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azureashes · 3 years

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Sukuna’s Curse

TW: NONCON, VIOLENCE, BLOOD AND GORE

Summary: Some cruel fate bound you to Sukuna's side. You could not escape. You weren't sure you wanted to.

Sukuna x Reader

Wordcount: 10 K

Rating: Explicit, MINORS DNI

I don’t know if this is even any good at this point owing to the fact that I’m dead tired, BUT I wanted to finish this off, so here it is.

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But this time, something was off. The taste was almost tame in comparison - mild. Even the sensation of swallowing wasn’t quite the same, squishy and slimy instead of roughly scratching his esophagus all the way down. If he hadn’t been so eager to just get it over with the way he always was, to make it as short and painless as possible - he might have noticed something was off. He might have pointed it out to Gojo, to the principal, to anyone before swallowing the ominous, blotchy blue-green scrap of flesh they had given him.

It didn’t taste like one of Sukuna’s fingers.

Yuuji always tried to drop the disgusting, decrepit digit as close to his throat as possible so that he wouldn’t have to taste the bitter, corrosive flavor that burned on his tongue like decaying flesh - but he couldn’t avoid it entirely. There was always a lingering acidic remnant that stayed in his mouth long after he had swallowed one of the curse’s fingers.

He might have spared you your fate.

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He was bored.

It was boring in Itadori Yuuji’s subconscious. The boy was as empty-headed as he seemed and the scheming King of Curses could only look on as the fool fell into one trap after another, made misstep after misstep while he stumbled his way forward, trying to navigate the Jujutsu sorcerer’s life.

It was a cringeworthy affair.

Sukuna had laid his plans carefully and could only drum his fingers on his throne of skulls restlessly as he waited for them to come to fruition. But he was never as dangerous as he was when he was bored. When he had energy to spare and time to kill. When he was on the lookout for some sport, some prey that could satisfy his instinct to hunt, something to toy with, to devour.

When you arrived out of nowhere, coughing your lungs out, on hands and knees in the bloodied water surrounding the area - your limbs shaking as you struggled to support yourself, weak with what must have been centuries of disuse, his eyes glittered with malicious anticipation.

For once, the idiot had done something right.

You coughed and hacked as if seeking to free your body from something it had long grown unaccustomed to - breath. Life. Motion. Thought. Terrible, terrible things.

You recalled your last, conscious thought when faced with an aging, balding monk. The strange man had carried with him a rosary around his neck and attached to the string of beads was what had oddly resembled an ogre’s thumb. You hadn’t the slightest clue what the monk had wanted from you until he sealed you into the ogre’s thumb - an intentional, cruel irony on the buddhist’s part.

“Go to your master, demon!” He had shrieked.

Master.

You squeezed your eyes shut as you shuddered at the very thought. The monk must have thought he was being clever. Sealing you in a fashion resembling the way the King of Curses had been sealed, but Sukuna was not your master.

You had scarcely been freed of the terrifying demon’s presence, barely been able to dream of a life outside of his paralyzing, horrifying shadow that the accursed monk had appeared to seal you away to a slumber of many thousand years.

No matter.You were free now.

By some miracle, the seal had been broken and you would live in a world where Sukuna had been sealed away somewhere far from you. You would stay away from humans and jujutsu sorcerers and society as a whole. Find a deserted scrap of nature, and live out your days among the plants and animals in peace somewhere.

That was a good plan, you told yourself, straining to breathe slowly and deeply, your eyes still pressed shut because seeing anything at all was overwhelming to your senses after their long rest. It would be alright. Your suffering was over.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice sent a shiver down your spine. You would recognize it anywhere. The deep baritone that seemed to make your very bones rattle.

“What do we have here?” Uncomfortably warm breath brushed against the shell of your ear as he spoke on a hiss.

You saw him clearly in your mind’s eye, his image brought into sharp relief, triggered by the sound of his awful voice that sent a flood of unadulterated, gut-wrenching terror through your body. Your body’s reaction to him was one of instinct, a reaction learned.

It was possible to forget one’s love and similarly, to neglect one’s hatred. But one could never forget what one truly feared. Fear was not stored in hearts or minds, but contained in the body itself. In every inch of your skin, every ounce of your flesh. Fear was intermingled with your blood, a part of your very being. Your mind may have slept, and you, a curse, had no need for your superfluous heart - but your body remembered. Your body would always remember.

When you finally dared to turn, the sight that met your eyes was precisely the one your mind had conjured. He sat perched on a mountain of skulls, some fresh and whole, some decayed and crumbling, but you knew they represented only a fraction of the lives the curse had taken. He was draped in a robe that seemed made for royalty, or perhaps it only seemed that way because of the individual they clothed. The King of Curses exuded an aura that was every bit that of the king he was known as. His hair was pale-pink, his eyes narrowed and sharp, the scarlet irises the very shade of the deluge of blood you had seen him spill in your lifetime. Much of it yours.

Black markings traced his form - on his face, his wrists, his arms, just like you remembered, and the sharp, long black nails on his hands made you shiver with the memory of how easily they could draw blood, puncturing through your skin like it was paper.

“S- Sukuna-sama…” Your barely audible whisper, wavering with sheer horror rang in his ears like the sweetest praise. He liked you already.

When he had spoken, it had sounded as if he had been just behind you, and so you were stunned to see him at such a distance. The corners of his lips were curved in a smirk, his sharp canines peeking through as he lounged on his grotesque throne, his head leaning languidly against the knuckles of his right hand. He looked amused.

Amused was good, you thought numbly, trying to reason with yourself through your terror. His amusement manifested itself in some cruel mockery of mercy on occasion. It was his boredom that terrified you. The things he had done to you when bored defied imagination.

You shuddered and your mouth opened and closed wordlessly, incapable of producing sound, incapable of taking breath. The minute you had thought yourself free of him you had been taken captive, and the minute you had been released from your captivity, you were confronted, once again, with your worst nightmare. There seemed to be no escaping for you. You were hounded by the worst fortune the universe had deemed fit to produce.

You were a minor curse, born of the grudge of the inhabitants of a village that had been wiped out by none other than the King of Curses himself. The dying breaths and resentment of those villagers had accumulated with bitter hatred and you came to be. For reasons, you could not fathom - perhaps because the villagers’ grudge was rooted in righteous human indignance - you maintained a form like that of a mortal woman and had scarcely any powers that you knew of. Mortals could hear you cry, you knew. But that was the extent of your abilities, and you had no desire to spend an eternity haunting hapless humans.

By virtue of your birth, you were compelled to seek Sukuna out, desiring revenge, the force of the villagers’ dark emotions driving you forward. But the minute you had come face to face with him, your resolve had abandoned you. Your cursed energy flickered like the flame of a candle in the midst of a hurricane and you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were out of your depth.

You had sought to escape, but he had seen you. Had begged for forgiveness, but he did not know the meaning of the word. You had screamed for mercy, and he had laughed, asking you to repeat the entreaty - but louder. He had shivered in pleasure at the sound. You would never forget it.

But his eyes now were merely aglow in mirth and anticipation - not recognition. There was a chance, however slim, that he had not recognized you. Indeed, despite tormenting you for centuries, much time seemed to have passed since then, and he had never truly held you in any form of regard even when you had been by his side. You were a thing to him, never a person. Something to relieve the boredom. An unbreakable toy - the very best kind. And as with all things unbreakable, he had tested that claim in every way possible.

“My, my…” he drawled, a chuckle rumbling from his chest. “You recognize me?”

And it was those words, more than anything else, that gave you hope. If he did not remember you, perhaps you could escape. Perhaps you could find freedom. Perhaps you could offer him something worth your release.

You did not even attempt to voice an answer - you were having enough difficulty breathing - and were afraid to provoke recognition. Your eyes darted around the area, taking in your surroundings, but there seemed to be nothing but the watery blood pooled on the ground which you were currently on all fours in - the throne of skulls, and surrounding that, a thick mist veiling whatever lay beyond.

You knew from experience that you could not hope to outrun him, but what other option did you have but to try? What could you possibly do to save yourself?

“Not answering?”A voice murmured in your ear again, “Rude.”

You whirled around to face him with a gasp, sure you would find him hovering just over you and fell to the ground with a splash, drenching your clothes in bloody water.

Panting, your eyes searched for him, but were surprised to find that he was nowhere near you, still reclining on his throne with that same bemused smirk.

You collected yourself as best you could, and turned to face him as you lowered your head in humility, bowing low in the hopes that your hair would hide your face from view. Feed into his ego, you told yourself. That was your only hope. Show him how terrified you were, how great you believed him to be - with any luck, he might just eat it up and let you go.

But when had luck ever been on your side? Not once, from the moment you were born.

“Please accept my apologies,” you choked out in a raspy voice, hoarse from disuse. “Where exists the fool who does not recognize the great King of Curses?” You took a deep breath, and cleared your throat, forcing yourself to go on. “My Lord, please forgive my disrespect, this humble servant dared not speak in your presence.”

You spoke in a low voice, hoping to disguise it as much as possible.

“Oh?” there was an echo of ominous amusement in the single syllable that did not bode well for you.

“I meant not to intrude, Great King. Please,” your forehead hovered just above the water as your palms met in front of you, your arms trembled too violently to truly carry your weight. “Please allow me to leave.”

A sinister chuckle fell from his lips. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Please,” you repeated in a tremulous voice, unable to utter anything but the simple word.

He hummed in mirth, your desperate plea little more than a joke to him. “Asking me for mercy, you must not know me as well as you had me believe.”

When you refused to answer, he smirked at your quivering form, “Do you know where you are right now?”

Hesitantly, you slowly raised your head to take in your surroundings again. You’ve never been in a place like this. Was it some kind of innate domain?

A sensation swept over you, little more than a whiff of air, and suddenly your gaze fell on a pair of black Tabi clad feet in Zori sandals. Before you could move, protest, or even think you felt the weight of the rough, thick sole of one of the sandals on the back of your head.

You should have known better than to cry out, after everything you had been through. Your instinct should have told you to hold your breath rather than waste it on a scream and so, you could only curse yourself for a fool when your sharp cry was cut off on the gurgling sound of your face being pressed into the shallow, sanguine water you knelt in. You pressed your mouth shut, panic seizing your limbs as you thrashed and sought to free yourself. The more you struggled, the more weight Sukuna placed on the back of your head, leaning forward now, one forearm draped across his knee as he chuckled at your plight.

“I warned you once already,” he spoke over the splashing sounds of your struggles. “That it is rude not to answer when spoken to.” He watched your desperate flailing with an aloof air.

“Having fun?” He teased, watching your movements slow, your limbs growing still as your consciousness started to fade. “Now, now… giving up already? Don’t be such a poor sport.”

He stepped back, freeing you, but you lacked the strength to lift your head. He tutted in disapproval and, nudging your shoulder with a toe of sandal, flipped you over with enough force to send your body flying several feet.

You coughed and sputtered for air, lifting yourself into a seated position with trembling arms.

It was beginning. He didn’t care what you had to say, or what you felt. He only wanted to amuse himself, and he knew no limits in doing so.

Slow footsteps approached and the very heart in your chest froze over with fear. You clenched your eyes shut like a bird of prey in the face of the most fearsome predator.

He knelt down in front of you, peering into your face and you stared more determinedly at the ground, letting your hair veil your features. “Well,” he sneered. “Don’t be boring.”

You lifted your gaze despite yourself, that phrase could not mean anything good for you.

“Run.”

The command served simultaneously as permission, and you staggered to your feet as you stumbled away from him - seeking distance from the most terrifying being you had ever known. Millennia at his side would not suffice for you to grasp the extent of his depravity, the limits of the lengths he would be willing to go to torment you.

The sound of your footsteps splashing through the water echoed throughout the realm as you raced away from him, hoping, praying that you would be allowed to escape - that you could somehow, just once - live a day away from Sukuna. Just one day where you didn’t need to guard each breath like a dragon guarded his treasure.

You slipped past the thick mist, refusing to allow yourself to feel trepidation in the face of the unknown, running faster and faster until the fog passed by in a blur but you only pushed yourself even harder to escape - each step was a step further away from Sukuna, a step towards security. Although you could not hear him in pursuit, that fact gave you no peace - he could be as silent and sure-footed as a panther when he so desired.

When you felt the mist thin, some small relief tingled in the back of your head. Maybe, by some miracle, he would allow you to escape? Perhaps he was bored of you and your presence. Perhaps he wanted to be on his own. It wasn’t unthinkable, was it? Freedom beckoned.

You crashed into a tall, solid figure and nearly lost your footing. You looked up in horror, to find Sukuna grinning down at you, arms crossed over his chest. Beside him, the throne of skulls, and surrounding the two of you - the same crimson water. You raised a hand to your mouth to stifle a sob. This couldn’t be happening.

You forced yourself to your feet and turned on your heel to race back into the mist but this time, you didn’t get far. Sukuna caught you by the hair, jerking your head backwards. You cried out in alarm, but he only smirked in response, pulling your head further back.

“You had your chance, little one, but you ran right back into my arms,” he chuckled. “Guess this is where you want to be, hm?”

You sputtered protests, denials, on a thin, desperate wail, tears pooled in your eyes and streamed down your face as he jerked your head further back, bringing your gaze to his own.

He seemed taken aback, for a fraction of an instant, as his eyes widened.

“ You .” The single syllable was spoken in accusation, recognition - and surprise.

He released his hold on your hair and stepped back with a laugh. He pressed a hand to his forehead and shook his head, amused beyond measure. He waved a hand at you.

“You wanted to run? Go ahead. Run.”

Unable to understand why recognizing you had prompted such an unprecedented act of mercy, you wasted not another moment and dashed back into the mist - only to step back into the clearing moments later. You turned back into the fog again - and again and again, but no matter how many times you ran from the clearing, every path led right back to Sukuna’s side. Each time you stepped back into the clearing, Sukuna smirked at you, waiting patiently.

By the fifth time you stepped into the clearing you pressed your hands to your temples and sank to your knees with a scream. There was no way out.

Sukuna stalked towards you and you made no attempt to evade when he reached out and cupped your chin, lifting your eyes towards his own blood-red irises, a grin on his lips as his eyes traced your features. Sobs trembled from your lips as tears streamed from your eyes, streaking down your cheeks, dripping from his fingers and falling to the scarlet waters below.

“Now, there’s a familiar face,” he crooned. “You sure have some sorry luck. But you’re the one who came to me first, wasn’t it?”

“The village -” you stammered. “It was the villagers - I didn’t - I wouldn’t -”

“ Didn’t, wouldn’t ,” he mocked. “Breathe deep now, nice and slow, let’s hear your pathetic excuses, shall we?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to stem the tears, struggling to regulate your breathing, before you mumbled, “The villagers’ resentment sent me, I would have never dared. Sukuna-sama, you know I would never have dared stand before you.”

“Village?” he scraped one long, black fingernail down the side of your face. “What village?”

He didn’t remember. Of course he didn’t. That village he had ruined - only one of many to him, apparently - would scarcely register in his mind.

“Forgive me,” you voiced instead in a hushed whisper. “I did not intend any disrespect.”

“No,” he smirked in agreement, and there was something ruthless and cutting in the expression. “And yet you ended up here again. There has to be something to it, no? Isn’t that what they call ‘fate’?”

It was. That was precisely what they would call it. The cruelest fate there was.

His lips curved further into a sneer, his sharp canines glimmering in the dim light, as his eyes lit up with a diabolical expression. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who betrayed me. The reason I was sealed.”

Horror flooded through you. A Sukuna who wanted to amuse himself with you was terrifying, but a Sukuna who wanted to punish you, to get revenge on you, would be worse than hell itself. You couldn’t allow him to believe it!

“Sukuna-sama!” You clung to his arm, meeting his gaze imploringly. “I would never betray you! Please, I - !” You could make any number of wild claims - you could claim to be loyal to him, you could claim to love him, you could claim to respect him - but only one claim would actually soothe his nerves and please him, that much, at least, you knew.

“I fear you far too much to ever betray you!”

“Is that so?” he drew back, and kicked one of the skulls lying beside him into the air and caught it smoothly in one hand, his long, black nails contrasting against the pale grey of the animal skull. Breaking off one of the animal’s horns, he turned it in his fingers thoughtfully, as if considering it from all angles, before that crimson gaze turned back to pierce right through you.

“Prove it.” He tossed the sharp horn towards you and you caught it unthinkingly.

“Gouge out your eye, and I’ll believe you weren’t the one who sold me out.”

“My - my eye?” You blinked at him, praying he wasn’t serious - but you knew better. He leaned against the tower of skulls and crossed his arms, bored.

You stared at the horn in horror. How could you gouge out your own eye? You felt those familiar tremors afflicting your hand and you reached up with a second hand to better steady yourself.

“Is that too much for you?” He crossed over towards you and trailed one sharp fingernail lazily down your throat, before flitting over your collarbones. His finger slipped between the folds of your robe before resting just above your heart. Sukuna pressed against the skin there and a dribble of blood leaked down your chest as a sharp fingernail broke through the skin.

“Pierce your heart, then. Punish the lying organ and I’ll be satisfied.”

Your lip trembled in horror. Take out your eye, suffer immense pain, and live - or pierce your heart and die?

“Well, what’ll it be?”

You lifted the curved horn in your hand and trailed the pad of your thumb over the ridges of the bone. Testing the tip, you noted with some small relief that it was fairly sharp. Living meant living through more of Sukuna’s torture. Dying was clearly the better option.

You bit your lip and squeezed your eyes shut, gripping the horn firmly in your fist, ignoring the way your hand trembled. There were worse things Sukuna could do to you. There were always worse things he could do.

You lifted your hand high into the air and refused to acknowledge the way your entire arm quivered violently. If you lost your nerve, and didn’t pierce deeply enough the first time - would you have to do it again? It was better to have to do it just the once - who knew if you could collect yourself enough for a second attempt?

That meant using all of your strength. Even as you worked through your thoughts, battling your mind’s instinct of self-preservation, your arm remained in the air for what felt like hours as you struggled to build up the nerve to do what he had asked.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Sukuna yawned, lifting a hand to his mouth. “Or would you rather just confess and accept punishment instead?”

You would not. Whatever he had in store for you, it was surely worse than what you were being ordered to do. Your hand plunged downwards and the tip of the horn pierced through skin and flesh, before being deflected by your bones. You screamed in agony as the horn fell from your grip and blood gushed from your wound.

Your ribs. Your ribs had been in the way. And now you would have to do it all over again.

You pressed both hands to the wound in an attempt to stem the blood as a pained, undying scream pierced through the air, seemingly endlessly. Sukuna winced as he cleared his ear with an index finger as if blocking out the annoying noise.

“Well, don’t give up.” He gestured to the horn poking out of the water. “You almost made it. Come on, you can do it.”

You stared at him in horror, blood still gushing forth between your fingers. Even as your mind obediently worked out how to continue. Now that you knew where your ribs were, it would only be one further attempt, slightly above the bone, and this ordeal would be behind you.

Just one more time.

Once more, and he would see you as a toy again, possibly, but no longer an enemy. Once again. Clenching your teeth against the pain, you reached with trembling fingers for the horn, blood streaming forth more fervently as you bent down.

You did not allow yourself time to think or hesitate, knowing you would lose your nerve if you did. Shutting off your mind, you pierced the horn straight into your own heart and blinding, mind-shattering pain burst through your body. Blood dripped from your lips as you stumbled backwards, lost your footing and collapsed into the water.

There was a buzzing in your ears associated with your fading consciousness as blood gushed out of the wound with every beat of your heart, interrupted only by shrill laughter. Blinking through the blurry haze, you saw Sukuna doubled over with laughter, nearly in hysterics.

“You actually did it! You idiot!” His shoulders shook with mirth, and he wiped a tear from his eye. “Did you seriously think you could ever be important enough to betray me? Do you honestly think anything you could do could result in me being sealed? Are you a simpleton?”

He cackled endlessly, his cold, shrill laughter ringing in your ears as you bled out. “What a fool…” he chuckled, crossing over to you. “What do you think you are? Entertaining illusions of self-importance.”

He was still laughing, even as he reached down to cup your face, squeezing your cheeks and turning your face from side to side. “What an idiot,” he snickered.

You were going so numb, you couldn’t even feel his fingers on your face, and his cruel expression was fading from view. Maybe you were an idiot, but at least now you would finally be dead. Dead and free of him. That wasn’t so bad, you thought to yourself. It was the first and last kindness he had ever done for you.

His face was blurring in and out of your vision, and you were waiting for the moment it would settle to black. The moment you would never have to see his face again, but the blurriness receded and his face reappeared in startling clarity. This was wrong, it was all wrong. Why were you seeing him? Even in death? Was there a hell after all, and had you gone to it?

You slowly grew conscious of Sukuna’s hand on your chest and his cursed energy flooding into you, sealing the wound you had gouged open, closing the flesh you had stabbed apart, healing the organ that refused to let you die.

“No,” you sobbed. “No, no, no, please…” You lifted weary hands to your face and wept miserably, your shoulders shaking. “Please, just let me die.”

Sukuna tutted in response, “Where’s the fun in that? Don’t disappoint me now, you were doing so well.”

You were alive again. Your body healed. Only your mind was still addled by the pain you had forced it through. You blinked up at Sukuna and couldn’t find the strength to bring yourself to move.

He cocked his head to the side as he observed you. “What should I do with you?” His smirk was slow and salacious. “I think you’ve earned yourself a reward.” Another low chuckle rumbled from his chest.

You couldn’t find words to answer him as he tugged at the silk belt holding your robes closed until the layers of fabric loosened and fell apart. His eyes roamed down your chest, over the swell of your breasts, the dip of your navel, he traced one sharp, long fingernail along your ribs. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He muttered, “Have you been keeping yourself for me?”

You didn’t know why the unspoken implication, the assumption that you might have intimately known anyone at all other than Sukuna in the duration of your miserable existence made your skin crawl. You swallowed thickly. “I was sealed,” you stammered in response. “Same as you.”

He snorted at that. “You really do have the worst luck. I almost feel bad for you.”

He trailed a single finger up your breast, grazing past the nipple in a mockery of a caress. “Then again, you could think you were made for me. Born from that stupid village’s grudge. Being sealed away with me and finally waking up, only to come right back to my side. You’re my plaything aren’t you?”

