruism and approach you to take you home with him.

You would be both relieved and frightened to see somebody approach you. Through his clothing it would dawn upon you that you were really in the past. Despite fearing being deemed a witch or being interrogated or suffering from any other fate that would cross your mind, you would know that you would need help. The moment Arthur would open his mouth to inquire about you, the final nail would be hammered in the coffin. The Old English that would meet your ears would be absolute proof that was once history would be your present. A notion that would be affirmed when Arthur’s face would wrinkle in confusion when you would use your English.

Your strange use of his language would confuse, but would nevertheless ring a bell in the back of his mind. It would remind him how English had developed over the centuries. Would your way of using it just be a natural result of further evolution, hence making you a … timetravler? That would be at least what you would be trying to convey over the language barrier. Arthur would be sceptical at first, wanting to rule out all other possibilities before believe you. If you’d think him to be a fool, then you’d have something else coming. Then you’d try to use evidence to convince him.

Quickly, he grabbed the strange thing you were holding out to him. After giving you a brief mistrusting look, he would take a few steps away from you. A paranoid bastard as ever, he turned to stand in such a way that you couldn’t see everything he was doing while keeping an eye on you.

The thing that you handed to him was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was rectangular and slim, smooth with its dark glass and opaque surfaces. He glimpsed his own cruel visage in the reflection. Was it nothing more than a strange mirror?

Then he went on to inspect the sides, the tips of his fingers finding a few elevations in the material. Curious, he pressed one of them …

… and nearly dropped it when the dark glass promptly lit up and it emitted a strange sound. You yelled besides him, suddenly directly at his side since your device had been endangered. He was sure that hadn’t his reflexes been so quick, then he would have to defend himself against a very enraged stranger. Instead, you glare at him, as irritated as you were, and tried to snatch your thing back.

Agitated by your action in turned, Arthur roughly pushed you away, sending you sprawling to the ground. You cussed at him, the aggressor recognising a few of the swears you tossed at him but not finding himself bothered enough to respond and instead staring at the picture that had manifested.

There was a colourful background, the nuances and lines and shadows showing a painting that was far more realistic then any he had ever seen before. In front of it, a series of number shined at him. One set was probably the time, he deduced, while the other was most likely the date from how it was written.

2021 …

That was nearly 400 hundred years in the future. He looked at you, observed how you had picking stones out of your scraped and bleeding palms.

Despite your disagreeable demeanour, you would likely prove very useful to him.

He would promptly take you with him, trying his best to convey to you through gestures and miss-matched words that he would only want to help you. If you prove define, then he would coerce you into following him by taking your smartphone hostage. Once you would calm down, then you would rationalize that this would probably be the best option you could receive and concede his wishes.

Arthur would keep you in his house, ensure that all the servants would steer clear from the rooms he would house you in, and gradually butter up to you, with all intentions of drawing the details of his future out of you. Other than that, he would intently observe you, knowing that the behavioural patter say a lot about a person, and in extension, give clues about the environment they grew up in. And needly to say, he would be very surprised by some things.

“You know, it is the third time you demand to be allowed to wash yourself this week. Don’t you think you are going too far? There is miasma in the water, and if you continue like this, not only will you render yourself a fool, but you’ll also become sick”, he chided you as he watched you hauled a bucket up the stairs.

As weak as you were, you were struggling with your heavy load, evidence to the lack of physical labour you had done in your life. It made Arthur ask himself if everybody in the future would be as weak and spoiled as you are, or if you were just the exception.

Either way, while manners and etiquette called for him to ease your burden which you evidently couldn’t manage on your own, he found the sight of you straggling up the flight of cold stone steps far too amusing to intervene.

With trembling arms, your set down the bucket and stared at him, eyes shooting daggers up at him. “In case you didn’t know, it is dirt that actually makes people sick. It is cleanliness that prevents infection. Which is why you would do well to wash daily as well!”

With a frown, Arthur picked up his shirt to sniff it. In his opinion, he didn’t stink, so he didn’t see what you were making such a fuss about. He was also sure he had understood you correctly – the two of you had managed to sort out things to the extent that you could communicate fairly well.

“I think that changing underclothing daily and bathing once a month to be sufficient. And now, before you say anything, be sure to keep your attitude in check. I’ve had more than enough of it”, he told you.

He watched your face wrinkle and swore he heard you mutter: “Damn patriarchy and its superiority complex.”

He didn’t know whether to be alarmed about your very simplistic, black-and-white view of the world and your grievous oversimplifications of the current era or be amused about how you thought you knew everything. Either way, he would have to take your words about the future with a grain of salt – who knew just how skewed your recounts would be.

“I fail to see how this has to do with that. The matter at hand is about the guest treating the host with respect, expected courtesy allowing humans to live together. I could put you out on the streets if you keep being a brat”, he countered.

You grasped the handle once more, water spilling over the rim as you picked it up with both hands. “We both know that you wouldn’t do that. You value me too much.”

And oh, in what ways he was beginning to value you.

For one, he would detest how condescending you would be, due to having all the knowledge of the next centuries and all the benefits that would come with it. Yet, he would bare most of it. When he wouldn’t, he’d let his sharp-tongue and centuries worth of life experience come to light. He would mock you for your nativity and prod at you for being coddled and accustomed to yet-to-be luxuries.

Arthur would tell you that he would put effort in finding a way to send you back to your own time. That would be a shameless lie. He wouldn’t be interested in anything of the sort. Rather he would insist on you staying with him, to help him further his imperial ambitions. Besides, you would be the most interesting and riveting thing that would have happened to him in ages. He would quickly grow attached to you, and with you having nobody else than him (he would ensure that) in a harsh and foreign world of which you would truly know little, you would find yourself relying on him.

He might tell you that he is a personification. Secrets for secrets, after all. And with him providing proof of his semi-immortality and the absurdity of time travel having happened you would be inclined to believe him. England would also tell you that if you would return to your own time, he would be sure to seek you out, so that you can be back together again. Besides rising alarm bells in your head, you would find yourself asking just how much of the timeline you would end up altering with the scrapes of information that he would wheedle out of you.

#yandere england #yandere hetalia #time traveler #yandere hetalia x reader

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medicus-mortem · 2 years

Text

ReiLaw // We Keep Running into Each Other

[Word count: 7441]

“This is bullshit,” the man grumbles, head sinking deeper into his ratty scarf. “How’d we get door duty three nights in a row?”

“I don’t think the boss likes us very much, Hochi,” mutters his fellow guard as he paces in front of the locked, faded and cracked red door in an effort to fight off the persistent night chill.

His warn boots scrape on uneven cobblestones, his shuffle betraying that lack of enthusiasm for his work. Hochi himself slouches against the wall, uncaring of the ashen grime that rubs off onto his coat. You can’t really escape the stuff on this island. Once a day the ash fall occurs, coating the buildings and cramped streets with a near constant layer of ash. The locals see it as a gift from Mother Mountain; a great volcano rising out of the centre of the island, its slopes lush and vibrant due to this very ash. The inhabitants of this house think differently, but that’s because they’re all foreigners.

“No shit, Trent,” Hochi growls, glaring at his constantly moving companion. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be makin’ us watch a street no one dares to walk down. Look at this,” he waves an angry hand at the empty street, the place silent but for his complaining. He stalks forwards, a sneer baring cracked teeth. “Not a soul to be seen and that’s ‘cause these superstitious cu- Urglgl.”

Words become a wet gurgle as the tip of a sword bursts out of Hochi’s throat. His body slumps, eyes going dim just as Trent turns once more from his pacing to see a shadowed figure standing behind his now dead friend, its golden eyes practically glowing in the gloom. Trent’s mouth opens, a warning on his tongue that never gets a chance to fly. With a flick of his wrist the figure cuts his sword free of Hochi’s mouth as he surges forwards. A blackened fist cracks into Trent’s throat, cutting off his air and killing his voice. That same hand grabs the side of his head and smashes it into the doorframe, giving it a fresh coat of red with his blood and brains.

Both bodies thump to the cobbles as Trafalgar Law lets out a huff. Would have liked it if this posed a tiny bit of a challenge, but expecting more from minimum wage thugs is stupid. He takes a breath, head tilting as he stretches out his neck, the bones giving an audible crack. Law rolls his shoulders and golden eyes grow cold, a smirk spreading across his lips. This might turn out to be easy but that doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy himself.

A swift kick to the door cracks the wood, doorframe giving way around the lock. It slams against the wall and Law steps into a narrow hallway. A heavy miasma of tobacco smoke hangs in the air, likely adding a new stain to wallpaper now heavily faded and discoloured. From deeper within the building Law can hear the jovial susurrous of men enjoying a drink and a card game while on duty. Boots thump on hardwood floors, the pirate captain not trying to hide his presence. Further down the hall a spindly man steps out of a door, a smile on thin lips and arms full of moonshine bottles. His eyes meet Law’s, the Surgeon of Death grins, and the bottles drop.

“What the shit!?” the man shouts, now empty hands reaching for the pistols on his belt. He has them up before ceramics shatter on the wood, spreading their illegal hooch all over the place. Law increases his pace.

Two shots are rattled off but Kikoku is already where she needs to be. One lead ball pings off the side of her blade, deflected with so little effort. The second is cut in two, the halves whizzing by her master’s head. Law’s stride doesn’t slow and he sees fear in the man’s eyes as he drops his now useless pistols and reaches for a knife. The blade barely sees daylight before a sword goes through his gut. He gasps, a hand going to the wound. Law twists and shoves the man back, freeing Kikoku just as another thug enters the hall. This one is ready, his scimitar already drawn and wide blade menacing. He swings it with a roar and Law parries, the metallic clash of blades accompanied by the scraping of seats and shouts from the other room.

Law snarls as the burlier man pushes him back against the wall, their weapons pressing against each other. The doctor kicks hard at the side of the thug’s knee and he buckles with the satisfying crack of bone. Law pushes just enough to slide out from between his foe and the wall. He circles around him as the man drops, pain on his face. Kikoku gets placed on the guy’s throat and Law tugs her back with both hands, one on the hilt while the other holds the blunt side of the blade. Not a lot of room to swing in this hallway but enough to pull, pressing the blade against the man and cutting his throat with pressure alone. Another body at his feet, shoved against the wall and blood pooling beneath him.

He steps back into a new doorway. This leads into the kitchen and where some of the inhabitants were having their card game. Now the cards have been discarded, drinks forgotten in favour of weapons. Each man stands, faces filled with rage upon seeing this intruder covered in the blood of their comrades. Law takes a single tread into the room, unperturbed by how they outnumber him or the threat of their various killing tools. He just opens his arms, practically goading them into attacking him. A couple of them step forwards but then a crack behind Law makes them pause.

A wall shatters behind him, drywall and wood chips mixing in the smoky hair. An almighty bellow comes from within the debris, the heavy footfalls of a beast following it. Law spins on his heels, Kikoku rising in a defensive instinct. Then all he sees is the massive form of a rhinoceros man slamming into him. Heavy arms wrap around him in a crushing grip. Law’s eyes bulge as he gasps, the doctor picked up like a doll and slammed down onto the table. It cracks beneath the force but does not break, a couple of the legs shattering to make the thing hit the tiles with a thud. The rhino man releases him, Law’s head swimming for a moment. The beast looms before bringing down an axe almost as big as he is.

Law catches the shaft of the axe on his blade, wood cracking. The wicked edge of this weapon stops inches from his nose, threatening to ruin his pretty face. Law scowls as he raises a foot, pressing it against the broad grey chest of his assailant to get some more leverage. Muscles tense under this pressure, the burly rhino glaring as he pushes harder. Law does see some frustration in those beady eyes. Guess he didn’t think it’d be this hard to cleave the Surgeon of Death’s head open. Around them the other men hoot and holler, cheering for their friend and ridiculing the pirate.

Even with this noise around him and this snorting beast pressing him further into the table the doctor’s Observation Haki picks something up, a change in the group that makes his tension lesson. A new voice among all the others entering this den of crime on silent feet. He lets a smirk spread across once irritated features. An expression that is made justified when a heeled boot slams into the rhino’s head and suddenly the weight pushing on Law is gone. The body crashes to the ground, the surprise in the rhino’s expression is mirrored in the faces of the shocked men around them.

Blood trails down the beast man’s head from where the bladed heel cut into his temple. He growls, moving to rise only for his limbs to betray him. He gasps, choking on his own breath. The axe rattles to the tiles, his blunt fingers rising to claw at his throat only for eyes to roll back in his head as he begins to convulse. He froths at the mouth, writhing in poisoned agony. It isn’t long before that white spit turns red. All the while the killer runs her fingers over a small red stain on her wings, looking a little annoyed the scum dared to get any on her raid suit.

“We need to stop meeting like this,” Law says, rising to his feet and dusting some wood chips off his jacket. Gaze slides to his saviour but takes a while to reach her face, appreciating what he sees even as he relishes the choking gasps of the rhinoceros. That’s not her usual raid suit. There is less skin showing even if the tight material leaves just as little to the imagination. Can’t say he doesn’t like this look.

“I don’t agree. I always find these types of encounters stimulating,” Reiju hums, taking that half step into his personal space as their eyes lock.

Law’s head tilts, the smirk on his features turning a different type of wicked. Reiju’s smile is gentler but there is something heated in it, her deep purple eyes reflecting his gold with a promise. Despite the imminent danger, angry men with raised weapons advancing on all sides, there is a moment of wordless communication. A second of a spark where the two only have an interest in each other. Then a flash of silver and the moment is broken. Law latches onto Reiju’s wrist and tugs her closer. He spins their positions, moving side-on as Kikoku rises in a vicious sweep. Her cold blade cuts into flesh, sending an arm that once held a sword aimed at Reiju’s back arcing into the air, blood trailing behind it. The victim screams, dropping to his knees and clutching at his stump. Once again, the Surgeon of Death’s features are cruel and mocking.

“You might have a point there,” he comments.

Behind him Poison Pink has used his momentum to kick a man in the chest, both caving in his sternum and spreading her chosen poison into the man’s bloodstream. She giggles, the sound airy and far too delighted by the agonised groans of her newest victim. The two now stand back-to-back, Law’s stance firm and both hands gripping the hilt of his cursed sword. Warry gaze watches the remaining enemies on his side, the three men appearing to be working up their nerve. Reiju shifts on her feet, backing up just enough to press her back to his. A wordless confirmation that she has his back, just as he has hers. Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve killed together.

“I do gotta ask,” Law says as the men decide to charge them at once. “Why the contact toxins?” A man shouts with his machete swing. Metal rings as Law deflects, stepping forwards and breaking the guy’s stance before cutting him from shoulder to hip. “You coulda just gassed these fuckers out.”

“I would have,” Reiju answers, breaking a hand that dared to grab at her. “But a certain pirate captain walked into my target area. Killing him would have been a shame.”

“Appreciate the thought,” he grunts as another blade shatters in a haki’d fist that soon breaks far more than just the owner’s nose. “But I know you’re lying.”

“I have a question of my own,” she adds, amusement in her voice. Her nails rake across the eyes of another victim, forcing him to drop his mace and back up as he begins to scream. Fingers claw at his face, his skin now bubbling. “Why aren’t you using your devil fruit? These men would be dead already if you were.”

“Reasons,” Law growls, getting pushed back a step by a heavy club smashing into his guard.

Brow furrows, the doctor not liking the vibration in his hands. Behind him Reiju sneers at a pair of hatchets getting swung at her. Again, she backs up, pressing her back against Law’s but this time there is something insistent in the pressure. Law senses what she wants and gives one final shove at the club wielder before he ducks, bending low. Reiju rolls over his back, feet kicking up with the spin. Her toes crack into the foe’s head, the momentum causing him to overbalance forwards and land head first into the tiles. They break beneath the force, Reiju’s kick ending with her foot on the back of his head and the woman herself appearing perfectly unphased by any of this. All the while Law rises from his bend, Kikoku singing as she cuts through air and then flesh. She separates the hatchet wielder’s torso from his legs, the body falling apart with a surprised squelch.

“You don’t want anyone to know you were involved in this,” Reiju says, turning just enough to watch Law flick the excess blood off of his sword in her peripheral vision.

“And there is someone in here you want alive,” Law states, shifting on his feet to once again give the Germa Princess all his attention. “Most likely the guy hidin’ out in the basement. I knew these dumb shits had kidnapped someone important but never thought they’d be so moronic as to take one of the Germa.”

“He was one of our scientists. Defected and got himself grabbed by a crime syndicate,” Reiju says, arms crossing over her chest and her body relaxing. She figures Law would find out eventually. It is terribly difficult to keep secrets from him. Yet, her eyes go cold, emotionless as she begins to evaluate him as a possible threat to her mission. “Are you after him?”

“Nope,” Law says, shaking his head. Kikoku gets placed on his shoulder, back of the blade resting there as a hand settles on his hip. “Just what he knows and why these guys stole him. They’re clearly not interested in whatever scientific knowledge he has. This is a way station, just some shit hole to stash him in before someone picks him up and takes him to wherever the fuck he’s supposed to go.”

“A pick up that was scheduled for tomorrow which is why we both decided tonight would be the best time to hit this place.”

“Yep, ‘cause they’d be complacent since the job’s almost done.”

Their words are all business, focused on what needs to be done, but their eyes tell a different story. Once more they stand face to face, bodies inches from each other, and exactly where they were when this fight broke out. Bodies lay around them, blood seeping from wounds any investigative Marine would call horrific. The room smells of recent death but neither care.

Again, their eyes have locked, that spark of promise igniting between them as it did before. Law’s smirk grows, an eyebrow arching when he notes Reiju’s gaze dropping to his lips. Arms unwind from her ample chest, bust no longer pushed so far into that scandalous boob window her cat suit sports. Her hand rises, fingers moving to trail across his jaw. Law feels his heart beat faster in his chest, the doctor knowing a single nick from those perfectly manicured nails would send a toxin through his body powerful enough to kill. He’s no masochist but Trafalgar Law does have to admit there is something exciting about a woman who could kill him without a second thought.

“There was a little blood on you,” Reiju says as her finger slides off his skin. Sure enough it comes away with red on the tip. He watches enraptured as she brings that finger to her lips, pops it in her mouth and gives it a gentle suck. Her eyes stay glued to him, watching his features. She cleans the blood from her finger and though his medical brain squirms at the unsanitary nature of this act a more animalistic mentality takes over. It tells him there is only one appropriate reaction to her moving her finger over her pink luscious lips like that and it is to be incredibly turned on.

Reiju’s hand falls from her lips, corners of her mouth turning up in a sexy knowing smile. Law’s own hand rises, moving quickly to wrap around the back of her head as he leans down to her level. He pulls her close, lips capturing hers in a heated kiss. Reiju moans, both her hands are quick to rise to his shoulders, one burying nails into his jacket, the other sliding upwards into his hair and pushing his hat from its perch. Their eyes close, the Germa Princess tilting her head to give into this kiss. A low groan slips from the doctor’s throat and he uses his body to push her backwards. They find a wall, forced to kick only one corpse aside as they move through the room. Reiju gets pressed against it as Law thrusts Kikoku into the faded wallpaper, freeing up his other had. That hand drops to her thigh, feeling the supple flesh beneath the tight fabric. Law lifts her leg, guiding it to hook around his waist. Both hands grasp her hips as his tongue slips past lips that open to welcome it and Law lifts her up with an expectant groan.

Both her lags wrap around his waist, Law’s left-hand lowers to grab at her ass cheek, squeezing and eliciting another delicious moan from the princess. Oh, how it intoxicates him, the Surgeon of Death wanting nothing more than to hear every dirty sound she can make. He grinds his hips, crotch pushing against hers. Law feels her breath hitch, feels her fingers tighten in his jacket. Lungs begin to ache so he breaks the kiss but his lips still lavish her with attention. They trail heated caresses along her jaw and down her neck. Reiju gasps, her head tilting back as she relishes this searing contact.

“Ah, Law,” she breathes, eyelids fluttering. “Law. … Law! Mmmm. Law, stop!”

A louder use of his name, demanding he take his attention away from her body, but it is the tug of his hair that breaks him out of the spell her scent and taste has over him. The doctor groans, eyes opening as his lips are wrenched from Reiju’s hot skin. His breaths come heavy, chest heaving in his sleeveless turtleneck. His brow furrows, unsure why she’d want him to stop. That’s not how this usually goes. Her grip on his hair loosens now that she has his attention. Hands slide into position to cup his face, the look on her features just as disappointed as he feels.

“We don’t have time,” Reiju murmurs.

“ … Your people are coming,” Law says after a split-second of thought.

“My people are coming,” she nods, the motion sage-like.

“Well, fuck,” Law grumbles.

“Yes, it is a horrible shame,” Reiju sighs.

“Guess we gotta get back to work then,” Law says, hands moving onto Reiju’s hips as she unhooks her legs.

“Hmm,” she hums in agreement while he places her back on the ground, his motions far gentler than when he pushed her up against this wall.

His touch slips away from her figure and Law grabs Kikoku once more, tugging the cursed sword from the wall where he’d left her. And just like that he’s all business again, golden gaze scanning the kitchen for the door he’s looking for. Behind him Reiju takes a breath, hands moving to fix the pink locks his hungry touch messed up. She can’t help the smile on her lips as she watches him. Photographic mind recalls the plan of the building, something Bepo had dug up for him while he was planning this little excursion. The door is exactly where it should be, as he expects of his navigator, on the north-eastern wall of the kitchen. It is large, metallic and reinforced. All things Law expects.

Stepping over a few bodies, he strides up to the door. One look at it tells him he doesn’t have the time to find a less destructive method to unlock it so he grips Kikoku tighter and turns her blade black. He slashes at the side of this barrier, cutting all the locks and deadbolts off from the rest of the door. Law then pries it open, revealing a set of stairs descending into a darker gloom. He doesn’t wait for any sort of permission from his companion Law just walks into it. At the bottom he finds a makeshift lab, complete with test tubes and what could be an observation table. Law frowns at this, not expecting to see a set up like this in a temporary safe house. As he steps onto the cold concrete, entering the room proper, a balding man in a tattered lab coat turns from the microscope he is inspecting.

“Hey. Wha-You’re not-,” the scientist starts, jumping up from his seat. It clatters to the concrete. He reaches for a pen, as if that would protect him. Law takes another step forwards, a hand rising and mouth opening to speak. Then the scientist freezes, true terror entering his features. Reiju has appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Hysterical words leave the man as he backs into the counter behind him. “Poison Pink. No! I’m not going back! Not ever!”

