#honestly just give it a shot and see how it comes out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tswwwit · 2 days

Text

Cult Part 5! Here's One, Two, Three, and Four if ya missed 'em.

“Whatever he’s up to,“ Dipper leans forward in his seat, glaring. “It’s not what you think it is.”

His warning goes unheeded. His glare, unnoticed. The man not only keeps talking to Bill, he does it in the stupidest way possible.

“I don’t believe you, vile tempter,” says the dark-haired man, folding his arms, turning away in a huff. His hips tilt in a way that makes those tiny shorts look ten times stupider than they already were. “Your infinite cunning and dire convincing cannot sway a human pure of heart!”

“Oh, how pure it is.” ‘Bill’ says slowly, capturing the man around the shoulders. “But think about it, mortal - What’s the worst that could happen?”

Some of the pouty defiance fades from the human’s face. His slow, dramatic turn towards Bill is focused in a close shot, so their faces are both in frame.

“Alright,” He says softly, “You bastard.”

Ugh, of course he’d give in easily. Even though it’s a terrible idea.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Dipper mutters, and stuffs another handful of popcorn in his mouth.

He’s seen his fair share of bad television - more so in the last week than ever before - but this bullshit really takes the cake.

Dipper stumbled on this drama while flipping through the billion options of Bill’s TV. Somewhere in the middle of random shows and channels, a brief clip caught his eye. Mostly because he thought the main guy looked like Bill, and it paused his thumb for a second.

Turns out it is Bill. Or rather, an actor playing him. The looks don’t quite match, and they’re using a different name - but the likeness is unmistakable, right down to the triangle motif.

For the first five minutes, Dipper had to just boggle at the very concept. Only the most devoted followers know the Truth. The clever plans and private nature of Bill Cipher are solely for those who are initiated in the deepest secrets. Ones that the ignorant masses could never comprehend.

A hundred-some odd episode tv series blows that theory out of the water. He guesses that’s more bullshit he learned from a bunch of ignorant, sheltered jerks.

Honestly, meeting Bill should have clued Dipper in earlier. A guy who talks about himself that much isn’t going to keep a low profile. Seeing it on Bill’s own TV was also weird until he remembered, right. Multidimensional sight. That’d show him things from all over. And pulling all the episodes on a dedicated channel in his living room? That’s an egomaniac’s move.

So of course Dipper would run into this. There was no better place.

The next episode starts. The opening credits roll for the dozenth time. Dipper doesn’t move from his position on the couch, but he does roll his eyes at the stupid smile actor Bill gives at the camera. Completely off-base, it’d be way more smug.

He should really stop watching. The first episode alone nearly had him grimacing at how idolatrous it was, and Dipper lived in a cult. Problem is, the worse it gets, the more compelling it becomes.

Then the theme song ends, and Dipper looks again down at the tiny text at the bottom. The one that reads, ‘based on real events!!!’.

Sure, it’s the most highly dramatized bullshit he’s ever had the misfortune of watching. Including the soap operas his cult classmate smuggled in all the time. And yes, it’ll be difficult to tell how much is true when it’s less reliable than an overheard rumor.

But it might give him some leads to go on, and Dipper can’t pass that up.

Suffering through shitty dialogue is a small price to pay, when it comes to unraveling the tangled thread that is Bill Cipher. Especially because his subject keeps trying to wrap up into a whole friggin’ gordian knot whenever he’s not looking.

Besides, Dipper’s already on episode twenty-seven. He might as well see how this season ends.

The plot picks up on the same convoluted scheme. Judging by last season, it’ll end in some climactic battle for no particular reason. The characters on screen continue their bickering, an intense-back and forth. One that ignores the very insightful commentary from anyone watching.

Halfway through, ‘Bill’ double- or perhaps triple-crosses his human rival/friend, and Dipper spends a few seconds to feel very I-told-you so about it. The plot thread isn’t resolved though, so there’s no way to know how that turns out without watching another episode.

And Dipper’s bowl of popcorn is empty.

He contemplates the dish first, then the TV. Whether to get up and refresh snacks, or stick around to see how ‘Bill’ ruins that guy’s day for the seventh time. A tough decision.

He’s just about decided to raid the kitchen for snacks, when the front door ominously creaks open.

Bill Cipher, Lord of Dreams, King of the Nightmare Realm, storms into the room with irritation in his terrible gaze, and furious purpose in his stride. He wears a scowl on his face that would make even the most apostate follower cower in terror, a demeanor that speaks of his infinite violence. The thrum of magic in the room builds, intense as it always is in his so-called glorious presence.

As that single golden eye alights on Dipper, he waves and says, “Hi.”

All the tension slides off Bill like a particularly messy sloughing of skin. “Hey yourself, sapling!” He waves back with more enthusiasm. “Been one heck of a day, lemme tell ya that.”

It sounds lighthearted. A pretty decent act. Tough luck for Bill, though; Dipper can read him pretty well by now. A check of Bill’s body language gives him all the info he needs.

Huh. There haven’t been many bad days since he’s met this ‘god’. But by the look of it, this one was more than most.

“That bad?” Dipper asks. Then, since he’s not doing much anyway - “Wanna complain about it?”

A blasphemous question. No follower should delve too deep, for that is the purview of divine revelation. The wisdom of Cipher - his most terrible secrets - are only revealed at his discretion. Not something to be pried at by the greedy and curious.

Dipper still marvels at how wrong they got all of it. Total misses on absolutely everything. Bill’s got secrets, sure. ‘Wisdom’ is questionable.

And when it comes to learning about his life, prying is unnecessary.

Stopping him from talking is the hard part.

“Don’t even get me started!” Bill says, clearly delighted.. He spreads his arms wide. “But you did! Too late to take it back now.”

“Mmh,” Dipper agrees. He’s got another episode queued up. That’ll be a nice distraction. Bill’s rambling can be interesting, but his complaints are longwinded. When you think about it, he’s really doing this ‘god’ a service by listening to all the bullshit.

He really doesn’t know what his old cult was talking about. Clearly they’d never met the guy. When this is how Bill talks to some random human, it’s amazing he has any secrets at all.

He waits for the oncoming onslaught as the show keeps playing on. The theme song finishes and the scene opens. There’s a new location, too - god, this better not be another timeskip. Demons might keep track of that stuff easily, but Dipper’s had to start taking notes.

It takes a second before he notices Bill’s… actually not talking.

A quick glance over - yep, just like he thought. Staring like a creep again. One of Bill’s favorite pastimes. This time paired with a pleased smile, and his hands on his hips.

“What’s up?” Dipper asks. There’s no rhyme or reason to the creeping so far - but he’ll figure out the pattern one day.

“Hm.” Bill gives him a slow onceover. The corner of his mouth quirks up another fraction. “Nice outfit.”

A quick check reveals… Nothing particularly interesting. His clothes are identical to, like, the same three outfits he always wears. Jeans and a t-shirt - though today he ditched the flannel for this big hoodie he found in his laundry. It’s remarkably soft. “Uh. Thanks?”

Bill says nothing. The smirk grows even wider. Very suspicious. Dipper narrows his eyes. “Are you making fun of me?” “Who knows?” Bill says, teeth showing in his smile. “Interesting outer layer you got going on there.”

Dipper checks the hoodie. No, he doesn’t sense any magic. If there were pins he would have felt them, and a curse would have kicked in by now. It’s just a random hoodie that’s admittedly too broad in the shoulders, but very comfortable. It even smells good.

He waits a few seconds - Bill keeps staring, oddly smug - but with no information forthcoming, Dipper decides to chalk it up as another ‘weird demon thing’. There’s a lot of weird demon things. Most aren’t as innocuous as random fashion critique, so he might as well let this slide.

“Cute as that look is, you did ask for the rundown, sapling.” Bill loosens his bowtie, letting the ends drape over his shirt. “You know what my least favorite part of today was?”

“Dealing with idiots.” Dipper replies. It’s always idiots. He rifles through popcorn kernels to find any remaining puffs.

“Sure, sure. Most times!” Bill strides over, sighing dramatically. “But today it was dealing with sycophants.”

Dipper runs that through his mental dictionary - then frowns. “They weren’t flattering enough?”

“Close!” With a grin, Bill leans on the arm of the couch. “More like praise comes in a lotta different flavors, and this one -” He stops mid-sentence, with a sudden frown.

Pausing? That’s unusual. Dipper rips his attention away from the show, glancing up. “This one was…?”

“Hm? Oh, y’know.” Oddly enough, it seems like Bill genuinely wasn’t deflecting. Simply thinking, his head slightly tilted. He snaps his fingers twice. “Like, suckups are one thing. Currying favor’s the most common grift in the universe! It’s the… That kinda saccharine crap that’s a hair too sincere. Like…” He wags his hand in the air, fingers wiggling as he tries to grasp for an invisible word. Grimacing when he doesn’t find it. “Ugh. English doesn’t have the right vocab.”

A multilingual master of the mind probably does feel limited by speech. And every day, Dipper learns something new.

Demons have a different culture. Human customs don’t apply. Learning it has been a whole process, more arduous than he’d expected - because it’s got an entirely new language, with a million new words.

Apparently said language has a lot of terms for ‘suckup’.

Dipper rummages around for an English word that might fit. “So it was… Creepy?”

“Close!” Bill agrees, looking pleased. “Little bit obsessive. A touch like they’re up to something.” He makes a face. “Or worse, they’re not! Even when every non-braindead being should know I’m not on the market.”

“The market for…?”

“Most everything,” Bill says, with his usual amount of detail.

“I would have thought you get that a lot.” Dipper frowns. Power, money, fame - Bill’s got it all. As the biggest shark around, he should be used to remoras.

“Totally! Everybody wants what I got, sapling. Power especially.” The couch barely bounces when Bill plops himself beside Dipper. “But just ‘cause I have it in spades doesn’t mean I’m handing it out like eyeballs at a wedding.”

“Um.” Except he kind of is. Because. If he wasn’t, then why has Dipper’s magic been so strong recently. There’s no way that’s a coincidence -

Bill leans in closer, meeting his gaze directly. One eyebrow slowly lifts.

Dipper ducks his head, scooting an inch away. Bill hasn’t said anything. He didn’t need to.

Special.

Suddenly it’s very important that Dipper fiddle with the unpopped kernels in the bottom of his popcorn bowl. He was going to get more snacks. Right. Kitchen’s not far from here.

Before he can rise, Bill snaps his fingers and the bowl refills. Overflows, even, scattering kernels everywhere. Then he shoves his hand in up to the wrist, sending more of it flying.

“So that’s the losers I gotta deal with. Every day with these idiots! And I’m supposed to meet up with a few of ‘em later. If we weren’t talking an old favor, I’d pass,” Bill says. He slumps back, with an uncharacteristic sigh. Then shrugs, kicking his feet up onto a previously nonexistent ottoman. “But hey! There’s always time for a vicious betrayal!”

Dipper makes a soft sound of commiseration. That’s an interesting fact, too. Favors, deals. Those are demonic things, He wonders what those involve, and how -

“Ha! Now this is a classic,” Bill says, interrupting before the question can form. He’s watching the TV now, grinning wide. “How’ve you been liking the show? Looks like the main character’s a real handsome guy!”

“It’s terrible,” Dipper says, flat. It gets a chuckle, but no argument.

“Sure, I’ve seen better,” Bill says, nose wrinkling up at a particularly dramatic line from the actor on screen. He flips the TV off, then shrugs. “But eh,” Hand waggling, an ‘iffy’ gesture. “When you got a billion-eye view of the multiverse, you see way dumber crap than this.”

Fair point. Dipper shrugs, but doesn’t comment. Something to think about, there. That Bill’s seen this before, for one, but also-

“How much of this is true?” He asks.

If this demonically produced drama is even slightly accurate, Bill will have a strong opinion. Once he starts talking, everything will reveal itself.

“Great question! I’d say…” Bill pauses to stroke his chin. Aiming for ‘solemn’, but mostly reminding Dipper that the jerk never needs to shave. “What does it matter if a narrative is factual or fictional? Everyone’s got their own version of how things go down! Truth’s a sucker’s game when you really think about-”

An elbow to the ribs doesn’t quite shut Bill up. Just gives him enough pause to let Dipper interject.