You whimpered in response. Not wanting to confirm his statement and make him even more reluctant to ever release you, but also not wanting to deny it and provoke punishment. “You remember the village?” You asked breathlessly instead, staring numbly up at the gargantuan ribcage spread out as some kind of makeshift ceiling. His earlier behavior had given you the impression he had forgotten entirely. Or maybe it had simply taken him some time to recall when your twisted relationship had begun.

“Of course I do,” he sneered. “I remember everyone I’ve killed. It’s only normal to cling to good memories.”

Your eyes slipped towards him. Was that true? Was that really how he felt? You felt foolish even doubting it. After everything that had happened to you, nothing should surprise you anymore.

You felt a hand close around your throat and lift you up into the air. You were too weak to resist, and not foolish enough to attempt it. You could only watch him from beneath a veil of thick lashes as he tugged your robes from your shoulders, allowing them to fall to the ground and soak up the bloodied water.

You shuddered in his grip. There was nothing you could do but allow him to have his way with you. If you were quiet enough, pliant enough, perhaps there was a chance you could avoid the worst of the pain you knew he liked to inflict.

His gaze was no longer on your tormented expression as you gasped for air, but devouring every inch of flesh exposed to his seeking gaze. It had been centuries since he had last seen you. Before he had been sealed, he had made no bones about taking what he wanted from whoever he wanted, but there had always been something peculiar about you.

Was it the fear in your eyes that never seemed to diminish no matter how many times he took you? Was it the submissive way you gave yourself up to him, hoping for mercy although you should have known him well enough to know that he scoffed at the very idea? Or was it something else entirely? Was it the familiarity? Mortal women could only take so much before the life went out of them. He never returned to them, he wouldn’t have even if that had been an option. Even if there had been something left of their mangled bodies to fuck. Why return to something old and used when there was always new, live prey on the horizon? Dead women didn’t scream, dead women weren’t afraid.

But you.

You never feared him any less, no matter how long he had held you prisoner. Your screams never died out. He could push you farther than he had ever pushed anyone else and not only would you not die, but you would only submit to him ever more determinedly. As if that had ever done you any good before.

Home was a foolish, mortal concept, he could never understand the appeal of, but as his claws traced along your flesh, inadvertently drawing blood wherever he was careless, he had to admit that there was something intoxicating about the return to the familiar. About reclaiming a body that he knew well. A body, he noted with dim satisfaction, that had never known anyone’s touch but his own.

You might be nothing more than a plaything for his amusement, but you were his all the same. He really ought to reward Itadori for so thoroughly alleviating his boredom.

Despite how willing you had been to die only moments earlier, you weakly raised a hand to his forearm, resting it there in a desperate, wordless plea for breath.

He glanced briefly at your tear-filled eyes, your rosy lips parted for air that would not come, and your reddening complexion - before ignoring you entirely and continuing his exploration of your body. Two hands pried his own robes open as a third came up to fondle your breast, pinching the nipple cruelly between his fingers, causing a pained squeak to leave your lips with what little air you could manage.

Your eyes rolled back in your head and Sukuna sighed, “Air is such a ridiculous thing to depend on.” He licked upwards against your nipple and noted how you shuddered in his grip, before going limp. “Hey. Hang on a little longer. Aren’t you supposed to be a curse?”

Curse or no, you were losing consciousness and that would not do. It just wasn’t the same when you weren’t begging him to stop and screaming when he refused to listen. Clawing to get away from him, and shuddering violently when you orgasmed against your will. No, he could not have you unconscious.

Reluctantly, he released your throat and caught you by the waist when you slumped forward, your chin resting on his shoulder despite yourself. It was a mockery of affection. It looked almost romantic, if one did not consider the circumstances.

“Oi,” he chided you. “Isn’t this just cute?”

He trailed a black talon up your spine and you shuddered against him. You knew it was utter stupidity and probably disrespect to lean on him this way, but you were having difficulty collecting yourself. After your near death experience and the oxygen deprivation, your limbs tingled as sensation slowly returned. You only needed to pull yourself together and apologize. That was all. Just as soon as you found the strength to.

But his body was so warm and solid. So firm. When he wasn’t hurting you, you were reminded of the fact that his presence was the only constant you had ever known. Wasn’t he almost like your home at this point? His touch filled you with trepidation, made you tremble violently, made your heart riot fitfully in your chest in fear of the pain that would doubtless follow and yet - for that split second before the pain began… wasn’t there something almost comforting about his touch? You wished there was a way to prolong the interim. The fleeting moment between being deprived of his touch and being impaled by it. That fleeting instant was almost pleasant.

He guided your thighs around his waist and you crossed your legs around him obediently, fearful of what he might do to you if you failed to comply. The memory of being impaled to a wall so he might more easily have his way with you was still fresh in your mind.

His hand dug into your hair and jerked your head brutally backwards, looking down on you through narrowed, mischievous eyes. The other pair of eyes was shut, dormant on his cheekbones. You caught your breath, fearful of what would follow. He had said he wanted to reward you, but there was never a clear distinction between reward and punishment with Sukuna.

“You aren’t going soft on me now, are you? I’m expecting a lot from you.” His low murmur made you shudder involuntarily as his warm breath caressed your face. He leaned in closer, his lips hovering just by your ear. “Don’t disappoint me.”

You gasped as you felt something warm and wet against your womanhood, only realizing in that moment that, in the way you were clinging to him, your most intimate area was pushed up against his stomach shamelessly. In horror, you dropped your gaze to find a horizontal slit had opened across his abdomen and that a large tongue, dripping with saliva had appeared and was probing your nether regions, pushing urgently past your lips to explore you thoroughly.

Sukuna observed your reactions with amusement as the tongue prodded harshly against your clit and journeyed up and down in its explorations before poking past the tight ring of muscle at your entrance. You clung more tightly to Sukuna’s neck as the impossibly thick tongue lapped at your inner walls, eager and insistent, thrusting further in than you would have thought possible. With more vehemence than you could remember.

“Surprised?” Sukuna chuckled. “My, aren’t you forgetful.”

You bit your lip to keep from crying out in pleasure as the tongue wriggled its way further inside of you, poking at your cervix. You could not hope to distance yourself from it without falling and you were certain that would provoke Sukuna’s displeasure, so you held onto him desperately and allowed yourself to be molested by his tongue, biting your lip as you held out until it bled.

Sukuna’s hands roamed your body all the while, your lust-dazed mind could barely follow along, barely registering where he touched you as the coil of heat tightened within your body with every insistent thrust of his tongue. Sukuna lifted your chin and licked away the blood collecting on your lower lip. Your irises were blown wide with lust as you clung to his shoulders, and he trailed his thumb over your lip.

“If you hold back your voice,” he chastised in a voice that was both threatening and seductive - like thick, black poison. “I’ll have no choice but to make you scream.” A lone, sharp black fingernail trailed down the nape of your neck, breaking the surface of your skin ever so slightly. A clear warning.

“Sukuna-sama…” you mewled, both in complaint and in surrender.

His hands toyed with your breasts, long nails scraping over your areolae. One hand rolled a pert nipple between his fingers with deceptive gentleness, before pinching it mercilessly, painfully. A mouth had appeared on his other hand and sucked harshly on your breast, not letting up in the slightest until you feared he would break the skin and leave you bleeding. The other two hands squeezed your buttocks as you writhed against him in response to his ministrations. His grip was bruising and cruel, you could feel blood pool and trickle down your skin where his claws had pierced your flesh.

You moaned out his name repeatedly, not daring to fall silent for fear of the consequences it could bring as the tongue within you curled upwards, roughly stroking a spongy patch of flesh within you that made you lightheaded, each movement of the thick, wet muscle straining your inner walls. The heat pulsing through your body intensified by the second, driving you higher and higher until you crashed and fell, his name leaving your lips in a breathless cry. Your inner walls convulsed and spasmed around the tongue still burrowed deep within you.

“Hurrying on ahead on your own, are you?” Sukuna accused, but he didn’t seem displeased. At least, you hoped he wasn’t.

You had not sufficiently descended from your high to be fully conscious of your surroundings, still clinging weakly to Sukuna’s neck when he took hold of your hips and pulled you away from himself, you felt his thick tongue slip out from between your legs and inhaled sharply at the loss of contact. Before you could so much as think, however, Sukuna tossed you bodily backwards, causing you to land roughly on the tower of animal skulls.

You cried out in pain as the many horns poked and pierced you in various places, you couldn’t even number your injuries, so scattered was your mind. Sukuna cocked his head to the side and watched your blood drip out over the pale bones and admired the contrast.

You held still, like a rabbit in the face of a lion, as he stalked closer with all the grace of an experienced predator. “Why is your blood this way?” he mused, watching it streak down your skin in rivulets.

“Pretty.”

You gaped at him. You felt warm and lightheaded at the compliment. It was your blood, you reminded yourself. Not you. Your blood that he found pretty. How out of your mind must you be, to be so foolishly flattered by that statement. But you were. There was no denying it. It dulled the pain, to know he was enjoying the sight.

He let his robes fall to the floor as he approached you further still. Your eyes trailed down his form, before stopping with horror at the girth between his legs. How could you have forgotten that ? He was larger than you, stronger than you, faster than you - you had never had a chance of escaping him in the past. You shuddered as you recalled the first time he had impaled you - no other word did the act justice - you recalled how you had bled, your flesh torn from the intrusion. A similar horror caused you to whimper in fear now, unable to tear your eyes away as he stroked his thick cock confidently, not even his large hands able to completely close around its thickness. Nudging your ankle with the toe of his sandal, he nodded at you. “Spread your legs for me.”

You should have complied. You knew it. It would have made everything easier if he didn’t need to be rough with you. If he didn’t punish you. But the fear of having something so huge shoved between your legs, of tearing you up again the way you had multiple times in the past, you couldn’t help but squirm, squeezing your thighs together as your mouth went dry and your lips parted, seeking words that might invoke mercy.

“Sukuna-sama, please, I…” but you didn’t know what else to say and so you gazed up at him, your eyes filling with tears, as you struggled to speak around the choked sobs threatening to tear free from your throat.

Sukuna smirked, but his eyes flashed dangerously. “Look around you,” he instructed. “What is keeping you from becoming one of them?”

You turned your head to the side obediently, your gaze skimming over countless skulls, some animal, some human, but most of the skulls merely remnants from other curses.

“You amuse me,” Sukuna drawled, towering over you. “That is all you have to your name.”

The implication was clear, that he would not hesitate to tear your head from your body and add your skull to his collection the moment you ceased to be amusing.

You swallowed thickly and forced yourself to separate your trembling thighs. To make yourself available to him. Your hands gripping at anything to better steady yourself, you were horrified to find a smooth skull beneath your seeking palms but held on anyway.

Two hands gripped your inner thighs and shoved them apart roughly, causing you to cry out in surprise and discomfort. With a sneer, Sukuna descended upon you, a third hand closing around your throat and applying controlled pressure. Judging by the fact that you could still breathe, you knew he was holding back, and as you met his ruthlessly gleaming eyes, you understood the game he would be playing. Air would be the reward, and whether or not you were permitted to breathe, would depend on how well you did.

As he applied more pressure to your throat you forced your legs wider, desperate to appear compliant, and the hand on your throat loosened.

“Clever little thing,” Sukuna purred, and the praise swept through your veins like liquid honey.

The last of his free hands found its way between your thighs and you held your breath in fear that one of those sharp claws would tear open your skin. When he toyed with your bundle of nerves, you wanted to scream in terror, knowing how badly he could hurt you with a twitch of his fingers and how little he would think of it. You squeezed your eyes shut, not wanting him to continue, not wanting him to stop.

Sukuna drank in every one of your expressions greedily. Whether your eyes were unfocused with lust, or wide with terror, each emotion of yours was equally satiating to him. If he was more partial to your fear that did not mean he could not appreciate his own skill in driving you to pleasure despite your open terror.

When his long, thick fingers pushed past your entrance, you sucked in a cold breath. Forgetting yourself, you breathed his name on a reverent exhale that was almost worship. He did not slow, or pause, preparing your body for him with an almost methodic rhythm. But if your eyes hadn’t been squeezed shut in that moment, you would have spied the confusion flitting briefly through his crimson irises. Would have seen the curious way he regarded you.

He positioned himself at your entrance and you felt his member prodding your core. The haze of lust cleared instantly, giving way to blind terror. There was no way he would fit. Regardless of the fact that he had, many times before. Forgetting yourself, cold dread settled in your stomach and you scrambled backwards, trying to inch away from him as you shook your head.

Sukuna’s gaze lifted to yours and his eyes narrowed in displeasure. Two hands gripped your thighs more firmly, as the pressure of a third hand intensified on your neck in a cruel reminder of how fully you were at his mercy. But fear had overcome your mind and you could not talk yourself down.

“No, no, no, no…” you whimpered pitifully. “Please, please don’t - “

Before you could speak another word, Sukuna ruthlessly pulled on your thighs, bringing your entire body towards him and impaling you on his member without warning. A shrill scream echoed through the realm as a painful fullness, the feeling of your walls being forced to stretch wider than should be physically possible overwhelmed your body.

“Stop! Stop, please, I’m going to -”

But there was no stopping, nor had he ever intended to. If anything, your pained cries only spurred him on. You realized suddenly that his hold on your neck had not tightened, and that the only reason for that could be because he enjoyed your screaming, because he liked you begging. That he liked it almost as much as he relished denying you the mercy you wept for.

The realization set you to tears and you held onto his thick wrist as thrust into you, your whole body sinking deeper into the mountain of skulls with each thrust until you feared you would be buried alive.

“Sukuna-sama…” you sobbed, knowing your cries were falling on deaf ears.

He hummed in approval, and ran a hand through his hair as he smirked at you. “Go on, don’t stop. Let it all out.”

And your fears were confirmed. He got off on your screams. He got off on your pain. You had always known it, but your long sleep must have dulled your senses. You wept incessantly, wiping at your tears as he continued pounding into you, for all his efforts, still only halfway there. You were sure he was going to split you in two. Sure you would not survive this. You could feel your lining stretched thin and pulsing against him in protest. This could not end well. As much as you told yourself you had survived this, many times before, you could not help but feel that the stretch was unbearable, unreal - impossible.

Sukuna’s grip on your thighs provided the leverage needed to reach the depth he sought, as he wondered how many more whimpers and confused moans he could tear from you. He wondered if he could make you cry enough to wash the blood from the skulls beneath you. He pulled you in towards himself as he thrust into you again and again and again. Almost there. So close.

As he yanked on your thighs brutally once more, a distinct, sickening popping sound met your ears along with a blinding, searing pain that raced through your hip.

Your eyes shot wide open as a shrill, agonized scream burst from your throat. Even Sukuna paused in his relentless abuse of your core and that fact - more than anything else - terrified you.

Shaking with dread you looked down, only to find your left leg hanging uselessly from your side. You looked up at Sukuna in horror, as if asking him what to do, but he did not meet your eyes, staring curiously at your leg instead. He poked at your leg and it shifted lifelessly at his touch, causing a branding pain to shoot through you anew. You bit your lip and stifled an agonized shriek of pain.

“Sukuna-sama…” you pleaded miserably, sweat beading on your forehead.

He shoved lightly at your leg again, jostling it somewhat harder than the first time and a shriek of pain exploded from you as you pressed a hand to your mouth, groaning in agony.

Now his gaze did lift towards you as a slow smirk spread across his lips.

“P- please,” you begged, your eyes lifted towards his imploringly. “Please, help me.”

“Mmm,” he mused, and you could almost see the gears turning in his head as he continued where he had left off, although at a slower pace. “One thing at a time, sweetheart.”

Your mind was already fuzzy from the immense, unbearable pain coursing through your body. The term of endearment only addled your senses further. Sweetheart? It was your pain, you assumed. Every new height of pain you endured for his sake, the fonder he seemed to grow of you. You glanced down at your useless leg again. You gritted your teeth. You could take it.

“Hang in there,” he teased, pushing slowly but firmly into you, the movement causing fresh agony to course through you. He hovered over you, bringing his lips close to your ear, he angled his head towards you and took your earlobe gently between his teeth. The touch was so tame and affectionate it sent shivers down your spine. You almost couldn’t believe it was Sukuna’s mouth on your ear. Your earlobe slipped from his teeth as he parted his lips to whisper words of encouragement. “ Ganbare, ganbare. ” He murmured into your ear as he pushed further into your core.

You bit your lip, sweat trailing down your face, and searched his eyes questioningly. The message was clear - take him, take the pain, and he would reward you. He would be proud of you. That alone could be worth it, if he would look at you with pride and admiration, the high of receiving his acknowledgement would be worth it all, wouldn’t it?

You nodded.

His eyes lit up with glee, his grin widening even further, as a low chuckle rumbled from his chest. Where would he ever find someone else like you? Willing to take whatever he threw at you? With the sweetest screams he had ever heard, whimpering his name like a kicked puppy? You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without him. It was a good thing you had found your way back to him. This was how it was meant to be. You would be lost out there on your own. Probably get yourself killed in the blink of an eye by some more powerful curses or some fumbling Jujutsu sorcerers. No, the best place for you to be was right by his side.

Sure, he might break you sometimes, but he would always be sure to put you back together again after. Could the same be said for anyone else? Surely not. After all, you were made for him. Everything about your existence revolved around him. Maybe that was why he tolerated your presence, allowed your existence.

He hammered into you with abandon now, two cruel hands all but crushing your breasts in his merciless grip, as a third squeezed your windpipe allowing you only enough air to cry out in agony, as the fourth hand held your right hip in place - some small mercy to minimize the pain in your left leg - as he rammed into you.

You groaned in pain, gritting your teeth and struggling to hold back the pained cries as your walls slowly, finally, began adjusting to him. The searing pain in your leg rattled your senses, but the pleasure now beginning to course through your veins befuddled your mind until you didn’t know what was what. You couldn’t truly tell the pleasure from the pain - both were blindingly intense, both were driving you out of your mind.

Sukuna’s rhythm intensified, faster, harder, more deranged as he seemed to want to pound right through you and you were certain you would lose consciousness from the dizzying combination of terrible sensation as you heard the sickening sound of skulls tumbling from the towering pile and falling to the waters below as he drove you deeper and deeper into the mountain of bone until your view was obscured by the many skulls that had fallen over you - burying you alive, just as you had feared they would.

The fear, the pain, the pleasure of Sukuna within you, the coiling spiral of heat that only intensified with each thrust, the knowledge of how close he was to you. How the King of Curses relished tormenting you, how he tested you, how special you were to him, in your own way, was a dizzying concoction of delirious euphoria that cast you over the edge of ecstasy, despite yourself, just as Sukuna’s pace stuttered, having reached his climax himself, spilling masses of thick, hot liquid deep inside of you. You felt full, sated, on some cloud far removed from the unending pain and the constant threat of death.

You struggled to catch your breath, to orientate yourself, completely forgetting why you could not see. You felt sharp, long fingernails graze past your hip and a jolt of pain passed through you as the bone settled back into place and the surrounding flesh slowly healed, causing your pain to fade into nothingness. Sukuna’s fingers lingered, tracing lazy circles on your hip, sending his cursed energy into your body long after your injury was fully healed.

At length, he drew back, taking hold of your hand and pulling you out of the pile of bone you had found yourself trapped under. You fell against his chest and he stroked your hair behind your ear, murmuring sweet nothings into your ear that were so uncharacteristic you could scarcely believe what you were hearing.

“Good girl,” he whispered, his nails trailing along your scalp, digging through your hair. His lips met your jawline, trailing hot, bruising kisses along your flesh. Your whole body trembled at the affection you were so utterly ill-prepared for, so wholly unaccustomed to. “You’ve been such a good girl, haven’t you?”

You did not know what to think, or what to say. In that moment, escape was the farthest thing from your mind. You wished he would go on holding you that way, stroking your hair, running a hand up and down your back as he whispered praise into your ear that made you want to melt into a puddle.

Leave Sukuna? Never. Why would you want to?

He didn’t stop. His lips found all your weaknesses as he held you up. Two strong arms, supporting your weight while the other two roamed your body, clearly intent on rewarding you, for once, and not seeking his own pleasure. You felt as if you were a guest in your own body, so foreign was the experience. His seeking mouth on your body, leaving dark bruises everywhere it lingered, a second mouth smirking open on the hand he had pressed between your legs. A third hand massaging the nape of your neck.

You were putty in his hands. You had never known that Sukuna was capable of providing such pleasure. You trembled from head to toe as your mind dimly registered a disconcerting thought. What could you possibly do to earn this reward again? What wouldn’t you do to earn this reward again?

He pulled one orgasm after another from you, not waiting for you to come down from the peak of ecstasy before continuing with his ministrations sending you tumbling headfirst into another. It was a different kind of torture, but one you couldn’t bring yourself to resent in the slightest.

When he entered you again, patiently, slowly, allowing you to adjust to him bit by bit, you were stunned to find that Sukuna was even capable of taking you in this fashion. It wasn’t his style, you realized. It was simply a courtesy to you, for having taken the pain so well.

The words good girl rained down repeatedly on your ears until you almost believed them, until you realized that, after this, you would do anything to hear them again.

He took you again and again, until you went limp in his arms, prompting a chuckle from his lips. Something about your complete submission had touched him in an uncharacteristic way. And his desire to reward you, well… Sukuna was one who did as he pleased. And if he wanted to be gentle with you for once, why shouldn’t he? The two of you hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, but now that he thought about it, it was a good thing you had been released into his Domain. You belonged with him, clearly. His unbreakable toy. His good girl.

Slowly but surely, he was coming back to his full strength, and when he broke out of here, he would keep you by his side. He wouldn’t limit himself to you, goodness no, but he would keep the others away from you, and allow you to be close to him, the way he did not allow anyone else to be. Because you would go to lengths for him that others would balk at. And who would he be if he did not reward such loyalty?

He stroked your cheek with one long, sharp black finger as he observed your sleeping features with an aloof, thoughtful expression. There was something about you he couldn’t place. A sensation you awakened within him that he did not recognize. He wondered, briefly, if it posed a danger to him, before shaking his head and deciding no, someone as weak as you could never be dangerous for him.

It never occurred to him that he had missed you.

When you awoke at last, Sukuna was once again draped in that white robe, a black shawl wrapped around his neck. He leaned back in his throne, his chin resting against the knuckles of his right hand. You were draped across his lap, fully naked, as his left hand toyed with your hair. He did not seem to acknowledge or even notice your presence as he argued with someone you could not see.

The low, dangerous hum of his voice as he spoke deadly threats you knew he had every intention of carrying out, sent a shudder down your spine, drawing his attention.