That pen turns in his hand and Law sees what he’s about to do before he does it. There is a grimace on the doctor’s features, Kikoku getting dropped as he moves to run forwards, but he is too slow. The scientist shoves the pen into his throat, his eyes going wide as he begins to drown in his own blood. He wrenches the stationary item from his neck, blood spurting from the wound as he buckles. Law is by his side, catching him before he cracks his head on something. The man grips at Law’s shirt, scrabbling while eyes plead. Is that the desperation of a man who would rather die than go back to the life he once lived or the begging of the suicidal who isn’t actually ready to die yet?

“Shit,” Reiju hisses when she rounds the table, staring at the dying man. She rarely swears and that earns her a glance from the doctor before his gaze drops back to his likely unwilling patient. “Can you save him?”

“He’s punctured his trachea, maybe even caused some cricoid cartilage damage. If I had the time and equipment absolutely but …,” there is a pause, the doctor chewing on his inner lip for a brief second. He’ll have to be a little unconventional. He grabs the man, his gurgled choking growing more desperate. Law picks him up and dumps him on the observation table. It’s not nearly as big as his operating table but it’ll have to do. Law then pulls off his coat, throwing it aside onto a bench as he spins about to eye the equipment he has on hand.

“I can do enough to keep him alive until your Germa get here but I’ll need to do a transplant. Go find me a donor. Bring down anyone with an intact untainted throat. Hopefully one of them is still alive,” Law commands, his tone demanding she obeys. He moves to a drawer, wrenching it open and going through the contents.

“But … If you use your powers like that, you’ll give yourself away,” Reiju says, something in her tone that could be considered guilt. Law straightens, turning his harsh gaze to see her by the stairs, hand on the door frame.

“You want this guy to live or not, Rei-ya?” he snarls.

She huffs at his tone, flipping her hair in annoyance before bounding back up the stairs to find what he needs. The doctor rips open another drawer, disappointed by it’s contents before moving onto a cupboard. There should be something in here he can use. A lot of this stuff looks like it belongs in a chemistry lab. Maybe they were making drugs down here before the scientist moved in. There is a layer of dust on some of the glass beakers that suggests just that. Behind him the man gasps, writhing some on the table, and Law grows very aware of just how little time he has to work. He needs to help him get oxygen in his body real fast or he won’t survive long enough for Reiju to find him a suitable replacement trachea. The third cupboard reveals what he needs, a long tube of flexible plastic often used as a flowline for gasses and liquids. He pulls it free, tsking at the slightly too big thickness. It’s not ideal but it’ll do.

Law returns to a previously open drawer to grab a pair of scissors. He cuts at the end of the tube, giving it a slight point to make insertion easier. As he turns back to his patient, he notices the man wiggling, trying to slide off the table and away from him. He really does not want to be saved and in truth Law can’t blame him. A criminal kingdom like Germa probably doesn’t treat its defectors very well. The surgeon doesn’t care about that. If this guy’s suffering helps Reiju succeed in her mission than he’d gladly torture the dude himself, beside Law wants what he knows just as much as she does. Law strides over to the struggling man, dropping his improvised tools onto the table. Hands latch onto the scientist’s head, grip tight and stopping the squirming.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Law says, an amused light in his eyes. “This is definitely gonna suck for you.”

He lifts the man’s head before slamming it into the table with a harsh crack, knocking him unconscious. As much as he likes seeing the fear on a conscious patient as he works Law knows the value of a still body. Much easier to root around in their innards when they can’t scream or wiggle. The doctor’s hands move to the man’s jaw, pushing it back to get a better look at the opening in his throat. Not big enough for the tube and still leaking. With a breath he raises a tattooed hand, fingers opening to summon the blue swirl that soon turns into his Room. It spreads out in this basement lab, turning the space into his operating room. As Law runs a now glowing palm over the patient’s throat, mind taking in the medical data the scan sends him, Kikoku rises from where he dropped her. She floats to his side, leaning against the table as he works.

Law eases the tube into the man’s throat, glowing blue palm passing over the neck to follow the path and make sure he doesn’t send it into the oesophagus. So far so good. Law even manages to get past the damaged section without making it worse. His hands are steady, eyes focused. He watches his progress, bypassing the damage and blockage until he gets to the right spot. Everything seems well enough, right up until blood starts coming up the tube. He scowls, that glowing palm moving onto the man’s chest.

A frown on his features, the doctor sensing too much blood sloshing around in the right lung. Again, he turns from the patient, grabbing up the pen used to cause this problem and removing the ink filled section. He finds a pipette in the chemistry equipment. Not the tool he’d use to suck blood out of a lung but it will have to do. First, he has to make the right channel. Law rips the man’s shirt open, getting to a chest that is disturbingly still. A pair of fingers to the wrist tells him his heart is still beating. He sighs, taking up the pen. Fingers move across clammy skin, feeling the ribs until he comes to the right spot. With a grunt Law thrusts the pen into the patient’s chest, piercing the lung exactly where he has to. Blood spurts from the little plastic tube and Law eases in the end of the pipette to start syphoning out the blood. It is at this point the patient spasms; body desperate for oxygen.

“Fuck,” Law hisses, pushing down on his shoulders until the body stills. Once it does, he presses down on the diaphragm, trying to stimulate the lungs. “Come on. Breathe.”

Reiju comes down the stairs then, an unconscious armless man thrown over her shoulder. When she sees her target getting CPR from the surgeon, she drops the unwilling donor to come to his side. Fear mars her features for a brief second. The fear isn’t for the man under Law’s hands, or of Law himself. It’s for her, for what might happen if she fails her family. She grabs Law’s arms, fingers wrapping around a bicep.

“What can I do?” she asks.

“See that pipette there?” Law replies, not turning to look but nodding in its direction. “Use it to drain the blood out the tube in his chest. Don’t stop until it’s clear.”

She moves into position, doing as he says. For a few tense seconds Law gets nothing from his patient, the man determined to die. Then there is a gasp. His chest rises and settles, oxygen finally entering his system. Law lets out his own breath, turning to see Reiju pull an empty pipette from the drainage tube. With the man stable Law can finally move onto fixing the problem. He grabs a less than sanitary piece of cloth and presses it to the hole in that man’s neck. Law then nods at Reiju, indicating she needs to hold the cloth in place. She does just that, the glance she gives him a little in awe of what he just did.

“He’s lost a lot of blood but this should work,” Law explains as he moves over to the man he’s about to steal the trachea of. He crouches down beside the armless thug, a hand pressing to his neck to feel a weak pulse. That hand soon glows, Law’s scan once again working to get a sense of how useful the body part he wants will be. There is no poison in his blood and that trachea doesn’t have any concerning diseases, but the blood type isn’t compatible. “Is this the only one I can use?”

“Yes. All the others are too damaged or poisoned. Is something wrong?” Reiju asks, frowning at the back of Law’s head.

“He’s got the wrong blood type. The trachea will be rejected the moment I start the transplant process.”

“Can you fool the immune system into thinking the new trachea isn’t an intruder?” Reiju asks, eyes growing thoughtful.

“I … maybe but it won’t last long,” Law replies, head turning to watch the Germa princess. She has an idea and he’s curious to see how it goes.

“As long as he’s alive when my soldiers get here everything will work out. Do the transplant anyway.”

“And how exactly will they stop total organ failure?” Law asks, standing to give Reiju an intense stare.

“My dear doctor, I can’t share all our secrets with you,” she says, giving him the sweetest of smiles.

“ … You will one day. I’m gonna get everthin’ out of you, mark my words,” the Surgeon of Death promises, pointing a finger at her. Reiju giggles and Law feels some frustration. He doesn’t like not knowing how she plans to keep his patient alive but he knows he doesn’t have the time to start trying to pull information from her. She can get incredibly tight lipped when she wants to, despite the Germa Princess being happy to satisfy a surprising amount of his curiosity. So for now he’ll trust her, or at least trust she has a plan. He crouches by the armless man once more, his hand clawing. Then he whispers scalpel, thrusting that hand into the throat and tugging out the section of trachea complete with intact cricoid cartilage he needs which comes out encased in a gel cube. Law turns while he stands, eyes on the piece of throat in his hand.

“How’s the blood flow?” he asks, rounding the table.

“It’s slowed quite a bit,” Reiju answers, pulling the cloth from the wound.

“Good,” the surgeon places the donated organ down beside his patient before turning his gaze to his coat. Law rifles through the pockets until he pulls out a small first-aid kit, complete with medical needle and thread. He mightn’t have time to both repair damage cartilage and stitch up soft tissue but he can close up the hole in the skin, a hole that will still be there after Law replaces the trachea. The hole is small, only requiring a single stitch to close it up. His teeth are used to cut the thread, practiced fingers tying it off. Now comes what most would think is the easy part. The thing is it requires a lot of concentration.

A new use of scalpel has the damaged trachea removed and yet the man’s breathing doesn’t falter. Breaths continue to wheeze through the tube down his throat, body acting as if the rectangular gap in his neck isn’t there. Law places the damaged tissue down very carefully, the gel casing blooming read with the continued blood flow. Law presses the intact trachea into the hole, golden eyes glued on his actions. It settles in, appearing to warp into the surrounding flesh as if it had always been there, but the outline of the rectangle is visible. It is a thin line, barely noticeable to the untrained eye but Law sees it. An organ that isn’t part of its new body yet.

“I have to remove the endotracheal tube before I start the transplant process,” Law says, using the medical term for the equipment he just improvised with a random plastic tube he found in a cupboard. He’s in surgeon mode, mind so focused on making sure this surgery succeeds. “He’s gonna choke for a second. I’ll need you to hold him down.”

Reiju does just that, taking orders far better than someone of her status should but in this situation, she knows he’s in charge. She may have a better grasp on toxicology than he does but Trafalgar Law is the doctor here. Illegal doctor perhaps but far more versed in the body than any doctor she’s met. She adds her genetically modified strength to his, bracing the body as Law grasps the tube and begins to ease it out.

“How … how are you doing this?” Reiju asks, voice bewildered. She watches that tube slide free, surprised to see it come out intact despite a section of it removed from the body.

“No idea,” Law replies, his words not a lie. He truly doesn’t know how his devil fruit allows him to safely remove organs. It makes no medical sense, these pieces of flesh still functioning despite being separated from a body or how this tube can still give his patient air despite being broken up. He’s experimented with this and found he can remove an organ with a metal bar pierced through it and parts of that bar would still be in the body. It is also impossible to remove that section of bar without breaking the gel encasing the organ. Doing that would harm the organ itself, essentially turning it into a normal organ cut from a body. It is all so strange and complicated but Law has his theories. One being he thinks his devil fruit has an inaccurate name.

With the tube removed he is free to start bonding the new organ to the body. The scientist gasps once more, breaths a struggle. Reiju does her part and Law starts trailing his finger across the rectangular line surrounding the new addition. “Suture,” he mutters as his hand makes the motion. That thin line begins to disappear beneath his touch, attaching the new organ into place and affixing it to the patient. When finished the unconscious scientist once more breathes easily, chest rising and falling gently. Law takes a moment to remove the pen from his chest and slap down an adhesive bandage before he steps back and takes a breath, body relaxing.

“What do we do now?” Reiju asks, arms crossing over her chest. She looks at him expectantly.

“Now you watch him,” Law says, stooping to pick up the chair the scientist knocked over and putting it in place beside the unconscious man. A hand gestures at it, expecting Reiju to sit. His Room stays intact, the blue dome keeping the body from reacting poorly to the new organ. “While I find what I am looking for.”

“Doctor Trafalgar I am not your nurse. You can’t simply dump your patient on me,” she huffs, glaring at his back as he turns on a tap to wash his hands.

“You’re the one that wants him alive,” Law says with an uncaring shrug. “If you’ve changed your mind, feel free to ignore him.”

“Hmph, you’re impossible,” Reiju huffs, dropping onto the seat and crossing her legs.

“I’d be less stubborn if you actually wore a nurse uniform,” Law mutters, smirking at the pouting princess leveling a glare at her target. He takes the damaged throat and shoves it into the hole in the armless man’s neck, but Law is quick to move on from him when his attention turns to a dirty filing cabinet. The lack of dust on the handle tells him it is used often. Law tugs it open and starts leafing through, pulling out papers that might have value and placing them on the counter.

Law pauses in his search, head tilting as his Haki picks up approaching people. People whose voices are exactly the same. He straightens fast, snarling as he snatches up the collection of papers that appeared to have what he wanted. How he wishes he had the time to give these a better look, one that was longer than a few seconds. Should have just let the scientist die, then he would have had the time to go through this properly, but then there is Poison Pink. She would have been angry. He’d probably survive that but why risk it when he can make her owe him something?

Reiju’s head rises from where she had it resting on her hand, her eyes on the scientist. She too has noticed something different but it’s mostly due to his sudden rush. The sound of uniform footsteps above has her jumping to her feet. The Germa 66 are here and looking to clean up the job she was supposed to be doing alone. If they notice Law this will become a problem for both of them.

“I’ll distract them long enough for you to get out,” Reiju insists as she once more runs up the stairs.

“Wait,” Law hisses, turning in time to see her vanish. She’s always so sure of herself. He would have liked a plan for escape but he guesses he can work with this. He strides over to his jacket, pages getting shoved into pockets after he pulls it onto his shoulders. There is one last glance at his patient, the doctor noticing an unhealthy spike in the man’s body temperature. It isn’t his problem now. Law did his job, kept him alive long enough for the Germa to get here, now the suicidal man is their problem. He turns his gaze from him, a hand snatching up his sword as he rushes past. His Room vanishes just as Law’s boot touches the first step out of the basement.

He is silent as he climbs the stairs, motions careful to not betray his presence. He pauses at the door, peering out into an empty kitchen. Well, empty except for the corpses. Elsewhere in the house Law can hear the soldiers tromping about and Reiju’s usually sultry voice sending commands that remind him she really is an authoritative presence. Sounds like she’s getting them to burn the building down. Smart way to cover their tracks and cause some chaos as they extract their target. He slinks out from the basement entrance to inch across the kitchen, picking up his hat from where Reiju pushed it from his head. Law gets to the hallway, peeking into it just enough to see the front door isn’t a viable option. Too many people down that end but luckily they have their backs to him.

Slipping out just at the right time, he makes it across the hallway into a smaller room, one that looks to be some type of bedroom. There is no bed here anymore but the wardrobe along one wall is telling enough. Gaze locks on a window that opens out into a dark alley, the shadows out there perfect to hide in. He takes a step across the stiff carpet, intending to break the lock to open it, but then he catches Reiju’s voice again. This time she says something he isn’t sure she wanted him to hear. Is she being careless or does she truly think he got out?

“The target is in the basement,” she commands, voice carrying. “He’s injured and will need a shot of your Lineage Stimulant.”

There is a resounding ‘yes ma’am’ and three soldiers break off from the rest. They rush by Law’s hiding spot and into the kitchen. One of them reaches into a pouch on his belt to pull out a syringe filled with a luminescent green liquid he’s never seen before. Law stares at it, knowing he needs one of those syringes. Not only does it have something to do with the Lineage Factor but it might have healing properties. A small taste of the Germa technology, something he’s had a great interest in ever since he was a child. There is no way Law can pass this up.

The Surgeon of Death spins on his heels and moves to the window. A push with Kikoku is enough to pry it open and soon Law is outside. He could be submarine free now, moving through these cramped streets towards his underwater home, but there is a little something he must do first. It seems only fair that he gets more than some crumpled pieces of paper from all of this. He moves up to the edge of the alley, leaning into the shadows to wait and watch. When the soldiers following Reiju exit the building he straightens, mind already calculating a plan to steal what he wants.

He turns his jacket inside out to hide the symbol on its back, pulling the hood up over his head. Law hunches, shortening his posture and making himself appear a little sickly. Kikoku gets propped against the wall, his hat joining her. Both items are hidden in the shadows of the alley, Law’s eyes watching the company of Germa soldiers as they march by with their burden. He lower’s his head, staggering out of the alley like some drunken fool. He thumps into the side of one of the soldiers, hands moving deftly into the belt pouch with motions the grunt is too stupid to notice. Instead, he growls, shoving Law away who allows his usually immovable form to stumble.

“Get away from me, wretch!” the soldier hisses, Law cowering as he plays the part he needs to.

“I am s-sso sorry sssir, please ffforgive me,” he slurs, raising his hands in supplication.

It is a good thing this guy isn’t all that observant. He turns away a moment after spitting in Law’s direction instead of noting the tattoos on his fingers. Law stamps down his pride, the action easy as he reaches into his coat to pull out the syringe filled with the luminescent green liquid. He feels a gaze on him, a stare that isn’t unfamiliar to him. Law looks up, peeking out from under his hood to see Reiju looking back, her features unreadable. The Surgeon of Death smirks, raising the syringe to tease her with it. He did say he will learn all her secrets eventually. This is just another step in that quest.

The doctor creates a Room then, positioning it so few people would notice. A twist of his fingers has him and his object vanishing. It is as if he was never here. As long as no one looks too closely at a certain body that’s missing his arms.

#Log Entry // Drabble #Surgeon of Death // Trafalgar D Water Law #Poison Pink // Reiju #Toxic Hearts // Law x Reiju #violence tw #blood tw #medical procedure tw #suicide attempt tw #long post tw #[I had a mighty need]#[*whispers* I will edit in the morning]

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gretchensinister · 4 years

Text

I’m Your Boogeyman

A tense summer. A hot night. The need for touch, and the need to stop worrying about what’s normal.

A man in his late twenties is living in an apartment with a boogeyman, but naturally he doesn’t know that. The boogeyman is wildly obsessed with him, though, and one night when Zander lets his leg hang over the side of the bed, they finally meet. And a lot more besides. Classic meet-cute, right? 13,314 words. A whole lemon.

***

Zander had always run hot. That was the problem, and there was really nothing to be done about it. Oh, sure, there were mundane ways of addressing the issue—sleeping in just his shorts, getting a fan, making a dry cold-pack with rice and a couple of old t-shirts. He told himself if he ever got rich he’d set the air conditioning to whatever he honestly needed it to be at night and to hell with everyone else.

But right now he wasn’t rich. He lived in an apartment that was the west side of the second floor of a massive, venerable Victorian, and while there were many lovely details about it that had survived the renovations that made it into four homes instead of one, the large windows in his bedroom did not seem quite so lovely when they gathered every bit of the sun’s heat on long summer evenings. Even insulated blackout curtains didn’t do much to help his bedroom stay cool, which both baffled and frustrated him. The reason he’d had such curtains in the first place was because he’d lived in Texas for a few years before moving much farther north. They’d been effective there! But then again, a lot of buildings in Texas, even old, shitty ones, were built so that the people in them could easily shave a few degrees off the interior temperatures. If you didn’t do that, you just died.

Zander would concede that the place he lived now regularly experienced long periods where if your house didn’t retain as much heat as possible, that would be the situation where you just died.

Still, when he tried to sleep during the summer in his current apartment, he very much resented that the original architect had been so good at their job. If he had just needed to be a little cooler to sleep well, maybe running hot wouldn’t have been so much of a problem. Fans did work wonders when much of his body was bare, and the rice bag in the freezer was extraordinarily soothing when laid across his wrist where his all-too-warm blood rushed by so near to his skin. But his needs were not just about temperature. Zander needed to be cool to be comfortable as he slept, but to feel safe enough to sleep in the first place, he needed to be covered.

He wished he could let go of this feeling, he really did. He’d even tried to slowly ease himself out of the habit: falling asleep with one arm outside the sheet, then both arms, then his chest, but habits and instincts were harder to break than that. Whenever he woke up, usually from being too hot, he would be completely wrapped, even tangled, in the sheet.

The thing was, he suspected he might have been able to succeed in learning how to sleep without covers if it hadn’t been for…something…about his bedroom. Nothing had happened in it to make him feel unsafe. (Nothing much had happened in it at all, to his great disappointment, if he was being honest.) But there was something undefinable about it. After the sun went down, it always seemed a little darker than it should have been, no matter what kind of lightbulbs Zander put in the lamps. Sometimes, as he was getting into bed, the quiet of the room seemed expectant. Which was a bananas thing to think or say to anyone, so he didn’t.

He had asked his landlady about the history of the house. She’d only shrugged. “A few people have died here, I guess. Nothing crazy like a murder. But people mostly died at home back in the day.” When he’d asked her, she’d been out in the backyard, chain-smoking. “If you can get or fake some halfway decent ghost evidence, I’ll knock fifty bucks off your rent. Love to know there’s an afterlife with a habit like mine. But if you find a way to quit that sticks, I’ll knock a hundred bucks off everybody’s rent.”

It had been an unhelpful conversation, to say the least. He couldn’t stop thinking about paying for her cigarettes for weeks.

Anyway, he didn’t really believe that his room was haunted, nor that a standard bedsheet would prove a barrier to any sort of ghost. Whatever was off about the space probably had to do with old walls falling slightly out of true, and wiring that was somehow incompatible with modern technology (it was not his area of expertise). Or maybe he subconsciously hated being alone so much that he couldn’t get totally comfortable in the room he was alone in.

I wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except for the heat that made his compulsion almost unbearable.

And what good could it possibly do? What protection did a bedsheet possibly offer if there really was something malevolent about? (Which there wasn’t. Couldn’t be.)

***

It was a creature of instinct more than intellect. This was mainly due to the fact that it didn’t exist continuously. While it was intelligent, it was difficult to understand the world and form opinions about anything in it when it didn’t have a solid form most of the time.

It vastly preferred existence to non-existence, though, and the hours it was most coherent all took place in the presence of its otherbeing. It was aware that there were many otherbeings, even sensed that it existed because of otherbeings, but distinct memories were a luxury of form. It hadn’t had a form for a long time before this otherbeing moved into its territory, so it didn’t have many clear memories. When coherence was brief, only the broadest strokes of physicality returned—limbs, teeth, eyes. Only the memories, only the thoughts, necessary for survival. But when coherence lasted longer, as a more stable state—as it did when its otherbeing was close by—that was when it gained details: skin texture, claws, memory, continuity.