“Philosophy doesn’t suit you.” He nudges him again before he can derail the topic. Bill sticks out his tongue, and for a second Dipper’s tempted to poke it in revenge for before. “I’ll settle for which parts actually happened.”

“Spoilsport,” Bill says, sounding oddly warm. “Eh, they took a lot of artistic license in this series. And that’s coming from me.” Shrugging, he makes a so-so- sort of gesture, weighing it in his palms. “Call it less than you’d like, but more than you’d think.”

Dipper glances at the screen.

The battle at the end of the episode is a poorly-cut fight. Bill, human-formed, faces off against seven gorgons. Which is bullshit, they’re territorial - and the shoggoth at sunset brings it almost to the level of parody. The human of this episode has fainted in a way that leaves him leaning against Bill without somehow falling on his ass.

Yeah. That about tracks. Demon to human translation: ‘Artistic license’ means ‘total bullshit’.

Almost on cue, Dipper feels fingers brushing against his hoodie. There’s a shift as Bill adjusts his seat, his arm unsubtly snaking over behind Dipper’s head.

Any minute now that ominous limb will drop onto his shoulders. Just like the last half dozen times. God forbid Bill not take up all the room he can; he thinks everything is his. Even gorgons aren’t this territorial.

Dipper can live with it. Hell, if the worst thing Bill ever does to him is invade his personal space and talk over an already bad TV show, he’s basically set for life.

And truthfully, it’s not that bad. Less irritating than it should be. Having someone close, even if they are an obnoxious evil demon god, feels nice.

One day he’s going to know why he’s being bothered by Bill in the first place. What made him stand out among the rest. What he’s for. The question doesn’t upset him like it used to, but he can’t help but pick at it like a still-healing scab.

It feels like he has a decent amount of facts already. Between the journal in the guest room, watching the highly dramatized version of Bill’s life, and talking to the demon himself…

Dipper glances over at Bill - still focused on the show, crunching popcorn - then down at the long line of his wrist.

Even Bill’s providing clues, in his own, unique way. When he arguably shouldn’t.

It would be so, so easy for him to cut it all off. Burn the books, break the TV, cage Dipper up and beat the curiosity out of him. Taking every step the cult did and more, in his ‘wrath’ and ‘infinite cruelty’.

But he’s not. He wouldn’t, not to Dipper.

In fact, Bill’s been - in a weird, exclusively Bill-ish way - kind of helpful. Hell, he’s having a great time.

He clearly delights in watching Dipper scramble around, trying to follow a breadcrumb trail of hints. Even more fun is occasionally dropping a bunch of clues down the wrong track, then hiding behind a tree to giggle. He especially likes to dangle something just close enough to grab, then teasing Dipper as he tries to make the leap.

So much of his time is spent making stuff annoying, teasing and taunting and tricking - but Bill’s not actually stopping him. As hobbies go, it’s both incredibly dickish, and totally benign. It’s almost like…

Dipper gets the sense that Bill expects him to figure it all out. Bill just also thinks he should make the journey very… ‘interesting’.

Joke’s on him, though. He’s left more hints than he intended. He may not even realize how far Dipper’s come.

The show plays on. The actor ‘Bill’ argues with the latest, nearly-identical human guy. They change actors a lot; usually whenever there’s a timeskip. They always have exactly the same role, too - ‘guy who argues with the demon in charge’. Probably because demons consider all humans interchangeable.

There’s some interaction between the various planes. Everyone knows that. Demons are pretty rare on the list, but lower-level entities occasionally get summoned, or break in through some magical mishap.

Back in the cult, Dipper learned that Bill Cipher has bothered and convinced and manipulated mortals for eons. His unearthly machinations twist the strings of his human puppets, all the time. Slowly building to the inevitable goal - the world, under Bill’s eternal thumb. He never interacts directly; the physical plane is not yet his to roam.

But in the drama, Bill is on the physical plane. Not acting through haunting prophetic dreams, or divine revelations. Just bitching and prodding and poking in person.

And while the setting’s fictionalized version of the place, it’s definitely not under any demonic reign.

The implications took a while to sink in, but Dipper thinks he gets it now. Parts have clicked together; facts he didn’t know were connected until just now.

Bill probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s helped there too. Filling in the gaps. Adding extra detail.

He’s even doing it right now.

The unasked for commentary track continues as Bill talks. Going on about how he hasn’t been to that country in millenia, or how the seasons are wrong for this encounter. Elaborating on details, mocking others, going on about the stupid plotline and dialogue -

Totally bragging about his earthly knowledge. About the physical world. Because he’s been there.

Dipper sits up a little straighter. It bumps the hand trailing through his hair away, and he settles back to let Bill’s idiot fingers continue their idle path.

He can’t be totally certain without proof, though. And Bill has always liked it when he’s picked up the clues…

Dipper speaks up.

“I think more of this is real than you’d admit, Bill. You’ve…” Didn’t laud himself over them, no divine visitation- “Hung out with humans.”

“Hard not to! What with billions of you dreaming all over the place.” Bill says, deftly avoiding the question. Staring at the screen now, focused forward in a way that makes it hard to catch his eye. “You’re everywhere on that scummy pebble you call a habitable planet.”

No confirmation, but no denial. Which means Dipper’s on the right track.

“I mean you’ve been on Earth. In the, uh, flesh,“ Dipper insists. No triangles were visible, maybe that form can’t be sustained in reality - but this is no time to get derailed. He seizes the thread of logic, yanking on it with all he’s got. “Was-”

“Pfft, who hasn’t!” Bill interrupts. He flicks the question away, snorting in amusement. “Pretty permeable place you got there.”

“That’s at least two hundred years of human interaction,” Dipper insists. He jabs his index finger at the screen, then into Bill’s ribs. “And I can’t help but notice none of it is in your realm. It’s on Earth. Which you haven’t conquered-” Before Bill’s mouth can open, he holds up a hand. The lie is so dumb he doesn’t wanna hear it. “Nice try, I was just there.”

“Yeah, yeah, make a mountain out of a molehill.” Bill buffs his nails on his shirt, chin lifting. “I’ve just been busy! I’ll get around to it!”

“Sure you will,” Dipper says. He narrows his eyes. “I’ve figured you out, Cipher. I know what’s going on.”

Plausible deniability went out the window ages ago, thrown with such force that glass shattered everywhere. Leaving Bill standing in the middle, wondering aloud what happened, with a perfectly innocent look on his face..

It’s about humans. About earth, and Bill, and Dipper himself. Why Bill never showed up before, in all those years - decades - of cult summons, the ones he never ever answered, even though they really tried. Not just that he didn’t see them, or didn’t care to.

It’s because Bill Cipher can’t do everything.

Bill’s been evasive, per his usual. He’s not quite meeting Dipper’s gaze, and keeping up a dismissive tone.

But he can’t deny that he’s interested, even though he tries to keep his expression aloof. It’s not working so great. His mouth keeps twitching as the grin starts to leak out around the edges.

“Oh?” Bill’s voice has a strange tone. He leans in until their thighs touch, sides together; he must be really interested in something. “Go on, sapling. Enlighten me!”

That’s the core of a line of truth, leading somewhere important - if Dipper dares to follow. He’s getting close, he can feel it. It’s dangerous, but-

Getting the words out is harder than he thought. Challenging Cipher is - he starts talking before he can talk himself out of it.

“You can’t take over reality.” He keeps his voice level, daring Bill to interrupt. “You don’t have all your powers there.”

A pause; Bill’s oddly silent. His face is blank.

Before he can get angry, Dipper rambles out the rest. “Or at least not yet. You’d have taken over already if you did. I mean, it’s not like you didn’t have time. You can’t get the world because…” Here it goes - “Something’s stopping you."

He watches, tense, as Bill’s expression sours. Looking askance at Dipper, he folds his arms in a huff. Muttering something under his breath about ‘stubborn’ and ‘annoying’.

But Bill doesn’t deny it.

God, and even the look on his face. The one that’s both annoyed but also, maybe, resigned? Like it’s an old, old roadblock that he’s both huffy about, and very used to, it’s…

Holy shit. Dipper’s right.

His heart is racing. Merely guessing that Bill can’t accomplish his main driving purpose is a far cry from him saying it, or even not arguing with it. The very thought makes his head swim.

But he can’t stop now, not while he’s ahead.

“So there’s some obstacle even you can’t get rid of,” Dipper says. Looking at Bill out of the corner of his eye, he pitches his voice in a tone of reverent, religious awe. “I can’t even imagine how powerful that is. How incredibly-”

“Hey! Don’t get so full of yourself, Pine Tree, it’s just not the right time yet!” Bill sits up straight, indignant. He bares his teeth in a sneer. “Maybe there’s something I still want from that miserable little rock, you ever think of that?”

Another admission. An unforced error. Bill winces very slightly as he hears his own misstep, and Dipper swells with pride.

Bill thinks he’s all high and mighty and oh-so-secretive. A master of mysteries. If only he didn’t talk way too much. He didn’t think Dipper was clever enough to trick him and he gave everything away.

“That’s it. That’s why- why everything.” Dipper beams as he waves over, well, everything. “You keep going back there, and you keep picking a human, wandering around with some random guy - because you can’t get what you want without one.”

Not a cult, building power. Not a massive ritual spell. Nothing grand and showy; Bill would have done that if it was effective. That’s way more his style, and far more magically powerful.

There’s been none of that. Not in the show, not in real life. He hasn’t used the cult, he doesn’t have a base of power. Bill doesn’t peddle with groups, both in the real-life cult and the cannon fodder in the show.

He’s only focused on one person.

Out of billions of people he could bother, Bill latches onto a single, unfortunate guy and throws their life into total chaos. It’s a curse, an annoyance, a bolt of bullshit out of nowhere - and would also ensure you don’t bleed out until he’s had his ‘fun’.

Being picked out from the crowd like that. Having the full brunt of Bill Cipher himself foisted upon you, laser-focused. Going from a nobody to someone who has all his attention -

Wouldn’t that make someone kind of special?

No response, again. Bill has retreated to his last, mocking resort. Flapping his hand like a puppet as Dipper talks, and making faces.

Yes. Finally, Dipper got him. He followed the breadcrumbs, avoided the trap, set up one of his own - and Bill walked right into it.

Dipper gives him the smuggest, most annoying smile he can. He’s got plenty of examples to draw from.

Bill glares, and flips him off. “Sure, sure, live it up,” He says, rolling his eye dramatically. Waving off the loss like it’s no big deal, even though it clearly is. “You don’t have a clue what’s really going on.”

A blatant lie. Hardly his best one, either.

Dipper lets himself enjoy this win for a full minute. Rare chances like this should be savored. He has to hold onto the couch so he doesn’t grab Bill’s dumb handsome face and shake it, for being so very, very stupid. He’s never going to let him live this down

“So. Why do you need a mortal?” Dipper asks after a while. Bill isn’t volunteering any more information, and there’s one more part he hasn’t quite figured out. “The thing you’re after. Why can’t you just,” He grasps at the air in demonstration. “Take it?”

Bill’s eye twitches, once. He doesn’t say anything.

“I mean-” Dipper hesitates. “That’s a ton of work. Heading to a different realm, picking a new mortal every time - that’s decades - no, centuries of effort. The human has to do something, right? You wouldn’t do all that just for fun.”

“Excuse you, it’s plenty fun!” Lifting a finger, Bill wags it chidingly. “You think I’m above messing with some mortal just for kicks?”

Shit, he’s not. Ruining a random person’s life for the hell of it is so very, very Bill.

“Alright, maybe.” Dipper admits. This could be because Bill’s a capricious dick. “But I’ll bet there’s more to it.”

“Never have one motive when you could have six,” Bill agrees. The grin widens, he wiggles his eyebrows - and he starts cackling.

So yes, there’s more. And no, he’s not telling.

Dipper racks his brain for ideas. For clues. Whatever Bill’s after must be extremely important if a literal demon god keeps chasing after it, over and over again. Nothing comes to mind, though.

Eventually he sighs, waiting for Bill to be done with his stupid smug laughter. It doesn’t cover up his mistake.

“So I guess that makes me your latest human… companion thing.” He prompts, once Bill’s finally done with his smug, jerk laughter.

One of the first things he noticed - that room in Bill’s penthouse. The one meant for a specific type of person, as clear as a fingerprint. How many of Bill’s mortals stayed in that room? How many of them-

Those notes in the journal. Dipper has to go back and check them. Now that he knows it was someone in exactly the same position, there might be more to learn.