His eyes shifted towards you, even as he continued curling a lock of your hair around his index finger and spoke with someone beyond this realm, someone you did not know.

“Don’t waste my time, brat. Why should I help you?”

He was not speaking to you, even though his narrowed eyes were drinking you in. You heard a plea in response, an agonized cry for help, that the person beyond had friends who were dying, that innocent people would be doomed if Sukuna refused his aid.

Sukuna’s eyes caressed every exposed inch of flesh before muttering a gruff response.

“People that weak deserve to die. And if you’re too weak to protect them, then you deserve to watch it happen.”

Sukuna traced a finger across your collarbones and down the valley of your breasts as he spoke. You could feel your heart racing in your chest at his touch.

“I’m busy, brat.” He barked, cutting off the connection. Sukuna turned his attention towards you, and you felt you were surely burning alive under his gaze.

But the boy’s voice returned, echoing throughout the domain. Sukuna growled in his throat in displeasure and you could not help but be concerned for the boy’s fate. He cast you one last, lingering look that seemed to indicate that you should wait for him, that he would return shortly, that he was far from done with you.

You nodded in understanding, and when you felt him slip away, you remained motionless on his throne, eagerly awaiting the moment he would reappear and find you, just as he had left you. Absolutely faithful to the letter and spirit of his command. Waiting to amuse him, to entertain him, to be the very plaything he had claimed you were. Ever faithfully by his side.

After all, where else would you go?

#sukuna x reader #tw noncon #sukuna #jjk #sukuna smut

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g-e-r-a-s-k-i-e-r · 2 years

Text

TRAPPED PART 1

——————

Nobody had seen Bruno all day, which wasn’t unusual really. It was only a few months since he had very tentatively returned to them, so he was still getting used to being part of the family again. He was still sometimes overwhelmed by the antics of them all, and on those days he preferred to spend the majority of his time alone. What was unusual however, was that one townswoman who had rushed out of Casita crying and blubbering after a vision session. He had recently taken a few requests on after, to his enormous surprise and relief, the townsfolk had welcomed him back with open arms. Light predictions only, nothing too heavy as he was still a tiny bit anxious about history repeating itself. What was slightly unfortunate was that it was only little Antonio who witnessed the townswoman’s dramatic exit, and as he was playing with his coati friends at the time, he forgot about it almost instantly. Later on in the day, as dinner time approached, Abuela thought it was best someone go get her son.

“I’ll go.” Mirabel said cheerfully, already making her way up the stairs to Bruno’s room. Turning the corner, she noticed something strange. “That’s… weird.” She thought to herself, taking in Bruno’s door which was… glowing. She knew he’d only had one vision to do this morning, which was hours ago. She’d just assumed the vision had gone well, as she hadn’t seen the townswoman leave or heard anything about it. But she also knew his door only glowed when he was actively using his gift. Frowning, she walked up the remaining steps and knocked on the door. When she didn’t get a response she decided she better check on her Tío, and hoping he wouldn’t mind the intrusion, she opened his door. But it wouldn’t open. No, wait, it would, but it sounded like… what was that noise? Was there was a… hurricane going on in there? She put all her weight on the door and squeezed it open. The sand had built up against it much like it had the first time she had entered this room not long ago, but worse. She had to push with all her strength to get it to open fully, and when she did her jaw dropped.

Her eyes took in the massive swirling green tornado in the middle of the room, the deafening roar of the wind as it whipped all around her, and finally the solitary figure kneeling right in the centre of it all. Bruno! She had to get to him! She tried calling out his name but her words were swallowed in the howling, whistling maelstrom of noise. She raised her arm against its fury and started to edge towards him, narrowing her eyes against the force of the wind that almost took her breath away. She distantly heard the door slamming shut behind her, yet swallowing down a gulp she carried on. Mirabel was nothing if not determined. Edging closer, she could see he wasn’t reacting at all to her, like he was in a complete trance, his gaze fixed on an unknown object in the distance. Finally, finally, she managed to battle her way through the wind until she was kneeling in front of him. Nothing. No reaction. Definitely a trance. Her heart was pounding, she didn’t know what to do or how to help. She momentarily scolded herself for not thinking to shout for someone before she set off into the literal freaking tornado in Bruno’s room, but that couldn’t be helped now. And she couldn’t waste time going all the way back either. She was on her own. She looked at Bruno, really looked at him, as if that would give her any ideas. His eyes were glowing bright green, his mouth pulled into a straight line and an altogether pained expression on his face as he knelt there completely unaware of her predicament. He was just… staring. That’s what scared her the most. It was eerie, looking straight into his eyes while he appeared to just… look straight through her. “Bruno? Tío Bruno? Can you hear me?” She yelled over the screeching howl of the wind. No reaction. She took a deep breath, and with a tentative hand she gently shook his shoulder. Nothing. “Tío Bruno, please. Wake up Tío. I don’t know what to do!” Still nothing. The wind seemed to kick up a notch, leaves whipping around her face and sand getting in her eyes as she felt panicked tears welling up inside her, spilling down her face. She shook him again, harder, but Bruno didn’t even flinch. She laid her forehead against his and, closing her eyes against the wind, desperately whispered to him... “Tío Bruno, please… please. Wake up!”

——————

So this started out as a little idea that kinda grew and grew on me and took on a life of its own 😂 I’ve already written part 2 and currently writing part 3 + 4. Let me know if it’s any good and if you want to read more?

#bruno madrigal #encanto #disney #mirabel madrigal #we dont talk about bruno #the family madrigal #dolores madrigal #julieta madrigal #bruno needs a hug #it’s 3am again why am I like this #it’s probably crap anyway #need to start choosing sleep over writing all the angst #well we both know that will never happen #shit writer who tries to be better

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fruitcoops · 3 years

Note

I absolutely love your fics!!! Thank you for sharing your talent with the world. If you're interested, do you think you could write a fic where Finn gets injured in a game against Tampa? O'Hara brothers ftw ♥️♥️♥️

Ohohohoho yes. It's 'missing your big brother so you write siblings' hours, and all of you are trapped in here with me. Combined with prompts for cubs hurt comfort/ poly love (@hi-im-phoenix) and distraction hurt/ comfort for AJ. Sorry about your manager <3 SW credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for bone inJuries

The crowd was roaring. Finn couldn’t catch his breath. His arm was on fire.

Something like a sob broke free in his chest, but he could do little more than hiccup in pain and fear from his place laying flat on his back atop the unforgiving ice. He couldn’t move his fingers. His elbow throbbed. Everything in between just hurt.

“—fuck is wrong with you?” an angry voice shouted, followed by a flash of blue and white shoving at the man whose late hit had left him suspended in shock. Finn didn’t know if it had been on purpose, but he didn’t really care anymore as a tear tracked down to his ear. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the bright lights overhead.

A hand cradled one side of his jaw, warm and clammy on his cold skin. “Talk to me, mon amour, what’s wrong?”

“Lo,” he croaked, swallowing hard. “I’m okay. ‘m okay, promise. I’m okay.”

“Out of my way!” The blue and white blob pushed closer before kneeling next to him. A helmet hit the ice, followed by a glove; heavy hands settled on his shoulders, and the one on his face disappeared. “Finn? Finn, look at me.”

Finn’s chest hitched once, twice, hard. His head was pounding, and everything hurt. He may have been able to reassure Logan, but he had never been able to hide from his brother. “Alex.”

“Hey, buddy,” he soothed as Finn finally regained enough breath to gasp around his tears. “No, no, shhh. You’re gonna be just fine, yeah? Can you tell me what happened?”

“Hurts,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut. The pain had reached his shoulder and every movement was agony. “It hurts, it hurts—Alex, it hurts.”

“What hurts?”

He could hear people calling for medics. His friends, his family. But Alex stayed right there next to him, holding his good hand and brushing his tears away. “My arm,” Finn said, feeling as pathetic as he ever had. “Alex, it hurts so bad.”

“Can you wiggle your fingers for me?” Finn sobbed again as he shook his head and saw the encouraging smile slide of Alex’s face. “That’s alright, buddy, just take some deep breaths.”

“I don’t wanna be out,” Finn blubbered. “I gotta play.”

Alex gave his hand a light squeeze. “It’s not that bad, Fish. Deep breaths.”

He managed a handful—and admittedly felt a little better—but the alarms in his head were still blaring when Remus arrived with the medic, all but carrying him across the ice to get to Finn. He had a smudge of a bruise beneath his eye, but the worry creasing his brow overtook anything else. “I’m good, Loops,” Finn panted as the medic sat next to him. “Totally cool.”

“28, I’m going to need you to make some room,” the medic ordered. Fear spiked in Finn’s heart when he met Alex’s gaze, but he found only determination looking back.

“I’m not leaving,” Alex said simply.

The medic glanced down. “Can you stand?”

“I think so?” Finn said hesitantly, trying to get cool air back into his lungs. “It’s—I think I broke my arm. Everything else is okay.”

“What’s your pain level?”

“Eight. And a half,” he added. Alex frowned.

“Let’s get you off this ice, yeah?” The medic patted him gently on the shoulder. “O’Hara, can you get him up?”

“Keep that one close,” Alex murmured, sliding his arm under Finn’s shoulders. He clenched his teeth around a cry of pain as his bad arm was jostled, but Alex was strong and steady, and within a few seconds he was on his feet. “Easy does it, bud. I’ve got you.”

“Fucking shit,” Finn wheezed as he tried to close his hand. The fear and adrenaline had faded, but involuntary tears sprang to his eyes anyway. Alex held him upright without faltering despite his wobbly legs; they made it to the bench in a blur of movement that made Finn dizzy.

“We can take him from here,” the medic said to Alex.

“I’ll be fine,” Finn said, cutting him off just as he opened his mouth. “Go play. Your boys need you.”

Alex pressed his lips together in obvious frustration, but tapped their helmets together and skated back to his own bench. Finn let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “O’Hara?”

“I’m good,” he assured the medic.

“If you feel like you need to throw up, let me know.”

“No. No, I’m good. Just hurts.”

He caught a glimpse of the clock as they headed down the tunnel—ten minutes left in the period. Finn steeled himself for a long stretch of being alone in a medical room and tried to focus on something over than the unbearable heat and throbbing in his arm.

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

Leo traced the edge of the splint with a deep-set frown, but said nothing. His other thumb ran in gentle lines up and down Finn’s waist, kept there by Logan’s side pressing close. “You’re sure you’re alright?” Logan asked softly as he placed a kiss on the corner of Finn’s mouth.

“I promise.” They had barely traded ten words—both had shown up the second the game ended, stripping off their pads and skates in the entrance to the medical room before sandwiching Finn between them. Leo had been unusually quiet. They had won the game; from what Finn saw on the television in the corner of the room, Alex had reamed out the guy that hit Finn with a vengeance. Tampa had been disjointed, and the Lions swept in as a cohesive pack, out for blood.

“I was worried about you,” Leo said at last, resting his temple on Finn’s shoulder. He sighed, then shifted impossibly closer. “Couldn’t get through the crowd.”

“I thought Talker and Loops were gonna kill that guy after he hit you,” Logan said with a shake of his head. “Looks like Alex did it for him.”

“What, you didn’t get into your shining armor for me?” Finn teased, nuzzling his nose against Logan’s cheek to draw even a slight smile from him.

“Maybe next time.”

“No,” Leo mumbled, linking his fingers with Finn’s purple ones and lifting them to his lips for a brief kiss. It was a clean break, but would still take weeks to heal. Big blue eyes landed on him, melting his heart like they always did. “No ‘next times’, okay?”

“Aw, Knutty,” Finn said, barely above a whisper. He wrapped one arm around each of them and held them tight, soaking in the feeling of having both crushed against him. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Logan tucked his face into Finn’s neck. “Nothing to be sorry for, mon rouge. We’re just glad you’re alright.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice said from the door. Alex shifted his weight back and forth, twisting his baseball cap in his hands like he always did when he was nervous. Finn didn’t hesitate before extracting himself from the cuddle pile and crossing the room; Alex met him halfway and engulfed him in a hug. A shudder ran through him under Finn’s palms. “Jesus, Finn, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” Finn mumbled into his hoodie, letting himself be cocooned by distilled safety. Even out of his skates, Alex had a good two inches on him, and he had always been the broader of the two—Finn suddenly felt about six years old, as if he had just skinned his knee on the sidewalk.

“What’s the diagnosis?”

“Closed break, clean fracture. I’ll be out for a month or two.” He stepped back and swiped a hand under his nose, then tilted his head toward Leo and Logan with a wry smile. “But I’ve got these two to look after me.”

Alex scanned his face for a moment; his mouth dipped on one side. “I called mom and dad, told ‘em you’re okay. You should tell them yourself, though. They were freaking out.”

“I will,” Finn promised.

The worry creasing his brow didn’t diminish as he wrapped Finn in his arms again, holding him tight. “Keep me updated, yeah? If I don’t hear from you, I’ll get the captain on your ass, and he won’t be as nice about it as I will.”

“Deal.”

“Knutty, Lo, drive safe. If he tries to pull some stupid shit, I’m counting on your survival skills to stop it.”

“Survival skills?” Leo half-laughed.

Alex pulled away and raised his eyebrows. “They don’t call me Hurricane O’Hara for nothing.”

His eyes flickered back to Finn, who was horrified to see slight redness around the rims despite the teasing in his voice. “Alex,” he said softly. “I’m okay, I swear.”

“I know.” His voice was gruff, but it poorly hid a sniffle as he bumped their foreheads together. “But I’m your brother. It’s my job to worry about you. I hate that one of my guys was at fault here.”

Finn tried for a smile, socking him on the arm. “Six weeks, and I’ll be good as new.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” With a final survey of his face and a kiss to the top of his head, Alex headed back out into the hall with his shoulders up near his ears. Finn sighed; he hated it when Alex was upset, and even more when there was nothing he could do to fix it except wait. He didn’t know what he’d do if one of his teammates broke his brother.

“Fish?” Leo was smiling when he turned around. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What kind?”

“The kind where I pull out all the sob story pity points on Cap’s soft heart and get us babysitting privileges for his incredibly fluffy dog after three months of constant begging.”

Finn’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“Make sure you look extra sad when we leave,” Logan advised. “We can’t lose this opportunity because you were too perky about a broken arm.”

“Quick, someone make me cry.”

Leo’s grin turned to horror. “What?”

“No!” Logan said at the same time.

“You guys are killing me here,” Finn groaned. “Just, like, hit me in the arm or something.”

“No!” they shouted in unison.

“You said I need to look sad!”

“I meant pout and sigh!” Logan pulled him over by the hem of his shirt in clear distress. “You’ve already cried too much tonight. No more.”

“Alright,” Finn agreed, already wracking his brain for any smidgen of drama skills he might have acquired over the years. Younger siblings were always the best actors, of course—he had given some Oscar-worthy performances to his mom when Alex got on his nerves as a kid—but Sirius was tough to fool. Maybe if he stayed quiet and didn’t risk opening his mouth they would get away with it.

Leo let out a slow exhale against his chest and snuggled closer before standing. “Come on, darlin,” he said with a kiss to Finn’s forehead. “Let’s get you settled. We’ll take a shower, have some dinner, and then we can put a movie on.”

“Mighty Ducks?” Finn asked hopefully.

Logan rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

#finn ohara #logan tremblay #alex ohara #leo knut #oknutzy #cubs #hurt/comfort #sweater weather #vaincre #my fic #fanfic #brothers #broken bones

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peparqin · 2 years

Text

i wanted to write something for pepa’s pregnancy with antonio + baby antonio but i’m lazy so here’s so headcanons instead

completely accidental, but welcomed.

pepa didn’t even know she was pregnant, until sixteen-year-old dolores cornered her because she couldn’t figure out why her mama suddenly had two heart beats.

dolores was unable to keep her mouth shut when she found out and everyone knew almost immediately. abuela was both excited and anxious for a new baby.

julieta claimed that she always knew because ‘triplets have a sixth sense.’ in reality, she just noticed pepa getting (somehow) even more emotional and turning down her food.

abuela sort of expected julieta to get pregnant as well.

félix was completely ecstatic. he was so excited to have another child. of course, he was hyper aware that his wife was nearing fifty and made sure to take extra good care of her.

he definitely always touched pepa’s stomach when she allowed him. he wanted to be close to her and the baby.

the whole family prepared for even more storms than usual. when pepa starts to get contractions, they warn the village that hurricanes may be inbound. giving birth was even more stressful for pepa.

luisa was so nervous about holding baby antonio for the first time because of her strength. pepa was anxious about it too, but félix gently encouraged both of them.

antonio cried, a lot. cue a lot of clouds from pepa and overstimulation for dolores.

mirabel was just excited to share the nursery with someone again and couldn’t wait to speak with her baby cousin. she was definitely always crowding pepa to try and hold antonio.

camilo definitely tried to teach antonio to swear. he ended up getting rained on. a lot.

pepa and félix did not get a lot of sleep with antonio. julieta and augustín were always happy to babysit while they napped during the day.

camilo sometimes transformed into pepa when antonio wouldn’t stop crying. it helped a little.

isabela did not like babies. does not like babies. she grimaced every time she held him. she loves her little cousins, but she is not a fan of babies.

everyone cherishes little antonio. completely adores him. as the baby of the family, it was guaranteed.

bruno watched pepa’s pregnancy and watched antonio age over five years without ever interacting with him. he couldn’t wait to meet him.

#encanto #encanto headcanons #madrigal family #antonio madrigal #pepa madrigal #julieta madrigal #augustin madrigal #félix madrigal #isabela madrigal #dolores madrigal #camilo madrigal #mirabel madrigal #luisa madrigal #abuela madrigal #headcanon #tw pregnancy

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sooibian · 3 years

Text

The Daisy Oracle

Pairing: Baekhyun x fem!Reader

Genre / Themes: Fluff, soft angst, a hint of spice, established relationship

Description: In the days leading up to Baekhyun’s enlistment, you find yourself dissecting every word of his and he’s been saying...all the wrong things.

A/N: To accommodate this anon request, the story does not take the “BBH public service worker” route. Dear anon who requested this, i sincerely hope this fic gives you the comfort that you seek. even though i tried to publish this as soon as i could, i hope it doesn’t feel rushed! :)

Word count: ~ 2k

You always had a hard time keeping up with Byun Baekhyun.

On a typical Thursday evening, when you, everyone you knew, and their families, zombified by the obstinate demands of the week, trudged towards the promise of an invigorating weekend, Baekhyun looked and acted like one of those puppies in one of those picture perfect 'family is everything' movies. Always eager. Always happy.

That is not to say that the weight of living eluded him. He'd have his moments where everything seemed rather dull and tedious but Baekhyun always bounced back quicker than most.

In the month leading up to his enlistment, when you'd hoped for your own sake and his, that he'd mellow under the soul crushing burden of an impending temporary separation, his puppy quotient shot through the roof instead. But you didn't have the heart to utter a single word that bore the abominable might to dull his sparkle.

Instead, you revved up your own. Or at least...tried.

He booped your nose and said to you over dinner one evening, "You don't have to pretend, you know?" causing you to flip the switch on him, "What would you rather have me do? Cry?"

Truth be told, you were mad!

Mad at the world. Mad at the laws of conscription, most of all. How could they take this...this...stupidly adorable, angelic, happiness shaped man with a divine voice, endearingly droopy eyes, jelly lips, plump cheeks, and the most delectable nose away from you for such an agonizingly long stretch of time?

"It would be nice," he quipped, looking into the distance as if lost in a deep thought, the faintly heavy texture of his tone nudging you out of your rueful reverie.

Head tilted to the side, you blinked at him, mouthing a confused, "What?"

"Hello! Earth to --! I said, If you cried a little...every now and then….it would make me feel - it would make you feel - "

These callous utterances of his would not only exasperate you endlessly but also shove you back into the despairing hurricane of emotions you’d been trying to quash for his sake and yours.

So you glowered at him in response and he quietly went back to his soup, leaving you to your musings.

Blinkering your attention to the sumptuous spread before you, you wondered why you struggled to push something that appetizing down your throat. Everything tasted either a little too bland, or a little too spicy, a little...unusual and not quite right. Which was strange considering the only reason you loved this restaurant was because they hadn’t changed their menu nor their recipes in decades.

You craved the comfort of the known especially on days like these when the world felt bizarre - inside and out.

“This fillet is too dry,” you whined, washing down your last bite of the salmon with cider.

Brows furrowed, Baekhyun drew his “No ~” out in a question.

“And overly seasoned,” you winced, persistent in your complaining while pushing your food around.

“Here, try the Gyeran Mari,” said Baekhyun, lovingly placing two neat rolls of your favourite banchan into your rice bowl.

Eyes locked with his, a smile teasing the corners of your mouth, you quipped nonchalantly, "You know what? I cannot cry even if I wanted to."

"Really? Why's that?" He inquired with a quirked brow, cheeks puffed with silken tofu.

Waving your phone at him, you replied, "All these airpod head comments online - "

"Yah yah yah!!!" Breaking into a fit of roaring laughter, he lunged at you and pinned you to the floor. Cupping your face in his hands, he kissed every inch of the exposed skin of your face and neck, making your giggles fizzle into a soft moan the moment his lips met yours.

"Leave the laundry to me. Go get your things in order for next week," you said to a dumbstruck Baekhyun as he felt the jute laundry basket that you'd picked out together over two years ago, swiftly changing hands from his to yours.

When you heard neither a word tumble out of his mouth, nor the sound of his feet padding down the hallway, you stopped dead in your tracks, turned around to face him and spluttered a mortified, "What?"

"No, no, it’s nothing," he mumbled, lips forming a toothsome pout.

Resting the laundry basket against your hip, you groused, "Just say it."

Soft baby pink lips stretched into a wide, gremlin-like grin, he teased, "If I knew enlistment would make your lazy ass pick up some of my chores, I would've enlisted a lot earlier!"

Feigning annoyance, you rolled your eyes in response and turned on your heel to rush to the washer dryer.

In a week’s worth pile of unwashed clothes, stood out a beige t-shirt that he’d worn for not more than an hour last week. It was relatively clean and needed a wash simply because he had no use for it in the following months. You buried your face in the velvety smooth fabric of the oversized garment, yielding to Baekhyun’s lingering saccharine yet woody scent. The dam of your pent up emotions broke loose at the last four words that had recklessly rolled off his tongue. You bit down on your lower lip to suppress it's quiver but the tears in your eyes gave it all away when you turned around to find him standing by the door.