Its otherbeing was often close by, and the creature had become, to put it simply, obsessed. It knew every different way the otherbeing’s breath sounded, it knew every subtle variation of the otherbeing’s heartbeat, it knew the way the otherbeing smelled just before washing and just after, it knew every scent that was just the otherbeing, separate from anything the otherbeing brought in from the world outside. It knew the sound of the otherbeing’s voice, and could pick it out from any of the cacophony of sounds the otherbeing was often surrounded by, even though, for a very long time, the otherbeing rarely spoke at all. It knew the way the otherbeing moved, all the fantastic shapes the otherbeing was made of, the colors of the otherbeing’s skin and hair in moonlight and starlight and streetlamp light and indoor lamp light (even if it was uncomfortable to observe anything in such brightness).

All this knowing felt mostly normal to the creature, though the way it brought it so much joy did not seem typical—but then, there were no others like itself present to confirm its strangeness.

But maybe that was better! If it was a creature that was not supposed to feel this way about its otherbeing, it would rather not know. It did guess that some kind of line had been crossed, because it had spent enough attention to know that this otherbeing was a he-otherbeing named Zander. Sometimes the creature would whisper the name to itself, when it and Zander were in the places that felt most right: Zander sleeping in his bed, the creature curled on the floor beneath it.

Sometimes, the nights like that were so lovely and peaceful that all the creature’s instincts faded away, and it even fell asleep during the precious hours of darkness.

But the real line that it had crossed had been more recent, only several months ago (how sophisticated it felt for thinking of months rather than moon-cycles! So proud in its knowledge of Zander’s world!). It had still been winter, then—a wonderful season for the creature, when the nights were longer and Zander was more often indoors. But inevitably, the nights grew shorter, and the creature felt terribly, terribly cheated. Not of coherence. In a strict sense, it could survive with very little of that. But of its time with Zander. And in defiance of all its scant knowledge of itself, of the rules of its existence, it held itself together through the slow flare of sunrise, huddling in the greying dark under Zander’s bed, saying his name over and over again. It hurt to do this, and that was a warning, wasn’t it, that the creature was endangering itself? But Zander was still sleeping so peacefully, with such good deep breaths, such a steady heartbeat. How could it be expected to fade in the middle of that?

And in a thoughtless and sublime expression of desire, it had clawed its way up the side of the bed in the searing sunrise. Indirect, weak winter sunlight fell from the large windows upon Zander’s face, and the creature had thought it looked like the ultimate contradiction: the sun, but safe and beautiful.

What an irrevocable instant! Its being flooding with unfamiliar emotions, its physical body burning with pain it could never have imagined—it would have howled if the sun had not forced its dissolution in the very next moment.

That night, when it formed again, the memory of Zander’s sunlit face had returned immediately, sharper than any teeth it could form after such a harrowing morning. And it curled its vague form into a tight ball and held its head and shook.

Before, it had known that it lived and cohered because of Zander—the fine aether of his unease, the miasma of his nightmares: these were ultimately its daily bread. But now it also knew that it lived for Zander.

It had no idea how to face a craving that could draw it into the sun.

For a time, all it could do was continue as before, though its scrutiny became bolder and more reckless—enough to glut it on its actual sustenance, but doing nothing to appease its other pangs.

It took to exploring Zander’s bedroom as soon as it got dark, storing up memories, storing up knowledge.

It would stand in the shower behind the curtain, smelling the shampoo, the soap. What would it be like to use the shower, as if it was a being like Zander?

It would watch Zander watching movies on his computer in the living room, standing just inside the doorway of the bedroom. It would have the courage to approach and watch him from behind the couch soon enough—and that was but another sign of its derangement. The risk of being seen would be so great, and being seen was dangerous. It would…it would produce too much fear to process, and risked driving Zander away.

The problem with that was that it couldn’t know when another otherbeing would move in, and it could be consigning itself to nonexistence for a very long time. But the bigger problem was that it didn’t want to lose Zander, and if it did…it found it didn’t really care if any otherbeings ever moved into its territory or not.

The sun continued to gnaw away at the night, but not many days before it consumed over half the day, something wonderful happened. Zander started staying home much, much more. He started using his computer to talk to other otherbeings much more, giving the creature more of his voice to listen to and remember. His dreams and nightmares grew more powerful than ever, and the creature thought that if it had been normal for its kind, it would have been the most content of them all: strong, well-nourished, with peculiar otherbeing things to observe all the time.

Unfortunately, despite gaining much happiness from this new routine, it started to dwell on what it could not have of Zander.

It could not touch. It could not taste. There were rules to its existence that were truly impossible for it to break. Bearing the touch of the sun was excruciating, but there might be reasons for a creature like it to do so—moving from hiding place to hiding place, perhaps. But other choices didn’t result in an action and some accompanying pain. They resulted in nothing at all, as if the creature had not even thought of moving.

For example: the otherbeing was never to be touched with the creature’s mouth. The creature understood this. It didn’t feed with its mouth, and didn’t have a digestive system like that of a continuously corporeal creature. Bites and mouth-touches might produce sustaining terror, but as in the case of being seen, this terror might be enough to overwhelm a creature, or it might be enough to drive a creature’s otherbeing away. Mouth details, like fangs, were for…well, this particular creature had no idea what they could be for, when it tried to think about it logically. Just another instinct. (Though this one could be overcome, at least partially. For a while now, when the creature re-formed at dark, it had been experimenting with how small it could make its fangs. It had managed to make them small enough to easily speak like Zander did, which was interesting, and exciting, even, until the creature remembered that it would never have the need to speak this way.)

But the strongest instinct of all, and the strongest prohibition, was this: no matter how perfect the opportunity, no matter how dark the night, no matter how deeply the otherbeing was asleep, the creature could not touch any part of the otherbeing unless two conditions were met. The first condition: only parts of the otherbeing that weren’t covered by bed-fabric could be touched. The second condition: only parts of the otherbeing that extended over the edge of the bed could be touched.

The creature had lost count of the times it had stood at the side of Zander’s bed and tried to make itself reach out—to touch his face, to finally learn the texture of his skin and hair! But it could never move. It didn’t matter if its muscles were newly formed or if they were hours old, if it tried to concentrate on the action or move without thinking about it. Nothing. More than anything else, this prohibition seemed inherent to its very being. It was the kind of creature it was because of this.

Did any others of its kind feel that this was cruelty? That their existence as substantial beings depended on bonding with one particular otherbeing, and yet it was all too simple for this otherbeing to remain forever untouchable?

Then again, perhaps it was not such a problem for others. Perhaps Zander was an exceptionally careful otherbeing.

***

It was August, and Zander was pretty sure he was losing it. He understood that this was not a particularly unique feeling, but it still wasn’t good. His vague weird feeling about his bedroom had progressed into a full feeling of being watched, which occasionally hit him in the bathroom and the living room, as well. He would swear that sometimes his things had been moved, just slightly, as if someone had been picking them up and putting them down for some reason. None of the lights seemed to be as bright as they should be.

He toyed with several explanations, and tested each of them. Could there be another person secretly living in his apartment? A thorough search produced nothing. Could he be experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning? The two detectors he ordered online showed the same very low reading. Could he be developing a diagnosable mental illness, not just “losing it”? He was a few years past the average onset age of schizophrenia for men, but times were weird. This one wasn’t as easy to rule out, but he didn’t have any family with the illness, and as far as he could tell, he didn’t have any symptoms during the daytime. At least, no symptoms that were notable, considering the isolation. He decided he couldn’t dwell on this and if he saw or heard anything really off, he’d follow some advice he’d found and try recording it on his phone.

His phone had acquired a few new apps during the whole investigation. An infrasound detector told him that he was not being affected by infrasound. A sleep monitoring app remained unused.

It remained unused because even if he knew he wasn’t being haunted, because ghosts didn’t exist, it still seemed…foolish, somehow, to pay extra attention to whatever might be happening while he was asleep. He was waking up every morning, after all. But then again, how was he supposed to find answers if there were means of investigation that he was deliberately ignoring?

Return to the first premise: he was simply losing it.

He entertained the possibility that he was losing it and there was something strange in the neighborhood, so to speak, but this only led to more questions about how he was supposed to respond. He certainly wasn’t going to pay for a psychic cleansing over Zoom. Not with what only amounted to weird feelings, anyway.

But probably there was nothing weird going on, not in a supernatural sense, anyway! He was just losing it because the only people he could justify seeing face to face were his coworkers, and screw them, if he couldn’t be around his friends he certainly wasn’t going to voluntarily be around not-friends for eight hours a day; he was losing it because even if he could be around his friends what he wanted was to be held and sure everyone was queer and cool but he’d never been able to ask before all this so why did he think he was going to be able to ask afterwards, when he would doubtless be even weirder than five months (and counting) had made him?

And he was losing it because in order to keep whatever it was, he needed to sleep, and that was so often the most difficult thing about his day, because of the heat!

So he lay awake in his astounding solar oven of a bedroom, staring up at the ceiling with the sheet pulled up to his neck, while his fan failed to act on his sweat and his little animal thoughts chased their tails in his mind.

I need to be cool. I need to be covered. I need to be held. I need to be cool. I need to be covered. I need to be held.

Somehow, he always drifted off eventually.

And one night, he drifted off with the sheets less firmly anchored under the mattress than they usually were. As he floated off into sleep, the higher order of his thoughts that insisted on the necessity of covering quieted well before his body’s insistence on reaching a comfortable temperature. He shifted and turned, gradually freeing himself from the sheet, slipping ever deeper into dreams. With the sheet discarded, his body discovered one more helpful adjustment: with his leg hanging off the mattress, the airflow around it helped his body release heat very well.

***

A pounding heart, a dry mouth, even overwhelmed tears—these are all things that belong to continuous bodies. But the creature could tremble, and it did, even as it reached out, hardly able to believe its good luck, hardly able to believe this incredible blessing that had finally been bestowed on it.

***

It was from an instantly forgotten dream and to the unfamiliar, unexpected, and uncanny sensation of a light, cool grip on his ankle that Zander awoke. Fuck, I knew it! was his first thought, followed by a nervous, panicky negation. This couldn’t be happening. This was the remnant of a dream. In a few seconds he’d realize he’d misinterpreted the sensation.

Moments passed, huge moments where the grip on his ankle didn’t change at all, and Zander soon felt like he’d never been so awake in his life. And then the…hand? It did feel like a hand, with fingers on one side and a thumb on the other—had he missed someone living in his house somehow? The hand began to slowly move up his calf. Carefully. Gently. It was…it was honestly a caress, and Zander had no idea if that made it better or worse, more or less likely to be a hallucination. But the fingers and thumb were long enough that even at the midpoint of his calf, they almost wrapped around his leg entirely, and that meant that this hand was definitely not human.

This was bad, probably, but it was also something that he was sure no one expected him to just put up with and carry on through, and that felt like a relief. His mind cleared. First thing: determine if this was a hallucination. He lifted his phone from the windowsill, thumbed open the camera, and aimed it at his knee, where one…claw? Oh God. One claw was carefully poking at the scar from a childhood bike accident. The screen showed nothing he could see at this angle, as the only light in the room came from the phone itself or the line between the curtains where the streetlights shone faintly in. He tapped the screen.

The auto-flash worked just as it was supposed to. It also completely disoriented Zander, but not before he caught a glimpse of a gaunt humanoid figure with a mouth far too large and full of fangs crouched by the side of his bed. One or both of them gave a horrible yelp, and Zander was mentally confronting the possibility of being eviscerated when he realized the creature’s hand was still wrapped around his knee, unmoving.

***

Awful, awful, the sudden light! Zander must have seen it, but it was an accident, it was not breaking its rules. There was no light-pain anymore, in fact the light-pain had probably been a good thing, as healing used up much of the energy it was getting from Zander’s fear right now. And so it did not let go. This might be its only chance to touch Zander, and it was not yet satisfied, only ever more curious from its touches so far. His leg was so much softer than the bottom of his foot, and covered with hair, too. It was fascinating, and it suspected that this was far from the only fascinating thing about Zander’s body.

But it was so unlikely now that Zander would indulge it by leaving the bed. Or! If he did leave the bed he would leave forever, and there’d be no point in having a form ever again because there wouldn’t be Zander to watch and listen to and touch.

Unconsciously, the creature gripped Zander’s knee more tightly. Was there anything it could do? Was tonight to be the culmination of all its hopes, and the threshold of an existence of nothing but void? Had it been worth it to face the sun, when it would all end like this?

But! Oh! This was the power of memory. It had faced the sun. The things it felt were different. It was different. It could do things that were unaccounted for in the rules of its existence.

***

The image on the phone screen showed a dark gray entity with a huge mouth full of fangs, a collection of slits for a nose, two very large round eyes, and pointed, animal-like ears on the sides of its head that were probably bigger than Zander’s hand. It had a long skinny neck and long skinny arms connected to a torso that was, probably, also long and skinny. It didn’t have any hair. It looked very solid, blocking the view of his desk in the picture like any real thing in that location would. It also kind of looked…surprised?

You and me both! Zander thought. He found he had no idea what to do now that he had evidence that there was really something in his room. Something that was still holding onto his leg. Something that was, in fact, an actual fucking monster!

No, no, no, part of his brain chanted, a desperate negation, a call for the world to be as it had been. It’s not a monster, there’s no such thing as monsters, people see things and misidentify them all the time, it’s usually something like a starving bear with mange, that’s what this must be, a starving bear with mange, something that at least EXISTS—

Zander stifled a wild laugh. This wasn’t a bear of any kind, for one thing, and for another, how would it possibly be better if a starving bear with mange was in his apartment and holding onto his leg? That would be an almost certainly fatal situation. A monster, though? Well, who the hell knew?

“Zander. Please don’t leave.”

He dropped his phone. That had to be—that had to be the monster talking to him. And it knew his name, knew how to speak English, and knew how to be polite. And it was asking him to stay? Okay. Okay. Sure. This gave him something to work with.

“Why do you want me to stay?” he croaked out. “Are you going to kill me?”

“NO! No, no, no! I only want to touch you! I’ve waited for so long, and this was my first chance!”

“Wh—what do you mean, so long? How long?”

A short pause. “Since you became my otherbeing. My…human. Since you first dreamed in my territory.”

Zander’s mind raced. Did it mean since he’d moved into the apartment? That was almost four years ago! “Why…was this your first chance?”

“Because of the rules,” the monster said. “You have to be asleep. You have to be uncovered. You have to be off the mattress.”

Just as he’d always suspected. The part of his mind that had suggested the mangy starving bear tried to tell him this situation was weird and incomprehensible and was sending him slipping and spinning into totally unknown territory. But the thing was, if he accepted the scenario totally and completely as something that was happening, it was easy to understand. “Do you live under my bed?”

“Yes, or at least I did. As I got more and more curious about you I moved around more. I learned many things. And now that you’re around more, I have more energy to keep my form. I can remember more things.”

“You don’t always have a body? Where does your energy come from?”

“My energy comes from your nightmares and your waking fears, though there is a danger of waking fear being overwhelming. I am not sure how I withstood your reaction to seeing me. There is a correct level of energy for taking a form at night. It takes much more energy to maintain a form against light. It is…by instinct it is impossible to keep a form in sunlight. It is very painful. But I did it once.”

Zander stared up at the ceiling, which he could now make out the edges of thanks to the faint light from the streetlamps. He might be feeling like he was starting to understand this situation, but looking at the monster again—yeah, that would really loosen his grip on things. “So you…feed off my fear, but only a little at a time. You can only exist in the dark. You live under my bed. You can’t touch any part of my body that’s on the mattress and covered. You honestly sound like a childhood boogeyman, except that I’m not a child.”

“It is hard to remember, but I believe I came to exist because of a child. When a child dreamed in this room. I think there may have been other children, also. Others of my kind. But formlessness erases memory, and I was formless for what I think was many years. But then you came. And now I’m no child’s boogeyman. I’m your boogeyman. Only, only yours.”

Zander took a slow breath. Two things were occurring to him.

One: this boogeyman had kind of a nice voice, low and a little scratchy. It sounded like it had a bit of an accent, too, but that was no doubt because of the fangs and maybe—maybe never speaking to anyone else before? That seemed unbearably sad, but maybe it was normal for its…species? Kind?

Two: Maybe he didn’t have as good a grip on this situation as he had hoped.

“Do you have a name?” Zander asked. “And, um, I’m a he, other humans are she, or they, or…well, there are a lot of options. What about you?”

“No name,” the boogeyman answered immediately. “And I…I am an it.” It sounded puzzled with this last statement. And why not? thought Zander. Surely if I admitted to secretly living in someone’s house for four years, I wouldn’t expect them to ask my pronouns! There’d be other, more relevant, questions!

“Do you want a name?” This wasn’t one of those more relevant questions. But it was the only one that came to mind at the moment.

“Zander…you would give me a name?” The pure wonder in its voice. Had anyone ever said Zander’s name like that?

“Only if you want a name.” What was he doing? Why was he doing it?

“Yes!” It sounded a little different, now. As if it was shaking? “Zander, name me!”

“I—” He finally let out a little laughter. “I want to give you a good name, but I can’t hardly think now. Could I just—could I just nickname you ‘Boo’ right now, and come up with something better, later?”

“Boo,” the boogeyman said. “I am Boo!” It really sounded delighted, and Zander wondered if anything would have bothered it. Maybe not, as long as he had good intentions.

When the boogeyman—Boo—spoke again, it was quieter, more subdued. “I do not think that having a name is a usual part of being what I am. What you call a boogeyman.”

“Is that…a problem?”

“I don’t know. I like it, though. Anyway, it is not the first strange thing I have done since becoming your boogeyman.”

The mangy bear part of Zander’s mind posited that everything the monster had ever done was strange, because it was too strange to exist in the first place. Zander told that part of himself to pipe down. It was past time to accept that Boo was real, and as a being of a certain type, some things would be strange for it and others would be normal. Boo had even mentioned one, earlier. “Yeah. You said you braved the sun, once. Why did you do that?”

The hand around Zander’s knee twitched nervously. Oh. Yeah. Best not to forget about that. The claws, very close. (And also, Boo’s one stated desire so far: to touch him.)

“I was…curious,” Boo said. “No. That is not the right word. I wanted to know more of you than I already did. It shouldn’t matter to a boogeyman, but I liked watching you, whether you were uneasy or not. I liked knowing how you looked in different amounts of moonlight, in different colors of lamplight. You’re my favorite thing to look at. But I can only do that at night, when we both have forms. Last winter when I noticed that the nights were getting shorter I felt like you were being taken away. I wanted every sight of you I could hang onto. I hadn’t ever seen you in sunlight. An ordinary boogeyman wouldn’t have thought of it. But I did. I wanted to see your face in another kind of light, and sunlight was the only kind of light left. And I managed to endure it, and now I know what your face looks like in the sunlight.”

“Was it…was it worth it?”

“Yes.”

Zander’s first impulse was to push the story away, to tell Boo that maybe it needed to see more faces if it thought Zander’s was worth pain, but he held his tongue. Because there was something about what Boo had done that seemed understandable, familiar. To see someone and then begin to desire and to act in previously unthinkable ways—to irrevocably abandon normal—to risk pain for the sake of joy that it seemed so few others would understand—oh, he’d done it. If Boo’s experience was at all related…he didn’t want to make it seem small.

“You’re being strange for a boogeyman right now, too, aren’t you?”

“I was never supposed to talk to you,” Boo said. “I didn’t understand human language so much before I started paying attention to you. I couldn’t speak it. In the form I have by instinct, my fangs are too big to make all the sounds correctly.”

Are you FUCKING kidding me those are your SMALL fangs? Zander’s fear returned in a rush, and he heard Boo shift by the side of his bed. He forced himself to take deep breaths and did his best to push his fear to curiosity. What did it feel like to Boo, to be feared all of a sudden like that? Would it be like sipping water through a straw and then having someone pry your jaw open to dump a gallon down your throat? But maybe there was no metaphor, because the physical was always a limit for a human, and that didn’t seem to be the case for Boo. Unless Zander was totally wrong and it did need large fangs to chew up nightmares.

“You okay, Boo? Guess I wasn’t as calm as I thought.”

“I am okay. I will have to expend this energy soon, but that will not be dangerous to you. If I don’t find a way to use it myself, the excess will manifest as darkness. The lights in your apartment might not work for a few hours. It is enough energy to seek a new territory if a human leaves the original territory after seeing one of my kind. I did not understand this before, because leaving my territory had never occurred to me before you saw me. Another instinct. But you should also know that my fangs are only for the frightening appearance. No bites or mouth-touches are allowed. I have no digestive system. Any bites would be pointless.”

“Mouth-touches,” Zander repeated. It was an odd phrase for someone who otherwise used English so well. It sounded like a little word-veil, drawn between them so that they could both ignore what mouth-touches not part of eating would be. Or maybe that was a completely bonkers interpretation. Boo wasn’t human. Who could say how it would use language?

The obvious thing to do was ask for clarification. Zander closed his eyes for a few moments. He was going to have to come at this from an angle, and he wasn’t sure he was up to it. If he was wrong, he would create an awkward roommate situation that couldn’t be equaled, and if he was right…well, what did he plan to do?

“Anyway…you’re not supposed to be talking to me, but you can. I get that, it’s a new thing. Your instincts don’t have anything to tell you about it. But what about the way you’re still touching me? Is that also strange or…what am I not getting?” He felt a faint twitch from Boo’s hand once he fell silent.

“I can touch you because touch could make you more afraid,” Boo said. It sounded like it was trying to pick its words very carefully. “But…yes. This is also strange. And I am surprised that no instincts have made me let go. I think…it is better for a boogeyman if its human is not sure if it is really there. So touch should be fleeting. It is not…a need. But maybe that doesn’t matter. You must be very certain I’m here.”

“Yes,” Zander said. Oh, he had to be careful, now, very careful. Just because Boo would undergo the worst of boogeyman agonies just to see his face in the sunlight didn’t make his half-formed idea good. But then again, even if what he was thinking was a bad idea, at least it was fully his own bad idea. And he’d been buffeted around enough by other people’s bad ideas lately. So…let it all come together. Survival and need and want and…touch. “But maybe…maybe your instincts don’t have anything to say to you now because you don’t have any needs right now—is that true? I mean…from what you’ve told me. You have my fear, and that gives you energy to hold your form and do whatever else, and you’ve got the dark.”

“That is all a boogeyman needs.” Boo sounded troubled. “Zander…it does not feel like these are my only needs. Not when you are here.”

Zander swallowed. “Well, it sounds like you have some really strong wants, then. I think that’s…that’s part of being alive. Wanting more than the bare minimum of what’s needed to survive. I mean, that’s one of the first things you said to me.”

“That I wanted to touch you. Yes.”