“Congrats, kid! Ya got parts of it! Well played! But I gotta ask one thing.” Bill cocks his head to one side. A brief, amused smirk. “There are plenty of magical guys around! A lot of ‘em begging for demonic contracts!” The smirk widens, sharp teeth showing. “Why do you think I picked you?”

Dipper opens his mouth. After a beat, he shuts it.

He was so busy thinking about the mechanics of his presence that he didn’t think about the motive.

Obviously Bill grabs a human for practical purposes, so he can get that thing he wants on Earth. If it’s an entertaining person, that’s a bonus in his eye. This time it ended up being Dipper, because…

Not because he’s devoted. Or the most knowledgeable guy around. He’s smart, but too aware of the experience he lacks. Weeks ago he would have said it was the ritual knowledge from the cult, but since that’s less than worthless… Something else, then.

“Because…” Dipper starts, then hesitates. Mind racing, trying to pin the strings between the bits of knowledge he has before Bill throws a wrench into it. “Uh.”

Shit. Shit, he’s so close, there’s a piece missing. A final step. He struggles to find it but there’s little time to think; Bill’s expectant expression demands an answer.

“Convenience?” Dipper hazards. He was right there, in the middle of a powerful ritual, directed at Bill, so-

Instantly he knows it was the wrong guess. By the way Bill’s face fell, it was off by several hundred miles.

“Ooh, nice try.” Bill tugs Dipper closer, hand dragging through his hair - Dipper ducks out of the way before he can start a ‘companionable’ noogie. “You really missed the mark there!”

“Any chance you’ll tell me what that is?” Dipper says, with no small amount of bitterness.

Damn it. He was so close he could almost taste it.

“Nope!”

“You- hmph.” With a grunt, Dipper scoots away and out of his grip. He’s used to all the deliberate frustration, but right now it just sucks.

“Aw, don’t make that face!” Bill scoots after him, trying to get his arm around him again. Dipper swats it away. “Tell ya what - here’s a hint! You’re something a guy doesn’t see every day, sapling.” He winks. “Pretty unique.”

How very specific. Totally not opaque. How does Bill manage to give more facts and make things more mysterious in the process? It’s a really annoying talent.

Dipper sulks then, for a bit. When Bill tries petting his air again, he smacks his arm away, muttering unflattering things under his breath. It makes Bill laugh again, cackling in delight.

“What’s the matter?” Bill nudges him, a teasing laugh. “Ease up, kid. Given enough time, you’ll figure out some real secrets.”

“May Cipher hear your words,” Dipper says, the old phrase springing up before he can stop himself. He sucks in a breath through his teeth, cringing away from his own voice.

Thankfully, the slip gets Bill laughing. Dipper’s turn to not live something down; they’re one for one today.

“Okay, some of the affectations are adorable,” Bill says, nearly pinching Dipper’s cheek before he elbows him in the side. “Hardly worth all the other crap, but still!!”

“It really wasn’t,” Dipper says. He rubs at his left wrist. ‘All the other crap’ barely covers it.

“Don’t worry, sapling.” Bill says, voice low and satisfied. He squeezes Dipper’s knee, grip tightening. “Once we got everything in order - we’re gonna wreak some havoc on those idiots! All the fun stuff and more!”

‘Fun stuff’.

Spending time with Bill, even in Dipper’s position of relative safety, teaches you a lot about what he thinks is ‘fun’.

He’s not sure why he didn’t see this coming.

“Is that… so.”

“It is! Getting back at those who wronged you, tormenting the tormentors. Punishment returned with neat ironic twists!” Bill waits for a beat, then grins, jostling Dipper with a gentle shake. “Come on, you gotta have ideas!”

“A few, yeah.” A lot, actually.

Being favored by a ‘god’. Chosen, in a way. Having Bill’s favor means having his full permission to enact vengeance.

He’d be lying if he said he never thought about… what he’d do, if he could. Fleeting ideas from too many nights lying in bed. Staring at the ceiling, feeling the burn in the back of his mouth, or the pain in his knees or the stripes on his back. Frustration and anger and hurt, bubbling up into red-hot thoughts that tasted like blood even with a missing tongue.

Dipper swallows. He rubs at his throat.

“Ooh, I bet you’ve got a lot.” Bill purrs, wrapping his arm around Dipper’s waist. He walks his fingers up Dipper’s knee, trailing up his thigh. “Whatcha got in mind? Turning them inside out? Bone dissolving? Rearranging their legs where their ears should be and making them try to do a cartwheel?”

“Uh,” Dipper says, then, “Well.”

Bill is way more creative than Dipper is. Half the ideas he’s mentioned Dipper couldn’t pull off, and even if he could it’d be… Messier than he’s comfortable with. In those moments of pain and rage, he would have - even then, it’d be a stretch.

Though maybe Dipper wouldn’t mind when it came to the priest. Too bad he’s already dead.

What will he do? When he goes back?

He can see their faces in his mind’s eye. All the people he knows. The only people he ever knew, in that life that feels so far away.They’ll show up again in the room of ceremony, once they get wind of their god’s return. Except this time, he’ll be standing proud at the altar, with everyone in front of him, staring in…

He knows how they stared at Bill, at least. That mix of wonder and terror, their eyes wide. They’ve always believed so much. Hopeful in a way that Dipper never was -

Or. Was, rather. Only when he wasn’t so stupid.

And isn’t it just - so pathetic, and sad. Thinking things might turn out well. That something good might happen, when someone better knows it won’t. Those idiot, expectant moments before you know there’s a punishment coming, that leave you without a chance of defending yourself.

Dipper can feel the burn of Bill staring at him. Waiting to hear his most horrible, gory ideas, and bring them into terrifying technicolor.

“I’m not telling.” He states finally, sounding more prim than he would like. “Nice try. It’s, um. Going to be a surprise.”

“And I can’t wait to see it!” Bill beams, nearly bouncing in place. His enthusiasm is so powerful it’s almost catching. “Mark my words, kid - it’s gonna be a real party.”

“A super fun one,” Dipper says. “Totally.” He offers a smile back, waits for Bill to start cackling - then quickly looks away before his face gives up the game.

For such a consummate liar, Bill’s hit rate on detecting them is only 50/50.

Though. It isn't a lie, really. Dipper does have a lot of ideas. And what he ends up doing to the cult will be a surprise.

In that he’s not sure what he’ll do until he gets there.

“Take your time, sapling! Whatever you come up with is gonna be great, I’m sure.” Bill rubs his hands together, a glint of sinister anticipation in his eye. “I can’t wait to see it.”

Dipper lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I hope you’ll like it.”

Of course it wasn’t going to happen today. That’d be a quick turnaround by anyone’s standards. Even Bill himself needs longer than a few days to cook up a… what did he call it that one time? A ‘showy little number with a twist at the end’. Anything else would be disappointing.

Anyway, it’s too early to make definitive plans. Bill said he should take his time, and Dipper believes him. Shoving his human back into the world half-cocked would ruin the entertainment.

And when you think about it, there are so many options that it could take a lot of time to narrow them down. There could be setbacks, and stutters. It could take weeks, maybe months, to get everything just right. A punishment ironic yet powerful, subtle yet dramatic.

Who knows how long it’ll take until Dipper’s ready to head back? Certainly it won’t feel very long, to a guy who’s billions of years old. And as long as he’s making some progress, nothing needs to happen just yet.

“Ooh, this one,” Bill says suddenly. He sits up straighter as something catches his attention. “I remember when - ah, but that’d be spoilers!”

Dipper looks up. Spoilers for-?

Oh. A new episode started when he wasn’t paying attention. “It’s still a bad show,” He mutters. He could turn it off out of spite, just to bother Bill - but he did kinda want to see what happened with the twelve-ring summon the ‘bad’ guys were planning.

Another episode would actually be kind of great, thinking about it. He could use the distraction.

Bad TV, Dipper’s learning, is nice. One of the few times where he can almost let his brain turn off.

And having someone else who thinks the show is dumb somehow enhances it.

The climactic battle has the worst dialogue, and terrible graphics. Dipper can barely look at the monsters, they’re so poorly rendered. Bill agrees that they needed a better illusionist; half of the explosions look like they were drawn.

Chatting about something so trivial makes everything so easy. Dipper lets out a laugh when Bill mocks his own actor’s performance, then swats at him when Bill teases him for being a dork.

Some idle comment sparks a bit of bickering. One of them throws popcorn at the other. Dipper doesn’t remember who started it - only that by the end, the bowl is empty again, and he’s smiling for what feels like the first time in hours.

Actor Bill hisses,“Oh, you are a vindictive, terrible mortal.” His suit has mostly melted off from the acid, leaving shreds of it hanging off his arms and chest. The shreds slide off his skin as he storms forward. “A pitiful being like you should never exist!”

“Yet I do!” Protests the human, standing with fists on his hips and a truly defiant look. One only partly ruined by his totally shirtless form.

“You never stood a chance against me,” Actor Bill purrs, slamming a hand into the bark of a tree, pinning his captive in place. “There’s no escape, kid! There never will be!”

“Oh yeah?” The man’s chin juts upward, a sneer of sheer contempt - totally unrealistic, nobody would get away with that - as he flips Bill off. “Then I’ll be your own personal curse, demon. You’ll never escape me either.”

The music surges, a broad orchestra that’s… honestly a jarring clash to the argument that breaks out. You can barely hear what they’re talking about over the grand music.

“Just shut up will you?” The man yells.

With a broad sneer, Actor Bill leans in, smug grin surprisingly close to the real version. “Make me.”

The human fumes, eyes narrowed. His fists clench as if he’s about to throw a punch. But when he extends his arm it’s too slow for that, and his hand is open. It seizes ‘Bill’ by the back of the neck, yanking him in, then -

Dipper nearly leaps out of his seat, eyes wide. Only the pressure of Bill’s arm over him keeps him from standing.

“Three stars for timing, zero for technique.” Bill gives the TV a thumbs down. “That’s way too much tongue! This ain’t slug wrestling for crying out loud.”

Dipper’s shoulders rise nearly to his ears. He doesn’t dare glance at the screen. Only once the wet noises stop, and the credits music rolls, does he try darting one in Bill’s direction.

Who seems entirely, implausibly bored. He cups a hand over his mouth as he yawns, loosely splayed over the couch.

“You’re, uh. Okay with that?” Dipper asks. He tucks his hands between his knees, leaning forward. “It just seems, uh.”

“Seems ‘uh’, what?”

“Like,” Dipper gestures vaguely at the screen, even though it’s faded to black. The credits roll, a series of ominously glowing symbols scrolling up the screen. “That was…” He searches for a word, and fails.

“Terrible writing,” Bill says, bored. He shakes his head, lips drawn into a line. “You’d think someone would come up with a better plot for this kinda crap. It’s not like there isn’t material to go on.”

“But he kissed you,” Dipper says, before he can stop himself.

It’s one thing to blaspheme a little, Dipper himself is no stranger to forbidden acts, but this one takes the cake. The whole bakery, even. To do that at all is bad enough, but to Bill or - or an actor playing him, obviously it’s not the same thing, but still-

“Yeah, yeah, smooching, whatever.” The concept hasn’t phased Bill in the slightest. He snorts, grin widening. “Contrary to your idiot idolatry, I have been known to practice a liplock once in a while!”

“You-” Dipper starts, then stops. “I-” He shuts his eyes, then blinks rapidly. “Yeah, okay.”

So. Bill isn’t surprised, because this is - he sees everything, it’s not like he didn’t know about that kind of stuff.

It’s just that. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing to get worked up about. Because nothing that happened there was wrong.

Dipper presses the heels of his hands into his eyes to rub them, then draws them down slowly over his face.

Every time he thinks he’s found the bottom of the pit of bullshit he learned back in the cult, he finds another goddamn level beneath it. There may never be an end to all the lies.

Another one he can strike off the ‘sin’ list. There’s basically nothing left now, with Bill indulging in everything from gluttony to sloth to… that.

Every whim Bill has, he indulges. Often to excess, and always with aplomb. Dipper never had the opportunity or ability to do even a tenth of what Bill has, and - god, he wonders what that’s like.