You accepted his unspoken apology with an understanding nod as he nestled you up to his familiar, comforting warmth. And while he gently cradled you in his strong and steady arms, you poured your heart out into the crook of his neck.

Dressed in cozy black and grey sweats, Baekhyun stood before you, lips pursed, eyes wide, anxiously wringing his hands while swaying from side to side.

"So?" His brows shot up in anticipation of your reaction while you chewed on the insides of your cheeks to keep yourself from breaking into an insensitive fit of laughter.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you managed a feeble, "Looks alright,", feigning your best businesslike demeanour.

A confused Baekhyun’s gaze flew up to his forehead as he gingerly ran a hand over his head. Features contorted in a frown, he remarked, "Prickly."

Then you could hold it in no more.

Instantly convulsed with laughter, you crashed into bed while Baekhyun simply stood there, hands on hips, patiently waiting for you to -

“Let it all out!” He exclaimed loudly while you continued your antics, fully cognizant that the discomfiture in his tone was merely for effect. Baekhyun continued, “I don’t get what’s so funny.”

You threw your hands up and apologized, panting, “Okay, okay...I’m done,” only to break into another fit of giggles immediately after.

The room was bathed in a subtle gold haze from the bedside lamp as you lay resting your head on Baekhyun's chest, the rhythm of his heart calming the storm within yours. He brought your hand up to his rosebud mouth and trailed gentle kisses along the tips of your fingers before lacing them with his.

"It's not that bad...it's...it's kinda cute, actually. Makes your ears stick out," you whispered against his taut and smooth skin.

"I don't know, I feel a little...different. I've never been bald," he uttered the last word hesitantly as if it were some sort of a deathly curse.

"Being born with hair and all - ,” you remarked casually, cuddling even closer and Baekhyun instinctively strengthened his grip on you.

The looming presence of the words left unsaid magnified by the second and you prayed a futile prayer... wishing fervently for the time to stop.

“I wonder what our kids will look like. Do you think they’ll be born with hair on their wee little heads and have huge ears like I do?” asked Baekhyun before you could lapse into another silent reverie.

Your heart threatened to leap out of your chest at the incessant carelessness on his part and you only managed a dispirited “I...don’t know" in response.

“Come on! Humour me for a second -”

“Alright," you said with a deep sigh, deciding to indulge him but not without first bracing your heart against these beguiling castles in the air, "hmm.. I...I don't know but I want them to have your eyes."

"No!” Baekhyun protested, “I want them to have your eyes!"

"We're not having this argument again..not today." You tried to subtly release yourself from his firm grasp to fill your lungs with the air he’d snatched with promises so enticing that they made you tremble with fear to even wish for their realization but the more you tried to pull away, he drew you even closer....your darling quicksand.

He laughed, blatantly ignoring the embarrassment flashing across your features having been caught off guard by this unnecessary pop quiz. Eyes welling up with tears, you wondered whether this turmoil was some wicked sorcery of your own heart...or did Baekhyun, in fact, not care at all.

"But don't you think this house is a biiiit too cozy for a big family?"

"We won't have to worry about any of that for a while I believe," you muttered before lambasting him, "Okay Byun Baekhyun that's enough! Stop acting like you won't come visit every few weeks! And- and stop looking at me like that!"

Your expression softened the moment his eyes locked with yours.

Baekhyun sat up with a start. Brows furrowed in confusion, he guffawed, "I'm just wondering how someone this intelligent can be so thick in the head sometimes!"

Immediately sitting up to face him, you nearly squealed, "What do you mean?”

Shaking his head, he let out a deep exhale. Mumbling incoherently, he drew a key from underneath his pillow and lightly flicked your forehead with it. Chuckling at the very apparent bewilderment on your face, he grabbed your wrist and thrust the key into your hand.

Puzzled, you merely blinked at him, unable to form words.

"I bought the place that you liked,” he stated matter-of-factly but an unmistakable spark of excitement danced in his eyes.

“No, I don’t get it.”

“All that house hunting wasn't for Baekbeom." Baekhyun used air-quotes when he said house hunting and gave you a sly smile. Despite the telltale exhilaration in his tone...you were still pretty confused. Baekhyun and you had spent almost all of your weekends this year property hunting with his brother and sister-in-law. They’d said they were looking for a bigger place since the Byun family was to “expand”.

“But - I thought they were talking about themselves! I-”

“You what?”

“I can’t believe I fell for -”

“You walked right into it, Ma’am!”

“But you all made it sound so convincing!”

He coolly quipped, “A quality I would like all four of our future children to possess.”

Baekhyun’s grand gesture knocked the wind out of your lungs and you were suddenly flat on your back. Lying down next to you, he took your hand in his and sneakily slipped a ring onto your finger. A silent tear rolled down your cheek as all of the emotions that had been simmering inside you clawed at your throat rendering you speechless and breathless. Despite that, you managed the courage to meet his eyes only to find them brimming with tears. With his hand on your cheek, Baekhyun closed the distance between you and whispered, "I love you," against your lips before pulling you in for a deep kiss.

"I love you, too," you responded, nestling into his cozy frame.

"Yah! Don't get all emotional with me!" Baekhyun teased while gently stroking your hair. Voice down to a whisper, he continued, "I'm just getting everything in order...like you’d asked me to," before placing a chaste kiss on the top of your head.

You always had a hard time keeping up with Byun Baekhyun.

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kashimos-hajime · 3 years

Text

reunion pt. 1 (5/8) | r.b.

summary: His back rises and falls against your chest as Bertholdt stands, and your voice reeks with your own loathing and despair. You just want to know— “Bertholdt, please. What did I ever do to you to deserve to die?” Or, the return to Shiganshina is even worse than you imagined.

WARNINGS: aNGST ANGST ANGST, self loathing, swearing, mentions of heavy injuries and violence pairing: reiner braun x fem!reader word count: 6.4k

a/n: here we go!!! pain express. : )

masterlist

crossposted on ao3 x

Launching yourself to the top of the Wall, you find Armin’s gaze as he steps up to you, and you shake your head.

“All I found was three cups,” you inform quickly, “and the pot.” Meeting Commander Erwin’s stare, your knees seem to lock as he turns to Armin who seems to digest the information as well. Turning away to look out on Shiganshina, your eyes sweep the torn buildings, the abandoned silence making your insides cold.

You’re here, aren’t you? Reiner… Bertholdt… did you think of me half as much as I’ve thought about you? I still want answers. Would you even give them to me? Or was Eren telling the truth when he told me what you said about us, Reiner? You surrounded yourself with incompetent fools.

Especially me.

Someone calls your name and you jerk out of your slow reverie, blinking as Armin grabs your elbow and you turn, tugging your green cloak tighter around yourself as your grasp on your ODM grips tightens. With the orders given, you split off from him and jump off the wall, iron wires shooting into the stone. Swinging down to the ground, you split off from the group to explore one of the homes built flush against the wall. Entering, your heart is rapid, pounding against your windpipe.

You try to think like them—where they’d hide, what they’d look like, trying to blend in, but as you ascend the steps of the home and fall to your knees, looking under the bed and the tables, you find nothing. You get to your feet and walk over to the window, pushing it open and shouting, “Clear!”

In response, a couple other Scouts shout their own results, all the same sa yours, and you hop out the window. Landing back on the ground, you’re about to migrate over to the next house when an acoustic shell goes off and you grit your teeth, wrenching your head up. Something inside you snaps.

Someone found them. They actually found them—

Clicking the triggers, you shoot up the wall, the wind nipping at your nose and you land easily, running over to Armin, his signal gun still in hand.

“Did you find them?” you breathe but he shakes his head as Scouts fall all around them, encircling him. Stepping closer, you feel an unheeded wave of relief wash over you followed by a flood of guilt and you clench your jaw, looking down at the stone beneath your boots.

Why? Why should I be grateful they haven’t been found? All they ever did was lie to me. All he ever did was make promises to my face and plotted to kill me behind my back—

Commander Erwin’s voice cuts through your hurricane thoughts, and you look up, receiving the new orders and splitting off from the group once again.

No. No, just stop thinking.

Wiping at your face with the back of your hand, your breath burns through your chest as your grappling hooks sink into the stone and you lower yourself down the wall beside Armin. Tapping your blades against stone, you hear the clink-clink of all the other Scouts doing the same as your eyes scan for cracks, wedges, anything.

They were never on your side.

“Shit,” you whisper to yourself, descending. A strange, futile twist of your gut has you aching, exhausted despite the campaign barely beginning, and your legs feel numb as you jump lower and lower, your swords scraping against the Wall. Looking over at Armin, you catch his forced smile, and you nod to yourself, returning your gaze to the surface in front of you, reaching left and right to make sure all spots are checked.

And every time, you pray that the sound is full.

Frowning when you land in front of a cracked part of the wall, your eyes trace the spider webbed fissure before you lift your hand and tap where the cracks seem to stem from. Heart staggering in your chest, your blood chills when you hear it’s hollow.

For a moment, you stare at the rock, knowing full well the eyes you’ll see behind it, and the world slows down into agonizing milliseconds. On instinct, your hand drops the sword and reaches for your belt before you shoot an acoustic shell towards the sky.

“Hey!” you scream, voice hoarse. “This spot is hollow!”

You turn to look at Armin just as a movement catches in the corner of your eye, and your head snaps back as the portion of the Wall is removed and dull silver shoots out of the darkness. Mouth dropping open, you wrench your stare up, pinning Reiner in the face, and you see the moment he recognizes you.

His eyes widen, arm freezing mid-thrust, the tip of the blade just barely digging into your chest. Not deep enough to bleed, but enough to prick.

You forget everything you need to say. Your voice catches in your throat, and a soft, shuddering breath escapes your lips. You understand why the world seems so slow now.

For what feels like years, you look into Reiner’s eyes before they narrow into a deadly glare, and your heart falls into the abyss. A chilling poison fills his entire face as he drops his blade, hand shooting out to grab your shoulder, and throwing you in. Plunged into darkness, you collide with stone as Reiner jumps out.

Shoulder and cheek blooming with a dull ache that comes and goes in tidal waves, you whirl around, retracting your iron wires with a quick press of your grips just as a blur of green flies past the hole. Eyes widening, you scramble forward.

Captain Levi yanks his blade out of Reiner’s neck and you watch as the captain shoots himself back up the Wall.

You hear the thud Reiner’s body makes, an empty sound that echoes in your head as you push yourself further over the edge of the hole. Yellow light bursts from his chest and you cover your face, squinting and gritting your teeth against the burning glare as Levi runs to you, pulling you out. The wind tears at your clothes, stinging your fingers as the fist at your collar tightens.

“Keep your distance and stick by him,” he growls into your ear before throwing you up. Activating your ODM gear, you burst up the wall, the captain beside you. “Reiner would’ve killed any other soldier if it weren’t you. Let’s hope that nepotism lasts.”

You eyes flit to Levi who only stares up, pale eyes narrowed against the bleak sky. You wish you could tell him that he’s wrong—he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

But your chest is hardening as the seconds pass, a coldness stemming from where the tip of Reiner’s sword had dug into you.

Throwing the final Thunder Spear you have at Reiner’s nape, you reroute yourself onto a nearby roof as the explosion goes off, rattling your entire skeleton. Slapping your hands over your ears, you squint at the blast before it disappears as quick as it came. As it dies down, you blink, trying to make out the shape of the Armoured Titan but dots still speckle your vision, blurring everything. Your ears ringing, a swelling feeling blocks up your chest.

What do you want to see? Do you want to see him again? On his feet, prepared to kill us. Prepared to kill you? Or will seeing him on his knees, steam rising from his body bring you more relief?

You’re not sure. Your body is thrumming with adrenaline, every thought of fatigue chased from your mind, and as you sink to one knee, you wait.

When the smoke finally clears, you finally see him. The Armoured Titan on his knees, keeling over, and at the nape of his neck, a pillar of steam rising from his body, sits Reiner. Lips parting, you surge to your feet and wait again, wait for him to begin to move.

Reiner… get up. What are you doing? Get up!

Boots shifting against the tiled rooftop, your grip on your swords tightens when you can’t even see the slightest rise and fall of his shoulders, the sway of his body. No, he’s statuesque in his position, and your heart drops as cheers rise all around you.

“The Armoured Titan just bit the dust!”

The words pass through one ear and out the other. Rooted to your spot, a burning begins to fester in your eyeballs as something warm slips over your cheeks, into your open mouth, and it tastes salty on your tongue. Breath shuddering in your chest, your vision begins to blur again and you blink, a fresh wave of tears streaming down your face.

No, no, stop it! Stop crying for him! He’s dead! You should be glad for that! Your voice is ragged in your head as you slam the heel of your hand into your temple. Stop it! Stop it! Reiner, move! Please, don’t be dead. Shit! Teeth clenched tight, you fall to your knees as Section Commander Hange just across the street from you with Mikasa and Armin, orders for another round of Thunder Spears. Your fingers dig into your scalp as Scouts begin to move, the steam rising from Reiner’s body hot enough even from here to scorch you.

A Scout lands beside you, giving you two near Spears, and you look at them blankly, knowing you should be eager to grab them, but you just can’t move.

‘Thank you,” you murmur to him and he only nods before moving on, just as you hear metal clink and your gaze wrenches up. The Armoured Titan throws his head back, jaw unhinging, and a piercing scream shatters the air. Eyes wide, your palms slap over your ears again as the air trembles and your heart halts in your chest, the air paralyzingly still.

The tiles beneath your knees seem to shake under the force of the wail before Reiner tilts forward, steaming corpse freezing even deeper in prostrate.

Crawling forward, your eyes fix on Reiner’s shoulders. Is he… he’s…

“Everyone, move away from the Armoured Titan!” The order barely distracts you as the other Scouts flee. Chancing a glance at your comrades, you realize they’re already barrelling away from you, and you steel your nerves, squaring your hips.

And then you launch yourself off the roof.

The tile breaks as you fly through the air, landing on the Titan’s shoulder, and you grunt, planting a palm flat against the surface. With a hard swallow, you push yourself to your feet and wipe the stubborn tears drying on your cheeks with a grimace.

We can still save him, you think to yourself resolutely. If he’s still alive, we can still save him

Submerging yourself in the white steam, you ignore the smouldering at your palms as you traverse up to the nape, stepping over the shattered remains of armour.

I already lost the farm.

Waving away the hot fog, you reach Reiner’s shoulder and fall to your knees beside him. It’s all coming from his head and you look down at his arms, still submerged in Titan flesh. Eyebrows knotting together, you reach out for the patch of skin you can still see, and electricity shoots up your bones when you realize he’s still warm.

I lost Annie.

“Shit!” Your hand flies to his back and his chest, feeling for a heartbeat and you try to listen for breaths as your palms slide against green fabric.

I’m not about to lose you, too.

You crane your neck to catch a glimpse of his face but it’s still nothing more than smoke and black and blood, dripping everywhere. Grimacing, you move your palms left just as a faint pulse renders you frozen.

Then, it’s another pulse, and another, soft and weak, but still there.

The sound of ODM gear makes your head snap up and your ribs ache when you realize who it is.

“Bertholdt.” His name is ripped out of your throat as he lands on the other side of Reiner, and for a moment, you see the best friend you once knew before he’s swallowed up by whoever he is now, eyes glinting with a calm you can’t recognize. “Bertholdt, help me.“

“Reiner. Is he—“

“No, he’s still alive,” you reply back quickly. He falls to his knees, moving your hands out of the way to feel for himself, and Bertholdt’s face goes lax when he feels what you did. “Help me get him out of here, please.”

“What the—he must’ve transferred his consciousness throughout his entire nervous system. We talked about it,” he mutters, almost to himself, “but only as a last resort. To think that he would actually need to.” Your eyes trail to his arms again, and you lift your sword. You could cut him out. If you have enough gas, you can probably pull the both of them back to the Wall—

“Bertholdt!” His gaze snaps to you and your fingers wrap around the hilt tighter. “Help me cut him out. I think we can save him if we just—“

“What are you doing?” he asks flatly. Stunned, you can only look at him and he turns his gaze away bitterly. “Why are you helping him? Trying to help me?”

“You’re my family, Bertholdt.” His shoulders go rigid, as if he’s holding back a flinch, and you lower the blade to the tendons along Reiner’s arm. “I have to save who I have left. I’m not going to leave you guys like I left Annie. We can still fix this. Please, please, please help me cut him out before the Scouts finish him off.”

“You’re more desperate than I thought.” It’s not cold, but it makes you freeze all the same. “You know how this is going to go. You always knew. You’re going to die,” he tells you firmly. You reel back, stung, but Bertholdt pays you no mind. “It doesn’t matter whether I help you or not.”

“Bertholdt—“

“Reiner,” he addresses his friend again and your eyes begin to burn again as your gaze finds where the flesh of the Titan meets Reiner’s arm, the glint of your blade so bright compared to the redness of the beast. Your entire body weighs a thousand pounds, and you squeeze your eyes tight, tears slipping down your nose. “Reiner, I need you to do something for me. You’re going to have to move, just a little bit. Lie down with your Titan body facing upwards.”

All you need to do is just swing off his arm. It should be so simple.

“And if you can’t, then I’m sorry. Prepare for the worst.”

Your face lifts up to find your old friend’s, but he refuses to look at you as you grab Reiner’s shoulders, pull yourself to his side. His back rises and falls against your chest as Bertholdt stands, and your voice reeks with your own loathing and despair. You just want to know— “Bertholdt, please. What did I ever do to you to deserve to die?”

His hands roll into fists before he reaches up to pull out his hand grips, long fingers wrapping around the triggers.

“Nothing. You’ll always be one of my dearest comrades. One of my truest friends.” His shoulders fall into his back as he tilts his head to look at you out of the corner of his eye. Your blood chills when you find nothing inside his own stare except cold, hard determination. “I’m just ending a war that we were unlucky enough to be born in. It’s nothing personal.”

Without another word, he jumps off Reiner’s shoulder and you snap your jaws shut, determined not to focus any more time on him. Turning back to Reiner, you run over in your head what Bertholdt had said.

Truest friend.

You feel stiff everywhere. Even when you try to shove his voice of your head, you can’t. One word leads to another and to another, until every memory is playing back, from the times he helped you muck the stables, to the years spent training side by side—you had known about his crush on Annie. Who else had known? You’d been the only one, you’re sure of it—

“I need you to do something for me.”

Shaking your head, your eyes fix on the back of Reiner’s head.

“If your consciousness is through your entire body, then cutting you out won’t do any permanent damage, will it?” you whisper near his ear, but he gives no sign of answer and you jerk back onto your knees. But what if it does? After all, permanent nerve damage is a thing that plagues a bunch of soldiers. I’ve seen it—what if that happens to him, too? Hands trembling, your guts get up into knots and you roll your fingers into fists but even still, it doesn’t help the shaking that travels up your arms. Permanent damage and alive is better than dead.

But what if it’s like cutting off a head? This is the host after all. None of this makes any sense!

“Reiner, if you can hear me”—you lunge forward again, fingers digging into his shoulders—“I need you to tell me if it’s okay. I can’t kill you. I can’t!” The ground trembles and you let out a gasp as the muscles of his back flex against your arm. Jerking back, you feel the same movement in the Armoured Titan’s shoulders and you let out a shout as a hand clasps sloppily over you.

Plunged into darkness, your ODM gear crashes against something hard and your body is jostled like a pebble about to be skipped over water. Blades flying freely, you try to get a good grasp on the hilt before you’re stabbed and you feel the air sifting between the cracks of plated fingers as you fall backwards.

Trying to get up, you manage to stumble to your feet just as the fist you’re trapped in jerks back and sends you flying backwards. Your head crashing into a plate, white stars explode in your vision and your body goes limp as you let out a soft groan. Eyes struggling to stay open, you barely make out the shape of the Armoured Titan’s fingers wrapped all around you before a wave of exhaustion crashes on your skull, and your neck gives out.

Head dropping back against the plate, a ringing silence fills the air, and your eyes slip shut. The pulsing ache in your temple stops moments later as something warm trails down the side of your face.

You don’t recall the last time you’ve laughed so hard your cheeks ache. You never would’ve guessed it would’ve been laughing at one of Connie’s jokes six months into cadet training as they walk back to the dorms.

“Fun times today. Who knew you could be such a joker?” Connie laughs, elbowing you. You rub the back of your neck, embarrassed. “Just needed a little time to warm up to us, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jean snorts. “Who could connect Little Miss Shy over here with the same girl who danced to the busker’s music just because Connie said to?”

“Oh, shut up, guys. Take a look in the mirror. Besides, I had to make sure I wouldn’t die of insanity the instant I hung out with you, Connie. I’m never playing Truth or Dare with you again,” you say pointedly. “Get to your bunks.” The boy mock salutes you to the amusement of Bertholdt and Reiner who stand with them, and you roll your eyes before shooting Jean and Connie a smile. “Goodnight, guys.”

“Goodnight.”

“And, er, goodnight, Reiner.”

He simply dips his head to you, and you try not to let your smile falter. Reiner breaks off from their group first, with Connie, then Jean, and Bertholdt lingers behind for a moment longer. Curious, you stop in front of the door to the dorm, arching an eyebrow.

“What’s up?”

“We had a good time today in Trost,” he says. “I’m glad you came with us.”

“Thanks for inviting me. I’m really sorry I couldn’t convince Annie to,” you add and he shakes his head. “I think she would’ve had a great time.”

“It’s okay.” Your eyes narrow a bit when you see he looks away. His hand runs through his hair nervously and an inkling of an idea sprouts in your head. Oh, no way. “Maybe next time?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Stepping away, you send him a final, tired smile. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

You step through the door and spot the lone figure still inside easily enough. The other girls must be washing up or sneaking something to eat from the kitchens, but you’re too exhausted to even think about doing so. You just remind yourself to wake up extra early tomorrow if you can so you can sneak into the showers before muster. Meandering over to your bed, you make yourself known to the blonde girl.

“Hey, Annie,” you say, stretching one of your arms high above your head. The blonde in question looks up and you offer a smile as you push yourself up onto her bunk uninvited. She begrudgingly moves aside, and you lay down on your stomach, removing something from your pocket as she leans against the wall of their dorm, book in her lap.

“Did you have any fun?” she asks dryly and you nod. “Well, what do you want?”

“I brought you something. I think you’ll like it.” Setting the package down in front of her, you watch her expression carefully, glee shooting through you when you notice her lips parting, a hint of a smile twitching her cheeks. It’s taken a lot of persistent work, but being able to read Annie’s micro-expressions is a joy all in itself as you roll onto your back against her legs. “You didn’t come to our first visit to Trost today. You missed out on a lot of fun.”