Boo drew out this last word into a hiss, and shiver ran down Zander’s spine. Sure it was fear, Boo was a creature formed to scare—but that wasn’t all of it.

“I still want to touch you,” Boo said. “Much more than I already have. Now that I know that I can while you are awake, while I am talking to you—I do not know if any other boogeyman has wanted a want like this. And I don’t care, because you are my otherbeing, my human, my Zander. Everything I have of you only makes me want more, and it doesn’t make any sense, and I don’t care, because even getting a little bit of what I want is wonderful. If you were all the way out of your bed, all the way uncovered, I—I don’t know if that would satisfy me. I don’t think it matters, I want that anyway.”

Zander’s heart beat faster—how could it not, when being talked to like this, even when he’d seen the terrifying form the pleasant voice belonged to? It was clear that Boo had no concerns about approaching this subject delicately. He took a deep breath, trying to clear the feeling of lightheadedness that had come upon him. It didn’t really help. This was weird! Very weird! But it really boiled down to this: Boo wanted to touch him. He wanted to be touched.

And he was starting to get curious, now, to see if Boo would like to be touched, and how.

“Boo, I think I want to have you touch me, too.”

“Zander! I…” In contrast to the declaration of its desire, Boo now sounded shy, even a little confused. “I want to make sure I touch you in a way that won’t make you leave. I don’t want to have to be anyone else’s boogeyman.”

“Yeah, we can talk about that, we can figure it out,” Zander said. “We’ve got all night, don’t we?”

“Yes!” Boo said, and again the word turned into a hiss.

This time Zander was able to find it more fascinating than frightening, though now he guessed that being frightening was the whole point. Whenever Boo didn’t think about what it was doing, it would probably end up doing something scary. It was probably the best way for a boogeyman to survive as a boogeyman, even if it was doing something unusual like talking—err on the side of scary. Zander smiled a little, just at the idea that something as strange and incredible as Boo should exist in the first place.

“What are you feeling?” Boo asked. “It’s because of me, but it’s not fear.”

“W—wonder, I think,” Zander stammered. So Boo could feel any emotion it caused, not just fear? That was bound to get interesting.

“Wonder. It feels good.”

Very interesting.

“Boo, before you get to touch—two things: Would it be safe for you if I opened the curtains a little more? To let in the streetlights? It’ll help me be less afraid if I can see what you’re doing, at least a little.”

“The streetlights won’t trouble me—but I don’t understand. It has become less frightening to see me?”

“Well, surprise adds a lot to fear,” Zander said. “If I can see your movements, I won’t be surprised when I feel your hands.”

“I see,” Boo said.

“And the other thing is—you did give me a good scare earlier. I have to go to the bathroom before we do anything else.”

“All right.” Boo made no move to let go of his leg.

“That means you have to let go of me for a couple minutes.”

“Oh. But I could come with. I’ve been in your bathroom lots of times. I like being behind the shower curtain.”

The thought so sometimes there actually WAS something there clashed with has Boo watched me pee?! and Zander pushed them both aside. It was time to focus on the now, and he didn’t want to fall down a rabbit hole of wondering what Boo might have seen him doing. Though, to be very, very honest, there was a sort of dirty little frisson to think that Boo could have seen him taking himself in hand—he really had lost it, hadn’t he?

“But you’re not coming with me now,” Zander said. “Hey. You know that bathroom doesn’t have any windows. I’m not going to run away.”

There was a pause, and then Boo gave a sigh. The hand at his knee slid back down his calf, over his ankle and foot, and then was gone.

“Please don’t grab my ankles when I step on the floor,” Zander said. “I’m guessing that might be—it might be another instinct.”

When Zander had taken a few steps away from his bed, Boo spoke again. “You were right. It was.”

Zander grinned, even as his ankles tingled with the apprehension of touch, and continued into the bathroom.

When he returned to his bedroom, he found that Boo had already opened the curtains. Zander had left the light off in the bathroom (after all, he knew the boogeyman wasn’t in there at the moment) to keep his night vision. Now, the orange glow from the streetlights outside was more than enough to reveal everything in his room. Including Boo.

At first, he couldn’t take another step forward. The sight of Boo pressed buttons older than wonder or sympathy or even curiosity, and he had to close his eyes before he could even pull himself together enough to speak. “Boo, can you say something? I’d gotten used to your voice, but, uh, seeing you was still a surprise.”

“I did use my time alone to use some of my extra energy to change my form,” Boo said. “I wanted…I wanted to try out hair.”

Zander sensed that this was not the whole truth, but he wasn’t going to get into that now. He took a deep breath. That was Boo’s voice. He’d talked to Boo. He’d—well, he’d really liked hearing that confession of desire from Boo. And yes. Boo was a monster. And when he opened his eyes, he was going to see Boo, and step closer to Boo, and check out Boo’s brand new form with hair. The seconds of preparation helped, and when Zander opened his eyes, fear gave one last jolt before swiftly receding in favor of wonder.

He walked forward slowly—his legs still felt a little weak from the first shock—never taking his eyes off Boo. To look at Boo properly barely seemed possible—to look away and back again? Absolutely not.

When he got within Boo’s reach, he paused and tried to take in as much detail as the streetlights allowed. Boo was the same color as before, that dark gray. Its skin was more matte than a human’s. The body that skin covered was very, very tall. At least seven feet, maybe a little more, it was hard to tell how close Boo’s head was to the ceiling in the low light. And still—Zander’s stomach lurched like it did when he looked out from the top of a roller coaster—from his earlier brief look, Boo had probably been even taller before. Whatever shapeshifting it had done had included changing its proportions so that it looked a little bit more compact, a little bit more human, now. But really, only a little.

Zander wondered if there was some mass Boo had to take on when it solidified, because in addition to being shorter than the first picture indicated, Boo now had a little more muscle and flesh on its body and limbs. Though it still made you wonder if it was hungry enough to make you its next meal. Too, the slight musculature it now had was…off…in some indefinable way. Zander had never made a study of human anatomy, but what Boo’s said to him was that it wasn’t an elongated human, but something else entirely. And there were other, far more obvious differences. Boo had only four toes on each foot, each of which ended in a sharp black claw. It had no navel, and the area between its legs appeared as smooth as a mannequin. And its hands, the hands Zander had invited it to touch him with…well, they had five fingers each, but he was almost sure each finger had an extra joint compared to a human finger. They definitely all had significant claws. But, perhaps…he wouldn’t know until Boo touched him again, but he thought maybe Boo had done its best to tone down the claws.

After all, Boo had done quite a bit on its fangs.

Boo’s face was what he had seen on his phone, and Boo’s face was where the changes it had made were clearest to Zander. Though its jaw remained somewhat prognathous, its fangs were now small enough that its lips closed over them easily. Its ears, too, were much smaller, even if they were still much larger than a human’s and still pointed. But they didn’t remind Zander so much of a bat anymore. But even with these changes, some things about Boo had stayed the same. Its nose remained as it had been, just a slight protrusion with two large nostril slits framed by two smaller, additional slits. Boo’s eyes were still enormous, and very round. They had no whites, but in the lamplight Zander thought he could see the distinction between iris and pupil. Incredible, that this faint light would cause such a contraction.

And, yes, finally, Boo had hair on the top of its head, now. It was black, several inches long, and quite messy. Of course, it has been formed rather hastily. It made Boo look—well, it was hard to say. Less alien. More uncanny.

Zander knew that most anything with hair or fur liked having it groomed. Would that be a built-in side effect of his boogeyman’s changed form? Who knew? No one, absolutely no one, and that was the most wondrous thing about this moment. They were both so far outside, and so hidden from any norms that either of them knew, that they were both looking at each other completely as themselves.

And this was where, and how, they were going to touch each other. It might be glorious. It might be terrible. It might simply be monstrous. But most of all, it would be theirs, and only theirs.

“Zander,” Boo said, and Zander saw its long, clawed hands flex, “now can I touch you?”

Zander realized that Boo must have been studying him with the same intensity as he had been studying Boo—perhaps even more, considering that Boo could see much better in the very dim light. And still this was its reaction: this desperation, this desire.

Seeing Boo’s whole form had not made Zander any less vulnerable to being desired. And, hey, some part of his mind that couldn’t let a numinous moment stand pointed out, you’ve always liked lanky guys.

He smiled, and Boo’s already-wide eyes went wider. “Boo, I was thinking. Your rules say you only get to touch me when I’m uncovered and hanging off the edge of the bed, but now that I know you’re here—now that we’ve got an understanding—well, is that still the case? What I’m saying, is…can I invite you onto my bed?”

Boo visibly shivered, but not, Zander thought, with revulsion. Anticipation, maybe.

“I have no idea,” Boo said. “I want to find out.”

Zander took a deep breath and another step forward. “Take my hand,” he said. “It might make it easier.”

Boo reached out, and Zander, focusing only on the wonder of it, found it easy to reach back and put his compact, soft hand into Boo’s spindly fingers. Its skin was smooth and dry—no natural oils like human skin, Zander guessed, since it didn’t really have that biology to maintain from day to day—and barely seemed warmer than the ambient temperature of the room. He must feel much different to Boo; would that be good, bad—?

“Your warmth,” Boo breathed. “It’s the first wonderful thing about touching you.”

Ah. Good, then.

“Well. Warmth I can guarantee,” Zander said. “It’s why I had my leg sticking out in the first place.” Keeping hold of Boo’s hand, he eased himself back into bed. “So far so good, huh? Nothing made you let go, even though I’m completely on the mattress.” He smiled up at Boo, and Boo blinked down at him, its lips twitching in a tentative answering smile. Sure, there was something unsettling about it, but also Zander guessed that most expressions might not come naturally to Boo. It probably learned them…from him. Astonishing. “Come on up, however you like, though you might end up getting another shot of fear if you—” He broke off, as Boo immediately took his invitation and climbed onto the bed.

And on top of Zander, which was what he’d expected, because it was the most frightening way to get close. Boo moved in a rather spidery way (of course) and when it stopped moving it had its hands planted on either side of Zander’s head, its knees to either side of Zander’s legs. The light from the streetlights no longer helped so much to see Boo’s face, though he could see a glint of eyes and oh, again, the fangs. Boo was grinning as it was poised above him.

“Comfortable?” Boo asked, and Zander immediately wanted to giggle. He held back, though, because despite all the absurdities in this situation, he didn’t want to risk Boo feeling laughed at in this moment—the first time it’d gotten into bed with someone it really, really wanted to touch.

“Yeah,” Zander answered softly. “You all right with that jolt I gave you just now? I couldn’t help it.”

“Yes.” Boo sounded thoughtful. “I am less worried about having too much energy now that I’m not trying to escape your notice. And you are still wondering at me more than anything else.”

“I suppose I am,” Zander said. He stretched out his arms and legs under Boo. Had he ever even been this vulnerable to another human being? Sure, he still had his boxer shorts on, but that was pretty insignificant compared to the fact that Boo knew him better than literally any other human being. Also, if Boo had been lying about itself and what it wanted—if those fangs and claws were about to be put to their more typical uses—he’d basically served himself up on a silver platter. Though that image did cause some sparks in some crossed wires in his brain.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “All right, Boo,” he said. “You can touch me.”

Boo immediately lifted one spindly hand and cupped Zander’s cheek. It was a bizarrely human gesture, but it lasted only for a moment. Boo didn’t have any script to follow; all it knew was that it had been given permission to satisfy its desires, its curiosity. And still, Zander felt as though some kind of tightly wound spring inside him was easing with such a simple touch.

Boo’s fingertips poked gently at the softness of Zander’s cheek, and its claws were noticeable, but not in an uncomfortable way. Boo seemed to have the intent to treat Zander as carefully as it could, as it found his cheekbones and jaw and traced them, as it circled his ear and brushed across his forehead, as it investigated the shape of his nose and eyebrows.

And then Boo held the side of his face again, and slowly dragged its thumb over Zander’s lips.

“Boo?” Zander whispered, when it left its thumb at the corner of his mouth and hung over him, perfectly still, just looking.

“I think I’m changing, somehow,” Boo said. “Like when I become substantial. But I already am. I don’t understand.”

“Does that feel good or bad for you?”

“I think…good. But I’ve never felt anything like it before.” Boo shivered, a familiar motion made unfamiliar by the undercranked-film quality of it. Still a boogeyman. “Zander. I am going to touch you more, now.”

With only that much of a warning, Boo bent down and pressed its face against the side of Zander’s neck. Zander’s heart raced, some part of him still convinced that Boo wanted to rip his throat out, the rest of him clamoring that Boo was kissing him, actually kissing him on the neck. He could feel Boo’s lips moving gently against his skin, and though he could also tell that there were fangs behind them, he didn’t care at all. He hadn’t been kissed at all, anywhere, in so long, and if this wasn’t really kissing, but rather what Boo had distantly called ‘mouth touches’ earlier, well, it was impossible for his skin to tell the difference.

Boo didn’t stay at the side of his neck. It made a line of kisses up to his jaw, over the lower part of his cheek—and there was really no denying now that they were kisses, kisses from a being very new to the practice of kissing, but kisses nonetheless—

And then Boo kissed him on the lips.

Does Boo understand? Does it? Does it? His mind whirled while Boo lingered at his mouth. Maybe? Probably! He answered himself, as reality began to supersede any of his earlier half-formed fantasies. You were the one torrenting classic Disney to combat depression and the creepy feeling in your apartment!

It was really so absurd. And yet he still felt as though his heart was being cracked open like an egg, and instead of yolk and white flowing out there was all his loneliness and his curiosity and his fear and his wonder and his desire. There was so much of all of it, more than he’d ever realized he was holding onto, and it made it impossible to think lightly of kissing Boo.

Oh well.

He kissed Boo back. He kissed Boo back and raised his hands to touch Boo in return. It had said it liked his warmth; let it have the warmth of his hands, then, roving along the smooth, dry skin of its spindly form, back and waist and shoulders.

Boo gasped at Zander’s touch, and let itself sink down onto him, its narrow body pressing full against Zander’s soft and substantial chest and belly. Boo twined its fingers into Zander’s hair, and even that eagerness pierced his heart—his grown-out hair wasn’t neglect and isolation to Boo, it was something new and wonderful to touch. Zander closed his eyes, thrilling at the light touch of claws on his scalp and no longer trying to distance himself from any desire he felt. Boo was doing exactly what it had told him it wanted to do, so why not enjoy it? He hoped, oh he hoped that Boo was taking pleasure in these moments, because he was; he felt like he wasn’t just unwinding thanks to the ability to touch someone, but like he might unravel entirely, lose all the stress and constraint of having a form.

Maybe that wasn’t the best simile, considering Boo’s existence, but was he supposed to come up with a better one while making out with the thing under the bed?

He held Boo ever closer, and with very little conscious thought, slipped his tongue past Boo’s lips. He brushed up against Boo’s fangs, and his body tried to set off every alarm system that it had. However, most of his systems were already highly occupied, and all the signals of his nerves and hormones could only merge. He felt like he was blushing all over, like he’d been given a jolt of electricity just this side of lethal, and, oh yeah, his cock was now straining at the fabric of his boxers. He hadn’t gotten so hard, so fast, in a long while. His state would be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with hard-ons; the question was, did that include Boo?

Boo made a soft sound in its throat and pulled away from Zander just far enough to speak. “I—you—I can feel your desire,” it said.

That sounded way too much like a euphemism in a novel where the author wasn’t allowed to say “cock” and Zander was momentarily baffled as to why Boo was talking like that. But then—Boo lived off his fear. Boo could tell when Zander was wondering at him. So when Boo said it could feel his desire, that’s literally what it meant.

And was that a good thing? Well—

Boo sat up, laughing a little. It ran its long, strange hands boldly over Zander’s chest and belly, and Zander could see the glint of its terrible, sexy fangs in the streetlight as it grinned. “Zander. Zander. Zaaaander. You like it when I touch you and—I don’t know if any boogeyman has ever felt this. And I don’t care. It’s so good. I can’t tell if feeling your body under my hands or feeling your desire is better. What—what am I doing that makes you want me? I—I want to do more of that.”

“Boo—I—it’s easy to want you when you’re touching me like I’m the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your life!”

“You are,” Boo said, continuing to caress him with earnest hands. “And your desire…” It took a shaky breath. “I had noticed it, before. It was always faint because it wasn’t directed at me. But I was still curious because it was something of you.” Boo’s touches became lighter, but not teasing. It traced a claw around Zander’s nipple, almost shyly.

Zander shivered, but it felt like he was almost feverish, how hot he was. How much of a strange dream all this seemed. “Boo,” he whispered.

“I never realized what it would be like to have desire directed toward me,” it said. “I only hoped to touch you and try to satisfy my own desire, but now I—I think I might be insatiable.”

Zander reached out and covered one of Boo’s hands with his own. “Hey, Boo. We can figure it out. I mean—you’re doing things with your body, with me, that you’ve never done before. I mean, there’s probably some way you can be satisfied. You just don’t know it yet.”

“Yes.” Again, that alien sibilance, and Zander found that a monster accepting his promise to help satisfy it somehow only made him impossibly harder. And he should probably say something about that, but what? Boo had clearly been in the room, at least, while Zander had taken himself in hand, but how much did it understand about what he had been doing?

“Boo,” he began, “this desire that you’re feeling from me to you, it’s…there’s a physical component—”

“Yes,” Boo interrupted. “I’ve noticed it all. The speeding of your heart, but not in fear. The slight changes in your scent. The hardening of your nipples and your cock.”

To hear Boo say “cock” was nearly as disorienting as when Zander thought he was using a euphemism. But then, what other word would it know for penis? It would have had to learn from the porn Zander watched to associate any word with the actual body part.

“Okay,” Zander said, his feelings about Boo watching him masturbate much more ambiguous now that it had apparently been the case in reality, “then you probably know some, uh, other things.”

“Yes, and I…” Boo hesitated.

“Boo, if you don’t want to do anything with my cock, I, well, it’s not what my body’s hoping for, but I can deal.”

“No, that’s not…” Boo flipped its hand over and squeezed Zander’s, really seeming nervous now. “I’ve touched you, and you’ve touched me back, and it felt—it felt so good. I didn’t know the kinds of things my nerves could tell me. I don’t know to say all this. But I’m not shying away because I don’t want to give you the most pleasure that I can. Now that I know I can.”

“Well, all right, do you just need a little guidance or—”

“Maybe, but first I need to show you—” Boo broke off, and lifted itself up, moving forwards until its knees were on either side of Zander’s waist. Its fingers fluttered and it dropped Zander’s hand. “I changed myself when you were in the bathroom. I said I wanted to try hair, but that’s not all I did.”

Zander’s eyes widened. He didn’t want to look too surprised, considering how shy Boo seemed now, but if this was going in the direction he guessed it was, it seemed almost impossible not to be surprised.

Boo picked up Zander’s hand again. It guided him to the place between Boo’s legs. “I don’t know if I did it right. But I made this change before I knew how much you wanted me, because I knew how much I wanted you.”

Zander looked up at Boo, trying to get a glimpse of its face as he left his fingers gently resting against where they had been placed. But then again, what could Boo’s expression tell him that Boo’s actions didn’t? Boo had made an orifice, apparently on the wild wish of an off-chance (or so it had thought) that “touching Zander” would lead into “getting fucked by Zander.” He allowed himself a moment to ask himself if this was too weird but shoved the question away before answering himself. It was the wrong question. Tonight was about Boo and him, and if it was weird it didn’t matter. There were better questions. “Boo, do you want me to be inside you?”

“Yes,” Boo said, quietly, and with no hesitation.

Zander traced his fingers around the edge of the opening Boo had led him to, and he heard Boo pant above him. I wonder if I can make your nerves tell you some really incomprehensible things, he thought, as he continued to carefully stroke Boo. “Any particular word you’d like for this new part of you?” The question wasn’t just a courtesy. Zander wasn’t hugely experienced, but he had enough practical knowledge to know that what he was feeling wasn’t really like any human orifice.

“Oh,” Boo said, again sounding embarrassed even as it breathed heavily and tilted its hips towards Zander’s hand, “I—I don’t really know—it’s just a hole. Is that all right?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Zander said. With his free hand he stroked Boo’s side and bony hip, doing his best to clear his mind of any negative reaction. Boo had claimed “it”; Boo had a hole. That was all there was to it. Nit-picking the language used by a wondrous, unknown creature was no way to proceed.

Especially not when that wondrous, unknown creature was relaxing and opening thanks to his fingers. “I’m going to put a finger inside you,” Zander said, and Boo made a soft sound in its throat, followed by another as Zander did exactly as he said. Inside, Boo was slick, wet—biological details that it had to have chosen. Zander didn’t know exactly how Boo formed their body, but this didn’t seem like something it had come up with on the spur of the moment. “I think you did really well, remaking yourself this way,” Zander said. It felt like another of his fingers could slip in easily, so he tried, and was right. Boo pressed its hips towards his hand, and when Zander started to gently thrust with his fingers, Boo soon started moving in counterpoint with him, seeking deeper stokes, seeking to be filled. Its smooth inner muscles wrapped around his fingers with a tight strength that made his cock throb and ache in anticipation.

But he’d be careful, no matter how much his body was screaming for Boo. He was giving it its first time, after all, and, well, he wanted to prove himself worthy of its obsession with him.

“Boo, tonight wasn’t the first time you thought about making yourself a hole, was it?” he asked softly.

“I thought about it but I—I couldn’t think about thinking about it,” Boo said. “A boogeyman doesn’t—but I tried to figure out how to construct myself for pleasure—the plan was ready in my mind when you said I could touch.”

“It feels like it was worth the effort,” Zander said. “You feel good to me, Boo. How wet you are, how tightly you hold my fingers—I just want to know if you feel good in yourself, like this?”

Boo took a shuddery breath. “I feel—wonderful,” it said. “I don’t have any way to compare this with my existence as an ordinary boogeyman. And still—the bodies I make have a lot to do with yours. The nerves I make are based on yours—you’re the only living thing in my space. So—is your whole body this attuned to pleasure, too?”

“You know, I think I read that humans do have some nerves that are just meant to feel good when we’re caressed,” Zander said. “Like this.” He ran his hand down Boo’s side, over its hip, down its thigh. Amazing that Boo could instinctively create all the complexity of a living body, that it could guide those instincts when it wanted to—when it developed new and strange desires. And was Boo still changing? During those first touches, Boo had hardly seemed to give off any heat, but now, now it felt distinctly warm, more alive, more fleshly, than ever.