“Do you…” How to phrase this. Dipper wipes sweating palms on his jeans. “Have you… kissed a lot of people?”

The words come out in a bit of a rush. Bill snorts in amusement, which is a relief; that wasn’t the worst question to ask.

“Depends! What’s ‘a lot’? I’m pretty particular about my partners.” Bill’s smile widens, and he wiggles his eyebrows. A quick squeeze Dipper’s shoulder, just above the bicep. “But sure! I’ve known a guy or two worth putting a peck on.”

“Okay,” Dipper says. Then, because that feels inadequate. “Cool.”

Because of course he has. Bill’s put his mouth on. Thoughts are spinning in his head now, rapid and light.

“Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I’ve dabbled in the dating scene!” Bill continues, with an odd tone in his voice. “Pretty tough to find the right guy these days, when you’re holding out for something special.” A nudge, as his eyebrows go double-time.

God, and he would have options- Didn’t Bill say it earlier? People pursue him. For power, sure, but that’s only what he mentioned. Kind of weird, though, Dipper’s only heard of men chasing after -

Wait. Wait, no, how did he never consider this before? Maybe because his stupid upbringing blinded him; Bill’s not human. The shape he’s wearing doesn’t mean anything, metaphysically, doesn’t speak to what he really is, and he just said that at some point he’s kissed a man.

“Are you a girl?” Dipper blurts. Staring wide-eyed at that angular face, at the arms and then a little longer at his chest.

The look of sheer incredulity Bill levels on him makes Dipper sink down into his seat.

“What?” Bill asks, and - oh god. That’s the first genuinely bewildered look Dipper’s ever seen on him.

“I thought - I was wrong.” Dipper’s face burns, he wants to cringe himself into a ball and then fall between the couch cushions. “Sorry.”

Great. Dumb guess, shitty concept. Now he looks like an idiot. His very first assumption was the right one. More fool him for overcorrecting.

“Whatever, kid. And don’t say ‘sorry’,” Bill flicks his fingers. Awkwardness slides off his back like water on a duck, he’s grinning again. “None of your human crap applies, y’know?” He brings his hands together, index fingers and thumbs forming a familiar, three-sided symbol. “I’m the shape you see on caution signs, not bathroom doors.”

“Right.” Dipper perks up. So he wasn’t totally wrong, just... not at all right. Still embarrassing, he should change the subject. “Um. So-”

“But I do have a dick, if that’s what you’re asking.” Bill adds, grinning way too wide.

“I wasn’t.” Dipper claps hands over his ears. It fails to cover up the delighted chortle beside him.

Guess he’s learning all kinds of things about Bill today. Just not ones he wanted.

Not helped by the way Bill leans in very closer, tickling him on the side in a way that makes him jump again. He’s about to scramble off the couch or do something inadvisable like shove someone else off the dang thing - when Bill’s ringtone goes off.

“Ugh, are you- Blegh.” Bill says, moderately annoyed. He leans on Dipper for a moment as he fishes around in his pocket, a smothering weight. How is a simple human shape so heavy.

Whatever he sees on his phone screen has him sticking his tongue out. “Ugh,” He repeats, frowning at. Lifting his arm off of Dipper, and holding up a finger. “Be right back! I gotta take this.”

Dipper hopes the jerk gets lost on the way and falls down a hole. Not really, just - it would be something to say when he’s at a loss for anything else. He just rolls his eyes instead, watching Bill depart with a pointed stride and a grumpy mutter.

Finally, some space to breathe. To think. The mind magic of Bill’s presence always has Dipper scrambling for something to think about that isn’t his too-powerful aura.

He taps the edge of the bowl, an idle beat. Feeling the chill on his side where Bill’s body kept it warm.

Yep. Just Dipper, and the tv, and any remaining popcorn, all to himself. Nothing wrong with that.

He brushes around the bowl without any particular intent. Kernels rustle against his fingers, and he spends a minute swishing them around, even though his hand gets greasy.

The remote lies inches away. Easy to pick up if he wanted to distract himself. Finishing the season is an option, but feels wrong to keep watching when Bill’s not here to see it.

Actually, Dipper could watch something better. Finding a show that doesn’t suck, or have bizarre, blasphemous content. Just some real, semi-wholesome entertainment that doesn’t raise more questions than answers.

Distantly, he hears Bill still on the phone. Sounds like the conversation’s going to take a while.

Dipper taps his fingers on the couch, creeping towards the remote.

Said remote also has, like, a million buttons, so it takes a while to figure out which ones to press. One goes back to the previous episode. This one skips forward, another pauses. This one goes back in fifteen second intervals.

Dipper leans over, checking - Bill, still well out of sight - then taps the volume button down until it’s nearly zero before hitting play again.

“Make me,” Bill’s actor hisses again, before getting grabbed and - stuff.

Dipper sits forward in his seat, elbows on his thighs. Living with Bill means exposing himself to new ideas. Since he didn’t look before, now’s as good a time as any.

Though - Wow, Bill really wasn’t kidding. That is a lot of tongue. Even with the volume lowered it’s all wet and - it makes him feel odd, even though he knows it’s not sinful.

Maybe he should replay it to check.

The fourth time around, he pauses his research to inspect it closer. Aha -That’s what was bothering him, those aren’t real abs. They’re enhanced with makeup. The lighting covers it a bit but when you really look, it’s totally obvious. The actor playing Bill has the worst version; the other guy just has a blotch near his -

“Son of a bitch.” Dipper says, standing up so fast the popcorn bowl dumps its contents on the floor.

The image burns itself into his brain. Dots and lines, laid out on skin. A pattern Dipper could never forget if he wanted to.

Oh, Bill got lucky earlier. Real lucky. The only reason he got away with it is Dipper had his eyes covered. If he’d seen it, he would have had that evil demon bastard as pinned as that human in the show.

Before he knows it he’s charging for the entryway.

He can hear the jerk still talking on his phone, muted voice growing louder as Dipper storms in his direction. Unaware of how he’s been found out.

Dipper doesn’t have a plan in mind, which is the first thing that’s probably going to go wrong - but he’s got to do it, right now, before Bill can run off on some errand or head to some party, evading and avoiding questions like he always does.

And before Dipper can lose the courage to confront him. A little confrontation might intrigue the guy - excite him, even - but the questions racing through Dipper’s mind aren’t going to be fun.

Too bad. Bill’s not going to wiggle his way out of this one.

He catches sight of Bill’s back, turned towards the door and totally not paying attention. Dipper storms up behind him, intending to catch him by the shoulder and whirl him around. See how Bill likes it when he-

The door swings open. Dipper skids to a halt, rocking back on his heels.

That is. Many demons. Eyeballs peeking over the shoulder of something with spikes, another with wings too large to see around. A crowd clustered around the doorway.

Bill stuffs his phone back in his pocket, glaring at them all.

“You call five minutes notice a ‘heads up’? Then show your asses up here?” Contempt rings in Bill’s voice, low and furious. “You got a lot of nerve, and that’s no compliment.”

“It was urgent,” a voice burbles. Something soft and squidgy - oh, that’s where the eyes were, on stalks - it bubbles literally as it speaks. “The mistress-”

“Yeah yeah, blah blah, I’ve heard it all before. Cram it.” Bill stalks forward, leveling a look at the group that has them all scooting away. “Maybe your ‘mistress’ should think ahead next time. Or think at all before calling in a last-minute favor from me.”

Slowly, inch by inch, Dipper backs away. If he keeps really quiet he won’t catch anyone’s attention, they’re all too focused on Bill to mind one small human in the room. Hopefully.

“You got the thing?” Bill snaps his fingers impatiently. There’s some confusion - demons tangling up and shuffling each other around until they manage to wrangle something out of the group. “Alright, hand it over.”

A briefcase is shoved into Bill’s eager grasp. He spends a moment examining it, then unlatches the clasps. Opening it the very, very slightest fraction of an inch - then rolling his eye, and slamming it shut again.

There’s some brief conversation - partially demonic, and partially too inhuman for Dipper to parse. The slimiest demon tries slipping past Bill, into the penthouse - only to get caught by the eyestalk. Green smoke rises, hissing and squealing as Bill’s grasp heats to a burning flame.

“Ah ah ah! Nice try,” Bill chides. With a snap of his fingers, another door appears. Dipper recognizes this one; it leads to a sitting room. “We’ll have our little discussion elsewhere.”

With minor threats and moderate violence, the demon crowd is forced through the open doorway. A miniature parade of odd shapes and sizes, skittering around under Bill’s impatient gaze. He snaps his fingers and they all hurry up.

Dipper guesses he’s going to be preoccupied for a while. He wishes he’d asked more details about this meeting earlier, but neither of them thought it would happen today.

As the last of the demons flutters into the sitting room, Bill turns around. Raising an eyebrow, looking amused.

Dipper makes a belated attempt to duck back around the corner, even though he’s well and truly caught. Curiosity got the better of him, damn it.

“No worries, sapling, you take it easy out here! I won’t be long,” Bill says, voice bright. He waggles his fingers in Dipper’s direction. “Coupla hours at most to milk these suckers for every penny they got.”

Dipper nods, once. He stays silent. Bill’s beckoning him over, but no way is he getting close. He knows that look. As soon as he gets within arm’s reach, he’ll have his cheeks pinched or pulled into a noogie or something.

Bill makes a disappointed face as his nefarious plan is thwarted, then shrugs. The easy grin returns. “Fine, be that way.” He gives Dipper a sharp wave and a wink. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t! Or do! I’m not a cop!”

The door shuts behind him with an ominous ‘click’. Dipper watches it for a while. No motion, no sound. No Bill popping back out, declaring that he’s already done and they can finish the drama.

Guess they’re well and truly settled in for some weird, demonic business deal. For several hours. Or more.

God, that’s frustrating. As much as Dipper wants answers, he can’t just barge into a room full of strangers and start demanding them. Especially when those questions might be kind of… personal. Bill probably wouldn’t be furious if it was just Dipper asking - but airing his dirty laundry in front of a crowd is a terrible idea on multiple fronts.

Damn it. And Dipper was this close to having him right where he wanted him, too.

He kicks the carpet a couple times. Then the baseboards. When the meeting hasn’t resolved two minutes later, Dipper stuffs his hands in his pockets, and slinks back over to the couch.

It’s empty, with scattered cushions and a throw blanket disordered from their popcorn fight. He stares at the discarded bowl, and the cooled fabric.

Settling back down isn’t nearly as appealing as it was five minutes ago. He’s not sure he can.

Dipper feels his hands clench into fists, then forces them to relax. He tucks them behind his back instead.

Every time. Every freaking time. Just when he thinks he’s close to understanding, another curveball gets in his way.

Pacing back and forth helps a little. There’s plenty of space in the living room to work out this restless energy.

Whatever this - this thing is, it’s been going on for a while. Centuries of Bill picking up mortals, putting them through their paces, trying vainly to reach the object of his desire. A pivotal point of his unknown plan.

And since he’s still going after it, every human before Dipper must have failed.

Maybe Bill got distracted by dicking around. Maybe it really is too powerful to overcome. Or maybe his humans didn’t even know what it was, since they were in the company of a cagey, manipulative asshole.

Dipper could go back and dig through the books in the guest room - but if they didn’t know either, then that’ll be a wash. There’s the show, but it’s so full of bullshit that he doesn’t dare make too many guesses.

Even at the best of times Bill’s wrigglier than an eel, and a total stickler for details. If Dipper doesn’t check off all the boxes on the list, finding everything he was supposed to - then Bill’s going to tut and wag his finger instead of handing over the prize

Too many questions. Zero idea what it’s about. Only one person knows anything useful, and he’s a total dick about parceling out the facts.

Waiting for him to get back won’t take long. It’s barely any time at all, even on a human timescale. Dipper can manage.

It’s just…

The idea of sitting around meekly, waiting for Bill to return. Hoping he’ll come bearing information because Dipper needs his stupid hand held through the mystery just feels - pathetic.

Everybody keeps making decisions for Dipper that change his whole life. Nobody gives him a heads up on what they’re going to do. People taking charge, over and over and - he’s just so tired of letting things happen to him.

If he just had one more thing. Something to prove that he’s right, not hearsay or guesses but physical evidence, that he could shove right in Bill’s dumb face -

Dipper pauses in his rapid pacing. His head slowly turns.

There is one place that he hasn’t fully mapped.