She doesn’t answer and you sigh, unfolding the paper bag quietly. Flashing the opening to her, you tilt your head.

“I bought you this. I thought you might like it,” you repeat, pointing at the cream bun within, and Annie’s eyes flash to the bag, widening just a bit. She sets down her book, and leans over, legs crossing, and you pull yourself up to mirror her position. Reaching forward, the blonde pulls out the first bit of the dessert carefully, and you try to hold back your huge grin. “I know you liked sweets, and I really missed you today. You should come next time.”

“You bought this for me?” she asks, confused, tearing the dough apart and you nod when blue eyes search your face. She pops a bite into her mouth, and you wait for reaction. Eyebrows shooting up, she almost looks impressed before she rips off another piece, and offers it to you.

You take it graciously, the sweetness in the bread melting into your blood and soothing your fatigued body from the inside out. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Of course I thought of you when I saw that bakery.”

“We’re comrades,” she corrects, but even so, there’s something warmer in her tone. You wonder if she even notices. “But still, that’s… nice of you.”

“It’s nothing. Just come with me next time, and you could have them fresh. They’re even better and have all these different flavours and custards.” Annie’s eyes narrow for a moment, before she shoves the bun back into the paper bag with a sigh.

“Fine.” You turn to climb off her bunk and duck into your own just underneath hers but she calls your name quietly. Poking your head above the railing, you quirk an eyebrow. “You forgot this.” She shoves the paper bag back towards you and you frown.

“It’s for you. You can have the rest of it,” you say and her arm falters, eyebrows shooting up and lips parting in incredulity. You flash her a smile. “Goodnight, Annie.” Jumping back to the floor, you hear the soft crinkling of the paper bag and a warmth burns through your chest as you pull the covers back and shrug off your jacket. Changing into plainclothes, you slip into bed with a soft sigh, your muscles yawning in relief.

“Goodnight,” a tired voice breaks the silence, and you roll onto your side, the corner of your mouth curving up as you bury your face into your pillow. Minutes pass, and your eyes begin to grow heavy as a sort of draw tugs at you. Pulling the sheets tight against your chest, your eyelids slide shut.

Then, quieter, that same voice cracking in your newfound darkness, you hear: “Thank you.”

The world fades black for only for a moment before you jolt awake, mind scrambling. You’re no longer in your bed at the cadet corps, and you let out a sharp breath when everything around you smells like dust rather than warm candle wax.

Your entire body is on fire. Groaning, you push yourself onto all fours and rub at your cheek as the body beneath your shifts. Something wet soaks into your sleeves and you reach blindly for your swords as the hand above you falls away. Disoriented, you cradle your head.

Why… why was I thinking about Annie? you wonder to yourself as you land on the palm of Reiner’s hand and the fingers begin to uncurl. I haven’t thought about that night since Stohess.

Sunlight sears your irises and you squint against the grey sky as you look up, and a tight invisible fist grabs your windpipe, strangling out any air you might’ve used to scream when glowing yellow eyes pin you down.

Maybe because she always made me believe that there shouldn’t be too much to fear in this world. Struggling to your feet, your fists clench tighter. Maybe because she fooled me into thinking that she’d be there for me.

Maybe I miss her.

That’s always been more likely.

You turn to look at your surroundings, your eyes straining against the light still, but as you keep blinking, you realize that it’s all on fire. Face screwing up, you look down at your hands. They’re stained with red. You swallow, a nausea tiding over you when you realize what you had wiped off your face hadn’t been tears, but your own blood.

Your head jerks up as a crashing rumbles the air, and you spot a giant red figure sweeping a hand through the rows of houses, molten stone. Fire flies everywhere. Smoke stains everything you can see.

Hell has come to us, you realize. We never had to die to become devils, did we?

“Bertholdt…” At your voice, the palm beneath you shifts and you can’t breathe as you look down, trying to keep yourself upright. Whirling around, you look up to see those Titan eyes peering down at you curiously, and you brandish your swords.

“Reiner!” Your vocal cords tear and you could’ve choked on your own blood as you swallow a clot down. “Reiner, I won’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything I can to stop you!” His fingers curl. You feel one nudge into your back, forcing your weak knees to give in, and you bow over, fists slamming against the heel of his hand. “Fuck.”

Your world beveled, you sway on your hands and knees as you lift your head up to look at him. Seeing twins of everything, your eyes strain as you try to make sense of what’s up and what’s down as your skin, sticky with blood, tears against the wedge of his armour.

“Fuck,” you choke out rawly, eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck!”

Fingers pinch the back of your shirt delicately, and you’re hoisted into the air with a strangled gasp. Limbs flailing, you watch the ground get smaller as you’re lifted up. You’re like a limp doll in his fingers as Reiner twists to set you aside on a nearby roof.

When your knees meet tile, you let out a soft breath, your lips parted in the shape of his name.

“…Reiner?”

He does not answer. Instead, he turns your world upside down.

His hand drags through the structure beneath you. The stone gives in, cracks like egg shells, wood snaps, glass shatters into a million shards, and the ground beneath you crumbles, shakes, gives in even as you reach for him.

Suspended in mid-air for just a moment, you swear you can see him in the Titan’s face for just a moment, his eyes wide with regret, and then you’re plummeting through the debris, landing hard on your back. It punches the air out of you and your lungs spasm as you stare up at the sky caving above you. Entire body filled with a tingling numbness, shadows fall all over your face.

Crossing your arms over your head and locking them tight as you can, you turn your face away and squeeze your eyes tight as dust and stone rains down on your head, arms, body.

Ear to the ground, you go deaf from the entire world trembling with the sound of the Armoured Titan’s footsteps and it’s the only thing you can feel, even after the sun is eclipsed by wood and stone.

Connie stands over you.

His skin red with burns, he looms over you like a shadow, face pale, eyes wide as you stare right through him. Throat like ash and dry enough to scratch, your fingers twitch from where it’s trapped underneath a cinderblock and he breathes your name, shuddering and cold. Blood crumbles along your broken fingers as he shakes his head, his tears glimmering in the searing grey light. Crouching, he shifts something off your legs, lifts another block off your stomach, and your stomach flutters as you inhale raggedly.

Everything is destroyed inside you.

“C-onnie… Co-onnie…”

He works his way up your body, removing the parts of you that crush you still, and with every piece that he gets rid off, you realize that part of your body is still attached. Closing your eyes, your lips press together weakly and you swallow as he finally makes his way up to your face.

“Connie…” you whisper one last time as something warm puffs against your neck, and everything stills.

Then, hands grab your face. “Say that again!” he demands, and you let out a soft moan, brow wrinkling.

“C-Connie?”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!”

The hands are ripped off your face as if you had burned him, and your eyes crack open as he fumbles at his belt for his signal gun and shoots green smoke up at the sky, through a roof no longer above you anymore. The shot pierces your eardrums and your entire head begins to ring as you cough, blood spilling over your lips. Your arms feel shattered, aching so deeply, muscles so twisted that you can’t even lift them as Connie crouches back over you again, holding onto your face.

“H-how?”

“Reiner told us where you were. We thought you were dead! I’m going to get you out of here, though.” Grabbing one of your arms, he tugs and you let out a shout as the debris shifts around you. Your back screams, bones clicking awkwardly and he apologizes under his breath, as he hoists you up and forward. As you’re dragged back onto the street, your legs trail unevenly over the debris, every slide and knock of your boots against stone jolting through your fractured bones.

The cold wind that sweeps over your face as soon as you break through of the ash cloud is heaven sent.

“How badly does it hurt?” asks Connie.

“Like a—a building got dropped on me,” you breathe, and he lets out a shaky laugh, setting you down and procuring a waterskin. Carefully wrapping your pulsing fingers around it for you, he helps you tilt the water down your throat and you swallow greedily, stomach convulsing after sucking down lungfuls of grated stone and smoking ashes. Pitching forward, water dribbles down your chin and he takes the waterskin back. “The others. What’s going on with the others?”

“Sasha’s out, but she’s okay,” he reports. Your knees bend and your head hangs off your neck, staring at the road as you look at your own body. Your uniform’s been torn and dirtied to hell. “Bertholdt got taken down by Eren and Armin, and we got Reiner. Hange’s interrogating him now.”

“They’re… alive?” you rasp, harsh electricity scalding your chest. Your ribs shift with every unsteady breath, knives puncturing your side and your entire world is upside down still, fresh blood coating your face. You don’t know where your skin has broken, but you’re sure the warm sensation crawling down your neck isn’t sweat.

“For now. Hold on, let me check your gear.” Your fingers get that strange dull stretching sensation that comes with poor circulation, and you flex your hands and tighten them into fists, frowning to yourself as he leans in beside you. Twisting, something inside you tears apart and your lungs seize painfully as you stretch broken fingers for the grey metal canister. Connie pulls back. “Can you stand?”

“My—my gear. It’s dented,” you mumble, reaching down to the hand grips from where they still trail on the ground behind you. Wrapping your fingers around the triggers, you try to lift your head but a sharp pain stabs into your neck and your expression screws up tight. “Shit!” Connie’s hands find your shoulders but you wave him away, your breaths coming harsh, knocking against the sides of your body like a stick against a washing board. “I can stand.”

“You’re bleeding pretty badly,” he murmurs as you push yourself up, biting on the inside of your cheek to prevent yourself from screaming. Blood bursts on your tongue as your entire right leg flares up, melting like forged metal from the inside out.

When you look down, you realize everything below your right knee looks curved and uneven, and as you place even more pressure on your right foot, hot, racing agony spirals up all the way into your hip.

“I think I broke my leg,” you finally say after a moment and Connie’s eyes fall to knee as you limp forward on your own. He reaches his arms out to scoop you up but you bat his hands away, shaking your head. “It’s fine. I can still walk. Come on.”

“I can’t believe this,” he mutters to himself, and you only give him an uneasy look before looking up at the buildings, trying to aim your gear. Head blooming, a heat swathes your body as you click and iron wire shoots out of your crushed gear. It lands awkwardly, not quite straight, but you tell yourself it has to be enough before you’re launching yourself into the air. “Follow me!”

Connie leads you through the destruction of Shiganshina, and your heart, pounding painfully against your breastbone, only quickens when you spot the pillar of steam that has to be Reiner’s body. Gas boosting you through the air, you swing towards it, your head spinning as Connie begins to lower himself down to the roof above where you see a green cape crouched by the wall.

Landing in the streets, you crash to the ground ungracefully, your right leg buckling and your left only barely managing to break your fall as you pitch forward, rolling onto your side with a restrained groan. Your ODM gear crashes jankily all around you. Your eyes burning with the pure fire lighting through you, you grit your teeth and push yourself up, gaze swinging to fix on the green cape standing beside a body,

“Hange,” you choke out and their eyes tear away from whatever they’re looking at as a new figure falls to his knees beside you.

“You’re okay.” Wincing at Jean’s rough voice in your ear, you turn your head to catch sight of a face similarly red to Connie’s. A bandaged is wrapped around his chest and arm, but he looks relatively okay as he helps you up. Your legs splayed out beside you, you push yourself onto your knees and grab onto his arms as he hauls you to your feet. “Shit, you look banged up.”

“I know. I’ll be okay.” Eyes fixing on the body still steaming, you catch sight of shadowed blond hair and, without thinking, your body sags when you realize who it is. “Reiner.” His head lifts just a bit at your voice, and you flinch back at his inflamed face, the smooth skin trying to stitch itself back together.

In one, forced breath, he barely whispers your name, and your feet move, as if he’s summoned. You nearly reach for him, your eyes fixed solely on where his eyes should be.

“Hey, stay back! We’re waiting for Mikasa’s signal,” Jean murmurs, wrapping his uninjured arm around you and your boots dig into the dirt as he grunts in your ear at your resistance. “Don’t do something stupid.”

“Jean—“

The sound of a shell firing off cuts off your words and you lift your blurry vision to the sky, making out the red smoke parting the grey just as the world begins to tremble for what feels like the fifth time today. Jean tears his arm off of you, and you whirl around as a four-legged Titan barrels towards them. He flings himself at their Section Commander, knocking both of them out of the way just as you send yourself flying up onto a roof and you twist back to make sure they’re okay.

Landing on the tile, you lean forward.

Paralyzed, you can only watch as the beast takes Reiner into his mouth and begins to run away. Rooted to your spot, your entire body locks up. Ice drips through your veins, warping your insides until you’re shivering, lips parted as you let out shuddering breaths ripe with your own blood.

Hands trembling, you watch the Titan disappear from view, and your fingers go lax, dropping your hand grips and letting them dangle off the roof like puppets whose strings have long since been abandoned.

The world seems to stop and you cannot hear anything except his quiet, raspy breath of your name.

It does not start again until Hange orders you to regroup with the others where Captain Levi is.

186 notes · View notes

dreamingofaizawa · 3 years

Text

Seraphim

This has been stuck in my head for days, okay? I know it's not MHA. But it's been plaguing my thoughts. My teratophilia is swirling like a hurricane with this man at the epicenter:

Anime: Blood of Zeus on Netflix

Yandere(ish) Seraphim x Fem! Reader

***18+ Fic***

Please make your way out of the current window if you are not over the age of 18. Thank you.

Warnings: Dub-con, body horror (?) he’s a fucking demon okay?, cumflation, overstimulation, belly bulge, creampie, size kink, kidnapping, kinda yandere-ish behavior if you think about it for a minute

Word Count: 2k

Author’s Note: Alright, this man is a mass murderer and a complete psychopath with horrid trauma. But he’s hot, and my teratophilia and size kink are THRIVING. I couldn’t find his height anywhere but he’s probably like 7 feet tall or sum cause he TOWERS over the other people in the anime. Idk what possessed me to make this so weirdly soft. Anyway, days of horny thoughts of this man have accumulated to whatever this bullshit is.

*Polis = A Greek city-state

Enjoy the filth~

You'd managed to duck down behind a low stone wall gating off a farmhouse on the outskirts of the polis. The demons had appeared in the treeline when the full moon was high in the sky, flooding the land in cool blue light. There was no warning as people were either killed or gathered into the square, fear wreaking havoc on the minds of men and women alike.

You had to run, get to another polis and warn them of the oncoming bloodbath. But you needed to know what was going on. Quickly, quietly, you snuck past and through homes, sticking to the shadows and creeping up on the square. You were just close enough to hear the commotion among the townspeople. The beating of large wings and a loud ‘thud’ silenced the square, and a voice boomed out.

“I am Seraphim. Leader of the people of Melidoni, the people you call demons.” You listened as he offered strength and power to those who chose to convert to their creed, their species. Those who didn’t would be slaughtered. The choices were to convert, or die. You didn’t stick around to hear who chose which fate, instead beginning to move through the shadows again.

As you neared your previous hideaway, you figured you should try to pack supplies for your journey, especially considering you had no idea how long you’d be travelling. You slipped into one of the homes and searched quietly, gathering supplies as you loaded a burlap sack. You’d been so focused on your tasks, so convinced you’d been silent and sneaky and could slip away, that you were shaken out of your focus by a loud thud just outside the stone wall lining the yard.

You froze, heartbeat in your ears as you waited with baited breath. A loud crack rang in your ears, making you jump and cower backward away from the splintered door. The figure that stepped in struck fear into every fiber of your being. He was huge, having to bend down to fit through the entrance, his shoulders nearly too wide to fit in the frame.

His skin was deep blue-gray, darker on his extremities and the horns protruding from his head and shoulders. Red marks littered his body like rivers of lava, and his eyes were pitch black with blood red irises. His left eye was different, a gold band in a strange shape surrounding the pool of red. Long white hair held with leather bands fell over his shoulder and down his bare chest, save for the leather strap holding his cloak on his back.

As he stood back to full height, your legs began to shake. If you weren’t paralyzed with fear, you’re sure your legs would have given out underneath you. The demon towered over you, all corded muscle and thick skin. Slowly, he lumbered closer to you, heavy footfalls vibrating the earth under your own feet. He stopped just in front of you, your chest nearly touching his abdomen as you looked up and he glared down at you.

A small smirk curved at the corner of his lips as he lifted a clawed hand, a thick finger hooking under your chin to keep your gaze up. “Hello, pretty.” His voice was deep, and you recognized it nearly instantly. This was Seraphim. The gods had forsaken you, and you’d been caught. You had a choice to make now. Convert, or die. A thumb swept across your cheek, swiping away a tear you didn’t realize had fallen.

A sound rumbled in his chest, something between a hum and a chuckle. “Don’t cry, pretty. You won’t die.” His statement had your mind reeling. Was he going to force you to convert to a demon? He wasn’t giving you a choice like all the other townspeople? He bent down so his mouth was at your ear, his breath hot on your neck and shoulder. “You’ll live, pretty, as a human. So long as you give me what I want.”

You were afraid to ask, but it was necessary. “W-what do you want?” Your voice was so quiet you almost thought he couldn’t hear you, but his pointed ear twitching next to your face told you he could hear even your smallest breath. A hot, wet tongue laved at your pulsepoint and travelled up to your jaw. Large hands grasped your waist, squeezing and gripping lightly as his voice sat heavy in your ear. “I want you.”

Tears fell down your cheeks at the realization of what was about to happen. You were going to give your womanhood to a demon. Though it was a small price to pay for your freedom and life. You were suddenly lifted off the ground, a gasp leaving your lips as you wrapped your legs around his waist and gripped his thick neck where there weren’t horns jutting from his body. His hands moved down to encompass your ass, squeezing the supple flesh as he moved and licked at your neck.

You were placed on the bed and he got to work undressing you, and soon your robes were a pile of fabric pooled on the ground as you lay naked before the demon. You grasped the pelts underneath you, shaking as his blood red eyes greedily raked over your form. You squeezed your eyes tight, trying to distance yourself from your current predicament, but a large hand wrapped around your throat and squeezed just lightly enough to be a threat.

Your eyes snapped open and Seraphim leaned close, his breath fanning over your face. “Don’t close your eyes, pretty. I want you to watch me take you.” With that, he released your neck and began to undress himself. Your eyes blew wide at the sight of him, a heat twisted with fear beginning to seep into your belly and between your legs. Was he even going to fit inside you?

He was as thick around as your wrist and nearly as long as your forearm, veins running up his length. Your body shook at the thought of taking him into you, afraid he’d split you in half. A deep chuckle bubbled up from his chest at the sight of your trembling. “Don’t worry, pretty. I don’t want to break you so soon. Especially since you are untainted, pure.” He lifted a hand and you watched as the claws shrank down and gray skin turned tan. His hand was now human, though no smaller than it was previously.

You didn’t know how he could know you were still a virgin, but at this point it didn’t matter. A thick finger teased up and down your folds, gathering the little slick there and moving to rub at your clit. The contact had you gasping and jerking, and his other hand gripped your hip, keeping you still as he rubbed that little nub. It didn’t take long to have you soaked, and he stopped his ministrations on the little bundle of nerves to dip a thick, long finger into your tight heat.

Even just one of his fingers was a stretch, and your walls clamped down around the intrusion. He pumped and curled his finger until you relaxed around him, then pushed a second passed the tight ring of muscle. Your fingers dug into the pelts beneath you and you clenched your jaw as you winced, the stretch burning for a few moments before you relaxed once again. His fingers curled up and hit a spongy spot inside you, making you let out a breathy moan.

A third finger pushing into you had you squirming and whimpering, the burning stretch becoming uncomfortable, and the fourth was painful as he maneuvered his digits inside you, stretching your walls further than you thought possible. It took a bit for you to finally relax, chest heaving and sweat beading at your forehead, and he rubbed your clit harshly. It only took a few swipes for you to cum on his fingers, clenching down hard as your back arched off the pelts and your mouth fell open in a silent shout.

When you came down from the high he pulled his fingers from your core and licked his fingers clean, groaning as he sucked your juices off his digits. The feral look he shot you made your breath hitch. His hand turned back and he gripped the back of your knees, bending them so your thighs were pressed into your chest. “Hold your legs for me, pretty.” You obliged, and he lined himself up with your core before pushing into you slowly.

Even just the tip of his thick cock had you wincing, nails digging into your thighs as you tried to relax around him. He growled as he slowly pumped himself into you, bit by bit, until he hit your womb and you cried out. It hurt, but it felt so, so good. He stilled his hips, allowing your fluttering walls to adjust to his size. His large hands came around your thighs to cup your face, trailing down to your breasts and toying with the flesh.

The demon had far more patience than you thought he could possess, waiting until your cunt stopped clamping down on his length before replacing your hands with his to grip your thighs, pressing them into your chest as he pumped his hips into you. With every thrust his pace became heavier and quicker, pulling heavenly, sensual noises from your throat. Your voice rang out with every snap of his hips into yours, your body on fire as the pleasure washed over you in waves.

One of his hands pulled your leg and rested your ankle just beside his neck, then moved down and began rubbing at your swollen little clit. The knot in your belly tightened quickly, burning hot in your abdomen until it finally snapped and your legs shook with your orgasm. He slowed to a stop and pulled out of you, flipping you over and yanking your hips back, a hand pressing into your back so your face was in the pelts and your ass was high in the air.

He filled you in one thrust and began a bruising pace, bending over you and biting marks into your shoulders, claws digging into the flesh of your hips. Growls and grunts filled your ears, Seraphim’s deep voice harsh and heavy with lust. You were extremely sensitive from your orgasms, tears beginning to roll down your face at the pleasured pain wracking your body. His hand rubbed over your lower stomach, feeling his length pounding into you.

He grabbed your hand and held it to your stomach, his voice gravelly and heavy. “You feel that, pretty? I’m right here.” Feeling him through your skin had you falling over that edge once more, your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, mouth dropping open and drool falling to the furs below you as you came hard around him.

He thrust a few more times before halting completely, filling you up with a long, low growl into your shoulder. His cum filled you, your belly distending a little with the sheer volume. Slowly he pulled out and lay you on your back, smoothing a hand over your stomach and pushing down on the bulge. You moaned out and he watched his seed gush from your gaping hole, your body trembling with exhaustion.

Your breath was ragged as you tried to steady yourself, and Seraphim dressed you just as easily as he’d disrobed you. “Can I go now?” you asked, still in a bit of a daze. His laugh shook his chest and shoulders. “No, pretty. Of course not. Your fate lies with me now.” Your brows scrunched together in confusion. “But you said…” He lifted an eyebrow. “I said you’d live if you gave me what I want. And I said I wanted you. You’re mine now, pretty.”