“Then why—why are you not always touching?” Boo asked. Its hand slid up his arm and tangled in his hair.

Unexpected tears burned in the corner of Zander’s eyes. “We—we want to be. I think we really want to be. But sometimes we can’t.”

Boo bent its face close to his, as terrifying and wonderful as ever. “I don’t understand,” it said. “But I am here to touch you now, and you are here to touch me, now. We can have this pleasure of touch and touch-back.”

“Yes,” Zander said. “You’re right, you’re right.” He smiled a little; started moving his fingers in Boo again. Boo arched its back, raising its long body.

“This feels—I don’t understand, but I want more,” Boo said. “I—I showed you my hole with your hand to—to show you it was there. But I want to feel your cock inside me.”

That disorienting shift—from the alien first-timer to the pornographically familiar. Zander wasn’t sure he was getting used to it, but he was certainly ready to roll with it. “Yes—I—I think we’ll both like that.” Boo smiled and reached down between them, and with claws that Zander now realized must be much sharper than he had been thinking, deftly reduced his shorts to rags and tossed them away. It should have been terrifying, but Boo hadn’t dealt him even the slightest scratch. There was only delight in this destruction, and as Zander’s cock stood free, it was practically dripping, just like Boo’s hole.

Despite both their states, Zander reached over to the bedside table and took a small bottle of lube out of the drawer. It would never be a bad thing to have, especially in this uncharted territory. He slicked himself up more carefully than usual, trying to ignore any sensation for the moment. “All right, Boo,” he said, about to guide them back that crucial small distance, when a thought occurred to him. “Do you like the position we’re in now? You on top, and me underneath?”

“Does it make a difference?” Boo asked. “I’m ready. I want to be filled.”

So matter-of-fact when it said these things! It wasn’t trying to seduce him, and yet he was as seduced as he’d ever been!

“With you on top you have more control over how deep you take me. The—the pace, also. But if you were underneath me—how do I even put this? You wouldn’t have to constantly be deciding how to fuck? You could just let yourself feel, if you wanted to do that?”

“Oh,” Boo said slowly. “I think I like the sound of that.” It grinned. “I’ve spent a lot of time under you with the bed in the way. I’d love to find out what it’s like with nothing in between us.”

Amazing, Zander thought. Amazing. Humor, or a very near relative of it. Just another thing that a boogeyman wouldn’t strictly need to survive, but that this wondrous being was able to use.

With Boo on the bed, and only the streetlamp providing light, it was harder for Zander to see it than ever. But there were glimmers enough, of eyes, of teeth. There was suggestion enough, in the subtle variation of shadows. Boo’s new, messy hair spread out on the pillow. The long, narrow shape of its body, with all its suggestions of curiously attached muscles. And now, rising into the clarity offered by the streetlamp, Boo’s strange hand, with its fearsome claws. It cupped Zander’s cheek and he nuzzled against it.

“Even now that I’ve touched you, I’m still going to love looking at you,” Boo said. “I understand that now. I’d thought it was just something to go before touching. But now I know more about pleasure, and I know that looking is a pleasure, too.”

Zander quashed the impulse to laugh this off, to say something cliché about flattery. He didn’t want to build any barriers between them for Boo’s first time, for Boo’s sake. And for his own sake, he didn’t want to force any distance between himself and someone who so plainly and earnestly desired him.

So he didn’t say anything that went back to himself. “You’re the most astonishing being I’ve ever seen, Boo.” And he leaned down and kissed it. Boo sighed and arched up towards him, a vivid reminder of what they both so wanted. He ran his hand lightly down Boo’s body, traced the path of its hipbones, and again found that soft, wet opening. Boo had said it was just a hole, but it was incredible that it had made one at all—that it had gone so far outside its version of normality as a boogeyman in the hope of making a sexual connection. Zander could only hope that Boo would find it everything it’d hoped for. He eased the head of his cock against Boo’s hole, and, taking a deep breath, slid inside the body of his boogeyman.

Immediately, Boo grabbed his shoulders with its hands, its claws pricking against his skin. The tiny points of pain were immediately subsumed in the heat of desire, however, as Boo lifted its hips urgently against Zander’s.

“Am I really giving you this much pleasure?” Boo asked, sounding dazed.

Zander gave a single, breathy laugh. “Just you wait.” He hoped the connection between them would be strong, that it would help Boo figure out how it could find the satisfaction and relief that Zander knew he was going to find in Boo. He began to thrust shallowly, Boo at once joining him in his rhythm.

“Yes,” Boo said, a sigh and a hiss at once. “Yes.” Its hands crept over him in ever-greedy caresses, boldly grasping handfuls of his flesh with alien, yet ardent, delight and desire. Its wet heat held him close, inner muscles tightening around his cock every time he withdrew. It drove all thoughts of biological artistry from Zander’s mind, leaving room only for the thrill of this deepest, closest touch.

“Tell me—tell me what you want,” Zander said. “Want to make you feel—as good as I do.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know—” Boo wrapped its long legs around Zander and pulled him closer. “Just—more, more. Harder, faster!”

Boo’s groan of pleasure when Zander obeyed was nearly his undoing. He had no clear idea at all how he managed to hold back, save that he suddenly craved to know what other sounds he could coax from Boo. Every little moan, every little gasp seemed to speak volumes, but volumes that would contain only the simplest statements, over and over again. I want you. I need you. You feel good on me, you feel good in me. But what more needed to be said in the bizarre little paradise his apartment had become? It could never be shared, never be explained, but that didn’t matter. It only mattered that he was real, and Boo was real, and no matter how astonishing their first meeting, they were both finally getting the touch they had been so desperate for.

Zander bent to kiss Boo’s fanged mouth, their disparate bodies pressing together as if there was no reason for them ever to have been apart.

“Zander,” Boo said softly, breaking the kiss for a moment, and Zander smiled down at it and impulsively nuzzled his cheek against its. Then, “Zander!” Boo cried out, baffled and worshipful, arching up against him and clenching around him tighter than ever before.

The thought “did I just make my boogeyman come?” just barely had time to form in Zander’s mind before his thrusts lost their steadiness and his own orgasm washed over him in a bright wave of pleasure.

“Zander,” Boo murmured, once they had both collected themselves a little and were lying side by side, “I want to sleep here. In your bed. With you.”

“No going back, huh? I’m happy with that.” He lightly ran his hand down Boo’s arm. “But what if you sleep too deeply? I can close my blackout curtains, of course, but they haven’t worked great here and the sun might still get through. I don’t want you to get injured after all the—all the good things of tonight.”

“I’m not worried. I…even if I’ve changed, I’m still a boogeyman. I’ll wake when the light is too much. And I feel like…I have reserves of energy. Even more than I did at the start of the night.”

“Well, all right,” Zander said. “I’m going to guess that you won’t mind cuddling?”

Boo flashed a grin. “Oh no, never.”

When Zander woke he wasn’t disoriented that Boo was in his bed; he knew very well he hadn’t been dreaming last night. But he was surprised that he was able to see Boo so clearly. The sun wasn’t fully up yet, but it was undeniably dawn. And Boo was still sleeping peacefully, an absurdly elongated little spoon. Zander did want to spend some time looking at Boo, at the form it had made of both instinct and desire, but its description of the terrible effects of the sun made him reach out and shake its shoulder instead.

Boo blinked sleepily, as if it had a lot of experience with sleeping and not just phasing out of existence during the day. “The daylight, Boo! The daylight!”

It yawned, revealing every single one of its astonishing fangs. “Can’t be daylight,” it said. “You have more uncomfortable lamps.”

“Boo, really!” Zander started trying to move Boo’s miles of limbs around so he could get out of bed and get to the blackout curtains. Why hadn’t he just taken the time to close them last night? It wouldn’t have hurt, it might have helped, and now Boo was way too close to being burned by the sun for the second time because of him! And apparently it was too disoriented? Unused to waking up? To stop hindering Zander from trying to keep it safe—wow, how weird, to go from terrified to protective of one’s boogeyman within a few hours—wait. Did the boogeyman thing explain the situation he was having right now? He was afraid for Boo, Boo naturally did things that were scary, and so Boo’s arms and legs were trapping him in his bed. It was the same thing as not being able to run in a nightmare.

Zander flopped back down and tried to calm himself. Boo was a grown boogeyman, much older than Zander if he’d correctly deciphered its comments on when it had come to exist. If it was going to take these risks, let it! It had come back from the other sunburn just fine!

Zander had maybe three seconds of calm before Boo sat upright quickly enough to make the bed springs squeak. “This IS sunlight!”

“Yeah, and don’t you need to hide from it?”

“I…I hide from light because it hurts me. Or it hurt me.” Boo slowly turned one of its hands back and forth in the dawn light. “But I barely feel anything now. It’s just a tingle. I think the light still might be dissolving me, but somehow it’s so much easier to heal, now. More sunlight would probably still be too much. But I don’t feel any need to dissolve for the length of the day.” It frowned. “I have changed.”

“Boo.” Zander sat up. “How?”

“I couldn’t have guessed…” Boo spoke softly. “But then again, maybe I am the same. Maybe this is part of being a boogeyman, but a boogeyman that followed its instincts, a boogeyman without a Zander, would have only ever tasted fear.” It fixed its gaze back on Zander. “You wondered at me. You were curious about me. You felt desire for me. And now, this morning, you were afraid for me. All of these emotions…I think they are more powerful than your everyday fear. At least for me. At least when they come from you.” It paused, and when it spoke again a note of trepidation had crept into its voice. “Do you think you could continue to wonder at me? I…want to have continuity. In your space. With you. If I don’t have to worry about the sunlight so much, and staying out of sight…there are so many ways I could do more than just exist.”

“Boo.” Zander took its hand. “I think I’ll be wondering at you for a long, long time.” He paused. “Do you still need fear, specifically, now?”

Boo shrugged. “Nightmares are always enough for a boogeyman. I just…ended up different.”

“I’m glad you did,” Zander said. “I’m glad you ended up different with me.” Boo immediately sprawled around him in a clumsy embrace, and Zander laughed. “But it’s a hell of a time to start being part of the world, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” Boo said.

Zander sighed, though he smiled, too. “Well. I’ll be here as you figure it out. Now, let’s find a safe place for you to spend the day.” And though he didn’t say anything then, the question still bloomed within him—if wonder can carry you through the dawn, what might love do?

#exophilia #monster lover #boogeyman #non-fandom writing #well I mean you know

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jauneda1 · 3 years

Text

RWBY

The New War part 4

Jaune Arc's All Out Attack

Just outside of Shinrah district.

Jaune and Ren had to start traveling by rooftops because of the miasma that is covering most of the streets due to this though Jaune is getting exhausted from all the Aura Jumping. It wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't caring Ren doing so.

Jaune: Talking about me and junk food but your heavy asf.

Ren: Jaune! I don't want to here anything about you being tired from carrying me across rooftops.

Ren: You not only suggested this method, but aren't you the one that caught a speeding car with your body.

Ren: That Torchwick guy escaped but you did something unbelievable.

Jaune: I was in the hospital for a week for three cracked ribs. Not to mention it knocked me unconscious.

Ren: Even more of a reason for you to not be bitching rn.

Jaune: I think I like this Ren get used to me.

The two took cover at the top of they're current building then observed the captured cop and EMS workers. They could hear a man who was obviously a squad leader sporting heavy armor and two large saw swords.

Atlas Elite Oppressor: It's honorable seeing so many of you fighting to protect your kingdom. How come there are no soldier's only law enforcement?

Atlas Elite: I'll tell you why, it's because Ozpin didn't think they where worth sending into the city. That they needed to protect the academy.

Atlas Elite: So in other words your all expendable.

Police officer: Shut your mouth you fucking Terrorist.

Atlas Elite: Terrorist!? Lol where Atlas solider's.

Alvin Marcus: Listen son in all my years alive Atlas would never do something like this. My name is police chief Alvin Marcus.

Alvin: Ironwood would never order an attack against his home kingdom.

Atlas Elite: Well you know what Alvin thank you for having the balls to speak up... Now... Die for it.

And with a lift and a swing the man's head was taken off.

Jaune was finally at his boiling point as he was about to make a split second decision till he felt Rena hand grab his own. Jaune turned and looked Ren in the eyes who had a face seriousness. There was a mutual understanding between the two but Jaune knew if someone else died then he would step in. They both continue to watch on.

Atlas Elite: Well then... He's dead... So who's next?

Atlas Elite: Let's see they're are 40 of you we'll start executing you guys in groups of 10.

Atlas Elite: Okay men begin. Try not to have to much fun.

It was just like that the men and women where gonna be shot and killed. Police officer's and EMS workers who most had families. Jaune couldn't take it anymore so he jumped into action.

Ren: JAUNE!

Jaune: Bastards landed and swung his blade at one of the soldiers and as like nothing the man flew back with a huge slash in his chest and his eyes lifeless. Jaune didn't take it into consideration but the man he just killed didn't have an aura. Which means that most of these guys will go down easily.

(Jaune's mind)

" Is it really a good thing that it's that easy. "

"Ricky: Do what you have to Jaune, to protect the people around you and care about."

The Atlas Elite was surprised to see the young man cut down one of his men so easily. It turned out that's all it took for the police officer's to fight back as now a big battle of attrition had began. So the Elite did the only thing he thought was right and that was to take out this young man. He could already tell that his target was a killer at heart. That Mistress would love for someone like this to join her ranks. No hesitation just calculated swings and focused blocking. He is block bullets and using his aura to defend himself from and oppressor troopers. Now there's a green one huh interesting

Jaune had just took what felt like a hit from Cardin's mace to the side of the head but it was just a shotgun buckshot. He then stuck his blade into the guys knee rotating his wrist and and realizing something this felt odd killing these guys so easily. Whatever he needs to do he'll do it to protect these people. All of a sudden Jaune's senses struck him both physically and mentally as he was then sent five feet and bouncing off the side of a car.

Ren: JAUNE!

Jaune could hear Ren yelling out to him. He was fine he was able to lift his shield up to take the wide and aggressive swing he had very little time to react as he used his sword to slide and redirect a blade that was slashed vertically at him. Jaune then spun out of it and backhanded the attacker with his shield. The difference was that this tall bulky guy with duel wielding saw blades that are atleast half of Jaune's size. Jaune was at 6'3 so these swords where ridiculously big. Obviously this guy over compensating. Shit why did the commander have to be a tall and bulky hulk of a man, why couldn't he just of been cute like Ren.

Then it was a saving grace as A helicopter with Vale soldiers showed up and began to fire upon the enemy this made the guy end his attacks on Jaune and begin to fall back but Jaune wasn't having it as he chased him leaving Ren behind.

Jaune: Oh No You Don't Ass Hole Get Back Here!

One of the retreating soldiers was about to fire on Jaune till Ren pulled the trigger on one of his pistols and blew the guys brains out. Ren was not as shocked as he should of been. He wasn't about to let Jaune get killed so he chased after him as Vale military forces moved in.

Jaune had cornered the man. Then aimed his sword at the man.

Jaune: You'll pay for what you've done. Killing all of those innocent people.

Atlas Elite: Laughing... You got fight in ya kid.

The two stood there reading to see who would swing first. But neither one had to wait as the man rushed at Jaune only for Jaune to smirk as his chest glowed bright blue over his heart and without any warning Jaune sheathe his blade and went to punch the ground with his left hand all of the energy he had built up. This new attack Jaune was saving for whenever him and Yang spared again let alone it be Pyrrha.

Jaune: BAHAMET..FURY

With a mighty roar and loud kaboom that sent out a bright blue blaze that can be seen from Beacon Tower. This stunned Ozpin and Glynda who knew who that could of been. Especially since a news chopper caught the attack live. For the world too see, so teams RWBY, CFVY, Nora and Pyrrha saw it.

Ruby: Well guess we know who that would of been for if we had Combat class on yesterday.

All Jokes aside the chopper was waiting for the dust to clear. When it finally did Jaune was now Shirtless and sporting a big gash on his right arm it looks like the guy broke his Aura. Something that everyone at Beacon knew was next to impossible because Jaune is undefeated when it came to combat class. If one doesn't count the draw between him and Pyrrha. The two fought it out until they both fell from exhaustion. But what was about happen now was not a spar where it's fight till your at your max. No this fight was of a higher stake, Jaune's life was on the line.

The man got up and used his blade's to support himself.

The Butcher: Your... One pain in the ass you know that?

The Butcher: They call me The Butcher. That's my name now what's yours?

Jaune stayed quiet for a second because he was honestly still shocked that some one took the full brunt of his shock wave ground smash.

Jaune: Jaune Arc... No relation

The Butcher: A Arc huh? You truly are special.

Without a second passing The Butcher rushed in and Jaune eyes tightened as his vision focused and his mindset locked in. This battle will result in one of them dying. Jaune was able to deflect the The Butcher's swing but his wild style was new to Jaune so he wasn't expecting the second blade to come out of no where and slash his right arm and knocking his blade away leaving another gash if torn flesh and on the underside of Jaune's arm. This was bad he wouldn't be able to put a lot of power behind any punches on this arm. But that was okay Jaune knew what he would have to resort to Jaune then burst forward. Eyes lacking fear but a resolve he slide in grabbing The Butcher by his waist and just like that Ursa in class Jaune German suplexed him, again rolling into it and lifting the man again but this time keeping a two arm bear hug and slammed the guy on his shoulders sideways. Again Jaune rolled into it and lifted the man up and with his feet planted and with raw strength and pure adrenaline running through him Jaune threw the disarmed Butcher into the side of a building where he collided and bounced off of. Jaune was gassed after that display by no means was Butcher a light weight at 8feet tall and weight what felt like a ton it was hard to do what Jaune did. He may have caught a car at top speed but he hadn't been through hell before it. It just happened when he was at full strength.

Jaune felt the hands of someone familiar to him grab him. Ren had grab Jaune and gave him a shot of Adrenaline Ren looked like shit like he had got caught in Jaune's explosion.

Jaune: Dame Ren I'm sorry-

Ren had shut him up with a painful shot of adrenaline to the to the leg.

Jaune: Ow... Sorry .

Ren: You will be if we make it out of this.

Ren: I don't have any aura and my weapons are destroyed thanks to you. But that guy needs to go down.

Jaune: You thinking what I'm thinking then😁.

Ren blushing of embarrassment: Shut up

Jaune: Aww yeah Martial Arc's time.

Ren: ugh

The two ran in at the butcher who had recovered and was not ready to fight a juiced up Jaune and what looks like the ninja from earlier. But what surprised The Butcher more was the Ninja had just vanished and Jaune Arc looked to be throwing something invisible. It didn't click until he felt what was a foot to his jaw and a right hook to his rib cage one so powerful he felt his ribs crunch and shatter with it this dropped him to one knew then a barrage of calculated punches from the ninja and bone breaking bashes from Jaune. When the barrage ceased The Butcher was dumb founded the one eye he could see out off. He saw that Jaune was now casting a bright blue flaming aura and with one touch he turned the emerald ninja next to him glowing a bright green flaming aura as well.

The two locked eyes with The Butcher who was now expressing great fear.

Ren: When did you learn how to do this?

Jaune: I'll tell you later.

The two then lead in like a dance of blue and green as they both went in for punches kicks and one of Jaune's kicked sending The Butcher skyward. Ren Jumped into Jaune's hands and launched forward to meet The Butcher he super kicked him and without any warning Ren felt a burst of power as he flew forward looking back in slow motion to see Jaune winking at him and his chest burning bright blue. That's when Ren realized that Jaune had found a way not only to convert kinetic energy into aura, but he can transfer it to other's. Ren flew forward grabbing The Butcher and throwing him down towards Jaune who had jumped towards The Butcher who was beaten and bloody.

Ren: Jaune please don't kill him.

(Jaune's Mind)

No worries Ren I refused to be the monster that this man is. I will put him in his fucking place though.

Jaune: HAA!

With a discharge of all the energy Jaune knocked The lights out of The Butcher. His head snapping back from the impact but not killing him but mainly knocking him out.

Jaune landed and caught the Butcher to keep him from receiving anymore damage.

Five minutes later

Jaune came back sword in his sheathe, even though it took him a minute to find it. Ren was just standing there back towards Jaune. Jaune walked up and lightly pushed Ren's shoulder.

Jaune: From what I see the military is rounding up the last remaining terrorist and Atlas only General Ironwood is talking with Ozpin that's why there are war ships up above.

Ren: He shows up only now?

Jaune: Yeah but atleast it's over right.

Ren: Hey did you ever actually turn your scrolls distress signal?

Jaune: Yeah about that... Hehe I dropped my scroll when I rushed in to stop those guys earlier. Hehe

Ren: I want to punch you right now but I'm to weak to put any force behind it.

Then something grabbed the two's attention

Nora: Ren! Jaune!

They both turned to see they're teams and Professor Ozpin and Glynda.

But Jaune knew he was in trouble when he saw Yang and Ruby rushed him. Jaune knew he was about to receive the world's strongest hug and beating courtesy of Yang he has ever taken.

(Jaune's mind)

"I die today, this is how I die."

End of part 4

Character analysis

The Butcher: age late thirties maybe early twenties.

Classification: Classified

Huntsman classification: Unknown possibly Vanguard giving his size, weapons, and fighting style

Military experience: Ex Sargent first class.

Semblance: None

#rwby fanfiction #team rwby #team jnpr #jaune arc #lie ren #nora valkyrie #violence #slight gore

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tenspontaneite · 3 years

Text

Wish Fulfilment (Chapter 1/?)

Rayla woke up in a tiny body in a tiny bed, blinked, looked at her tiny hands, and said “Right.”

(Time travel; indulgent and light-hearted. Ao3 link)

---

Rayla woke up in a tiny body in a tiny bed, blinked, looked at her tiny hands, and said “Right.”

She spent the next few days taking stock of herself, the time-frame, her living situation, and her own abilities. She was a pipsqueak, lacking the advantages of a decade of training and conditioning, but she’d been a scrappy thing even at this age – climbing trees, making a nuisance of herself, getting hardier and more agile than most bairns did, and so on. She scrambled experimentally about some trees for a while, and assessed her stealth by mud-bombing the townspeople she disliked, and in the end decided that it would do just fine.

Her parents had joined the Dragonguard recently, and judging by her age, Callum must have lost his mother only a month or two ago. She regretted that she couldn’t have stopped that, but, well. Nothing to be done.