Technically he’s been in there before. Even more technically, Bill’s said he’s allowed to enter. Dipper just hasn’t gone back since that first time since. Well. It’s a little too personal. It felt weird to poke around.

But if there was a place to find the deepest, most powerful secrets of Bill Cipher - it would be in there.

The doorknob to Bill’s master bedroom is oddly warm for something metal. Like it has its own radiating heat, just like the demon who commands it.

Dipper takes a calming breath, then lets it out as he turns the knob.

The unlocked door opens easily, gliding without a sound. Funny, he almost thought it would have an ominous creak.

The carpet’s soft. It muffles his steps. Not that there’s anyone to hear him; Bill’s busy with his meeting several rooms and an unknown amount of actual space away.

Still, Dipper feels a semi-giddy thrill run through him as he walks back in - intentionally, not fleeing - into the most private sanctum of his ‘god’.

Centuries worth of humans. That could be dozens, even hundreds of people, depending on how fast Bill churns through them. And he loves his little trophies and knickknacks, having something to wave around while he brags.

If there is any proof, Bill will have kept it around.

Last time Dipper was here, it was during a panicked rush. He didn’t really look at the room, or check for anything that might explode or devour him - and then Bill was there, and it was. A lot.

This time, he can really take in the place. Get a real sense of what might be going on.

Speaking of - Dipper reaches out with his magical senses -

Then winces. He eases back until the flare of magic is no longer blinding.

Everything in the bedroom is soaked in Bill-essence. Not surprising, really. All of it has marinated in god-demon magic for hell knows how many years, so thick it feels like it could be wiped up with a finger.

For all that, it’s remarkably unthreatening. The sensation’s not welcoming, that word would be too strong - More like it could be dangerous, and deliberately choosing not to be.

“Right,” Dipper says aloud - checks over his shoulder on a paranoid impulse - and sighs when nothing happens. He claps his hands together. “This should be good.”

Time’s limited. Bill claimed it’d be a couple hours, but his company wasn’t invited. Depending on how annoyed he gets, that meeting could be over in seconds.

Better get to work.

Circling the room, Dipper trails his palm over the wall, checking for cracks that would indicate a door or a safe. He brushes fingers over a shelf for secret switches, then rubs them together. Not even a hint of dust.

There’s got to be somewhere he would hide a private journal, or… or a list of human-selecting criteria. Or like, an elaborate carving of every human he’s ever had, with all the information about their lives and when and why he grabbed them. Details.

Sure, there’s plenty of magic around. Tons of it. It’s in the absurd amount of Bill-shaped knicknacks, and the variety of miscellaneous thingamajigs. It’s in the paintings, in the tapestries. The little statues and trinkets and amulets displayed on the mantle. An extravagant collection if you’re generous, clutter if you’re not.

Another person would consider this quite the find. Dipper’s stumbled over a dozen artifacts pulsing with power just lying around like cast-off socks. Finding what Bill likes the most or considers the best is nearly impossible to parse.

Dipper figures it out in about two minutes.

The only thing to glean from this horde? Is that Bill picks up too many souvenirs.

He scowls at one particularly annoying statuette, towering over a field of presumably conquered human-things. A crowd of bowing figures, prostrating before the much-larger Bill in a series of miniature lines. He checks over his shoulder, then flicks the statue’s golden hat off.

On the one hand, it’s careless as hell. Leaving an amulet that rips off all your skin, lying half-under a chain that summons a horde of flying eyeballs, is a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, it’s… maybe a little clever. A type of misdirection.

Sure, some artifacts have elaborate puzzle elements, and half of them likely contain mystical secrets - but Bill’s decorative habits are so busy, it covers up the fact that none of them are important.

No, Bill’s real secrets aren’t so easily found. They’re held much, much closer to his chest.

Putting them behind a puzzle wouldn’t work. Someone could solve that. Hiding them in plain sight is an option, but not particularly Bill’s style. Guarding them with a series of traps… Probably not in his bedroom, where he could accidentally set them off and ruin his suit.

But then, that would be what people expect, wouldn’t it? That Bill would have a bookshelf that swings out into a secret room, or a seal protecting a hidden vault. A big scary door, with mystical, nearly impenetrable lock.

…It’s all about misdirection.

Dipper drops the edge of the painting he was toying with, and heads to the dresser instead.

Part of him can feel the weight of the all-seeing eyes. The portraits of his ‘god’, omnipresent and watching. Unblinking, unmoving. Always watching.

Dipper shuts that idea out of his mind. That’s not true and he knows it, for a fact. Bill doesn’t pay attention to even half his eyes on a good day. Most times it’s like a single digit percentage.

Odds are he won’t find out. Besides, he’s too busy at the moment to care. What Bill doesn’t know can’t bother him, so it’s totally fine if Dipper rifles around in his underwear drawer.

Dipper holds up a pair of boxers, frowning at the pattern. Tiny blue pine trees against the most garish yellow ever. Truly hideous.

This is both worse than the triangle ones, and more inexplicable than ones with the heart pattern. Hardly what he’d pictured underneath the suit.

Not that he’s ever pictured it. That would be weird. But if he had, it would have been way cooler than this.

This search comes up with nothing, other than confusion at Bill’s fashion sense. Just clothes in the drawers, along with several unsheathed knives, a Bill-shaped keychain, and three glass eyeballs. Dipper does find a drawer with a lock set in the bottom, but he doesn’t have the key. Even then, opening it would just swing the bottom open and let all the pants fall out, so. No dice.

The closet is a walk-in. Dipper stands in the entrance for a minute, staring at the lines of suits and shirts and clothes and cloth and -

He shut the door again. Nope. That went back way too far. Diving in there might get him lost in the bespoke suit dimension.

Checking under the bed reveals… exactly the same stuff as last time.

More dustbunnies than anything useful. There’s a magical ring that’s bent with the gem fallen out, weakly emitting a tiny skull-shaped cloud. One actual sock lies discarded under there, half-balled up from its removal. It has little blood-soaked knives on it.

Dipper rubs at his eyes, staring up at the bedsprings. He sneezes, then wipes his nose on his sleeve.

So far, so… nothing. Disappointing, and weird.

He crawls back out from under the bed. Brushing off the dust, he gets up and sets fists on his hips.

Most of the obvious hiding places contain exactly what one would expect. Worst of all, it’s weird stuff. Just weird enough that he’s certain he’s not in a fake, illusory version of Bill’s bedroom, but the actual real place. It’s just less exciting than he’d thought it’d be.

Is there… actually nothing here?

Not that the evidence doesn’t exist. It has to be somewhere. The idea of Bill not having any secrets is impossible. Like a duck not swimming, or most mammals not breathing; a necessary part of their nature.

So it might actually be a different, hidden room. Figures. Getting to Bill’s secrets wouldn’t be as easy as opening his bedroom door.

And if that’s the case - Dipper’s out of luck. Finding an access point would be hard enough with his limited experience. Bill’s secret horde would have a set of quantum puzzles and a spike trap, at minimum.

He sits down on the bed, sighing heavily - then blinks.

Wow. The bed is incredibly nice. Just touching the sheets is a smooth, luxurious experience; Dipper presses his palm into those soft covers, stroking along the edge. Bouncing slightly on the mattress, just to test.

Not too firm. Not too soft. Just right. He could lie down for a moment if he wanted - and. And Bill said he could be in the bed, right? That was a while ago, but the invitation wasn’t taken back.

As he swings his legs up, one of them knocks into the bedside table.

Hold on - he hasn’t checked that yet.

Dipper hops, reluctantly, off that comfortable bed. One that has to be magical in its own right; he was nearly tempted to take a freakin’ nap. He’s lucky to have pulled himself out of it.

The bedside table doesn’t have such dangers, thankfully. Its drawer opens easily, unlocked and smooth on its slides.

Sadly, there’s not much to look at.

Dipper frowns at the contents. Some breath mints, a big bottle of clear liquid. A strange metal thing that’s bulbous on one end and tapered on the other. Picking it up shows it’s heavy and cool - but no apparent purpose, and zero magic. Maybe a weapon? Except it’s nowhere near big enough to be an efficient one.

He has to pull the drawer out more to get the metal object out. It easily slides open another foot, which is - weird? And actually…

Another tug, and a few more inches confirms - this goes back further than physically possible.

With a shrug, Dipper chucks the metal thing over his shoulder and onto the bed. By the time the drawer is out all of the way, it’s almost longer than he is tall.

Pushing things around to check, he finds snack wrappers - gross - and pieces of bone. A tiny skull, some weird statuette. A pair of handcuffs and a sleep mask, a tangle of metal wires and an elaborate candle, a weird ribbon-tied bundle of brown hair that he nervously scoots away with the back of his hand. With all the crap in here he’s half-worried he’ll feel something go ‘squish’ or skitter up his arm.

This is, more than anything, a junk drawer. Damn it. This was the last place he was going to check, and he came up empty-handed-

Then his knuckles bump against something, at the very far back. Shadowed by the overhang of the table above it, so far back it’s almost impossible to get a grip. His fingers slip twice before he gets a nail around one of the corners. A little wriggling. Then - Ha!

Dipper pulls the object out with more force than he needed. The move jolts the drawer open at an awkward angle, off its track. Whatever, he’ll fix it later.

In his hands, there’s a picture frame.

Now this could be something. A personal photo, so close to the bed. Something that should be resting out in the open, until it was stashed away nearly out of reach. He turns it over in his hands.

A picture of Bill. What a surprise.

Nothing remarkable here. Just Bill himself, giving the camera a thumbs up with stupid sunglasses over his eyepatch, lounging on some white-sanded beach on a towel of his own image.

Vacation photo. Great. Totally relevant. Totally not annoying, to get so close and yet so far.

“Jackass,” Dipper mutters, and pokes the stupid demon ‘god’ right in his stupid eye. The back of the photo frame presses against his fingers.

Wait. Then - It’s not flush with the frame. There’s a gap, or -

Dipper flips it over again. The only thing keeping the picture in is a tab, holding the backing in place. If he twists it, it comes off easily.

And there is another photograph, hidden behind the first. Oldest trick in the book.

Whatever Bill’s got to hide here, he sure as hell didn’t make it easy to find. Stuffed away in an innocuous place, not a hint of magic around it, right in his personal sanctum - this has to be something good.

A quick flick retrieves it; Dipper flips the photo around, and -

Blinks, twice. He nearly does a double take. An illusion? No, it’s - he just checked for magic, and there isn’t any here.

It’s just a picture of… Dipper.

And it has to be him, because- because it looks like him, and he’s in Bill’s home, wearing one of his favorite shirts as he lounges on the couch. In the photograph, he’s mid-yawn, arms drawn up as he stretches, loose sleeves falling down.

For a moment he wonders if this was one of Bill’s other humans - it’d be one hell of a resemblance if so - but the jagged pink scar running down the left wrist is absolutely unmistakable.

Dipper stares for a while. He’s not sure what to make of this.

Why is this stashed away? It’d help if it was like, a weird picture, one with some clear and sinister intent. The weirdest thing about this is the fact that it exists. And that quiet fluttering noise that started a few seconds ago.

Something taps on one of Dipper’s shoes, and he glances down.

There wasn’t just one picture.

With the backing removed, with the way he’s holding it - dozens of photos pour out of the picture frame, fanning out in their fall; an impossible number of them, there’s no way they all could have fit- Goddamn it, it’s extradimensional.

“Shit,” Dipper says, and tries to clap the backing back on. He gets a papercut for his troubles and swears, sticking his finger in his mouth.

Some fumbling later, he slaps the frame onto the sheets face down. The flood ceases, though a few more puff out as a final insult and scatter on the sheets.

Dipper backs up cautiously, just in case there’s another surprise in store - and nearly slips as a picture glides across the carpet. A second trips him up as he tries to get his balance, he grabs the blankets to steady himself.

How many fell out of the frame? Where have they all gone? It can’t be…

Dipper wheels around and stares in horror at the room.

Photos have tumbled everywhere. Across the floor and onto the table and under the bed, some halfway across the freaking room like an extra-inconvenient game of 52 pickup.

“Shit,” Dipper repeats. He nearly sits down on the sleep-enchanted bed again, then thinks better of it.