You resigned yourself to your fate, too exhausted to try and fight him. He lifted you in his arms and carried you out, mounting his manticore and lifting off into the sky. You rested your head against his solid chest, soaking up the warmth from his body as you drifted off. You vaguely registered Seraphim’s voice over the whipping wind. “That’s right, pretty. Rest up. You’re mine now, you’ll need all the energy you can get.” You didn’t let his words linger in your head before your mind faded to black.

#seraphim x reader #blood of zeus #seraphim #seraphim blood of zeus #seraphim boz

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just-here-for-the-moment · 3 years

Text

Consequences

Word count: 2100+

Rating: explicit, 18+ only

Outline: Javier Pena x “You” (cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slightly scary angry Javi; fingering/F receiving; oral/M receiving; messing around in Javier’s office with the possibility of getting caught

@deberiaestarescribiendo and @spacedilf - This is for y'all! :)

---

You tapped lightly on Javier’s office door and heard him call out a gruff, “Come.”

You opened the door to see him seated at his desk, papers and folders spread out like a hurricane had hit. “You wanted to see me?”

“You’re late.” Javier fixed his dark brown eyes on you, no hint of a smile or underlying humor to lighten his words.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. I told you to come see me in my office immediately after the morning staff meeting.” He stood from behind the desk and walked quickly toward you, then threw one arm out over your shoulder to push the heavy wooden door closed with a quick bang. It made you jump.

He took another step closer, hands on his hips, arms splayed out to the sides, and your back hit the door. You were cornered. You fixed your eyes on the floor and saw that his toes were nearly touching yours. You smoothed your hands down your thighs, then your nervous fingers twisted the fabric of your skirt, pinching and pressing it between your knuckles.

Your voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I got delayed.”

He answered you roughly, hot words hitting the top of your bent head. He smelled of contradictions: his morning coffee and cigarettes; his spiced, woodsy cologne; and the breath mint he had aggressively crunched during the last few minutes of the morning meeting. “Maybe you should learn not to get delayed.”

You waited, feeling the silence descend heavily in his office. The only thing you could hear through Javier's solid door was the muffled sounds of office routines: hurried footsteps in the hall, phones ringing, and typewriters chattering. You wondered if anyone could hear Javier over the mix; if he ever yelled loud enough to stop the world that was spinning just a few feet outside his door.

You kept your eyes on his feet and meekly moved your arms behind your hips, palms flat against the door, buttocks pressing against the backs of your hands to keep them from nervously tapping. The cool, flat wood against your skin grounded you, and you took in a shaky breath to try to steady yourself.

Javier took the opportunity to step forward, boxing you in even closer, both of his large legs caging yours in. He braced one hand flat against the door near your head, and used his other to grasp your chin firmly but not painfully in his large fingers. He tilted your chin up so that you couldn't avoid him, couldn't keep staring at the shiny tips of his shoes.

When your eyes met his, you felt your last breath leave your body. A volcano of uncertainty and embarrassment heated you from within, strangling you from ribs to eyebrows. You wondered if he could feel the heat, the sudden rise in your internal temperature.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

You couldn't think. One heartbeat passed, then two. Your blood rushed through your ears so quickly that you could no longer hear the world outside of his door. There was only you and Javier, and you felt like a part of yourself was close to disappearing the longer you spent in close contact with him. Maybe when he was done with you, it would just be him, and you would have evaporated.

You gulped and opened your mouth to try to answer, but only a strangled squeak came out. Javier was still gripping your chin between his thumb and first knuckle, but it wasn't painful, your airway wasn't restricted, and all of your parts should have worked fine... but the only part of you that seemed to be functioning was your beating heart and the burning ball of desire that was starting to spin in your gut.

"Anything? You have nothing to say about this?" Javier's brows knitted together, and the look of disappointment he gave you was hell. You would do anything, say anything to erase it.

"I- I'm-" You gagged on your own words, then swallowed and tried again, concentrating as hard as you could on getting language from your brain to your lips to his ears. Finally a whispered rush of words tumbled out. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but I'm here now. I'm here like you asked."

You bit your lip and hoped that would be enough. He still scowled at you like you had wounded him, but he dropped his hand from your chin. You felt the warmth in your face start to recede, until you realized what he was doing with his hand.

Javier skimmed the backs of his knuckles down your collarbone, over one breast, down your ribs, over your hip, and down... down... down the front of your thigh. He didn't stop until he reached the hem of your pencil skirt. He toyed with the fabric for a moment, teasing the edge of it with the back of his index finger, before he suddenly hooked his fingers underneath and pulled it up quickly. The front of one thigh was exposed as the fabric bunched around your hip. The surprise of it and the sudden feeling of cool air on your upper leg made you squeak. You gasped for air as you felt his thick fingers start to trace their way up the inside of your leg. The heat came rushing back up tenfold.

Javier still had his eyes fixed on yours, keeping you in place with his look as he slowly made his way up your thigh. When his thick fingers reached your panties, he hesitated for only a moment before hooking the leg band at the top of your thigh and pressing the pads of his index and middle finger to your slit. You were hot and soft and wet already, and you wanted him to keep pushing those fingers against you, make you open up for him like a flower.

"Do you want this?" He spoke the words in a low tone, trying to capture your attention, trying to grate through your haze.

His gaze was so intense that you closed your eyes and nodded vigorously. "Yes," you breathed. "Yes, I want this." You threw your head back and rested it against the door, exposing your throat to him like a sacrifice.

He responded by diving into your neck, abrading your soft skin with his mustache, planting kisses and small bites up one side of your throat and down the other. He kept his fingers right where they were, just at the entrance of you, and you desperately wanted to shift and wiggle and force his fingers inside where they belonged. A rush of wetness built and you could feel it soaking his fingers as they stayed maddeningly still, just out of reach of your greedy slit.

“Javi, I- Javier, please-” You couldn’t form the words, the thoughts that would make him move his hand. He just kept kissing your neck, biting his way up to your ear, your jaw, your chin, and then back down again to your collarbone. Then he tilted his head to the other side and did it again. How many times had he chewed up one side of your neck and down the other? Eight? Twelve? Twenty? You had lost count, feeling the heat and the desire rise in your chest.

You were still pinned against his door, palms flat behind you and trapped by the pressure of your own hips, head thrown back and fixed in place by Javier’s open-mouthed assault on your senses. You could barely breathe, let alone tell him the words that would convey how much you needed his fingers inside of you now. Just as you started to feel faint, he suddenly plunged his thick index and middle fingers inside as deep as he could, stopping only when the curled knuckles of his ring and pinky fingers hit resistance.

You gasped out a strangled cry, and he moved his hand from the door to cup it gently over your mouth. “No noise,” he growled against your ear. His voice was low and gravelly, serious and calm. How was he so calm while he was doing this to you? While he was tearing you apart at your jugular? While he was working his broad fingers inside of you and building up your waves of pleasure?

You shuddered and moaned a soft “Mmm-hmm…” against his fingers, indicating your compliance.

Suddenly there was space around you and a rush of cold against your crotch, and you blinked stupidly at the bright light and the change in temperature. Javier was gone, moving away from you to sit on the little leather sofa in the corner of his office.

He settled in, leaning back to open his belt and zipper. He looked at you with a hint of irritation. “Are you coming?” He jerked his head to call you over.

You gathered your wits and tried to blink away the haze he had left you in. You pushed up off the door and walked shakily over to him.

“Kneel down for me,” he grunted. You stepped around one long leg and kneeled in front of the sofa, settling your arms over his thighs. He pulled his erection out of his fly and pumped himself a few times to get ready.

“Don’t you want me to lock your door?” You looked at him with concern.

He froze and fixed his coffee-brown eyes on yours. You suddenly felt like you had done something wrong, upset him in some way.

“If you had been on time we wouldn’t have to lock the door. I would have taken you somewhere private and fucked you like a good girl. But you were late, and now you don’t get to come. You better get me off quickly before somebody needs me for something.”

You nodded and felt a little petulant. Now you would have to try to find time to go to the ladies room later, to work out your frustrations on your own fingers in silence so that nobody would hear you. You wouldn’t get to cry Javier’s name as you climaxed. But there was no sense in feeling wounded, being late had its consequences.

You got to work quickly, wrapping one hand around his base and bobbing up and down on the length of him, swirling your tongue over the head before plunging back down to take him as far back in your throat as you could.

You tried to move rapidly without sacrificing all of the little markers of attention that you loved to lavish on him. He was always so sensitive when you kitten-licked his slit, always groaned and shifted his hips just so when you ran the tip of your tongue firmly up the frenulum and switched to a flat, open-mouthed lick around his head. You also had to keep it clean, somehow keep things moist without letting excess saliva drip and dribble onto his pants. This whole thing was difficult and felt unfair, but then again, maybe next time you would be on time.

You pulled out all the stops, giving Javier every ounce of energy that you had, trying to bring him closer without rushing, fearful of getting caught and fired. Or worse yet, keeping your job and hearing all of the secondhand rumors that always seemed to swirl around Javier and his conquests. You kept your hand and mouth working, humming in frustration as your thoughts occupied you.

Suddenly Javi placed one large hand on your shoulder and grunted a low, “I’m coming.” You gave one last long suck as he released into your mouth, letting the salty fluid slip down your throat. You stayed attached to him at the head until you felt the eruption stop, then you pulled off, closing your lips around him to catch every last drop of liquid.

He didn’t look at you as he tucked himself back into his pants and rearranged his clothing. “You can go now.”

You wanted to pout and tell him how unfair it was, but you also knew the rules you had agreed to, the game that you were playing together. You stood up and brushed your skirt down, grazing your hands over your knees to make sure there was no dust on them. You crossed to the door and turned the handle. It was locked.

You looked back over your shoulder to Javier with surprise. He grinned, “I locked it behind your back while I was kissing your neck. I knew you wouldn’t notice.”

You laughed, grateful for his gesture of respect. You had been playing with a safety net under you after all. “Thank you,” you said wryly. “I’m glad it was locked after all.”

“Oh, no problem, babe.” Javier arched an eyebrow at you. “But next time you’re late? It won’t be.”

--- Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

My "all fics" tag list: Please DM me if you would like to be removed!

@anaaaispunk @justanotherblonde23 @gracie7209 @nicolethered @honestly-shite @driedgreentomatoes @dihra-vesa @1800-fight-me @the-queen-of-fools @juletheghoul

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#javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena #pedro pascal fanfiction #javier peña #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal fic #narcos fanfiction #narcos fanfic

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thisisthehardestthing · 3 years

Text

тоска, Tanaka x Reader, 18+

Written for The Smut Pile Server Collab: Mafia AU | MASTERLIST HERE.

тоска tus-ka: Russian, noun It is a dull ache of the soul, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, lovesickness.

Russian Mafia AU: Tanaka Ryu x A Reader OC Rating: E for explicit Warnings: Violence, Blood, Death, Oral sex, Public Sex, Grinding, Cheating, Denied Orgasm, Manipulation, YEARNING Word count: 11,752 Part 1 | Part 2

GLOSSARY

This is my baby. I have spent so much time writing this. I won’t give too big of an intro. Please enjoy.

Special thanks to: @joyousandverywarlike for being my ride-or-die beta, @pleasantanathema , @present-mel and @linestrider for hosting this collab, and everyone in the server for being amazing friends. I would not have been able to write this without any of you, and I truly mean that.

1.2

Part 1 - Valentina

The room is all rich browns and leather, an oiled hardwood floor, mahogany furniture and taxidermied bears. Against the wall, watching over everything with a bored expression is Daichi "The Bulldog" Sawamurov, Mafia Boss of the Bashkortoskaya. His brown eyes inspect his nails as another grunt echoes in the room. Beside him, you, Valentina Sawamurova, stand tall, a well-manicured hand hooked onto his bicep. In a neat line with arms clasped behind their backs stand six bratji, 'brothers', the hitmen of the Security team. They all watch as a shaved-haired man beats the shit out of a pariah.

Tanaka "Khazak" Ryunoslav wipes his tattooed knuckles, alternating X and O’s, onto a white handkerchief pulled from his neatly pressed slacks, staining the fabric red with blood. It is not his. In a simple chair at the centre of the room, a man -no, he doesn't deserve to be called a man- a boy slumps forward. His head hangs low as blood seeps from his brow, nose, mouth. A tooth lays in his drenched lap. Shivers run down Tanaka's spine as he takes in the defeated form of one of his boyevika.

"Huh? Nothing to say for yourself, predatel?" he questions, bruised knuckles tugging the fallen head of his ex-comrade up to peer into their eyes, almost swollen shut.

"I did not betray the Bratva, I swear on my babu-"

"You only swear on God and the Pakhan, traitor." Tanaka interrupts, releasing his grip so that the boy’s head falls back down in a large swing before lifting up with a painful groan. The Bulldog sighs, checks the time on a glinting gold Rolex. Your fingers slip from the bulging bicep to cross in front of your chest. He nods to you, keep watching, and you smile back, wide, catty, red lipstick violent against white teeth.

"Tanaka, enough. Finish him and dispose of the body. I am tired of his crying. Like a baby. Ha!"

"Da, Boss."

"Make sure his friends are sent a message, also."

"Of course."

Tanaka doesn't take his eyes off the trembling informant but acknowledges the Boss's departure with a casual wave. Most people wouldn't have the audacity to be so lax to the Head, but he isn't just anyone. He's the most trusted. More than you.

"Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet!" the rat cries, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and splashing onto the floor as he struggles against the bonds. Filthy. Fuck, how Tanaka loves it. He holds his hand out and a more competent, loyal, brat hands him a gun. His fingers curl around the weighted metal of the handle with a sigh, cocking it, and without hesitation, pulls the trigger.

There are only a few seconds of silence after the bang, just enough for Tanaka to relish in the feeling of complete calm after the storm. The hole between the eyes spits blood onto his crisp white shirt, before the lifeless body is untied by his boyevika in the room and dragged out to be 'made an example of'. One by one, the men clean up. A mop, bleach, breaking down the chair for firewood later. No loose ends, including The Khazak's shirt as he unbuttons it to be burnt with the chair. All the while, you watch from the sidelines, against the wall, as the wife of the Boss should.

Your toes tap rhythmically against the floor, the clackclackclack of your stilettoes a steady beat for the men to work to, but your eyes are on Tanaka's back. So muscular, so supple, still shivering from the endorphins of taking a life. The twin pistols tattooed on either shoulder blade seem armed, willing to fire again.

You watch as he drops down fluidly with crossed legs to sit on the floor in the very spot he killed the predatel with no remorse, taking deep lungfuls of air to relish in the feeling. He can feel your eyes on him, a smile threatening to spread across his lips as he turns his head over his shoulder to peer at your scrutinising gaze -which is very careful not to let your lust show. But he knows it's there. He can taste it on his heavy tongue.

One by one, the men walk from the room, leaving only the two of you in your husband's office. The oak door shuts.

"Tell me, Gadyuka, how was I?" Tanaka enquires, eyes closed and head straight so that you can see the back of his scalp move as he speaks. The shorn hair shimmies and waves with his words, washing over you in the vast expanse of the room. Your pseudonym, 'viper', poison in your veins.

"Same as always: bloody," you hum, pushing off the wall and walking in front of him to lean against the broad desk. "You enjoy making a mess, don't you, Ryu?" you use your nickname for him, not his name, or his pseudonym, but something more intimate. He barks out a laugh, chest shaking as he examines the backs of his knuckles with gleaming eyes.

"Blyat, you know damn well that I do."

Like a gunshot has just echoed once again, the silence in the room is deafening. Your gazes lock, his ocean-grey ones with your cat-like stare. From his position on the floor, he looks up at you. Your stocking-clad legs are inviting his hands to stroke up them, and he's lucky enough to see the hint of the garter strap under your short skirt. He licks his lips. You tap the desk behind you impatiently, nails clacking against the glossy hardwood.

"My husband is going away on business in a week."

"I know, I arranged security."

"You're not going with him?" you ask, eyebrow quirking, no longer tapping the table. Tanaka shakes his head, a coy smile pulling at the corner of his lips, dried blood cracking on his sharp jaw.

"Then where will you be, Khazak?"

The grin almost splits his face in half with his reply, "in your bed, Gadyuka."

His bluntness never fails to shock you, to send heat pooling between your thighs and your heart spasming beneath your ribs. You almost want to have him right there, on top of the ledgers and documents of the many businesses Daichi is in charge of. Tanaka places his strong hands on the floor, easily dragging his body to your feet where he sits once more, staring up with eyes cloudy like the spray of a hurricane. A palm wraps behind your right leg to pull it close to his lips, kissing the lycra, the apex of your kneecap. His touch ripples through your skin so that your chin tilts up, breaking the gravity of his eye contact.

"Careful, Ryunoslav, not here."

His teeth nip at the fabric.

"I can not wait a week to taste you, Val."

"The cameras-"

"Are off because of the interrogation. Only I have the code to enable them for this room."

Calloused palms drag up the backs of your thighs, the stocking tugging slightly as it catches, until they pass the band where they wrap around your thighs, secured with a garter. You almost beg him to feel higher, to grab the fold of your ass, instead, you bite your lip between your teeth in thought.

"Then we must be quick, get under the desk."

You don't tell him how unusual it would be if you were found to sit in your husband's chair, but with lust swimming from your thighs to drown your mind, it's not important.

Tanaka is always rowdier after a kill, high off adrenaline, energy flowing in his veins that wants to devour everything in its path. He prefers to devour you. To savour your taste with his head between your supple thighs, to feel you come undone around his quick-witted tongue. With you balancing so precariously on the edge of the leather office chair, he can barely contain his onslaught of touch, desperate to hear you moan in the sound-proofed room. He's tucked so tightly between your knees, his broad yet lean shoulders spreading you so that he sees the dampened lace beneath your skirt.

It never takes much to arouse you. He likes to think it's only him that can pull forth your wetness from your folds like the moon coaxing the tides. He doesn't waste time, doesn't stop to watch the string of slick connecting the fabric to your cunt as his thumbs pull it to the side. He licks a long stripe up your slit and moans into the taste like a man starved. It's times like these when you wish he had hair for you to grab on to, so you settle on gripping the edge of the mahogany desk until your knuckles pale and forearms burn.

His tongue dances between your folds, lapping up each new wave of wetness that touches the shore of the muscle, only nudging the bundle of nerves at the top with a slight jostle.

"Don't tease me, Ryu, not in here," you breathe out at him between his licks, to which he chuckles, head turning to muffle the laughter against your inner thigh.

"Prosti," he apologises, the grey in his eyes glimmering with childish glee, "I can't help it sometimes."

But he doesn't give you a chance to reply before his lips attach once more to your throbbing skin, wrapping around your swollen clit to suck greedily. Finally, he hears you moan, the sound kissing his sensitive ears like cool ocean spray. It's not loud, more constricted, but it's for him, because of him.

You feel how he sucks you into him, swallowing your heat and lust and desire with his mouth, having it all flow back into your body to stir at the whirlpool between your legs and behind your eyelids. It's torrential, dizzying, you're dragged beneath the waves, chest heaving as if you're drowning,

but then it stops

and the sea dies down, leaving your battered body behind.

Tanaka pulls away, silently. His palms close your legs, knees knocking together, his thumbs teasing circles against the bone. You're aching from your denied orgasm, the pained moan in your throat cutting off as a knock sounds in the room.

"Come in," you clear your throat, repeating the command.

One of Daichi's body guard's strides into the room, a look of shock on his face at your seat before he masks it quickly. His long brown hair is tied up neatly into a bun, a slight stubble on his chin tells you he hasn't slept properly in a few days. You can feel the heat radiating from your cheeks, feel the static in your hair that you smooth down. Tanaka keeps tracing shapes into your thighs, keeping the fire in your gut from extinguishing.

"Yes?" you thank Saint Mary that your voice doesn't tremble, "what is it?"

"Mrs. Sawamurova," he nods a greeting, "The Boss says he will take you out for dinner tonight and has sent me to escort you back to the main estate in preparations."

"Of course, I look forward to it."

You kick away Tanaka's hands, standing at the same time to walk around the table and follow the guard you know as Alexei Asahi from your husband's office. It means leaving The Khazak under the desk, along with a piece of your dignity.

***

Dinner is the kind with clinking glasses and soft chatter. The lighting is dim, intimate, with a soft glow that bounces off the crystal and silverware. As usual, the two of you are seated in the middle of the restaurant, the surrounding tables strategically blocking the view of you and Daichi from all the windows and doors, as well as the bodies seated in them. You can never be too careful, even if your husband owns the restaurant -or the entire town. To your left, behind Daichi and closest to the door, sits Tanaka.

"You look beautiful tonight, darling," Daichi says, taking a bite of his steak.

You do. The black silk dress lays flat against your chest, the deep v tailored perfectly. The tie behind your neck falls softly to your waist. Against your skin is a gold pendant, a coin pressed with the Sawamarov crest. Sleeveless and backless, the dress shows your beautiful viper tattoo curling down your right arm as though protecting you. It’s jaw opens near your wrist to bite anyone you may touch. You hold your glass of wine, swirling it before you sip.

"Thank you, my love. You bought me this dress for our first date."

"And that engagement ring on our second."

You swallow down your guilt, thighs clenching together, the silk fabric teasingly softly against your still-ignited skin. You give him a pointed stare, leaning forward ever so slightly to whisper over the table.

"I wouldn't call that a second date. We never left each other after the first."

Daichi laughs heartily, waves for another bottle of wine, eyes shining with the memory of the very active week in a skiing lodge. He hopes he can recreate some of it tonight, knowing he's been neglecting you, ignoring your needs. He glances down at the subtle curve of the fabric around your slight breast, the hint of the peony tattoo peeking under the edge of your neckline, low on your sternum; it’s the only delicate thing about you.

Daichi watches as you excuse yourself to use the restroom, the way your hips sway beneath the silk as though you have a secret. He frowns when the door closes, checking his watch for the time and pouring a shot of vodka to swallow down. You do have a secret. The waiter takes away the plates, bringing a simple dessert to share with the wine, and when you sit back down with a happy sigh, The Bulldog tries to sniff it out. He taps the table with two fingers and the nearest bodyguards turn slightly away to give you both privacy.

“I was told you were seated at my desk.”

A bite of mousse passes between your red lips with a small smile, eyes penetrating his gaze and not faltering.

“Can a wife not sit in her husband’s chair?”

“Nyet, you know this. Why?”

“Calm down, my love.”