She spent a further week stealing supplies, testing herself, and getting ready. The Moon answered her when she called on it, even so close to its darkest phase. Magic answered too, when she begrudgingly tested the spells Callum had bullied her into learning. It would be enough.

She left a note for Ethari and Runaan that read ‘I know you’ll never listen if I tell you not to look for me, so just try not to waste too much time, alright? I’m fine.’ She took a moment to feel disconcerted at her history of leaving notes and disappearing, then added ‘Sorry. Try not to worry. I’ll see if I can send letters or something.’ With that in mind she took a brief detour into Ethari’s workshop and stole a shadowhawk. With that tucked into her pack, she did some last-minute checks of her supplies and headed out.

First on her agenda was heading North-East and breaking up her trail. Runaan would absolutely try to follow her, so she made it as hard for him as she possibly could, laying false trails, disturbing the true ones, and dunking herself in every body of water she could find to break up the chance of the family Moonstrider being able to track her. He’d probably still find his way through the first leg of her journey, but that was okay. She could live with that.

Rayla arrived at the mountainous plains on the edge of Lux Aurea a week later, finding with satisfaction what she’d expected to: vast tracts of farmland, developed for the feeding of the equally vast population of the golden city. It took a further day to find the farm itself, whereupon she broke in, ambushed the residents, and made some very uncompromising demands.

The Sunfire farmers looked so bewildered at having been hogtied and extorted by a baby-faced Moonshadow child that they offered absolutely no resistance except plaintive questions like ‘where are your parents’, or ‘are you okay’, or ‘do you need any help’. In the end Rayla departed with her packs three bags of seeds heavier, and also stole a Sunfin on her way out. She flew on the placid creature for three days due West before running afoul of the Sunfire army.

Rayla spent eight disgruntled hours in the custody of those soldiers, refusing to talk, until they finally left a twin-tailed inferno-tooth tiger to guard her while they went off to send letters to their superiors, trusting the guard-cat’s intelligence and ferocity to be equal to the task of keeping watch on a wee Moonshadow bairn. This turned out to be a mistake.

Within an hour, the animal was eyeing her with interest. Within two, it had drifted close to sniff at her. “What’re you looking at?” She demanded, in her tiny irritable child-voice, and that was when the thing instantly and very plainly took a liking to her. She spent ten minutes grumbling loudly about being sat on by a giant cat, then finally conceded to pragmatism and started using its tail-flames to burn through her ties. They’d only used rope, not wanting to restrain a child too sternly. It was very helpful stupidity on their part.

Rayla escaped on the cat and was only mildly singed by the ordeal. Later, after a day of very enthusiastic pursuit-evasion, she settled down with said cat and eyed it with resignation. “You’re not leaving, are you.” She said. It licked her with a sandpapery tongue almost as big as her entire face, and that was answer enough. She sighed. “Well, it’ll make the journey a lot faster, I suppose.” She decided. “But you’re going to be a pain to hide.”

Unconcerned, it rubbed its face against her insistently enough to push her over. But she’d grown up with a shadowpaw, so she was used to that.

Rayla, who was not good at naming things, named it Cat.

---

Brightly-coloured cats with two flaming tails were not stealthy. They just weren’t. Cheerfully unaware of how inconvenient this was, Cat spent the next two weeks ruining her efforts at stealth by roaring at inconvenient times, following her when she’d told it to stay put, and in general by being constantly on fire. As such she arrived in the Pentarchy and crossed the Weeping Bay with considerably more flair than she’d have preferred, but at least the tails eliminated the need for campfires. It had obviously been used to cook food before, and tolerated the experience very agreeably, if it had also been fed.

On the third week she finally figured out that the thing had been trained with Luçais commands, and muddled her way through her extremely bare vocabulary in the language to finally get Cat to follow basic directions. With the ability to tell it to stay put somewhere while she went off to do something else, things went much better. She disappeared into the mountain range on Cat’s wings, choosing the least-populated route she could manage, and in the end managed to approach Katolis castle with no one the wiser that she was there.

Finding somewhere to leave Cat proved challenging, though. She briefly considered the alcove in the cliff under the castle, but dismissed it on grounds that someone would notice the roaring eventually. Cat was a noisy bastard. Eventually she resigned herself to the fact that she’d just need to relocate it periodically, and left it in a relatively well-concealed ditch with a freshly-killed deer corpse to occupy it.

Rayla waited till nightfall for the first excursion, calling on the Moon to turn her skin to shadows, and stalked down the castle halls, learning it as it was in this time. Learning the guard stations, the patrol patterns, its rhythms and sounds. She was half-way to checking whether Callum still had the right room at this age when she stopped in the middle of the hallway, goosebumps raising up in lines over her arms, feeling a vast and familiar presence passing over her mind. She slumped with relief.

“Ezran.” She murmured, more thankful than words could say. “So you made it back too.”

Being a baby had apparently not agreed with him, because he seemed to lack the control and finesse he’d developed with age. Instead his ability brushed at her in vague sweeps of feeling and intent, saying relief and frustration and this way. She followed his lead to the nursery where he was kept, his guards pressed into sleep by his far-reaching touch.

She looked down at him in his cot, so tiny she wasn’t even sure if he could crawl, and raised an eyebrow. “Somehow, you’re even tinier than I expected.”

“Ee,” he expressed sourly, blinking up at her with eyes that looked too big for his face. Babies were so weird. His hands reached up and made grabby motions at her, so obediently she leaned in and let him slap one baby hand onto her cheek. With the skin contact, it got a lot clearer.

Been here months, he seemed to complain, along with a rush of gratitude/relief/fondness at seeing her. Couldn’t do anything/missed you/been awful.

“How many months?” She asked with interest, and after a little back-and-forth managed to surmise that he’d awakened in his body very shortly after the titan-slaying party had departed for Xadia. She winced, entirely aware of how terrible that must have been for him. “I’m sorry, Ez.”

His little baby face screwed up, as if he was going to start crying. He almost did, but then seemed to summon the will to suppress the infant-body’s powerful instincts before it actually got going. Really sucked, he managed to express, with a little echo of his helplessness and anger. Then, subverbal: an impression of the heavy miasma of grief that had hung over the castle. Harrow crying, Callum crying.

She inhaled sharply. “Callum-“ she couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t make it back? She thought, numbly, and that was as good as saying it, with Ezran touching her.

He blinked wide ice-blue eyes at her. Hasn't yet/getting worried, he said, tangled up in the impression he had that she’d arrived later than him, hadn’t she, so maybe, maybe Callum would join them eventually too. He hoped. But time was passing and he was afraid.

She closed her eyes. Exhaled. “Did Zym make it?” Yes, he had. “Can you talk to him the same? Reach past him?” Talking: yes, but it was hard. Reaching: no. “Okay. We can work with that.” She hesitated, steeling herself, not thinking about Callum. “I’ve got a hotcat a little bit past the castle. Think you can convince it not to make noise?” She asked, half-heartedly.

Ezran blinked again. Then he looked delighted, a wide baby grin spreading across his face. He nearly bowled her over with the wave of enthusiasm and approval for her having made a proper animal friend, and expressed his intention to begin communing with said animal at once.

Rayla nodded a little, still tightly controlling her reaction to the news about Callum, and after a moment reached into the cot to lift Ezran up under his wee chubby baby arms. He made a surprised gurgle at her, then burped contentedly when she hugged him, patting her clumsily on the shoulder. He was so bloody little. It was making her annoyingly emotional. Damn it, Callum, she thought to herself, get back here already so you can look at how tiny your brother is with me.

Ez sighed, patting her with mental impressions of hope and affection and subdued sadness. Then he told her, though not in as many words, that Cat was a terrible name and someone really needed to make fun of her for it.

Rayla huffed and set him back down again. “Shush, you.” She said gruffly, and hesitated. “I’ll…come back to see you tomorrow, alright? Maybe in the day this time.” She had to get an idea of the daytime watch rotations too, after all. She still wasn’t sure what the plan was, but taking someone hostage might well end up being part of it. That would be a lot easier, with Ez on board. A lot of things would be easier.

A little spitefully, to let off steam, she made one final stop before leaving the castle that night: she broke into Viren’s rooms and stole one each of three pairs of his boots. She took these back to Cat and watched it maul the boots in question with a great deal of satisfaction.

Cat did quiet down after whatever Ezran communicated to it, but unfortunately also decided that if it wasn’t going to announce its presence by roaring, it had to do it some other way. This was how Cat ended up spraying the brambles at the edge of the ditch in urine, and incidentally also how Rayla discovered that it was a male. Thereafter the area stank too much for her to linger in, so she had to go off to sleep in a nearby tree, beyond the warmth of Cat’s burning tails. Rayla woke the next morning with a pronounced crick in her neck, grumbled a little, then went back to work.

---

Notes:

So this story exists because I made myself Really Sad about five year old Callum when writing the latest chapter (21) of piaj, and then made myself Even Sadder by promptly writing a future scene where Callum talked about said period of his life to Rayla, and then out of abject desperation I fired up a fresh document and started writing this to comfort myself.

Setting background: canon, but with worldbuilding borrowed from piaj. Future Rayla was somewhere in the region of 18+ years old, unspecified. Circumstances of the future and method of time travel left extremely deliberately vague. I have every intention of playing as fast and loose with this story as I can possibly manage; I already have one exhaustive and meticulous tdp work and I’m not interested in reallocating my brainpower from that to this.

Warning: what plans I have for this story heavily feature piaj worldbuilding that I consider pretty critical to the setting, and also unlikely to come out any time soon. Therefore, it’s pretty guaranteed that I’ll get two or three chapters in to publishing this and then have to keep the rest to myself for the next four years while piaj progresses.

Other details:

Sunfin: a creature I came up with for piaj worldbuilding. It cannot breathe, and uses Sun magic in place of respiratory processes. If kept indoors it will die very quickly. It’s unintelligent and usually lives at high altitudes and will not generally touch the ground in its lifetime, but can be trained for use in farming, where it’s very useful in dispersing large amounts of Stuff (i.e. water, seeds, fertiliser) over a field from the sky. They’re basically crop dusters. Concept and name inspired by the Skyfin from endless legend. Looks somewhat more like a cross between an air shark and manta ray though.

Ezran: future Ezran in this setting was very, very powerful. Less so now that he’s a one year old baby. Rip.

Rayla: future Rayla learned how to use Moonshadow form at most times of the month, and in addition was eventually nagged by Callum into learning some spells. She uses them as part of her stealth repertoire but doesn’t consider herself a mage.

Callum: is baby.

Cat: a twin tailed inferno tooth tiger, highly trained, and in use by the Lux Aurea military as a war mount prior to his desertion in this story. They had a different name for him, but he rather prefers ‘Cat’.

Luçais: piaj worldbuilding; this is the in universe name for the French language as Draconic is the in universe name for Latin. Spoken by many Sunfire elves.

#tdp #tdp fic #rayllum #time travel #tdp rayla #tdp callum #tdp ezran #and so on #read back on my blog to trace the aetiology of this fic

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orthogonals · 3 years

Text

只有你| only you

Rating: T Fandom: 二哈和他的白猫师尊 - 肉包不吃肉 | The Husky and His White Cat Shizun - Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat Word Count: 1454 Pairing: Chu Wanning/ Mo Ran| Taxian-jun Summary: Chu Wanning, let This Venerable One hold you for a bit.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “This Venerable One is cold.” “Don’t you have an empress?” “She doesn’t smell as good as you.” Mo Ran sidled even closer to Chu Wanning, dropping Chu Wanning’s hand to run his fingers through Chu Wanning’s hair, still damp and a bit textured. --- OR: Inspired by one of Meatbun's mini-theatres. Sometimes, Taxian-jun just wants a hug to chase away the cold. [read on ao3]

On the third year of his reign, Taxian-jun found himself wandering aimlessly about in his own palace. The shuffling of his boots against the wooden floor rang eerily in the still air, quiet in a way that signaled the rapid approach of untenable hours.

Before Mo Ran had even realized the well-worn path trodden by his feet, he looked up to find the familiar whorls and crevices of the door to where Chu Wanning was being kept.

Winter had sunk its claws into the land, settling in like a lioness curling around her cubs. A thick blanket of snow decorated the sprawling courtyards and pointed rafters of Sisheng peak, giving Wushan Palace a particularly bleak and dismal appearance.

As the night approached, flurries of snow swept about to the howling of the wind. Some flakes caught onto the windows and melted, dampening the thin sheet of protective paper stretched over the wooden frames. Outside, the sky deepened from a vague sort of darkness to an impenetrable black.

Taxian-jun hesitated, but only for a moment. He didn’t know what coming to seek his Shizun at such a devilish hour meant, but he didn’t put much thought into his own motivations or to Chu Wanning’s possible interpretation of them. After all, Chu Wanning couldn’t very well refuse a visit from his captor, and Taxian-jun couldn’t care less about Chu Wanning’s regard. At least, that was what he consoled himself with.

Taxian-jun raised his hand to knock, but quickly retracted the gesture. The door flew open with a rough bang as he swept into the room unannounced.

Chu Wanning sat on a plain mattress, a threadbare sheet thrown causally around his shoulders for warmth. He seemed to be preparing for bed, currently brushing out the tangles in his curtain of damp hair. If he startled at Mo Ran’s sudden entrance, his countenance gave little clue— the hand methodically running a comb through his dark strands did not break pace.

Until a large hand caught his wrist, halting the careful movement.

Mo Ran’s grip was firm but not punishing. Chu Wanning subtly flexed the tendons of his wrist, blue and purple veins shifting minutely beneath the translucent paleness of his skin. Still, he knew that any sort of struggle would ultimately be fruitless. Instead, with the remainder of his defiance, Chu Wanning sat straight, silent, and unyielding, gaze directed somewhere past Mo Ran’s shoulder.

Taxian-jun had long accustomed to the implacable disobedience of his Shizun. And he, too, had begun to develop a fairly effective program for gradually bending Chu Wanning’s will, like heating an iron rod until it drooped over the fire.

“Shizunnn~” Taxian-jun called, his voice dripping in honey, pungent and cloying. His thumb brushed against the delicate skin of Chu Wanning’s inner wrist, feather-light, and Taxian-jun hid a smirk at how Chu Wanning’s heartbeat ratcheted upwards at the touch.

“Get out.” Chu Wanning responded promptly, still refusing to meet Mo Ran’s eyes.

“What a cold reception,” Taxian-jun tsk’d, “This disciple is heartbroken.”

“What do you want?” Chu Wanning refused to acknowledge Mo Ran’s barbed wheedling, instead cutting to straight the point, his voice the glinting edge of a drawn sword.

At this, Taxian-jun actually paused. What did he want? To be honest, he wasn’t quite so sure himself. On nights like this, when his mind felt dim and his thoughts garbled, his sense of self nebulous and shrouded, it seemed that only Chu Wanning had the power to pull him out of the miasma, bring him back to reality. Not that he would admit it in such detail, though, even to himself.

So, Taxian-jun settled on a simple and guileless response.

“Chu Wanning, let This Venerable One hold you for a bit.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “This Venerable One is cold.”

“Don’t you have an empress?”

“She doesn’t smell nearly as good as you.”

Mo Ran sidled even closer to Chu Wanning, dropping Chu Wanning’s hand to run his fingers through Chu Wanning’s hair, still damp and a bit textured.

Chu Wanning winced as Mo Ran’s fingers picked through the tangles he had yet to brush out. It had been a while since he left the tepid waters of his bath, and his wet hair had cooled, freezing his scalp and the tips of his ears. Mo Ran’s broad palms brought some heat back to his head; he couldn’t help but tremble into the warmth.

Mo Ran smiled to himself. His Shizun had always been especially susceptible to the cold. They both knew Mo Ran was actually giving Chu Wanning some face— the one who really needed relief from the chill, after all, was his Shizun.

Of course, Mo Ran could’ve also just swept Chu Wanning into his embrace, unheeding of protest, then swallowed Chu Wanning’s curses roughly against his mouth, his tongue diving in to break up those gnashing teeth...

Mo Ran was half-hard at the thought, but he kept a tight grip on the reins of his self-control. Sometimes, it felt more satisfying to coax than to take by force, a gratification that could only come from soothing someone so wild and untamed.

Taking Chu Wanning’s continued silence as assent, Taxian-jun closed the last bit of distance between them. He sat down at the empty space beside Chu Wanning and pulled Chu Wanning onto his lap, winding his arms around Chu Wanning’s narrow waist and resting his chin in the dip between his neck and shoulder.

Chu Wanning felt as if he had been enveloped by a furnace. Heat instantly rushed from his neck to the tips of his fingers, leaving numb trails tingling in its wake. He shook silently with the sudden warmth, relaxing into Mo Ran’s hold almost unconsciously.

They stayed like that for an indefinite moment, stretched out and suspended in time. Mo Ran absentmindedly rubbed circles against Chu Wanning’s stomach. With a spectacular amount of restraint, he refrained from sinking his teeth into the firm muscle of Chu Wanning’s shoulder, from marking up the tender skin at the hollow of Chu Wanning’s throat, instead contenting himself with blowing out puffs of warm breath and watching the answering flush of pink spread along his Shizun’s neck.

Mo Ran couldn’t deny that Chu Wanning, detestable as he was, still seemed the perfect size to fit against his body. They slotted together like complementary parts of a machine, snug and intimate. He peppered languid kisses on the stretch of back exposed by Chu Wanning’s collar, thinking to himself, Chu Wanning, I really hate you so much.

But Taxian-jun still grew a bit bored after a while, and a glint of mischief flashed within his eyes.

“Shizun,” he implored piteously, “pay attention to me...”

Chu Wanning angled his head slightly to peer at Mo Ran.

“What is it now?”

“This Venerable One wants Shizun to undo his hair,” Taxian-jun announced.

Taxian-jun's hair was still piled up in whatever intricate mess his servants had done for him today, the metal hairpiece secured tightly against his scalp. His request, routine and nightly as it was, came off unabashedly as a pretext for spending the rest of the right in Chu Wanning’s room, in his bed.

Normally, Chu Wanning’s reply would’ve come swiftly and without fail— a single “get out.” Yet perhaps due to the hazy warmth of Mo Ran’s hold, or perhaps due to the smudged dimness of the hour, suddenly Chu Wanning’s sight blurred: the man behind him no looked longer like Taxian-jun, the First Emperor of the Cultivation world, the fiend who had committed countless unforgivable atrocities, but instead appeared as Mo Ran, his artless, stumbling, innocent, charming disciple.

So Chu Wanning, uncharacteristically compliant, shifted off Mo Ran’s lap to sit with him face-to-face. He gently guided Mo Ran’s head down and began tugging at the pins in his hair with slender, practiced fingers.

If Taxian-jun felt any surprise at Chu Wanning’s willingness, he tamped it down, happy to simply enjoy this unfounded luck. Warm fingers stroked against his scalp, easing his hair from the tight braids, lifting away the metal hairpiece. The hands then combed through the length of his freed locks, knuckles brushing softly against his temples.

Taxian-jun leaned into Chu Wanning’s touch. He rested his forehead against Chu Wanning’s waist and let the faint fragrance of haitang crowd his senses. Chu Wanning stroked his head steadily, the pads of his fingers massaging lightly against his skull.

Like this, surrounded everywhere by Chu Wanning— his scent, his touch, his embrace— Taxian-jun dozed off, slumping into Chu Wanning’s patient hold, warm in the winter night. And before the last vestiges of his consciousness slipped away, Taxian-jun could’ve sworn he felt a kiss, feather light, pressed against the crown of his head.

#2ha #erha #the husky and his white cat shizun #mo ran #mo weiyu #taxian jun #chu wanning #ranwan #0.5 timeline #2ha fic #二哈 #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #*2ha #*goswrites

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saijspellhart · 3 years

Note

Could you do 8 for Radicalshipping? I think it would be sweet :)

8. Laying a gentle kiss to the back of the other’s hand. (Radicalshipping)

3. A breathy demand: “Kiss me” - and what the other person does to respond. (Radicalshipping)

16. One person pouting, only to have it removed by a kiss from the other person. (Radicalshipping)

“I knew he only liked me for my body,” Bakura spat. He flicked a duel monsters card at the TV and watched it hit the screen and deflect off of Malik’s face and join its brethren on the floor.

They were watching a tournament on the television, and the broadcast was currently wrapping up Malik’s latest duel. He’d been successful of course, and they were in the post duel interviews where Malik was answering questions about his plays. Ryou was with him, their arms thrown over the other’s shoulder in congratulations and friendship.

Malik leaned his head against Ryou’s and smiled at the camera, bright and proud.

Bakura flung another card at the TV.

“I like your body.” Yami Marik pulled off a pair of headphones, and turned away from his game at the desk.

Bakura threw a card at him too. “That’s the whole point you twit! This isn’t my body.” He gestured to himself, his thin lanky frame. There were muscles, because Bakura worked for them. But they weren’t incredibly defined because Ryou had never had that sort of stature. Upon being given a second chance at life, the gods had humbled Bakura by giving him a replica of Ryou’s body, rather than his original body. “And now Malik is shacking up with my former host.”

Marik eyed the television which was still showing the interviews with Malik. He’d been purposely ignoring this portion of the broadcast. Seeing his other half always stirred troubled emotions of resent and anger in him. Feelings he was working hard to overcome.

“They look like friends to me,” Marik remarked.

“Feh,” Bakura shuffled the stack of cards in his hand. He was lounging across the couch, one foot crossed over the other. The floor around the apartment was littered with Duel Monsters cards that he’d been throwing for the last hour.

“Well he certainly wouldn’t like you for your personality,” Marik snipped. “You’re an insufferable bastard.”

“Prick,” Bakura spat.

“Bitch.”

“Wanker.”

“Look! Yugi’s on!” Marik suddenly leaped from the chair and vaulted over the couch. He snatched the remote off the coffee table, and was already turning up the volume. Bakura didn’t bother to move his legs, which didn’t bother Marik at all. He climbed onto the couch, crouching on it like L from Death Note rather than a sane normal person.

Then again, Yami Marik was not a sane and normal person. In the years of separation from Malik—and with the gift of his own body—Marik had grown into himself. In some ways he had matured, grown, and mellowed out, but in other ways he’d developed his own idiosyncrasies, and still had a streak of impulsivity that reared from time to time.

Marik turned up the volume, and even Bakura sat up straighter. The two men watched as the small “King-of-Games” appeared on screen stepping up to a podium on a duel stadium. This tournament was using a classic stadium, rather than Kaiba’s portable duel disk system.