So much for being careful and subtle in his quest. Evidence of his spying has splattered across the entire goddamn room. He scoops up an armful, cursing as half of them flutter away like annoying butterflies. Another grab lets half the ones he gathered tumble back out of his grip.

Okay, this - this isn’t a disaster yet. This is solvable. Bill doesn’t need to know, it’ll be fine. He’ll never notice. As long as Dipper gathers these and gets them back into the frame. That shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Depending on how long that meeting runs, he might even have time to-

A sound. Was that a footstep? Or just paranoia.

Clenching his teeth against another curse, Dipper snags another armful, then a second. For lack of anywhere else to put them, he dumps them on the bed. Put everything in one place first, then worry about -

No, there was a sound. He hears another one now. The doorknob rattles, clicking as it turns.

Shit.

Dipper swipes his hands over the blankets, snagging what few photos he can reach and shoving them into the opened drawer. Then ramming the drawer shut with an all-too-loud thunk, clamping loose pictures in the gap, before belatedly realizing he left the metal thing out, too. He grabs it as the door starts opening, and now there’s no time left, he’s got to hide.

Suits rustle as he makes his dive into the closet. The door, pulled behind him as he made his rush to hide, clicks against the frame but doesn’t latch.

No more noise from the main room. Too quiet, almost, the sound of his own quiet panting muffled by surrounding cloth.

That. Did not go well. Dipper grits his teeth, silently running a prayer against discovery in his mind - wait, no, calling out for the guy he’s trying to hide from is a terrible idea.

Through the inch of open space, he can hear the faintest, lightest footstep. Not the thud of Bill’s shoes - but he might be still in the doorway. It’s hesitant because he’s looking across the mess, wondering what the hell just happened.

And what the hell was Dipper thinking? Permission to be in Bill’s room is nowhere near the same as permission to get his grubby fingers on every inch of Bill’s junk. Even that intrusion pales in comparison to putting a gallery’s worth of photos - ones Bill had deliberately hidden - practically on display like an impromptu art exhibition.

Dipper takes slow, measured breaths. In, and out.

All he can do now is wait. Stay quiet. Small, and hidden. Out of sight equals out of mind for most beings.

It’s too much to hope that Bill will let this slide. But maybe he can come up with an excuse? Lying in a cool enough way might amuse Bill enough not to go full-on nuclear.

The closet doesn’t judge him. The closet is where nobody will yell at him, since suits can’t talk. He’s even ninety-percent sure Bill doesn’t have any that could; it’d take away from his own rambling time.

Dipper shuffles into the rack, pressing his face against the lapels of a jacket. It’s a little cool on his cheeks, smelling faintly of Bill’s aftershave. He sighs against the jacket, feeling the press of the other suits on his back, and almost, sort of, feels a bit calmer.

After a while, he remembers he’s clutching the metal thing tight, in both hands. It’s warmed remarkably fast against his flesh, and now he’s not sure what to do with it. Stick it in a suit pocket, maybe? It doesn’t fit in any of them, or his own for that matter. The damn thing’s too long and weirdly shaped to go in anywhere.

Another footstep. Soft, but close. Despite the danger, Dipper pokes his head out of the suit rack to get a better listen.

The pacing is very soft and very rapid. Like multiple little feet instead of the standard two, tapping on the floor. Then on the bed, then - on the wall?

Okay, it’d be one thing if Bill decided to tiptoe in on his hands and knees. Weird, but not that weird, considering. The erratic movement, also plausible. Who knows what the hell he gets up to when Dipper’s not watching him.

It’s just… too quiet. Too furtive, really, like it’s trying hard not to make too much noise. Dipper’s all too familiar with the process.

And faintly, he can hear a strange, gentle buzzing. A quick, two-second burst that he almost mistakes for static. Only there’s no TV in here, and the pitch is off..

Dipper scoots a little closer to the door, ready to press his ear against it. The sound hits a deep, unpleasant memory, throwing him back to some of the more unsavory cult duties. Sacrifice cleanup. The messes always had a bunch of - but he’s never even seen a spider in Bill’s rooms. Much less some sort of giant fly.

He turns to peek through the opened crack, just as the door gets thrown open wide. The demon - and it must be a demon, because no fly is five feet tall and has that huge a spike on its face - lets out a horrible, high-pitched shriek. Dipper’s own scream doesn’t match its pitch, but it’s a hell of a lot louder.

Compound eyes reflect his face back at him like mirrors. A thin tonguelike proboscis runs along the sharp spike on its face, four arm-leg things reaching out towards him with odd spiked pads -

Dipper screams again, and hits it with the metal thing.

The demon wobbles, looking dazed - before it can grab at him again, he whacks it a second time. Wings buzz fast, a high ear-splitting pitch, limbs grasping at his shirt and his face. They whip acros his arms and sting. Shoving it away feels so- gross, it is like a big bug, all shell and hair and ew.

Another grab; the pad lands on his collar and it almost digs into his flesh One of the spindly limbs cuts across his shirt with a tearing noise and he hits it harder, feeling something crunch unpleasantly under the blow.

At some point the metal object in his hand started buzzing too; something in the sound has the demon reeling away in fear or disgust. And that is a chance to land another blow. A solid one, right in the eye. As it reels back Dipper follows the blow another, and a third, and again and again and again until stuff stops slashing at him and poking, and all that’s left is empty space in front of him.

Dipper realizes he's breathing hard. A quick patdown to check shows he’s sweating, and there’s some - ugh- goop on his hand. His shirt’s ripped, but there’s no blood. Everything’s intact.

Well. He’s intact.

A thoroughly swatted demon lies on the carpet, carapace fractured in multiple places. One leg jerks up and twitches rapidly before going still.

Nausea roils in Dipper’s stomach. It’s not human gore, or even mammalian, but. God, that was gross. And it smells really, really bad.

Something slams open a few feet away, and Dipper nearly jumps out of his skin. He looks up at the noise and -

At Bill.

A newly-manifested doorway has popped into existence, right in the middle of the room. Bill stands in the frame, teeth bared in a snarl, his arms braced he’s about to leap out. His eye lands right on Dipper, lit from inside with fire.

Then he blinks.

Bill looks Dipper over, then down at the twitching bug demon. His eye glances over the room, then back to Dipper. Then down again, to the metal thing in his hand, still buzzing away. Dipper lets it drop from nerveless fingers, where it vibrates in a slow little circle on the floor.

Several seconds pass without a snappy comment. Dipper can’t read the expression on Bill’s face. It flickered through several before settling on blank..

“Well, well, well, well, well,” Bill says, clapping his hands together. An unsurprisingly swift recovery. Behind him in the sitting room, Dipper can see the other demons clustering around to catch a peek. “I can’t believe what you’ve been up to!”

Dipper’s heart plummets into his stomach. He clutches at his torn shirt. That smile looks delighted, but it always masks something else.

He’s been caught. Caught right in the middle of things, red-handed. Guilty as hell in the eye of his god.

What the fuck was he thinking. Digging where he shouldn’t, pushing when it’s wrong. Being allowed to be here has been more than Dipper could ever ask for, and what does he give in return? Blasphemy. Violation. He’s ruined everything because he wanted to know things he was never meant to, just like he always does.

“Look, I can explain,” He babbles, backing up a step. Bill’s quicker by far, catching up before he can do more than hold up his arms. “Wait, I-”

A firm hand catches his shoulder; the other takes him by the cheek. Bill’s face is inches away, approaching fast, and he can’t help but see those sharp, sharp teeth in his open mouth, things that could bite and tear.

At the very last moment, his head is twisted to the side. Something soft and damp smacks him on the temple.

“Mmmmwah!” Bill draws back with an exaggerated sound, cupping Dipper’s face in both hands. “Boy, you really walloped that guy! Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.”

“Whuh,” Dipper says, intelligently.

Bill drops his grip and turns towards the demon on the floor, giving it a contemplative, almost professional look. He taps his foot for a moment, then nods, like an expert evaluating a journeyman’s craft.

Dipper touches his temple with two careful fingers. It’s a little damp. A warm, tingling feeling spreads out from where Bill- Where it happened.

“Now, as for you-” Bill eyes the demon a little longer, then sets his hand on his hips. His smile changes to the sharp, unpleasant version. “Creeping around the place. Digging through my stuff. I don’t take kindly to peeping eyes that aren’t mine.” One sharply polished shoe lands a heavy kick in the vague area of the thing’s groin; it lets out a tinny scream. “And you made a huge goddamn mess while you were at it!”

Dipper glances over the scattered photos, open drawers, and the scattered knicknacks. Yes, someone certainly did.

Another kick lands on the demon with a crunch, and he winces.

“Gee, I wonder how you snuck your way in.” Bill says, immensely dry. He turns slightly towards that still-open doorway. The demons leaning in to watch start backing up fast. “Who coulda possibly helped with that! It’s a real friggin mystery for the ages!”

A mystery that Dipper had been wondering about, somewhere beneath the panic. The solution’s clear now that it’s gone.

Getting through Bill’s front door was all they needed. With such a big crowd of ‘small-timers’, as Bill would call them, he’d barely bother to track every one of them. The fly demon could have easily hitched a ride in a shrunken state; too small to be noticed until the time came to start snooping. With Bill busy elsewhere, it would have been a perfect opportunity - if Dipper hadn’t had the same idea.

That it is a spy is a relief. Dipper had been a little worried. If this was the kind of bug that comes crawling in after cracking open a window, he’d have second thoughts about his living arrangements.

Bill makes an odd pointing gesture. The room tremble as it shifts - and a spike impales the demon in front of him, dangling its slender body in midair.

“I’ll handle those losers in a second,” He says, gesturing at the doorway. He taps a foot, humming briefly in thought. “But as for you…”

Dipper backs up further. He keeps Bill between him and the fly-creature while still trying to keep an eye on the action.

Watching Bill about to enact his vengeance is … Sure, it was spying. It didn’t do what was right, or even smart. But he already beat it up, and it’s looking really rough. Whatever Bill’s going to do is -

The insect-like demon flails on the spike, limbs writhing. A loud buzz starts up again, along with some odd clicking noises.

“Hm?” Bill cocks his head to one side. Then he glances back at Dipper. “Yeah, what about him?”

On second thought, Bill should finish this guy off quickly and violently. For spying, and for ruining Dipper’s shirt, and being a goddamn snitch.

“Oh, I see!” With a grin, Bill stalks closer. “You know what, you’re right! If I caught two spies in my place, they’d totally get the same treatment!”

Dipper’s heart leaps into his throat.

No, wait, that - he was so certain, this isn’t -

“But there’s a real big problem with your dumb little assumption.” Bill tuts, holding up one finger in a chiding wag. With a vicious grin, he seizes it by the spike on its face. “There’s only one of those around!”

Dipper’s heart restarts, though it’s pounding fast. He braces himself on one knee, starting to breathe again.

“See, you’re here uninvited.” Bill says, very calmly, even as he twists the head at an unnatural angle, a sound both crunchy and wet. The wings buzz so fast a breeze starts picking up. “And HE freakin’ LIVES HERE.”

Oh.

There’s a thud as the severed head drops; Bill stomps on it with one perfect black shoe. Fragments of chitin flying, goo splatters in a comically yellow splat, making more of a mess than Dipper ever could.

Then Bill scowls at the ruined carpet, his hands on his hips. Like he’d walked in on a pile of undone dishes instead of making the disaster himself.

And Dipper’s still standing there. Untouched.

“There,” Bill says, with deep satisfaction. He wipes his hands off on his suit jacket - then frowns and takes the whole thing off, toweling bits of innards off his face. “What a moronic thing to try. Though it has been a grip since anyone made an attempt!.” Shrugging, he tosses the jacket away. “Guess they’re forgetting what happened to the last batch.”

Dipper nods, waiting for a moment. Then another.

And he’s still there, untouched. Unharmed. Because - because he’s not a spy, or an interloper, or even an unwanted or unattended guest. Bill doesn’t see him that way. He thinks that -

“So, I’m…” Dipper starts. Pauses, briefly, as Bill looks over his shoulder, then summons up the scraps of his courage. “I’m… not in trouble?”

“Sapling, you’re fine! Better than fine!” Bill says, dismissing the suggestion with a wave. “Hell, you could go through my freakin’ underwear drawer and I wouldn’t give a crap.” He pauses - then turns towards Dipper with a huge, knowing grin. “See anything you liked?”