He fixes his cuff links, leaning back in his chair so that the gold chain around his neck glints in the light. His strong brow shadows his darkening eyes, lips pressing into a thin line, and, true to his nickname, it seems as though his muscles inflate. It makes you melt to see him hard, pectorals and biceps wanting to burst through the fabric of his Armani shirt. The spoon clinks against the plate and you reach across the table, viper stretching to grab his hand and bring it to your lips with a soft kiss, red lipstick on his jewelled knuckles. As much as you want to flicker your gaze to the man behind your husband, you hold firm.

“It’s embarrassing, but I’ll tell you. Come closer so I can whisper,” you usher him in, and Daichi grunts but follows your suggestion. He has no reason to doubt you, yet his gut is telling him you were doing more than just resting your heeled feet. He watches your pink tongue lick your bottom lip, teeth cracking between them with a coy smile.

“As you know, it has been quite some time since we’ve, how should I put this, made love.”

“I know.”

“Had I known we were going to dine tonight, fuck tonight, I would not have.”

“Your point, Gadyuka.”

Your whisper turns into a low hum, right hand squeezing his and your left hand toying with the coin pendant around your neck. Butterflies swirl in your gut, but you kill them swiftly with venom. He can sniff out any insecurity.

“I was masturbating.”

“What?”

“I was masturbating. Touching myself. In your chair, by your desk, thinking of you. I was almost finished but then Alexei had knocked on the door and stopped it.”

The look on Daichi’s face can only be described as speechless, which he is not often. His mouth opens, eyes stormy as he pictures your flushed face. He remembers that glassy look your eyes adopt when you're close, far away in bliss. Your delicate palm touches his clean-shaven cheek, drawing his attention back to the restaurant, to you.

“How about we go home and finish what I started, huh?”

Daichi didn’t need to be told twice. Standing fluidly, everyone around him follows his movement. Your fur coat is draped over your shoulders, thick and warm, a crisp white. His hand is on the small of your back, leading you out of the restaurant with the haste of a man collecting a prize. The air is cold, snow shovelled aside as you climb into the car to feel heated lips pressing to your neck instantly. You laugh, locking your wrists behind his neck to capture his mouth with your own. Men are so easily convinced.

Part 2 - Tanaka

The frame rattles as Tanaka slams the door closed behind him. He tracks melting sludge onto the thin, rust-coloured welcome mat, the tip of his nose red with more than the kiss from the windchill. The heater of the cabin is turned on, the warmth a welcome refuge from the thick snow outside as he shrugs off his coat.

Tanaka doesn’t hide his thoughts and feelings. He’s the kind of guy that wears them on his sleeve, bares it all out there for everyone to see. When he’s angry, you can see the tips of his ears burn. When he’s thrilled, that shark-tooth grin spreads so wide across his face, his eyes close. And when he’s murderous, nothing and no one can stand in his way.

“Cyka blyat!” he shouts, punching the wall of his residence, missing the mirror by mere centimetres, his already bruised knuckles stinging with his rage. A slew of curse words tumbles from his lips, both from searing pain and soaring anger. The eyes on the back of his hands stare at him, judging.

Seeing Valentina out at dinner, looking so delectable, so sinful, Ryunoslav felt ravenous for just a taste of her skin. It was bad enough that he never got to feel her convulse on his tongue earlier, he had to watch her flirt with her husband. He knows the deal, that nothing can ever really happen between the two of them outside of sex, and if they were both to get caught, it would be his end. He understands, yet he can’t help his rising natural anger. The buzzing in his pants pocket pulls him from his internal struggle, and he relaxes his hands, feeling the half-moon indents in his palms hiss in relief.

“Da?" a pause, "I’m on my way.”

Daichi wants to see him; did they finish their ‘love-making’ so quickly? Tanaka catches his reflection in the mirror, massaging the centre of his furrowed brows to try dissipate some of his frustrations before grabbing his thick coat and making the five-minute trek to the main estate. He’s frozen to the bone by the time he arrives at the large mahogany doors, but his anger keeps his blood warm. He needs to be careful, to calm down.

***

The Boss is waiting for Tanaka in his oversized office, the door open ajar, letting a soft yellow light stream into the hallway. This one is different from where the interrogation took place that afternoon, yet it is decorated almost identically. A shiver runs down Ryunoslav’s neck as he remembers Valentina’s sumptuous taste, the supple skin of her thighs brushing against his jaw and the way her lips sighed his name. Fuck, he takes a deep breath, pacifying his licentious thoughts before rapping on the door with his knuckles. Daichi’s deep voice tells him to enter.

He sits there, behind the desk, the white shirt he wore to dinner wrinkled, half unbuttoned to show a burly chest. A gold chain with a coin and two wedding bands glints from the curled chest hair.

“Vodka?” Daichi asks, doe brown eyes glancing up, already pouring both him and his head of security a shot of the clear liquid.

“Spasiba,” Tanaka’s voice is a grumble, deep in his chest as he tries to warm his body but cool his temper.

The Bulldog leans back. They toast, downing the drink with a casual swallow. As per usual, Tanaka automatically refills the next round for the both of them, but it remains untouched. Instead, Daichi opens a ledger, fingers curling up the pages as he flips through the numbers and accounts.

“Sergei has told me we were underpaid last month.”

“Mm, I will talk with Yuuri to find out who.”

“Make sure you show them the repercussions.”

“Always.”

Tanaka cracks his knuckles, excited to teach yet another lesson in punctuality. Daichi eyes his most trusted brother, the way that cocky smirk appears at the thought of fists colliding with skin, but there’s something else underneath.

“Khazak, you’re angry,” Daichi concludes, reaching across the table for the vodka, motioning Ryunoslav to sit down across from him. The shorn-haired man shrugs, slinking into the leather seat, removing his black beenie to run his hand through the trimmed hair. He can’t lie to the Boss, but he can’t tell him the truth either.

“I am… frustrated.”

The pair cheers, the glasses clinking before thudding onto the leather ingrained into the top of the desk.

“Why?”

"Ha! Please, I do not know, Boss.”

Daichi lets out a hum, shifting forward in his chair so that the wheels creak beneath his weight.

“I think I know.”

Tanaka stays silent, keeping his stare level and curious with the Bulldog’s.

“You need a woman!” Daichi barks out, smacking the desk with a flat palm, laughing deeply so that it echoes in the quiet room and probably through the manor. Tanaka can’t help but join in with the infectious laughter, the vodka soothing his nerves, relaxing the tension in his jaw.

“You’re right. It’s been too long,” since I fucked your wife.

They pour another shot, the buzz of the first two beginning to hum pleasantly through their bodies.

“Next week I go to Georgia to see the business there. While I’m gone, bring a whore to your bed. You have my permission.”

“Thank you, Boss.” Tanaka says, his cock twitching at the thought of Valentina in his residence. She’s never been there longer than a few minutes, and never without Daichi in the ten years Ryunoslav has been working for the Sawamurov family, and the two he’s been fucking her. He can't help but fantasize about it.

They catch up in light-hearted talk, about the state of Russia and the business, that they don’t see her peer around the corner of the heavy door, black silk nightgown wrapped loosely around her frame to show the lace of lingerie beneath.

“Daichi, are you coming to bed?” Tanaka hears her say, Valentina’s voice caressing his sensitive ears, but it’s not for him. He turns around, both men shocked into sobriety when they see her leaning against the now open door.

“Ah yes! Sorry, my love! We lost track of time.” Daichi says, pushing up from his seat. Tanaka swallows, watches as her gaze floats from her husband’s to his own. He can see the pale blue of new bruises around the column of her throat, where Daichi probably sucked into the skin. Tanaka can’t help his smirk. She always did like it rough, and it means he can leave his own over those later.

“Khazak,” she greets with a curt nod, fixing the dropped shoulder of the gown to make herself more modest. “Don’t keep him too late, okay?”

“Mrs. Sawamurova, as you wish.”

Daichi chuckles from behind the desk, walking around to clap Tanaka on the shoulder.

“I may be the Pakhan, but Gadyuka here always has the last say, huh? Good night, Ryunoslav. Don’t forget to talk to Yuuri. And don’t forget what I said you can do.”

“Da, spakoyne noche, Boss.”

With a two-finger wave, Daichi walks out of the room, his hand travelling to the small of Valentina’s back as he leads her back to the bedroom. Tanaka takes one final shot, pulling his hat low over his ears as he prepares to walk back to his house.

***

“He said what?” Nishinoya Yuuri exclaims, cackling inside Tanaka’s small living room. His shorter counterpart smacks the armrest of the chair, the sound against the leather cracking like a whip.

“I can entertain a whore this weekend.”

Yuuri can’t believe his ears, face red with laughter, the file of the business owner coming up with short change forgotten on his lap. His bleached bangs hang in his eyes and he pushes it up, wiping tears with a deep breath.

Together, Ryunoslav and Yuuri make up the Elite Group within the Bashkortoskaya, Daichi’s most trusted men. Each one runs their own Brigade: Nishinoya the Support Group and, by default, oversees the entire Workforce, while Tanaka is head of Security and keeps everything running smoothly.

The Khazak’s sharp jaw pulses, cheeks red to resemble a heart as it beats in humility. He clenches and unclenches his jaw.

“In the years I’ve known you, you’ve never had a prostitute.”

"I've never needed one," Tanaka shrugs, stealing the manila folder to flip through the details. Simple enough. His men were already bringing the tinted black SUVs around for them to make a ‘house call’ to Ukai Keishin. He shrugs on his thick coat, the kind that’s easy to clean, and black leather gloves onto his hands, slipping knuckle dusters into his pocket. Just in case. He doubts he’ll need them. He waves Yuuri a goodbye as he hears the tyres crunch over the sleet of snow.

“Remember to pick up condoms while you’re out!” He hears his brother call out to him as the door closes and ice invades each inhale.

Tanaka grumbles under his breath, fiddling with the direction of the hot air coming through the car’s vents. Just what he needs is word getting around that he would be fucking someone while the Boss is gone. These kinds of things never stay quiet, and he knows it will reach Valentina’s ears within the day. He shivers to think how she will lash out at him if he actually invites one of Daichi’s prostitutes back to his bed. The girls at those establishments can’t even hold a candle to her beauty or skill.

Prostitution is a lucrative business and one of the main sources of income, other than drug smuggling and the many (legal and illegal) casinos and tech companies owned by the Sawamurov’s. Ukai's particular business—and why The Boss is so invested in it—is a front for a prostitution call-centre. According to performance, they should've made a profit for the month past. Usually, Tanaka wouldn't make an appearance personally, delegating the task to his experienced team members, who might even give the order to the security brigades that they run. However, he is glad to get out of the estate grounds and think of something other than Val’s voluptuous lips and the swell of her breasts from beneath that black lingerie last night.

***

The Sawamurov's reach controlled all of Bashkortostan, a republic within Russia nestled between the picturesque Ural mountain range and the Volga river. Tanaka watches as the trees surrounding the estate give way to highway and grassland before the small town of Belebey comes into view. It's all Daichi's, and in turn, all Val’s.

The town is quiet, the late morning sky a dark grey with clouds that make the winter more formidable. Tanaka wouldn't have it any other way. They pull up to the slightly rundown storefront, graffiti against the wall with crude swear words act as a greeting. He snorts, watching as the glossy black SUV's reflect in the windows as though looking into a parallel world. Inside he can see movement, a tall man in a white apron walking around the counter to open the door. Confident.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Ukai shouts out, arms crossed over his chest to protect his fingers from the stinging cold. Tanaka doesn't answer, tucking his chin into his scarf as he observes the man. He's older, bleached blonde with honey eyes that seem more solid, hardened. On his forearms are scars, his flannel shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a tattoo of a web with a downwards facing spider: recovered drug addict.

"We've come to collect," one of the lackeys says in his boss's place.

Ukai steps aside to let them in, sighing deeply, flicking a cigarette to the moist ground, and leading them to a back room where there's a round table with a few wooden chairs. Papers litter the room, boxes of unpacked stock are piled in a corner. The place is a shithole.

"Can I get you anything? Vodka, cigarette?"

"Sit, Ukai." Tanaka speaks, gesturing to the nearest chair, unbuttoning his coat to drop it onto the table, his beanie and scarf piling on top of it. "We're here for business."

Ukai collapses down, slouching casually as he stares at the leader of the men. Ryunoslav drags a chair in front of the debtor, spinning it on a single leg so that he leans against the backrest as he sits with his legs spread out on either side. A sliver of gold chain catches the fluorescent lighting under his simple suit shirt, matching the multiple piercings in Ukai's right ear.

"You did not pay the full amount of February."

"Correct."

"Why?"

"I couldn't."

The man's blunt lie is shocking to Tanaka, refreshing from the usual quivering imbeciles, and he feels the need to suppress a smile that threatens to reveal itself. Instead, he keeps his tone cynical.

"Was the month not profitable, Ukai? Men get lonely in February, their beds cold."

Ukai shrugs, smoothing out the wrinkles in his apron, eyeing the handsome shaved hair man with intrigue. Tanaka feels a ripple down his spine. "For the whores? Yes, it was profitable. But my business was not."

"So you used the money for the Bashkortoskaya to save your ass from bills?" Tanaka begins to laugh, his wide mouth swallowing the sky as his chin tilts up. He stares straight at the man once more, "you should've paid us first."

"Ah, but then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of your visit. I am touched an Avtoritet will come to see me personally. You are better looking than I thought you would be, younger."

Tanaka raises an eyebrow at the flirtatious comment, a very open individual. He sees some of his subordinates shift uncomfortably in his peripheral, unsure of how to proceed. He drums his fingers on the back of the chair, the beat steady like his heart.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, I'm not one of your kind."

"And what kind is that?"

"Gay."

Ukai chuckles, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his apron pocket, offering one to Ryunoslav who instead takes the full box, holding it up for someone to confiscate. He stands, walking to inspect the stacked boxes around the room. Ukai swallows; he knows not to push his luck too far.

"Are you going to kill me if I don't pay?"

"Hm, nyet, not yet. Are these fresh?" Tanaka holds up a dozen eggs, the green carton sickly. He doesn't wait for the reply, tearing it open and tossing one to the ground with a resounding crunch, the yolk bleeding into the tile grates.

"Listen, Ukai," splat, "you will pay the balance," splat, "by the end of this week," Tanaka walks closer with each drop of the egg until he's next to the grocery store owner. Ukai sits upright, a cool gaze on Tanaka's tattooed hands as they stroke the shell of the brown eggs. The crosses and circles are targets, his hands the weapons.

"Or your head, will look like these eggs." Tanaka drops the entire carton on the ground, the bright yellow spilling out and pooling beneath Tanaka's black boots. "Vy ponimayete?"

"Da, understood."

"Good. I hope I will not need to see you again."

On his way out of the store, Tanaka picks up a box of condoms from the aisle.

Part 3 - Valentina

Friday cannot come fast enough... so that you can throttle your lover.

The double-pane french doors to the balcony shine with frost, the sky beyond dark and unforgiving, much like the irritation boiling inside you. It’s the last night; Daichi leaves on the first flight to Georgia tomorrow morning to meet with the Vashadze, your father and owners of half the Casinos under your combined empire. Your marriage three years ago was the biggest news since the raid on the Uhaluba club in Prague, 1995. Together, your families control prositution, drug smuggling, money laundering, the list goes on. Behind the scenes, of course.

Up front, Daichi is a wealthy investor of tech: Facebook, Tesla, oil companies in the Middle East and Serbia, whereas your father is a top Politician and Minister in Georgia, maintaining his position with dirt he’s collected on those with darker tastes and kinks in the underworld.

“Supply snakes with a meal, and you’ll have them all by the fangs,” your father regularly told you over dinners since you were thirteen, when he began to show you the truth behind his wealth, once your mother passed away.

It’s how you got your nickname. It was the first thing you said to Daichi, before he took you out, before he became The Boss . You were eighteen when you laid eyes upon that hulking mass of muscle. He asked how you could be so beautiful, and you parroted your father’s words. He knew from that moment on that you were dangerous, poisonous, and he had to have you.

When you were twenty-one, you met Daichi again, this time in an underground gambling soiree. You were the host, of course. The felt green betting mats stood out in stark contrast against the white dress code and the dark wooden tables. You wore black. Translucent red dice swirled between your fingers expertly before you rolled snake eyes.

“Bad luck,” Daichi commented over your shoulder, spiced wood and tobacco tickling your nose. You sipped a vodka martini with a twist. There was always a twist with you.

“It’ll be fine, I own the club,” you shrugged, cashing out with the chips you owed and strolling back to the bar where another drink awaited you. Even now, you could remember Tanaka Ryunoslav hovering behind Daichi, drinking in the sight of your curves, the red of your lipstick and the wit of your tongue. A lot less subtle then than now.

If you closed your eyes, you could very easily conjure the tapping of his heels, the eager look in the Young Khazak’s eyes at being surrounded by some of the most powerful men in Eastern Europe. You could even taste the vodka on his tongue that you sucked down your throat in a supply room all those years ago.

Back then, that bout of casual sex meant nothing. You married Daichi four years later, when your paths crossed once more at twenty-five, the turf wars between neighbouring families becoming too much to bear for Eastern Europe. You were lucky Daichi was--is so exceedingly handsome. Interesting. Smart. Powerful. However, so is your father. And you never wanted to marry your father.

“Darling?” Daichi’s voice calls you out of your pacing when he walks into the room, the silk of your dressing gown swooping around your feet as you stand still. “Everything alright?”

“Da, sorry, you know I get nervous when you fly,” you lie quickly, easily, turning your back on him to close the curtain and shut out the irritation of outside, the faint golden glow of Tanaka’s cabin sealed away. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Mm, yes, I know. Relax a little. When I am back we have that gala. Is your dress finished?”

You give him a pointed glance, turning down the bedsheets and unravelling the delicate bow of the robe to climb under the covers with bare skin.

“Weeks ago, Daichi. You were at the final fitting.”

He nods as if he remembers, but you know his mind is elsewhere, much like your body would rather be.

“Are you coming to bed early tonight?”

For several days, weeks, months, Daichi has been sneaking into your bed too late in the evening. Or early in the morning. The business is doing fine, there’s no cause for him to spend some nights not even at home. Some part of you--a small, small part--misses his thick muscles wrapped around your body.

“Later, there is something I have to do first.”

You merely hum, settling yourself down and dimming the lamp beside the bed until the room bathes in a soft glow. With your eyes closed, you don’t see him leave, the door clicking shut. Instead, you picture red, your empty bed, and across the snow, a cocky smile letting a too thin, sallow-skinned blank face past their threshold. He will have to have a hooker, Daichi will ask him all about it. Motherfucker. You turn the light off.

***

The Bulldog kisses your forehead when he wakes, sleeping behind you for a total of an hour. You’d woken up slightly when he clambered into the bed, smelling freshly of his cologne from a recent shower, at three in the morning.

“I’ll be back soon,” he whispers into your ear, not staying to hear your ‘be safe’ in response, still mumbling from a fitful night’s sleep.

However, you don’t drift off again, eyes suddenly open and staring into your nightstand where a cool glass of water rests. It’s still, silent and calm. You turn over to the right, seeing the empty space where Daichi’s body barely left a mark, his lamp still buzzing. It isn’t until you hear cars pull away in the driveway that you sit up, wiping the remnants of sleep delicately from your eyes to sigh. It’s going to be a long day.

Dumdumdum, three quick taps echo in the quiet, the door creaking open as a curious head peeks around the side. Ryunoslav smiles when he sees you perched in bed. His eyes drift from your face, down your neck and to your breasts, the skin pricking up under his sharp gaze. You could strike a match and it would erupt into flames.

“What are you doing here, Ryu?” you ask. It comes out more accusatory than you would’ve liked but he just grins, teeth ready to bite any jab you throw.

“I told you I’d come, didn’t I?”

For a raucous man, Tanaka moves stealthily across your floor, kicking off his boots before planting two large hands onto the edge of the mattress. You can feel it dip with his weight as he crawls, veiny forearms caging in your legs, trapping you. He sways side to side, spine rolling like a panther about to pounce. You kick his left hand out so he falls, crashing and rolling to the spot where Daichi laid with a laugh, peering up at you with fervent energy.

“His bed isn’t even cold yet.”

“Ha! He barely slept here, Val.”

“And you will?” Skepticism laces your words, the irritation of last night seeping into your thoughts once more. His smile finally drops.

“Nyet, of course not. You know that.” Tanaka twists around so that he’s cross-legged, facing you fully, eyes searching your own. “I’ll just fuck you.” You scoff.

His hands plant themselves on your thighs, the eyes tattooed on the back staring at the ceiling, observing the heavens. They travel gradually up to where the sheet lays scrunched around your waist, fingers pinching the edges.

“Give you more pleasure than he does before going back to my lonely bed. Without you.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ll be lonely for much longer, Ryunoslav.”

Tanaka chuckles under his breath, shaking his head as he pulls the duvet down to unveil you before him. His chest rises and falls so fluidly with his deep breaths, a movement so calm, yet he freezes when his eyes rake over your luscious figure.

“How the Boss does not have you under lock and key astounds me.”

Your hand slaps across his face, a fire burning from your palm down to your groin.

“I will not be someone’s pet.”

Lust overcomes Tanaka’s pupils, his lips curling up in ecstasy at your stern tone, his cheek pounding along with his heart.

“No, you will not.”

Then, his mouth captures yours.

Hot, hungry, the spring in his spine expands so that his chest presses against yours, jaws stretching up. Desperate hands clutch at your neck, the fold of your hips, anything to pull himself tight to your body, anchored to your skin and bed. It’s sinful, even whores refuse to do something so intimate. You feel that heavy tongue drag against your bottom lip, asking your permission to enter. You welcome it, savoring the taste of Ryu’s desire, his burning passion. His hands drift to tug at the firm muscle of your ass, hauling you to kneel over his lap, supporting and kneading it to a rhythm that you’ve come to know so well.

Your fingers clumsily unbutton his pants, slipping under the fabric to feel your undoing. Tanaka moans into your mouth, growing harder, fiercer in his touch with each stroke up the length of his cock. He wastes no time, patience not his strongest virtue. You detach from the kiss with a heavy sigh, forehead pressing to his as you melt over his fingers. Both your hands press into his shoulders, stabilising your vibrating body from how he rolls your clit between his fingers. He’s too clothed, not enough of his skin available for you to stroke and scratch and bite. You claw at the back of his long-sleeved shirt, he rips it off.