Yugi waved to the crowd, and smiled. Then the cameras switched to his opponent, and they watched as a different person, a taller guy with black hair and a ball cap, stepped up to the opposite podium. He too, waved at the crowd. But he followed it up with a fist pump that awarded him a round of cheers.

Bakura flicked a card at the guy on the screen. It struck the man’s ball cap before bouncing onto the floor.

“Boo!” Marik voiced both their thoughts aloud.

The two Yamis resented their absence from the tournament. They had not been allowed to sign up due to a lack of identification. Kaiba promised that he was working on creating identification for them, as well as obtaining credible backstories and citizenship. They’d only been given their fleshy new bodies less than six months ago, and it had taken a lot of convincing from Yugi to persuade Kaiba to help Marik and Bakura.

Suffice to say Kaiba wasn’t exactly in a rush.

So here they were, at home—Yugi’s home, because he had been the only one willing to take them in—behaving themselves. Sort of.

Yugi’s apartment was a mess right now. The carpet blanketed in a layer of trading cards that Bakura had spent the last hour and a half throwing about.

The desk where Marik had been faired no better. It was covered in the empty cans of energy drinks, sodas, and the occasion alcohol. Marik had a tendency to stay up all night playing MMOs, and the lack of sleep only enhanced his usual crazy unkempt appearance, rather than detract from it. Amongst the cans were the various wrappers of plant protein bars and veggie chips; there were also a few cards here and there that had managed to find their way amongst the mess.

The tournament commenced after a handful of commercials and a few more interviews with the other contestants. It was mostly speculation of who they thought would win, and what strats might be employed from each player.

Bakura muttered his own commentary about Yugi’s strategies, and Marik grunted in agreement.

And then the duel was underway. Yugi was first to go, and played a face down card before ending his turn, and letting his opponent retaliate.

Ball-cap Boy, as the Yamis labeled him, lost his first summoned monster to Yugi’s trap hole.

“Kick his ass!” Screamed Marik. He was clutching the remote between his fingers like a demented gargoyle.

“Not a bad start,” Bakura remarked. “The field is wide open for Yugi to make a counter attack, and Ball-cap Boy only played one face down card.”

The turn passed back to Yugi. He drew a card.

“Yugi has cards to sweep the field of magic and traps,” Marik nodded at the screen, stating the obvious. It wasn’t necessarily for Bakura’s benefit, as they were simply voicing their own thoughts and observations.

Right on cue, Yugi used a Mystical Space Typhoon, and sent Ball-cap’s card to the graveyard. Then he used a Pot of Greed, drew two more cards, and played a Black Magic Ritual spell card. He sent two monsters from his hand, to the graveyard as tribute, and summoned Magician of Black Chaos right to the field.

This was followed by the activation of the field spell, Yami. Which cast the whole holographic playing field into a black and purple miasma. The change in field giving Yugi’s Spellcaster and Fiend type monsters a boost.

Which included Magician of Black Chaos.

Yugi struck his opponent with a savage blow to his life points, then ended his turn. His hand was empty of cards except for one. It was a vulnerable position to be in, but he did have a very powerful monster on the field.

“YAAS!” Marik bounced on the couch and howled at the TV.

“Babysitter had a very lucky hand to start with,” Bakura remarked. “This will hardly be a fair match.”

“Don’t care as long as Yugi fucks him up.”

Bakura nodded his agreement, and they both continued to watch the game unfold.

The duel didn’t conclude as one-sided as the Yamis first predicted. Ball-cap Boy managed to make a come back, and get rid of Yugi’s Magician with a spell card. After that, he had Yugi on the defensive for a bit.

But when the match finally concluded it was with Yugi’s decisive victory.

The cameras momentarily followed the loser as he slunk offstage, as well as a shower of trading cards and popcorn from Marik and Bakura.

When attention returned to Yugi, interviews and congratulations commenced. With his latest win, Yugi would be attending the semi-finals tomorrow, where he would face off against Malik Ishtar, Mai Valentine, and Weevil Underwood. They would draw names tomorrow to decide who would face off against whom.

The Yamis continued to watch the broadcast even after Yugi had excused himself from the cameras, and mysteriously disappeared. No one appeared to be able to locate him again for further interviews, and turned instead to interview various members of the crowd about today’s matches.

Twenty minutes later the apartment door flew open, and the spikey little “King-of-Games,” entered the apartment. He tossed his bag on the floor next to the shoe shelf.

“I’m home! Did you guys catch my duel?”

Bakura quickly snapped the television off and looked over the back of the couch.

“Of course not. I don’t watch bullshit.”

Marik fixed Bakura with a dark stare. Then turned and draped his large frame over the back of the couch to watch Yugi kick his shoes off.

“Oh.” Yugi’s face drooped a bit. “What were you guys watching?”

“The news.”

“My Little Pony.”

This time it was Bakura’s turn to fix Marik with a death glare. “We do NOT watch My Little Pony.”

“Keh, speak for yourself,” Marik muttered, “Discord is my kindred spirit.”

Yugi hung up his jacket and approached the two of them with an infectious smile. A smile different from his other ones, and one he only seemed to wear when he saw them. Whether it was coming home from a long day, or upon seeing them whenever they picked him up from university.

“Did you win?” Bakura inquired, folding his arms over the back of the couch.

Marik struck him with his unsocked foot, where Yugi couldn’t see. “Of course he won. Babysitter is the King.”

“I lost. Big time,” Yugi lamented. He dropped his eyes and kicked the carpet in shame. “Sano, will go on to the semi-finals tomorrow.”

Marik held out his arms, beckoning Yugi to come close for a sympathetic hug.

When he did, the Yami scooped him up instead and dragged Yugi over the back of the couch and onto the cushions between him and Bakura.

Yugi yelped in surprise.

Both Yamis drew over him like a couple of predators. It was akin to being flanked by a lion and lynx.

“Let us console you,” Bakura purred.

“We’ll ease the sting of loss,” Marik added. “Tell us how it happened.”

“You definitely should have won.”

“Especially the play with the graceful charity, and the discarding two dark magicians from your hand to boost the power of Dark Magician Girl. That was a wicked thing to do~”

“Marik! You absolute knob-head!”

“I knew it,” Yugi giggled, and a grin spread over his face from ear to ear. He stared up at the two Yamis. “You did watch my duel.”

One Yami was baring his teeth and scowling so hard that creases formed on his brow. The other was grinning with feral delight.

“I never wanted to play this game in the first place,” Marik defended. He turned his attention to their babysitter and picked up Yugi’s hand, placing a chaste kiss to the back of it. “You sacrificed your most precious monster cards so callously for power. How unlike you. We must be rubbing off on you.” he purred almost sensually.

It sent butterflies squirming in the young man’s stomach.

“Congrats of the victory, My Precious,” he hummed the words against pale skin before dragging his long tongue over Yugi’s hand and fingers. The endearing nickname was something he’d coined for Yugi after the three of them binged a Lord of the Rings marathon. Bakura refused to use it, preferring his own terms for Yugi. So this one was uniquely Marik’s.

“It was a good duel,” Bakura grumbled. He folded his arms over Yugi’s bent knees and rested his chin upon them.

Yugi couldn’t help but beam up at him even whilst Marik slipped one of Yugi’s fingers into his mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that over the sound of my hand being molested.”

“You kicked ass,” Bakura snarled louder, his cheeks suddenly flushing a deep pink. His eyes were staring at the floor off to the side though.

“Thanks.” Yugi knew the admission didn’t come lightly. Bakura was generally sparse with his compliments, and praise did not fall from his tongue lightly.

Marik was now biting Yugi’s fingers, but this didn’t bother him at all. Marik tended to be very bitey, and on numerous occasions Yugi had to get creative covering up various bruises ranging in spots from his neck to his calves.

He leaned his head back to meet Yami Marik’s lovely lavender colored eyes.

“I won my duel. So, do I get a victory kiss?”

A sinister grin pulled over Marik’s face, Yugi’s fingers still caught between his teeth. He released the thoroughly molested hand with one final lingering caress of his tongue and leant forward to place a kiss on Yugi’s cute mouth.

A pale hand intercepted, two fingers placed against Yugi’s lips before Marik could kiss him. “But I thought you lost?” Bakura sneered.

Yugi shot him a pouty look.

“We can pretend he won,” Marik tried to pry Bakura’s hand out of the way.

Bakura pushed against Marik’s forehead with his other hand. “We don’t reward losers.”

“Oh, just kiss me.” Yugi huffed, sounding a bit breathless in his demand.

“Babysitter ordered.”

“Well in that case...” Bakura pushed Yugi’s knees apart and crawled between them. He dipped his head under Marik’s nose and his mouth closed over the Game King’s. It was soft but aggressive, wasting no time coaxing Yugi to let him in, and then letting his tongue slip into the kiss.

Marik growled above them.

Bakura paid him no mind. Relishing the taste, lips moving, molding, and coaxing delightful noises from the male below them. He stole breath and sound like the thief he was, and swallowed them both. And his hand trailed over Yugi’s thigh, fingers raking over more sensitive areas until Yugi arched against him.

They broke apart for air, and Bakura watched Yugi pant, with a playful hunger in his half-lidded eyes.

Yugi blinked, and refocused just past him.

Marik’s mouth was twisted in a pout, and he looked very left out.

Yugi reached both hands up, and dragged the Egyptian down for an upside down kiss, that was more teeth than lips, but no less intense and heated.

Marik made a noise akin to a growl, but more hungry and throaty, and slipped his own hands under Yugi’s head to grasp fistfuls of his colorful spiked hair.

Both men continued to lath the little King-of-Games in attention. Occasionally squabbling with each other over possession of Yugi’s mouth. But both of them spoiling their little keeper with touches and affection.

If someone had asked Yugi six months ago if he would ever have two boyfriends—and both of them the former Yamis of his friends, Malik and Ryou—he would have laughed and called them insane. Six months ago he had still been mourning the loss of Atem. Moping about his departure for the afterlife, even though three years had already passed since the ceremonial duel.

Six months ago he had tentatively taken in the homeless, aimless, pitiable Yamis; whom the gods had saw fit to grant a second chance to redeem their souls. He had been the only one of their friend group willing to give these two the second chance he felt they deserved.

And for awhile they resented him with the same disdain they showed the rest of the world.

But Yugi never ceased being patient and kind, freely giving them his friendship. No strings attached.

They had come to accept it begrudgingly at first. And then coveted it selfishly.

Somewhere along the way friendship had morphed into affection, and feelings became complicated.

A strange relationship of hate, friendship, lust, and loyalty, that sometimes left Yugi feeling lost and drowning. He really liked them both, maybe more than he should. And they couldn’t seem to decide if they liked him, or hated him, but they certainly wanted him.

Things were now very complicated.

All this, compounded on the sinful things they were doing with their mouths, was enough to fray his nerves and light his skin ablaze with sensations and confusing emotions. It left Yugi extremely overwhelmed and dizzy.

He broke from all the attention to catch some much needed breath. Marik and Bakura backed off looking mischievous and starved, their eyes dragging over their little Babysitter like he was a juicy piece of meat.

“Why are there duel monsters cards all over the floor?” Yugi asked, finally taking in his surroundings and the state of his apartment.

“Because Bakura was huffy about staying home, and decided to fling his trading cards at everything,” Marik explained, sounding equal amounts amused and annoyed.

“Actually,” Bakura corrected. “They’re all Marik’s cards.”

Lavender eyes shot up.

“What?”

~0000~

So this was interesting to write. Sorry it took me so long. I had to agonize how I wanted to write this ship for the longest time. Pondered over their dynamic, and what circumstances would even bring them together. I hope this was satisfactory. I did a have a lot of fun writing this. Mayhaps you’ll have fun reading???

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depressedacadamia · 3 years

Text

Daisies and Distress

Summary: Hazel loves flowers and plants but poor Frank is allergic. What happens when these two get into an arguement about Hazel's precious plants?

A/N: I HAD WRITERS BLOCK BUT I’M BACK BITCHESSS

Read on AO3

If there was one thing that Frank had to say he didn’t like about Hazel, he would say nothing.

But if there was one thing that Hazel owned that Frank hated, it would be the magnitudes of flowers and plants that she owned. Frank could tolerate the plants- after all, they weren’t harming him but when it came to the flowers and in particular, the daisies, he drew the line. Daisies had pollen. A lot of pollen and with one gentle breeze of air, that pollen could be up his nose and the next thing he nose, he’s sent into sneezing fits.

Hazel told him to simply stay out of her cabin. If he didn’t come in, he wouldn’t have to deal with the flowers. However, Frank seemed to object to the idea on the basis that it would mean they couldn’t have their secret kissing sessions. It wasn’t that everyone didn’t know they were dating, for it was almost as obvious as Percy and Annabeth's relationship, it was simply Hazel was raised in a very traditional time. She couldn’t feel comfortable if she knew everyone was watching them together- at most, she could tolerate them holding hands in public or a peck on the cheek.

So here the dilemma settled- either Frank would stop visiting Hazel (something that would never happen in his eyes) or Hazel would get rid of the flowers (something that would never happen in her eyes). Hazel loved her plants. To her, they were a source of beauty that she could create that wouldn’t curse everyone around her- unlike her precious metals.

“I am not getting rid of any of my plants nor flowers for you Frank!” Hazel called out.

“How about just half of the flowers? The really pollen-y ones? Like…” He turned around and pointed at the vast collection of daisies. “All of these?”

“But those are my favourite ones!”

“You could always replace them with another yellow plant right?”

“Daisies are white,” Hazel deadpanned, turning around to face her boyfriend with her hands on her hips. To anyone else, this encounter may seem quite humorous- considering the height difference, a very much petit Hazel whom Frank was almost towering over. That said, Frank did not underestimate her might due to her height- he knew that if she wanted, he could be flat on his back, with her spartha under his throat.

“But they’re yellow in the middle,” He argued.

“The petals of the flower itself are white.”

“But I’m allergic to pollen Hazel! I start sneezing like crazy and my eyes go all red and itchy!”

She shrugged her shoulders and hummed. “So don’t come to my cabin. Simple.”

“But...but….”

Hazel smiled wickedly, her innocence disappearing for a second. “ But what?”

Frank grumbled something unintelligible and Hazel knew she had checkmated him- fair and square. Frank felt hopeless- why was Hazel so relentless on this! As a couple, they spent most of their time in Hazel’s cabin, doing coupley things. Was she trying to tell him something? Frank swore he remembered someone telling him that in a relationship, the other partner always hints what they want. Was this what Hazel was doing now? And if so, what exactly was she trying to say?

Was she trying to tell him that she didn’t want to see him anymore? Was that why she refused to get rid of daisies? Just as Frank was about to raise the question, he looked back up and saw that Hazel was nowhere to be found.

Hazel thought the daisies were starting to look weedy. She did not want to just get rid of them because they had started out gorgeous and beautiful and she loved that they’d close up at night and open in the day but by now, they looked quite… un-aesthetically pleasing.

“What are you doing?” A blonde figure by the door asked. Jason stood there, his eyebrows creasing and his forehead sparkled with perspiration.

“Just trying to get rid of these daisies. I picked them a while ago but now they’re just getting weedy.”

Jason sighed happily. “ Oh thank goodness. I was going crazy from how much Frank ranted about those flowers. I’m sure he’ll be happy to know tha-”

“-Don’t tell Frank anything… for now of course. I don’t plan on letting them be gone for long,” She smiled.

Jason frowned. “ Hazel, what exactly are you on about?”

Hazel gave a heavy sigh, as if she were slightly irritated by the lack of intelligence around her. “Just because I'm getting rid of these flowers does not mean I’m not going to replace them.”

Jason’s mouth opened and then closed and then opened and then closed.

“You look like a goldfish.”

“I don’t like you,” Jason huffed, slightly offended. He happened to think he looked quite handsome. Hazel gave him a sugar like smile before ushering him out of her cabin and letting the soft candle light combined with the setting sun give light to her place.

Hazel had managed to find new daisies, fresh ones that wouldn’t weed up for at least a week or two- if she put fertiliser pellets in their water (she was running low on those). The sun was rising and Frank had not come by her cabin the previous night- which Hazel would have dictated as strange had the recent argument not occurred.

“Can I come in?” A voice echoed along with a gentle knock on the door. Hazel, ready to win, opened the door swiftly; only for the figure to not be Frank. She frowned, confused as to why Leo was even at Camp Jupiter- After all, he wasn’t very welcome considering his first impression on them.

“Uh.. sure?”

Leo, messy as usual, walked in. His hair was in its regular curly state (although Hazel could have sworn that she saw some ends that had clearly been set on fire) and his smile was bright. But Hazel knew Leo and she knew Sammy- when they had that certain innocence to their smile, nothing good could come out of it.

“You look...suspicious,” She started, her hands resting on her hips and her eyes never leaving Leo.

“What?” Leo shrugged. “Just because I’m being nice, you're assuming I have an ulterior motive?”

“I never said you were nice. Nice try though.”

“Offended. Anyway, I’m here because my baby Festus needed to stretch their legs so we went for a ride. Thought I’d say hello before we hopped back to Long Island.”

Hazel frowned. “You came all the way here from Long Island? That’s quite far, isn’t it?”

Leo stayed silent, his back to Hazel; the only sounds being his fingers stretching and his knuckles cracking.

“You said hello to Jason? I know he’d be mad if he knew you came without giving him a heads up.”

“Oh thanks for the reminder.” He paused and turned around. “ How long have you had those flowers? They certainly don’t look like they’ve been here for ages.”

She raised an eyebrow and her arms went to cross over her chest. Something was up. She knew Leo was smart, genius even. Despite that, when it came to plants and flowers, he was as clueless as it gets.

She had seen Calypso’s attempts to teach him nature care but it was clear that Leo was not very good at plants. As a child of Hephaestus, they just didn’t speak to him well, unlike Festus.

“That’s because they haven’t been here for ages. Freshly picked as of yesterday evening,” She informed him.

“How’s Frank?”

“What’s with all the topic hopping?”

Hazel’s eyes shot to Leo fingers fiddling. Yes, it was normal for Leo to fidget, in fact, it would be considered strange if he didn’t but the way he was fiddling now was odd. Hazel knew that Leo would make small contraptions- like pistons or mini electromagnets. But he wasn’t making anything, he was just folding his fingers back and forth anxiously.

“Which one of them sent you?”

“Who! People? Send me? Why would anyone send me here? I came here all on my own accord because they- I mean I, uh, I wanted to say hi!” Leo blurted. She narrowed her eyes. Just as she was to give a response, the door opened.

There was no knock. No warning. It just opened. No one asked for permission. That's what told Hazel that it was Frank. She remembered how she had told him that for him, her door was always open. From that day, Frank had simply walked into Hazel’s cabin as no knock was required.

“What is he doing here?” Frank asked immediately. They both seemed quite startled in his eyes. Leo couldn’t have looked more suspicious with his nervous, fiddling hands and Hazel, well Frank couldn’t even read Hazel if he tried at this point.

“Leo came t-”

“Why is he in your cabin so early in the morning? Did he stay the night? Is that why you kept the flowers? What, to ward me off like I’m some miasma?”

Frustratedly, Hazel facepalmed. “What are you on about?”

“This!” Frank exploded, his hands and arms flying everywhere. He felt like shit, in fact, he hated feeling like this. It made him feel dark- useless and pathetic. Here he was accusing his girlfriend of going behind his back with a guy whom he could trust with all his life because of what? Jealousy? Anger?

“I kept the flowers because I wanted them. Leo visited because the others made him and no! He didn’t stay the night and besides, I was out picking flowers in the evening- you can even ask Jason!”

“I..I…” But Frank had no words. He couldn’t believe he had acted so stupidly all over a couple of flowers but he wasn’t prepared to set aside his ego and accept all the blame- after all, shouldn’t Hazel’s boyfriend mean more to her than a couple of flowers?

Awkwardly, Leo shuffled from foot to foot. “ Ah.. so it seems my job here is done.”

“So they did send you!” Hazel whipped her head towards Leo. He quickly wiggled his way between her and Frank.

“Sorrygottogobye!”

Folding her arms, Hazel snorted, slightly amused. “He really thinks he can get away- doesn’t he.”

“He was always a little more clueless than us all. It’s why Calypso is good for him,” Frank agreed.

“Don’t think you’ve been let off so easily, mister!” Hazel turned on Frank. “ What was that back then? Are you really getting so worked up over some flowers?”

Frank mumbled something inaudible.

“Huh?”

He took a deep breath. “ I said, I don’t wanna have to stop seeing you at night but those flowers are the work of Pluto.”

“Proserpina actually, but close enough.”

“Really? She always seemed so nice,” Frank mused. Hazel cringed.

“You clearly haven’t been to one of our family reunions.”

“It can’t be that bad?” Frank offered. Hazel shook her head.

“Nico has spent more time in the underworld as a dandelion than he has spent as a demigod.”

“Well,” Frank sighed, slightly alarmed. “Now I know to always decline an invite from Proserpina, thanks.”

“Frank, come on! They’re just flowers!” Hazel tried to reason. What if he actually didn’t mind the flowers? What if this was his way of telling her that he didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore? Is that what he was doing? Using the flowers as an excuse?

“Okay. Do you want to break up?” Frank asked bluntly. Hazel could feel her heart drop. Her mouth felt dry.

“Why? Do you?”

Frank could feel his chest spike in pain. Why wasn’t she answering the question? “ No.Of course not! But with the way you’re being so stubborn, I assumed that you wanted to end things and I-”

“-Well I assumed that you wanted to end things with how you’ve been avoiding me like the plague,” Hazel mumbled. Her heart felt so fluttery that she could have sworn that in that moment it became a butterfly and she had to do everything in her power to prevent it from flying away.

“No!” Frank cried, walking towards Hazel. His arms slipped around her and he rested his chin on the crown of her head. He could smell her shampoo and he closed his eyes, relishing in the moment. He could feel his heart but it was no longer racing but instead steady. He felt at peace.

Hazel’s arms wrapped around Frank's waist as she nuzzled her head into his chest. She rested her head there, listening to his frantic heartbeat calm down. She broke the hug reluctantly and looked up at Frank, her eyes wide- innocent like a puppy.

“You’re warm,” She smiled. Frank stared at her lips as they parted into a smile, her entire face brightening. He wanted to melt at the very sight. He leant down and gently pressed his lips against hers. She let out a small squeak of surprise before melting into the kiss against him. Her hands were firmly planted against his chest as his hand brushed against her cheek. She could feel the small calluses on his fingertips from wielding his bow and arrows.