“I’m-” Dipper freezes. All his muscles tense, and his face is hot. He touches his temple again; the tingling has started running down his neck. “Uh.”

Bill’s still staring at him. His smile widens another degree for every second it lasts.

“I’m gonna go take a shower.” Dipper blurts, and starts backing up again.

That’s a good excuse. Reasonable. He’s got goop on him, he’s sweaty, and he would really rather avoid talking about anything right now.

“Suit yourself!” Bill laces his fingers together, pushing his arms out in front of himself until the knuckles crack. He faces the door again, storming towards the meeting he’d recently abandoned. “I got some business to take care of.”

Dipper nods, once. He leaves the bedroom at a walk instead of a run, and hears the door shut behind him.

He’s…

All his breath comes out in a rush. The wall is steady under his back as he leans on it, palm over his eyes.

Holy crap, he’s fine. He really is. It’s okay.

This wasn’t a mistake. Everything was fine, he did make the right guess, and thank fuck for that. He is allowed in the bedroom. He could go anywhere he wants, and it’d be fine. More than fine.

He also wasn’t lying about the shower. Not only does it buy him some space, this fly-blood stuff really stinks.

Getting into the shower, he sets his face in the hot, pounding stream and tries to scrub off the goo. Water pressure. Hot water, and as much of it as he likes. Dipper can turn his back to the steady stream and feel it beating out the tension.

He lets out a low groan, letting water run through his hair. For all that it’s bizarre and confusing, the sheer luxury of Bill’s home is downright amazing.

Though. It’s not just Bill’s home, is it.

Dipper tilts his head out of the water. He watches droplets trickle down the shower walls.

Like. Obviously Bill’s the owner, he’s the ruler of his own domain. He controls the very fabric of space, changing the interior on a whim -

But there’s another person around. One who’s not a guest, or merely staying over for business reasons. Not a sentient pet or a tool or one of his knicknacks, kept carefully for display.

Dipper is a whole entire person who gets to be here, in Bill’s home, because he lives here too.

Not all that long ago, he was worried he wouldn’t leave this place alive. Then he wondered whether he could leave at all. For a while he wondered if Bill would make him go, after he was done doing… whatever he wanted to do with Dipper. Yet another part was convinced that when they went back to the cult, that’d be it. Back to earth, out of the dreamscape and out of Bill’s hair.

The last two no longer hold up. Because Dipper lives here, Bill said it himself, and by the nonchalant way he said it it’s been a done deal for a while.

Bill didn’t even try to hide it. He didn’t think it was a surprise.

The concept’s so big that Dipper doesn’t know where to start.

Living here. With Bill.

Dipper’s been places, though not many. Lived in places, if only a grand total of two. Early on, he thought that this one would be the same as the last. A man in charge, setting strict rules that must be followed. Forbidden from ever leaving. Punishment for not doing as he was told, or even thinking about not toeing the line.

All his experience told him that was how things go. It was all he knew. An assumption that everywhere was going to be the same tune, played on a different instrument.

His assumptions have never been right.

Bill’s home is a different beast entirely.

Bill could be in charge, but he doesn’t care to be. Not with Dipper. He hasn’t heard an order leave his mouth in ages. He’s free to leave the apartment if he wants, nothing’s going to stop him - though that’s a bad idea for other reasons, and Bill didn’t create them just keep Dipper in line. The worst punishment he’s gone through is a pinched cheek and some teasing, which is so minor that it almost goes into the negative. And he doesn’t have to worry about the breaking rules, because Bill doesn’t have any.

DIpper almost wishes he could blame it on, well. Demon realm. Strange culture. That things are topsy-turvy because everything else conspired to make it that way, rather than just.

Like, he already knew the cult was shitty when he was still in it. Knowing how shitty it really was leaves him wondering what a normal life could have been like. A strange, what-if ache.

Dipper had made plans to leave that awful place, knowing it meant he could never return. Even if there was anything he wanted to go back for, it wouldn’t be safe; Once he got out, that was going to be it. The whole world, or the conclave. One or the other.

If he wants to step outside Bill’s home, he doesn’t need to abandon it.

They’ll make a visit to Earth, for one. Bill wants to go to the cult for revenge, and Earth seems to intrigue him. He’ll take Dipper along with him, not lock him away in his room, because he wouldn’t let him miss the ‘fun’.

And - and if the show was right. Later, Dipper might get to visit Earth by himself, while Bill waits back at the Fearamid.

It’s an idea that feels more dreamlike than anything else in this realm of sleep. That maybe, this could be a place he can leave and come back to. Somewhere he doesn’t have to choose. Going and seeing things he’s always wanted, then returning again, with someone happy to see him at the door. Maybe that’s what a home’s supposed to be.

Dipper lets his head thunk into the side of the shower, out of the stream.

It’s weird to think a deadly demon realm ruled by an all-powerful madman is the safest Dipper’s felt in… forever, maybe. Which is another question entirely.

How the hell is he getting away with all of this?

It’s not just the snooping from earlier; he didn’t find much worth mentioning. Punching Bill in the goddamn face, though, that should have sent him into the lowest, most horrible dungeons. Not to mention the increasing amount of backtalk he’s giving a ‘god’. Complaining and questioning, even arguing, all excused. The defiance even delights Bill, because he’s a huge goddamn weirdo.

Nobody else - nothing in the universe - could get away with all of that without retribution. Yet Dipper remains singularly, remarkably unharmed. The worst Bill’s ever done is scare him a little, and even that’s odd considering the whole ‘nightmare king’ deal he has going; Dipper should have had at least two heart attacks by now.

The birthmark. It must be that.

The one human in the show had it, and Dipper has it too. The other human companions… He didn’t see it on them, but it might have been in a different place? At minimum though, that’s two humans who Bill hung out with, wearing the same star-ridden shape.

But ow would Bill have known Dipper had it? He wasn’t watching him before they met - and by the time they did, the mark had been missing for ages.

It could be magical. Maybe. Dipper’s never heard of ‘special birthmarks’ actually being a thing outside of bad fantasy novels. Then again, if it was, the magic could show up in his blood - exactly what was used in Bill’s summon. Which would…. Do a thing. He thinks.

Dipper rubs his face with the washcloth, willing his brain to start working better.

Everything feels muddled and weird. Partly from exhaustion, partly from too much information with not enough connections.

Still, one thing is certain. Bill wasn’t lying, no matter what Dipper thought at the time. He is special.

It’s… what, special… privilege? A secret power? Some strange field of influence, so specifically targeted it’s ridiculous, with no logical reason to exist? It’s…

Dipper gets out of the shower, and stares at himself in the mirror. He sticks his tongue out. The birthmark remains, brightly outlined on pink flesh.

Having more pieces to the puzzle helps. Sadly, he still doesn’t know the picture on the front of the box.

Confronting Bill without having his thoughts in order would be worse than useless. He’ll dodge every guess, unless Dipper throws something really solid at him. He needs a strong offense to pry the secrets from between Bill’s stubborn, oddly soft lips.

Screw it. There’s too much to go through, and he’s so, very tired. He can sort it out tomorrow.

There’s no rush, anyway. Bill’s not going to kick him out. Dipper lives here.

Preparing for bed is the same ritual as always. Brush teeth, get changed. He can turn the lights on and off whenever he wants, not wait for someone else to do it at a mandated time, and now he keeps them dimmed. The bed’s already made in the guest room-

No, His room. Where he lives.

An emotion fills his chest, welling up until it feels like he could - Dipper grabs mini-Bill and holds it tight.

Squishing the plush in his arms helps, though he has to hold it very hard. And this is his, too. Bill hasn’t tried to take it from him beyond starting to glare at it on occasion. He has so much that’s his.

The quilts settle cozily around him, comforting in their weight. The pillow soft,sinking under his head. Comfort, too; he has this now, and he’s never, ever going to take it for granted.

Problem being, when he shuts his eyes, there’s flashes of translucent wings. A high buzzing, from both the thing in his hand and the thing making crunching noises -

Dipper sits up again with a groan. Rubbing at his face, he kicks his legs over the edge of the bed.

He knows what kind of night he’s in for. They’re infrequent enough lately that it doesn’t bother him. Nightmares in the nightmare realm, who could have guessed. Another round isn’t going to kill him.

Yet somehow, the idea of lying down and watching that scene repeat in extra-gory detail, with the cult and god knows what else thrown in, feels like an extra shitty thing to go through right now.

He could get up and read for a while, try to get it out of his mind. Or get a glass of water, or journal down all the things he’s learned today. Hell, he could even bother Bill, who doesn’t ever seem to sleep and certainly wouldn’t mind the company. He’s almost always up for whatever Dipper suggests, no matter what it…

Huh. Now that’s an interesting thought.

It might work, too. Being ‘special’ gives him some extra leverage. Stuff that Bill wouldn’t normally allow, he lets Dipper get away with handily.

He could use that.

Dipper gets up, heading for the doorway. Still clutching mini-Bill, since he doesn’t expect to be up for long. He’ll consider this a test run. A little favor shouldn’t bother Bill much; it’ll barely take him a second.

The door to his bedroom creaks as it opens. The living room’s still lit up, though dimmer than usual. Typical for the ‘evening’, or dream realm equivalent. He pushes it open further, stepping out into the light.

And there’s Bill. Sitting in the high-backed chair, facing the fireplace.

He must have wrapped up his ‘business’ to his satisfaction, looking pleased with himself. He swirls a drink in his fingers that shifts color with every turn. The light from the fireplace illuminates the angles of his face, and the curve of his satisfied smirk.

Dipper hesitantly clears his throat. Instantly Bill perks up, head swiveling in his direction like a compass needle to the north.

“Hey there, sapling! What’s up?” Bill asks. He crosses one leg over the other, offering a quick wave. “Thought you were in for the evening.”

“No, not yet.” Dipper says. Already he’s awkward; asking for things and actually getting them still feels weird. “Soon, maybe. But I, uh. Wanted to ask you something first.”

Bill tilts his head back, finishing his drink in one long swig before tossing the glass aside. He gives Dipper a wink, and double finger guns. “Sure, go for it.”

Okay, now. How to phrase this. Hopefully it’s not some kind of offensive ask, and - well, he’s pretty sure Bill’s not doing this on purpose. More like it’s an aura around him, or a knee-jerk reflex. Not always activated, but powerful when it is.

Bill’s still watching him curiously. Waiting for Dipper to speak, in an eerily patient silence.

Here goes nothing. Dipper takes a deep breath.

“I don’t want to have bad dreams, so, uh,” He admits, though it comes out a little rough. He tugs his pajama shirt to straighten it. “Could you…um. Not? For tonight?”

A beat of pause. Bill blinks several times, then says, “That’s not me, kid.”

Oh for - Dipper levels a deeply unimpressed look. Usually Bill’s lies are better. “You’re the lord of nightmares.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m great at designing them, not the source of all of ‘em. You think I got time to get to every being in the multiverse?” Bill says. He catches sight of Dipper’s glare and frowns, lifting his hands to show his own empty palms. “Look, I’m not poking around in your subconscious. Whatdya want, a pinky swear?”

Dipper’s mouth moves, his tongue flicks. The words come out without permission. “Or maybe you’re just not that great.”

He shuts his mouth with a click, almost catching his tongue in the process.

He shouldn’t have said that. Shit, even if he is a little annoyed, he keeps crossing that damned line. Questioning Bill’s power. His capability, his very essence. Surely Bill won’t just ignore it again.

Except Bill does. If anything he looks more amused, starting to snicker as he rises from his seat.

And he does inflict a ‘punishment’. By getting super close and ruffling Dipper’s hair in a super annoying way. Dipper shakes it off, pulling back with a huff. Annoyed, but also - god, he really does have a lot of leeway. It’s insane.

“Hey! I’m definitely the best.” Bill chides, wagging a finger at him. “You just got your perspective wrong! Elements exist on their own! Some guys are just great at manipulating ‘em. You’re not texting the king of fire every time you light a match, y’know?”

“Well,” Dipper says, then stops. When Bill puts it that way -

Not omnipotent. Not omnipresent. Not literally the fabric of the mind itself, either; he should have thought of it before, except he keeps making dumb assumptions.