With the shirt discarded over his boots, Ryu’s warm hands wrap around your waist, tilting you back until you lay open for him. His pants come off next, flung haphazardly to the floor so that he kneels before you shamelessly, eyes raking down your naked body. By now, he’s committed every curve, every artwork on your skin to memory that he can draw you with his eyes closed. The peony tattoo at the base of your sternum a siren’s call for his mouth to taste. The heat of his body is a furnace, flames licking your skin as he kisses down your chest, inhaling your intoxicating scent.

“Why don’t I finish what I started, huh?” he parrots the words you whispered to Daichi a week ago. Your gut clenches, your cunt tightening to know he heard that. You almost want to beg him to devour you, but that’s not who you are. Your hand strokes over his shorn hair, his eyes closing as your nails rake against his scalp. Savagely, you squeeze his jaw, fingers pursing his lips, the viper tattooed near your wrist ready to strike.

“So snarky. I can think of more important uses for your tongue, Ryunoslav.”

He grins, the round of his cheeks tensing in your clutches before he turns his head to nibble at your thumb, sucking it down.

“As you wish, Valentina.”

Tanaka kisses down your stomach to the apex of your mound, squirming until he nestles between your outstretched legs and his arms wrap themselves under your thighs, an iron grip on your hips. You brace yourself to feel that vacuum, that eternally deep suction that clings onto your soul and merges it with his, but all you can feel are soft exhales. He stares up at you, an indiscernible look on his face.

“Ryu?” you come onto your elbows. The very sight of the man between your legs is enough to make you shiver. He plants a kiss to your thigh.

“You know I will do anything for us, for you.”

“I know.”

“Even fuck a whore once if it means I get to stay with you for just another more day.”

You grit your teeth, knowing it’s true, and although he shouldn’t be saying such intimate things—that you can never truly be together—it’s what you needed to hear. You remain silent, watching him as he lowers his mouth to your seeping skin, licking languidly to taste you on his entire tongue. It’s flat, wet, heavy, pressing into you so solidly you fall back down, eyes closing as you capsize. Tanaka demands whimpers, his name, with his touch. He’s insatiable, greedy to feel you come undone completely, this time with no interruption.

Two fingers test your waters, slipping between the waves of your folds while his tongue drags you under. You know his ocean-grey eyes never stop watching as you writhe under his ministrations. You can barely move, clenching around his skilled hand as though keeping him anchored in place. You want him, need him. The first pulse of your walls spurs him on, stirring the storm in your groin, until you can barely contain your moans for him. Your orgasm batters against the shores of your body, powerful waves washing over you and dissolving all your stress and irritation, leaving you gasping and heavy, weighted down and sluggish.

“Fuck, baby,” Tanaka swears against your skin, still pumping his fingers against sopping skin to feel how you contract around him. The stimulation almost has you in tears and you grab his wrist to pull him away, closer to your lips. You swallow down your tang, the kiss passionate yet lazy as he ruts against your tingling clit, hands wrapped around your head to almost cradle you against him.

“You were very loud,” he chides, but you know he loves it, the danger. “You are lucky no one is in the house tonight.”

“Do you want me to keep quiet, Ryu?” you moan into his mouth, biting his lip against a particularly rough thrust.

“Never,” he grins, sitting back so that he can observe your glassy look, you pout at the sudden chill. There’s a moment of protest, his body too far away, before your eyes roll back and you’re stretched out, overflowing with the feeling of him, your vision black.

Part 4 - Tanaka

Ryunoslav wishes he could lay behind Valentina eternally, watch as she wakes and stretches, but he knows he can’t. He unfurls his lithe chest from her back, and stands to dress before sneaking back to his cabin. The cold air nips at his cheeks, but it would take a snowstorm and him being naked to freeze over the warmth radiating from inside his chest. Under the cover of dark, even at 6:00 am, Tanaka makes it back without being seen, like he always does.

He winces as he shrugs off his coat and scarf, the scrapes on his back from her nails stinging beautifully. His thoughts drift: what she must think when she wakes up in the mornings to find the bed empty, either without him or Daichi, and whether he’ll ever see her under his own covers, laughing while sipping a coffee on a summer morning. Ryu shakes his head to absolve those thoughts, it’s dangerous to linger on dreams for too long.

The box of condoms on his dining table stand out like a sore thumb, and he shoves it into the closest drawer, the eyes on his hands giving him a mocking stare. ‘What would your mother say?’ it blinks at him, pulling his mouth into a scowl. Turning the kettle on, he pulls up Sergei’s number on his phone.

“Khazak, it’s early.” Sergei’s morning gruff is thick, coughing lightly as he clears his throat.

“Dobre utra, Sergei, sorry, I know.”

“What is it you need?” Tanaka can almost picture the cool gaze, the pinched brows beneath silver hair that the bookkeeper has on whenever speaking to the head of security.

“Ukai, has all been fixed?”

“Uka– Ryunoslav, could this not wait until a more reasonable hour? Yes, it’s resolved. The guy wired the remaining amount last night. God knows where he got it from but I don’t care.”

Tanaka opens his mouth to speak, but Sergei cuts him off.

“I swear, call me this early again and I’ll hang you from your ears.”

The Khazak laughs, wishing the old ‘friend’ a good day as he hangs up. That clears up most of Tanaka’s schedule, and he falls onto his bed, groaning when the whistle of the kettle rings loud in the room. It’s too similar to the alarm bells in his mind when he thinks about the call he has to make later.

***

Ryunoslav shivers, peeling off the used condom to tie a knot in it. It wasn’t too bad. With the prostitute's ass in the air, he could almost picture it was her. He watches as she pulls up stockings and a dress, her only layers beneath a thick coat and hat. The prostitute looks over her shoulder with her hand resting on the door, appreciating the view. Tanaka sits on the edge of the bed, naked and bored.

“This was fun. Call me anytime,” she purrs with a wink, pleasantly fucked, before leaving. He grumbles, falling backwards so that air whooshes past his ears as the mattress creaks under his body.

She’s going to kill me, he thinks, picturing Val’s face with the disapproving glare that always seems to rile him up. A part of him wonders if he went through with it purely to piss her off, make her mad with jealousy, just like he can be.

***

Tanaka must’ve dozed off because he wakes to the sound of his front door being pounded, the clock next to it showing quarter to midnight. He swears, scrambling to toss the condom he left on his thigh into the open basket bin and pull on the nearest pair of pants. He has just finished tying the drawstring when the door swings open and Valentina strides in, arms crossed in front of her chest, white flakes of snow on the Hermès scarf wrapped around her hair.

He’s frozen, a deer in headlights, silent at seeing her standing in his doorway, both beautiful and deadly. He watches as analytical eyes scan the single-roomed cabin, finally taking it all in. For some reason, he feels shy, a blush creeping up his neck. He has always wanted her in here, but now that she is, he feels like it’s not good enough.

Tanaka follows her gaze: sweeping from the small kitchen, to the two person table and chair, in the corner are the leather armrests and a coffee table. Directly by Val’s right is a mirror and coat hook, the wooden-heated walls sparsely decorated with a map of old USSR and new Russia, along with a single lily in a simple frame. He sees her stare past him, to the arch that separates his bedroom, analysing the unmade bed. Tendrils of cold sweep by him from the still-open door. She does not move a muscle.

Valentina opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it, walking to the kitchen counter where a half-finished bottle of vodka sits. Tanaka’s door shuts with a click, and when he turns, she has already pulled out a shot glass.

Has she been drinking? he thinks, rubbing the goosebumps up his arms, the callouses scraping some still-healing scabs. He gets his answer when she barely winces her swallow.

“Do you want to sit down?” Tanaka asks, approaching carefully, gesturing to the sofa; she’s a cornered viper. Val turnz, leaning against the marble top, coat still wrapped tightly around her body. Her lips purse, and he stills, knowing she’s either trying to put together a sentence or hold back uttering one. But Ryunoslav doesn’t know her to hold back often.

“Did you do it?”

He didn’t expect the question to flow from her lips so calmly, hushed and smooth like an expert interrogator; the way he would speak. There’s no point in lying.

“Da,” Tanaka steps closer, reaching past Val’s head for a second shot glass. She makes no effort to hand him the bottle. “It’s just sex.”

He almost recoils from the daggers in her stare, pupils shrinking into slits that can cut through him. I should not have said that, but if he lied, he wonders if she’d be just as furious. Valentina looks down and spots the discarded condom, sighing while twisting open the cap of the bottle to drink straight from the lip, past the point of using a glass.

“I thought of you.”

A faint flicker of relief, but then she laughs, curt and cold.

“I’m so flattered, Ryunoslav, thank you.”

He feels his heart tighten, forehead pounding, with more than guilt.

“Blyat, what the fuck else was I supposed to do?” he snorts, storm brewing in his eyes, fists clenching. His face is so close to hers, he can smell the alcohol on her breath. He can see her searching for answers within his own.

“I don’t know, but,” her eyes close, the small wrinkle between her brow dissolving with an inhale. The exhale has them open, blank, her lips in a neutral line. Somehow, this scares Ryunoslav even more. He feels his heart hammer beneath his ribs, either trying to escape or to jump into her palms. The bottle is no longer in them, but the belt of her coat, pulling it loose so that it unfurls from her chest. He see’s skin, a clavicle, ripe mounds of breasts. The flower tattoo peaks out from the shadow until it disappears and the top of underwear wraps around her waist. She’s not wearing the Family pendant. When the coat drops off her shoulders--the wool scrunching into a thick pile at her feet--he notices she is still wearing boots, but legs bare; she used the underground passage to get to his cabin.

“If you prefer to fuck a shlyukha, you just had to say so.” Valentina says, fingers trailing up the skin of her waist while keeping his gaze. Tanaka can’t respond, doesn’t want to, anything he says is fuel to her wildfire. “I can be a whore.”

She’s raging, the very air around her too thick for Tanaka to breathe easily, and when she takes a step forward, he imitates backward. He’s controlled by her until he collapses into his leather armchair and she towers over him, bare-breasted and deadly.

Valentina’s fingers tug at the knot of the scarf, slipping the silk through her fingers as she regards the man before her, twisting it into a tight coil until ready to spring, like her.

It’s those eyes, she realises. Stormy, grey, like a tumultuous ocean swallowing her body whole, ravaging and cleansing her all at once. She can’t stand to see them now. Tanaka doesn’t protest when she leans over him, unfurling the scarf to tie it around his head, blindfolding him. Ostensibly for control. She knows otherwise that his eyes will make her crumble down, dissolve into their depths.

Tanaka’s heart thumps, pressing against his ribcage furiously enough to shake his chest. Any argument cut off in his throat when he feels Valentina’s lips against it. His body begins to cover in a cold sweat, confused with the hurdling emotions inside: panic, guilt, anger, and underneath it all, arousal.

“Have you even showered yet,” she whispers against his skin, “or is this taste hers?” A hot tongue drags up the side of his neck until it touches the puff of his earlobe, teeth nipping. If Tanaka looks down past the tip of his nose, he can see her palms gripping the arms of the chair, the plush leather folding in. He can see the curve of her shoulder and the tail of the snake as she leans into him. And he can feel the warmth of her skin when she straddles him.

It’s not tight, her ass seated on the edge of his knees, but he feels heat anyway. It rolls off Valentina’s body in waves, washing over him so that he begins to pant. Nails rake up his chest, goosebumps pricking on his forearms which he keeps still, away from reaching out to wrap around her and bring their bodies together.

“Did she touch you like this?” Valentina’s hand wraps around his throat, the other drifting to the tent in Tanaka’s sweatpants. When she stops moving, he realises she expects a response.

“Nyet,” he grunts out, erection twitching beneath her palm, the vein in his neck swelling.

A brisk exhale fans over his face, then he smells the peppercorn and vanilla of her skin as she lifts from his knees. She must be close, the static between his lips and her stomach electric. He bites his tongue to stop from tasting her skin. When she falls, her hand had shifted his erection from the loose constraints of his pants, free and standing to attention. There’s fire and rain, and Tanaka peers down to make out the black of Valentina’s underwear clinging to her slick folds, nestled against his groin. It provides slight relief, knowing she is aroused like him.

She begins to roll her hips. On instinct, Tanaka shifts down into a slouch to bring her higher, to feel more friction. His fingers jump where they rest on the chair, fighting not to grab at her, palms sweating. For Valentina, this is easy. Men are so responsive, so easy to lead and dissuade, and fuck. They treat sex as though it is nothing.

It’s sex, Ryunoslav’s words echo in her hazy mind, her hands flying to his shoulders as though to bring her back to her actions. Focus on the movement, it tells her, and she grinds down onto him. She feels as he pants against her neck, her breasts moving to press against his chest so that he can feel all of her at once, reminded of what he missed. The jealousy in her heart pains her, knowing that it’s irrational to feel ownership over a man that is not truly her’s. But she feels it regardless. She wants him completely.

His neck is thick beneath her palm, veins beating steadily in time with the grinding of her hips. The line of her folds wrap around him, dragging up and down his length that when she looks down, she sees it weep. The tightening of his gut tells her even more and she grins almost wickedly.

“Does it feel good, Ryu?” she whispers against him, lips hovering teasingly above his own. Tanaka tries to close the gap. She’s near, yet so far away, unreachable in her anger.

“No, you don’t get to kiss me. Not when I’m your whore.”

He moans then, shamefully turned on by the hard edge of her voice and the soft skin wrapped around him, coaxing something out from within.

“Val,” he utters her name under his breath, the fog in his mind not clearing as it builds higher, tighter. She can feel the storm brewing. His shoulders tense, forearms hovering as though-

“Do you want to touch me?” she bites at his ear, one of his most sensitive features. It takes Tanaka everything to hold back, his hips thrusting up desperately.

“Yes. God, yes.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Valentina watches as the gold, browns and pinks of her scarf wrinkle with his frown.

“You never said I could.”

She falters for a moment, taken aback by the worship and strain in his voice. This is why she covered his eyes, she never knew she had to gag him as well. Some of the ice in her heart begins to melt, dripping down her chest like the sweat on Ryunoslav’s forehead.

“Touch me.”

His hands are on her instantly. With her back under his calloused palms, he can feel every movement of her waist, her hips. He strokes up, her body memerised so thoroughly he can paint a replica of her in his mind. With the eyes tattooed on the back of his hands, he sees her. It was the last push he needed, the rain clouds in his mind bursting as he spills a storm over his abdomen, finding clarity.

It’s wet, warm and cold simultaneously. He feels Valentina’s forehead fall to his shoulder, her spine shaking. There’s a sniff, the smallest of tears leaking into the dips of his muscled shoulders. With one hand, he presses her tightly, his ejaculation spreading messily between their bodies, the other rips the scarf from his eyes so he can drink in the sight of her, his nose nuzzled into her hair.

“Val...” he mumbles against her skin, fingers combing through the hair at her nape, lips finding contact with her neck, then temple. “Look at me, pazolvste.”

And when she does, the world stops. He tries to read the swirl of emotions in her eyes. Is it exhaustion? Arousal? Defeat? All three? Tanaka brushes sweaty strands from her neck, forehead, smoothing down the hair. Valentina glances at his lips, or her eyes drop, either way, with the next inhale, their lips meet.

Part 5 - Valentina

Tanaka tastes different. Tangy and bitter, the kind that makes you want to tear away, only to constantly come back for another sip, addicted. You’re sticky, the sweat from his chest and the spill of his seed spreading against your stomach, screaming at you to separate from him. Everything is telling you to stop.

But you can’t

And you never want to. His tongue swipes across the seam of your lips, and you happily oblige, too weary from the rollercoaster of emotions that had ripped through you to fight for dominance. Tanaka, however, doesn’t seem to mind, your tongues intertwining so seamlessly, you briefly wonder if you’ll ever separate them again.

He pulls apart to breathe, chest still heaving from his orgasm and your mind games. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, you realise what you’ve done, how full of blind rage and hurt you were. Tanaka registers the panic in your eyes, the way your mouth opens to say,

“I’m sorry.”

You’re suddenly smaller, eyes downcast to stare at his chest, tracing the outline of the Georgian cross tattooed over his heart, the eight point star on each shoulder beneath his collarbones, reminding you that you’re in a world of thieves. That you yourself are one, and you crossed a boundary tonight that you’ve never crossed before. In his residence. He lifts your chin with a steady finger, forcing you to stare into still, open waters.

“It’s okay.”

But it’s not, you’re not okay. Tanaka must’ve sensed the growing unease as you shift on his lap, knees still pressed tightly to his hips, his softened dick lazing against your groin.

“I would’ve stopped you if I didn’t want it,” his voice is a hushed whisper, washing over you.

“I should not have come here tonight.”

“I’m happy you did, Gadyuka.”

For some reason, you believe him, the tides in his eyes pulling you closer so that once again your lips melt into his and your heart drums in your throat. Ryunoslav unzips your boots, letting them drop unceremoniously to the floor. His hands find purchase beneath your rear, and he stands, lifting you so easily as he carries you through a small door and into the bathroom.

It smells like him: salty, humid, yet crisp, like cold mist when the seasons change. You reluctantly break apart when your feet touch the cool tile, and you look around while Ryu draws a bath. There’s no mirror over the sink--instead on the tiled wall opposite the shower--just a shelf with his electric razor, toothbrush and some creams. The thought that you’d like to shave his head flits across your mind, but you shake it out, turning to watch him fill a simple wooden bathtub with steaming water.

“Are you going to wash me like a child?” you ask, eyebrows raising to show your amusement. He chuckles, his eyes matching your teasing tone, the tension of before dissolving with the mist in the air.

“Nyet, unless you want me to,” he muses, eyes drifting across the splattered cotton against your skin. “You are dirty.”

You lick your teeth, taking in how he’s seated on the edge, sweatpants still haphazardly down his legs to show a hint of the tattoos and scars on the tops of his thighs, “so are you.”

He holds his arms out and you move to stand between his knees, warm hands trailing up your hamstrings, over the cups of your cheeks and peeling down your soiled black thong. You feel… calm, the rage and guilt subsiding to leave an empty stillness in its place, in your gut, where he rests his forehead and your fingers scrape his scalp.

You bathe first, Tanaka’s rough hands scraping away grime, before you switch and run your hands over his corded muscles. The moment is too intimate to speak, both of you barely even breathing as he wraps a towel around his waist and pulls a too long t-shirt over your head. It’s only when you’re out of the confines of the bathroom that he breaks the silence.

“You’ll have to destroy the shirt when you leave,” Ryu observes, tugging at the shoulder seam so that the neckline centers on your body instead of dropping over one shoulder.

“Do you want me to leave?” you counter, crossing your arms over your chest, fingers drumming in a quick beat against your forearms.

“Never.”

Shrugging, you turn on your heel and stride to the messy bed, ignoring the way your stomach flips as it remembers who was the last woman to touch it--that it wasn’t you--and climb onto the mattress. For the first time, you see Tanaka completely taken by surprise. He’s close to asking you ‘why?’ but thinks against it, hurtling after you to pull you into his arms, against his chest.

This is unchartered waters, the bed a dinghy and in his room are endless possibilities. But that’s where it starts and ends. You drag your fingers lazily up his forearm, over a few scars, tracing the bouquet of lilies drawn in thick black lines that stand off his skin; prison tattoos seldom heal flat.

“What does this mean?” you stare up at him, curious as you’ve never had much time to talk with him before, to delve deeper past your lust for each other. Ryunoslav clears his throat.

“It’s for my home,” he mumbles, nose moving to your hair, his eyes clouding over as he watches your fingers. “And my mother.”

The way he explains the beauty of the wild lilies in his home village of Kazakhstan, the bouquet his mother would pluck and keep on their table, sends shivers down your spine. Why would he ever have run away? You learn he has a sister, Saeko, who left with him and fell into the life of the thieves before him, and instead, he went to prison.

In this little bubble, you feel inexplicably warm, cosy, like the world has fallen away. You tell him about your own mother, how her eyes were incredibly warm and the colour of amber, but she never smiled. About how you grew up in Georgia surrounded by powerful men and strived to be just as important one day. Ryunoslav smiled at that, kissing your wrist where the fangs of the snake bit into.

He tells you about the years he spent in and out of juvenile prison in Moscow, unfurling the duvet to explain that each cathedral dome tattooed upon his leg meant time served. He had four. The rose on his left bicep meant he turned 18 in prison.

“The Boss found me a month after,” he recalls, eyes far away, “I’m forever thankful. I was very sick from the tattoo and I would have died if he didn’t take me away.”

Daichi, a part of you whispers. With the thought of your husband, you tense up, shifting until you’re sitting with your hand pressed to Tanaka’s beating heart.

“Ryunoslav,” you call, looking past his head and into the grain of the wood. “What are we going to do?”

“Mm?”

Your eyes snap to his, a cold sweat tickling your spine. You’ve crossed lines tonight, and not by a little. You’ve run so far past it, you can’t even see it if you turn back.

“He’ll know.”

Tanaka straightens up too, attentive to your words but eyes calm with a lazy smile.

“He won’t.”

“He will. Ryunoslav, I can’t keep this a secret now.”

Beneath your palm, you can feel his heartbeat, slow, while your own pounds in your ears.

“You have to. He’ll kill us.”

You stay silent, mulling over the sincerity in Tanaka’s statement. He says it nonchalantly, like it’s the only fact that matters. You want to tell him that you love him. You don’t. Instead, you lay your head back to his chest to listen to that steady, strong drum beneath his ribs. After a few seconds, you inhale deeply.

“I think Daichi is having an affair.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” Tanaka says instantly, arms wrapping so tightly around you, as if you’ll vanish if he can’t feel you.

“Ryu-”

“Valentina, please. God knows we never get to be alone like this.” That brash, harsh tone you’re used to finally edges it’s way back into his voice. It should scare you, instead you huddle closer to him while he continues. “Even if he’s having an affair, aren’t we doing the same? Let us just be in this moment.”

Tanaka tucks you beneath his chin, the heartbeat in his jaw syncing with yours against his chest. You murmur a ‘fine’, mind still reeling from the evening's events and the intoxication of his lips.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, but you know he didn’t at all. Ryunoslav shakes you awake, whispering that you have to go, that Daichi gets back in the late afternoon. When the coat is wrapped around you and your fingers hover over the door, you look at him as he frowns at you.

“We should not see each other for a few days,” he states. Although his voice is calm, his chest vibrates with nerves. You know it’s the last thing he wants. You agree anyway, with a slight nod of your head.

***

NEXT CHAPTER

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