“Does this mean you’ll get rid of the flowers?” Frank whispered.

“No way.” Hazel winked.

#hazel levesque #frank zhang #frazel fanfic #hazel levesque fanfic #frank zhang fanfic #jason grace #leo valdez #percy jackson #pjo #hoo #toa #hoo fanfic #hazel x frank #frank x hazel #frank x hazel fanfic #pjo fluff #hoo fluff #frazel fluff

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concussed-to-pieces · 3 years

Text

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Nineteen

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Welcome, one and all! I hope your day is going well. Tagging @anonymouscosmos, @culturalrebel, @mercy-and-malice, @deepkittycollecto, @nelba, @mechanicalism and @commandershepardshtole. Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations

Part Ten: Institutionalized

Part Eleven: Two Weeks, Three Days

Part Twelve: Haylen’s Warning And The Glowing Sea

Part Thirteen: Under Fire

Part Fourteen: Dichotomy

Part Fifteen: The Litany Trial

Part Sixteen: Nice Try

Part Seventeen: Preparations

Part Eighteen: Divide And Conquer

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains distressing flashbacks, gratuitous violence and extreme emotional duress. Stay safe!]

Paladin Logan Danse, pride of the Brotherhood of Steel, had never really considered that he may not be the sharpest tool in the shed. Oh certainly, he had heard many a 'Paladin Dense' joke in his time with the Brotherhood; his name made it far too simple to engage in semi-witty wordplay.

Here and now though, facing down seven coursers with nothing except his laser rifle and power armor, he was beginning to slightly... slightly doubt his own intelligence.

The first courser was managed easily enough, rushing him in a suicidal dash. Danse blew their head off without missing a beat, continuing his march forward. The worst part of it all was the silent hatred he felt radiating from the coursers, like a thick miasma of ill will. He wondered pointlessly whether this was how he would meet his end. Trapped in the sterile halls of the Institute, torn apart by this rabid crew of synth hunters.

"I escaped from you all before, if your records are accurate." The paladin snarled as two of the coursers vanished into thin air. "I doubt any of you would recall. I myself do not recall much of this place."

The spinal recalibration chair crouched in the center of the white room, needles gleaming in the brilliant light--

A laser pinged! off his chest plating and Danse bared his teeth, taking another step forward. "I know all of your weaknesses, every last one of them. You might as well give up and face Commonwealth justice." He advised them sternly, brandishing his laser rifle in further threat.

"Forget about him, go and find Vega!" One of the cloaked coursers spat from somewhere behind Danse's back. "Father wants her dea--" The paladin pulled a sharp turn, putting a laser bolt directly through the invisible courser's skull with... alarmingly precise accuracy. Of course, that may have been their tactic to begin with. A body crashed against his back and Danse heard the tell-tale alert beep of an unmounted fusion core.

"A Brotherhood soldier is nothing without their power armor." The third courser taunted while Danse slowed under the ponderous weight of his armor. However, the courser's confidence was short-lived as the paladin used the little momentum he did have to instead fall backwards, crushing the synth beneath the massive frame of his armor.

The fusion core clattered and spun just out of reach on the floor, but Danse didn't even have the time to think about moving to grab it before two coursers were on him. Gloved hands clawed at his helmet; a fist slammed into the side of the metal with a resounding impact. Thank Steel the gorget seal held, and Danse managed to move his arm quickly enough to batter one of the coursers away with the sheer bulk of the gauntlet alone. The courser crashed into the wall and slumped to the ground, lifeless.

Danse frantically tried to count in his head, tried to recall how many coursers he still had to manage. He could barely move, already stringing himself along on little but adrenaline and the promise of seeing the sun again. How many hours had they been down here? It seemed like an eternity.

What would the EMP do to him? God, should he even risk it?

The paladin dragged himself up onto one knee, scrabbling at his waist for the grenade while that other courser seized the back of his helmet and ripped it off. The crackle of his mouthpiece dislodging itself from the helmet to dangle limp over his gorget seemed almost too loud.

Danse pulled the pin on the EMP as the square barrel of a laser rifle buried itself beside his ear, and his world went white.

…

The smooth, cool surface of the floor that his cheek rested on was the only thing he could feel.

- No! Voice cracking, screaming as he was wrestled down into the chair by the scientists, needles punching through his skin until the largest caliber ground into the nape of his neck please don't please don't -

- No! Cutler shrieking, misshapen green flesh pouring out around the strangling confines of his armor, his eyes gone mad but it's still him it's still him I can't -

- No! Elizabeth collapsing on top of him, the heat of her blood soaking through his shirt, her whole body thrown between he and Maxson no no no no NO -

Danse noticed, with a sense of detached horror, that his heart appeared to have stopped. The lack of pulse rang in his ears, one agonal gasp crushed his chest and then another rattled his body while everything in him fought to inhale. His consciousness was fading, flickering out like a candle in a gale as his rate of respiration continued to plummet.

Elizabeth, I'm so sorry .

His eyes were heavy, gritty with exhaustion. He should sleep. Just for a moment.

"- anse? Danse! Paladin Danse!"

Someone was yelling his name, and another voice that was closer shouted, "Open fire on the courser! Advance to secure the paladin!"

Suddenly, his heart shuddered to life, his pulse returning with a vengeance that seemed like it would deafen him. Danse heaved in a gasp of air, wheezing, body awash with clammy sweat as he tried to turn his head. Nausea sent his stomach rolling at the motion and a headache throbbed behind his eyes but he was alive --

Boots on the floor beside his head, someone standing over his body. "Grab his core and plug it back in! We need to get out of here!" Minutemen, Minutemen . It was Delta squadron doing their final sweep. Muskets roared overhead like death from above, the cacophony serving to further deafen the battered paladin.

He forced himself up onto his left elbow so that one of the Minutemen could slam the fusion core home in his back plating. The servos in Danse's armor creaked and groaned once more, and the paladin rose with relative ease.

"Our egress has been secured, sir!" A young soldier informed him loudly, her cheek smeared with the blood that trickled from her left ear.

Danse, still queasy and unsteady after his near death experience ( had he technically died? Did synths die? ), simply nodded and reached to accept his helmet from another Minuteman.

A laser bolt cracked! off the side of the helmet and the Minuteman dropped it in surprise. Danse lurched around, hauling up his gauntlet to shield his head from the next bolt that came. His free hand shot out of its own volition and he grabbed... something , slamming it back against the wall with all his strength

The courser flickered into view, Danse's gauntlet wrapped around his throat. The paladin almost wanted to wonder at his good fortune, but then the synth simply evaporated out of his grasp. " Dammit , his emergency relay." Danse swore hoarsely.

"Sir, we don't have time. The reactor is due to go at any second!" The armored man was all but dragged along, pushed and herded by the soldiers around him. His heart kept skipping beats, leaving him breathless and lightheaded as he struggled to keep up with his battalion.

"What news do we have of General Vega?" He yelled to anyone that would answer him. The shot from the courser had entirely destroyed what was left of the two-way transmitter in his helmet, rendering him unable to communicate with their main forces.

"No news, sir! Alpha squadron has already pulled out! We have reports from squadrons Echo, Foxtrot and Golf that synths have been sighted relaying in to their respective territories!" One of the soldiers replied, his tones clipped to be heard over the sound of the cabal's battle-rattle. "No word from Beta squadron on casualties yet, and Charlie is still waiting on us as of two minutes ago!"

The paladin cursed under his breath, his step hitching and nearly causing him to fall. Elizabeth, please , please be alive! He wasn't sure who he was praying to, or even why the hell he was bothering. He should have known better than to think his foolhardy plan to secure her escape would work.

Back through the old robotics area they stormed, everyone moving doubletime at this point. Alarms blaring overhead, PA system calmly announcing their fast-diminishing window to flee. Blood trickled down into his eyes from somewhere up on his scalp, stinging badly enough to briefly take Danse's mind off of his other injuries.

The door at the top of the stairs was wide open, and Danse's relief was crippling when he spied Sturges still at the control panel. The engineer whooped upon seeing the ragged group of men and women. "First in, last out! Now let's get the hell outta' here!" He shouted, waving the soldiers into the relay area. "We only got a minute or so until the whole place goes!"

Danse opened his mouth to ask whether Sturges had already transported Vega, but he was too late. Blue-white energy crackled and fizzled around him and the next thing he knew, he was being unceremoniously deposited on the ground in the shadow of the Prydwen.

…

"General, it's time." Preston said quietly. Backhand stared off into the distance, every fresh crackle of radio static making her heart drop. "We have to get this done. It needs to be finished," he continued when she stayed silent. "If you can't push it, that's fine. I know we did our best."

Reports had come in left and right that synths were being sighted across the Commonwealth, emergency relays dropping them in the most random of places. Every squadron had been accounted for, aside from Delta and Charlie.

"Did we do the right thing, Preston?" Backhand breathed. "Just think of all the good -"

"I don't think we'll ever know for certain, General. That's the reality of these kinds of scenarios. But you don't need me to tell you that." Preston interjected, his practical words shoring up her limited resolve. "You want me to do this?"

Vega closed her eyes, nodding rapidly. She heard the rustle of that outrageous coat, and a moment later there was the soft click of the charge being armed.

"It's done, General."

"Thank you, Preston." Vega sank down on the rooftop, tugging her knees into her chest and burying her face in them. The distant explosion tore a sob from her throat and as the Institute collapsed in on itself, General Vega dissolved into tears.

It felt like an eternity before Preston coaxed her to her feet, the lieutenant pressing his canteen into her hands. "Drink." He urged, his own eyes less than dry. " Drink , General. You're gonna' be okay. We'll get back to the Prydwen, back to your son. It'll all be just fine."

"I know." Vega mumbled through a mouthful of stale water, doing her best to ignore the plume of smoke that rose in the distance. "I'm okay, I promise. It's just a lot. I'm okay." She tried to assure Preston, huffing at his watery chuckle.

"No, you're not. You're exhausted and busted up and scared. This is a hell of a thing we've done, you've done. It's okay to be overwhelmed." Preston reasoned, grimacing. "We've got a decent walk back, if you need to talk."

"What about you , though? How are you holding up?"

"I'm not sure if it's real yet." Preston admitted. "It'll take some getting used to. But...I'm glad to know that we don't have to fear the Institute anymore."

His lapel radio crackled, Pride squadron requesting verification on successful detonation.

"Relay our message to the Castle: mission accomplished, the Institute has been leveled. I repeat, mission accomplished." Preston replied into the handset, seeming a little shell-shocked at being able to say the words.

Mission accomplished .

Backhand sniffled, a new wave of emotion threatening to send her spiraling yet again.

Shaun . The synthetic child. A child. A son . A second chance that she didn't deserve.

She fished the holotape he had given her out of her pocket, slotting it into her Pip Boy after a momentary struggle. To her shock, it was Father's voice that issued from the speaker.

" If you are hearing this, then whatever conflicts you and I have endured are over… "

…

Danse wandered across the airport tarmac, some distant part of him aware that he was in a state of shock. He had dropped his helmet. Where, he couldn't say. His head was still bleeding and he was certain that other areas of his body needed medical attention, but he couldn't seem to get himself to stop searching the area for Elizabeth.

He hadn't seen her, the child or that courser that had warned them of the ambush. His heart sank as he wondered whether the synth had simply been a tool to get him out of the way, separating the paladin from Vega.

Why had Vega parted from Alpha squadron in the first place? Oh surely, he knew exactly why. She had wanted to confront that man who had once been her son on her own. But it had been reckless , and it may have cost them dearly.

Danse groaned, very nearly attempting to rub his eyes before he remembered he was still in his armor and he would probably blind himself in the process.

All around him were wounded Minutemen, scribes and aspirants rushing back and forth to try and mediate the damage that had been done. The synths and scientists were easy to spot, each one clad in brilliant white Institute garb. They huddled together in small groups, some crying, some silent, others staring around wide-eyed in wonder.

Danse realized suddenly that this would be the first time many of them had even seen the sun. He must have been like them once, all curiosity and fear. He shook his head, more blood dripping into his eye causing him to wince. The paladin grunted, clumsily smearing the trickle from his hairline across his forehead with his gauntlet. It must be mixing with his sweat.

"Danse!" That voice…

The paladin racked his brain, trying to recall the name of the person who owned the voice.

It started with a P.

Writing. Writer? Wright .

Piper?

The woman materialized out of the throngs of scribes, her cap set at a steep angle. In her hand she clutched a battered notepad, and she waved it furiously as if to get Danse's attention. "Hey, big fella'! Over here!" She called, rocking on her heels impatiently while the paladin trudged towards her. "What the hell happened to you in there? You look like a stretch of lonely road!"

Danse hiccupped, trying for a salute. His arms felt like lead. "I...There was--I-I was separated-" The words wouldn't come, the paladin still reeling from his near-death experience, the loss of Vega, everything , it was too much.

Was he crying?

"Oh Danse, hey, c'mon, easy." Piper soothed, one hand tentatively hovering over his right gauntlet. "It's okay big fella', it's alright."

Danse shook his head, utterly mortified as he tried to regulate his sobs.

"I was about to ask for a full run-down from a tactical perspective. Y'know, to uh, ease the fears of the Commonwealth populace at large. but I can see that you're in a...er, state right now." Her attempt at delicacy didn't go unnoticed and Danse gritted his teeth. His hands clenched into tight fists as he fought to get himself back under control. These damn emotions-!

"The operation appears to have been successful." He rasped finally. "We are still...waiting on confirmation. But I am c--I am confident in our success. I am...uncertain of our losses. My two-way was destroyed in the fracas." He gestured at the mangled mess of wires and what was left of the coupling attached to his gorget. God only knew where he had dropped his helmet, but it didn't really matter. If the coursers tearing it off of him hadn't broken the two-way wholly, that final laser had finished the job. "I have no method of communication, I'm afraid. We should...we should find the field scribes and comms."

Danse could feel the haze of trauma dissipating the longer he spoke, the tactical compartmentalization that had served him so well taking over once more. There would be time later to mourn what he had lost. Right now, it was the Brotherhood's sworn duty to ensure that the Commonwealth remained safe and, more importantly, informed .

"Come with me, Miss Wright." He ordered, using the advantage of his height to search for the elevated ground of their radio shelter.

"It's Piper ."

…

Vega's boots kicked up a cloud of dust, her footsteps weary. Preston was silent alongside her, the young man clearly deep in thought. Backhand was still reeling from the holotape, Father's words playing over and over in her mind...

I had hoped to gift this child to you as some sort of consolation for losing me all those years ago, but your actions have proven you unreasonable. If you are hearing this message, no doubt you have found this unit's corpse and stripped it clean.

Did you think I had no idea you were working with the Brotherhood? The Railroad? You cannot be so naive, Mother. I am merely stunned that it took you so long to gather your forces.

On the off chance that your bloodlust can be slaked before the total destruction of everything I have built, I would ask that you still take this...synth. This boy, rather, as you would no doubt insist on calling him, has been programmed to believe he is your son. Should he survive you and whatever rampant destruction you have planned, I ask that you raise him as your own.

You have no real reason to do so, of course. There would be no tangible benefit, and I know all too well of your callous disregard for life.

Sleep easy tonight, knowing that you've rid the Commonwealth of its greatest hope for prosperity.

Backhand cleared her throat. "Preston, do you-" She hesitated. "What if I'm not...what if I'm not cut out for this mom stuff? What if all I'm good for is military shit?" The woman asked plaintively. "I was willing to do anything for my son, back before the bombs dropped. But now...I mean, what the hell kind of life can I even offer to the...to Shaun?"

"A life at all, I suppose. The freedom to choose."

Backhand closed her eyes, forcing a breath out. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think so, anyway. You've fought so hard for folks you don't even know, General! And it isn't like you'd be doin' it alone." Preston reasoned with a smile. "If it seems a little too overwhelming, just remember: there at a moment's notice . We're with you, no matter what."

"I was kinda' hoping I'd put you guys out of a job!" Vega tried to joke.

"Nah, we've still got a lot of work to do. Commonwealth's a big place, General." Preston patted her shoulder, waving to the sentries on the Brotherhood retaining walls at the airport. Far overhead loomed Liberty Prime, all gangly steel limbs as its head slowly turned back and forth in a scanning motion.

Vega began skimming the crowds of wounded from force of habit, her eyes stopping dead at the sight of a black leather coat.

X6-88 . The courser looked dazed, a singular patch of reddened gauze gracing his forehead. His body was still wrapped protectively around the child, around Shaun , who seemed to be sound asleep. The synth kept snarling at anyone who got too close. Vega wondered who on earth had managed to dress his head. Had someone just tossed him a gauze pack and fled in terror?

She received her answer a second later as Curie emerged from the crowd, the young woman sporting her usual nearly-spotless white coat to denote her medical ability. X6 would have known her by a different name, however.

G5-19 .

Backhand's heart broke at the way that the courser was obviously struggling to contain himself, the general watching Curie swap out the soaked gauze for a fresh bandage. When Curie reached for Shaun though, X6 said something to her that made her tilt her head in confusion.

"- know me? Monsieur Courser, I am afraid I do not have zee pleasure." She was saying as Vega and Preston drew within earshot.

"You were...in the Institute, I...we knew each other." X6 replied in a fragmentary fashion.

"Ah! I must apologize, Monsieur Courser. I am afraid zat zis body was wiped nearly clean when I acquired it. Zee original owner was in a catatonic state. Somezing about EMP grenades and raiders, if I recall." The former Nanny bot squinted at the courser, pursing her lips. "And yet, you are... strangely familiar! Ah, zis body is a marvel." She continued cheerily, producing two small, plastic-wrapped snack cakes from her doctor's coat. "One for you, and one for zee child when he wakes."

X6-88 accepted the prepackaged treats with a nod, spotting Elizabeth over Curie's shoulder. "General Vega, is it?" The courser asked, his voice weary.

"How you holdin' up, X6?" Vega queried in turn, startled when the killing machine offered her a tight-lipped nod.

"The wound is not too grievous, even with the limited amount of medical prowess it seems the surface has. She appears to believe I will survive."

"Madame Vega, it is such a relief to see you in one piece!" Curie exclaimed warmly, the synth hauling her into a hug and planting a kiss on either cheek. "It would appear your mission was a success, yes?"

"I'd say so." Preston answered for Vega, the lieutenant observing the courser with a fair amount of trepidation. "General, are you sure you...uh. Well, y'know."

"Lieutenant Garvey," Preston flinched when X6 used his name, "If I intended to cause you harm, you would already be dead."

Remarkably , that attempt at reassurance did very little, and Vega smacked herself on the forehead as Preston went a touch gray. "You sure keep some interesting company, General." He commented, his voice cracking.

"Listen, I said you'd be safe and I'm a woman of my word. But please don't give any of these Brotherhood weirdos an excuse to shoot you." Backhand requested of the courser. "If you want, I'll take over on babysitting duty and you can get the hell out of here. I know it probably feels like you're sitting in the middle of a hornet's nest."

X6-88 hesitated, his eyes darting to Curie and then back to the general. "I will stay, ma'am." He answered her staunchly, looking weary all of a sudden.

"Okay. But if you do want to leave, just have them walkie for me. Find basically anyone with a radio. You don't have to stay if you don't want to, I need that to be clear. You're free to go wherever you want, X6."

"I…" The courser's brow furrowed and he merely nodded silently after a moment, readjusting his grip on the sleeping Shaun.

Vega knew she had so much to do, so much to continue planning, but she took a self-indulgent second to brush Shaun's hair back out of his eyes. Dark, dark brown, almost black, just like his father…

Elizabeth smiled sadly, and then set off in the direction of the communications tent.

…

"No word from her yet, sir. Lieutenant Garvey told us of the success of the mission, but it is unclear if she is with him or not."

The field scribe's words burrowed into Danse's gut like a knife. Fear, anxiety, the unstoppable creeping sensation of realizing that he had been too late or not enough -

The paladin shoved the emotions down, all too aware of Piper waiting at his elbow with baited breath. "The reports from the other squadrons then, Scribe."

"Emergency relays began to activate at five minutes to meltdown, sir. Several synths were spotted in the outskirts of Diamond City and were quickly scooped up by the citizens of Goodneighbor, or Golf squadron, in conjunction with John D.'s forces." The young man replied, tugging one side of his headset off of his ears. "Foxtrot and Echo encountered the most resistance, as a platoon of coursers and gen one synths were sent to both the Castle and Bunker Hill. It seems that both locations held out well. Minimal casualties reported."

"What's your take on this whole situation, bud? Would you consider this a victory?" Piper asked, leaning around Danse to speak with the scribe. "Enquiring minds want to know!"

"I-I am not at liberty to pass judgement, civilian, b-but it seems that the operation has gone well!" The scribe stammered, darting his eyes at Danse as if fearful of the paladin's discipline.

Danse snorted, a touch amused despite the distress that threatened to engulf him. Piper was far more formidable than a cursory glance would assume. It wasn't Danse that this young man needed to be concerned about.

The doorway at the other end of the tent was flung open, sunset light pouring in with the influx of more bodies from the triage area. Danse didn't really pay any mind to it, more invested in hearing the rest of the field scribe's report.

That is, until a certain voice broke through the dull roar of radio static and muffled transmissions. "I need news of Delta squadron!" Vega barked, "particularly of Paladin Danse! Who has eyes on Danse?"

The scribe across from the dumbfounded paladin looked up at him slack-jawed, then bolted to his feet. "G-General Vega, ma'am! The paladin-!"

"Elizabeth." Danse breathed, his voice nearly inaudible as he straightened up from the table.

When her eyes met his, it was as if something broke inside him. Danse covered the ground between them in a heartbeat, gathering her into a fierce, armored embrace. " Logan! " Vega cried, her arms flinging open to cling to his sides. He almost dared to believe that she sounded relieved or delighted . "You're okay, you're okay, thank fuck ." She mumbled against his breastplate, clutching the lucky bandanna she had tied to his arm like she wasn't sure if he was real. "We did it, we did it, holy shit."

Vega appeared to be in a state of shock, finally lifting her head from Danse's chest when Piper hollered, "Blue!", the reporter hugging her from behind and sandwiching the general between herself and Danse.

Danse's heart ached as he watched Vega dissolve into tears, Piper gripping her tight and his own hold unwavering. Preston entered the tent as well, the younger man clapping Danse on the pauldron to congratulate him on his survival.

We did it .

Part Twenty

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