“Look. You want a custom, hand-delivered nightmare? One that’ll make someone scream their lungs up and claw their own eyes out? Then I’m the best in the biz!” Bill puffs out his chest, smiling wide - then shrugs, looking a little wry. “But any dreamer can have something nasty crawl outta their subconscious. That’s just nature.”

Dipper nods, once. Letting out a sigh, and rubbing at his eyes.

Not the answer he was looking for - but an answer nonetheless.

He’d guessed that Bill wasn’t inflicting them on purpose, sure. Infrequent and random fit ‘accidental’, there wasn’t any pattern he could find. Learning they’re not Bill’s fault at all is surprising - but nice.

…That also means every terrible dream Dipper has had came from his own stupid brain. Going around concocting terrible scenarios and waking him up in a sweat, purely au naturale. Super great.

Simple solutions rarely exist, he guesses.

“Sorry. Or- yeah.” He squirms out from under Bill’s pursuing hand, turning back towards the door. Another bad night isn’t the worst, he’ll live. “I’ll just-”

“Hey, hey! Don’t sweat it, sapling. When it comes to nightmares, you came to the right guy!” Bill interrupts before Dipper can make it more than a foot. He takes him by the shoulder, squeezing it firmly. “I got just the solution for ya. Sweet dreams only, one hundred percent guaranteed.”

Or maybe… Dipper glances back. But Bill just said he wasn’t doing this, so-

“Really. One hundred percent.” That’s an exaggeration if he’s ever heard one. Dipper folds his arms, giving Bill an arch look. “If you’re not making the nightmares, then that means you’re playing defense. You’re telling me you get every single one?”

“Always so cynical! Ninety-nine point nine repeating is mathematically identical.” Bill says primly, already steering Dipper around, pushing him in another direction. “And better odds than you’ll get anywhere else.”

Fine, that’s true enough. Dipper doesn’t have better options. Or any other ones. He might as well see where this leads.

Bill hums behind him, bizarrely delighted by the weird request. Maybe because it’s weird. Maybe because he enjoys the process, somehow? Either way, he seems confident in his ability to pull this off - but when doesn’t he?

Dipper gets maneuvered through the living room, over the carpet, and - into Bill’s master bedroom again. He glances over his shoulder briefly, just before the door shuts behind them.

Wait, what are they doing here?

The room’s just as clean as the first time he entered. There’s no demon corpse, no puddle of ichor or new freestanding door. No photos to be seen. At some point Bill must have tidied up -

Dipper closes his eyes against the mental image. Bill, seeing through all the evidence he left. Knowing it was Dipper who did it. He hasn’t said a word about it, but the guilt lingers.

He almost wishes Bill was mad about it. Or complaining about the mess, or making some wry comment to tease him about his shitty show of espionage. At least then he'd know what Bill is thinking.

Dwelling on his own guilt is interrupted by Bill pushing him forward, then halts suddenly. Leaving Dipper standing at the side of that immense, luxurious bed.

Bill gives his shoulders another pat, then lifts up one edge of the sheets. “Hop on in, kid!” With a little flourishing bow, he flaps the covers. “Get yourself cozy.”

“Uh. Sure.” Dipper hesitates, but. Bill’s nudging him along, so he eventually pulls himself up into the bed and under the opened sheets. They drop on top of him before he’s even fully in the thing, while Bill perkily walks off to another part of the room.

Just as he suspected. It is a great bed.

As Dipper settles back, the mattress is firm but yielding. The pillows mold around his head. The blankets are cooler than the quilts in his own room, almost chilly - but not hard to get used to.

It’s not hard to settle down, waiting for Bill. For a ritual that involves dreams, a bed as the setting makes sense. Though part of him thought Bill would just, like. Snap his fingers, or something. Demon powers, or whatever.

Even without any magic, Dipper’s tired enough to fall asleep right now. But that might mess with whatever Bill’s doing, so. He’ll just. Shut his eyes for a moment.

“Hold tight for a sec! I’ll be with ya in a jiffy,” Bill says, vastly more upbeat than the situation calls for. “Lemme just slip into something more comfortable.”

Dipper’s eyes shoot open. He blinks up at the ceiling for a moment before sitting up. “What do yo-”

His words die before the sentence fully forms. He shuts his mouth slowly. Swallowing with a mouth that’s gone suddenly dry.

Bill’s shirt lies in a silent pile on the floor by his feet. In the firelight, broad shoulders roll as he stretches, casting interesting lines of shadow on the planes of his back.

Dipper drops back down, clutching the blankets like a lifeline.

Okay, wait, maybe he has the wrong idea. Bill’s not, like.

There's a clinking sound. A belt being undone, moving as it slides from its loops - then another as it falls. Followed by a zip, and more soft shuffling of cloth.

Dipper dares a glance. Then instantly grabs one of the other pillows, pulling it over his face.

Okay. Okay, this is - fine and, normal maybe, he doesn’t know how this ritual’s supposed to work. It’s not unheard of to be… unadorned when doing powerful magic, since any enchanted clothing could interfere. Bill’s just getting rid of them before he casts the spell. Everything’s going exactly as it should, and Dipper can throw out that newly-acquired mental picture as totally irrelevant and definitely rude.

The pillow helps. He’s not tempted to look at all, but if he was, it completely blocks his view and most of the sound.

He should be patient, and quiet, and wait for the spell. If it’s strong enough that Bill has to undress to cast it, this will take a while. Dipper has plenty of time to calm back down.

A motion in the covers, as something pulls them up. A deep, pleased sigh, much closer than before - then a large weight sinks the mattress slightly, scooting close with familiar, incorrigible confidence.

Or, the thought appears in Dipper’s mind. There’s no spell. It’s a ward. Which would require the warder’s presence, right. Totally reasonable.

So yes, of course. Bill joined Dipper in bed, just like he said he would like, less than two minutes ago. How that little fact got glossed over was - he stopped thinking straight for a while, that’s all.

The cult didn’t leave Dipper with a huge range of experience, he knows that. Hates it, most days.

But even in that limited scope, he knows some people sleep undressed. He’s seen his share of unfortunate cultists get woken up for morning sermon, only to see them entirely unprepared. That Bill shares that particular proclivity is… honestly not that big a surprise.

“Ah, now that’s nice.” Bill says, voice slightly muffled. There’s a thump near Dipper’s head - probably Bill lying back himself. “You don’t look all that cozy, though. What gives?”

Dipper tells him he’s fine, but he doesn’t know how much of it gets through the down covering.

There’s a pause, then a snort. The blankets shift as Bill adjusts them, drawing them further up.

It really is fine. He’s doing great, he’s comfy, Bill’s going to help him with something and it didn’t seem like any kind of trick. All he has to do is deal with a perfectly normal sleeping habit from a not-at-all normal guy, who’s lying so close Dipper can feel him breathing. Inches away, with his bare skin warming the too-cool blankets.

He can’t hold the pillow this tight forever, though. It’s getting hard to breathe.

Then a thump, just near Dipper’s head; Bill slammed a palm into the mattress. Leaning over him no doubt, with his body covering Dipper’s own. The picture is clear in his mind; he can almost feel the body looming over him. Something gently tugs the pillow, urging it away, and - and Dipper shouldn’t resist, should he? Bill is after something, he’s demanding and forceful, he’ll do anything to get what he wants.

The pillow leaves Dipper’s loose grip, pulled away by a firmer, stronger hand. He lets his arms drop to either side of his head. His breathing picks up.

And Bill is looming over him. Held up by one strong arm, looking amused. His eye bright and half-lidded, his smile sharp and dangerous on his face. Wearing a soft, loose t-shirt, reading ‘Hungry Zixlor’s Burger Joint’.

Dipper reads the shirt, then tilts his head up for another angle. Below that, Bill’s put on the pine tree boxers.

“See? Way more comfy when you can actually aspirate.” Bill says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Dipper rolls onto his side, feeling a rush of annoyance. The hell, he was going to put the stupid pillow down. Bill didn’t have to get all over him just for that.

He feels the bounce as Bill drops back down into bed, cackling to himself at another successful human-annoyance. Dipper’s half-tempted to smack him with the damn pillow, but who knows what that would lead to.

Mini-Bill got lost in the covers somewhere along the line, so Dipper fishes around until he finds it and hugs it to his chest. He lets out a huff, squishing it tight.

Without warning, an arm slips under Dipper’s neck. Another drapes over his waist. If asked later, Dipper will claim he didn’t make a single sound, much less anything undignified.

Instead, he holds very, very still. The arms around him are firm and strong. With the body behind him warming up everything, the blankets suddenly make sense. Bill’s practically a furnace. Anything more insulation and they'd combust.

“Good night, sleep tight,” Bill says, low and close. Dipper shivers, though he isn’t cold. “Don’t let the demons take too big a bite.” Teeth click sharply right next to his ear, and Dipper shivers.

God, of course he wouldn’t just- just let this be calm and nice, he’s Bill friggin’ Cipher. “Jerk,” Dipper mutters, and feels Bill’s chest shake with silent laughter.

The arm around his waist squeezes him tighter, pressing his back fully against Bill’s chest. He can feel it move as he breathes, and the steady pulse of his heart. Between real Bill and mini-bill, they’re practically a set of nesting dolls.

After that… nothing. Bill doesn't taunt anymore, and a few minutes later, Dipper hears him start to snore. Another annoying bit of Bill, and not annoying enough to distract him from everything else. He wishes it would.

Even in sleep, Bill has the nerve to keep breathing and moving, instead of being a warm statue Dipper could ignore. His fingers trail in a mindless, unconscious pattern over Dipper’s stomach, making him bury his face in the pillow. Running through every chant he can remember silently, over and over, especially the ones that are mind-numbingly boring.

None of these ideas are sinful. Bill himself has done more, and worse, than just having two or three concepts flicker through his brain, and Dipper knows it’s not wrong. He does, really.

…Just because it’s not sinful doesn’t mean it’s not awkward.

Dipper keeps his eyes shut. Trying to ignore the pounding of his own heart. There’s a bright, tingling energy in his body, spreading through every part of him, head to toe. It's... inconvenient.

Bill wasn’t lying about preventing nightmares. He’s terribly effective.

Dipper can’t have bad dreams if he doesn’t get any sleep.

#One day I will relearn how to write short things #Today was not that day and tomorrow's not looking good either #By the end of this miniseries I'll have basically written a dang novel #RIP my writing hands #I will now have some chocolate as a reward #Fun Fact: I know I'm finished editing when I reach what I call the 'fuck it phase'#Which is when I'm sick of looking at the dang thing #So here it is!!#This is why it's hard to leave tumblr - not a lot of other sites let you drop huge blocks of text like this

119 notes · View notes

crushedsweets · 3 days

Note

SUCKER suckerrrr snap out of it by arctic monkeys is sooo ninakate suckerr trust

i'm so ill. my hands shake and crack as i imagine ninakate living out their life. give me a moment to process. as per usual, im writing this as if i was planning out a one-shot song-fic.

someone remind me to do this with kill the director eventually

ok to begin. the song is from kates perspective to nina.. im imagining its after theyve had their weird little 'meaningless' kisses. IN THIS STORY, SHE KINDA LINGERS BACK TO JEFF ON AND OFF... also this is mostly sad theres barely a good ending im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry

nina is well integrated into the kate, clocky, toby, EJ friend group by this point. but every time she spends a few weeks trying to "work things out" with jeff, she's completely off in her own world. she withdraws from her friends, half cuz she's so focused on 'fixing' the doomed relationship and half cuz she's so embarrassed that she keeps going back and i think that shit is SOUL CRUSHING to kate. she hasn't had feelings for someone since . . . lauren . . . and she finally gets fragments of romance again, only for nina to constantly wander off after leading her on. also heavy on the 'fell in love, or near enough' cuz what nina and jeff has is not love 'i gotta tell you the truth' its eating kate alive. she doesnt really talk emotions and she never tells people what to do, but she just wants to scream bro.

i think toby, clocky, and ej have already exhausted themselves telling nina to give it up. EJ has tried gentle pieces of advice, clocky has bickered back and forth, and toby has outright screamed at nina to STOP GOING BACK TO HIM. and none of it did anything. but kate doesnt tell people what to do. the most she would do is raise a brow at nina and sigh and shake her head. i think this would eventually be a good bonding moment for kate and toby, where she confides in him about feeling like she missed her shot. toby tells her that she's never gonna 'miss her shot' ... especially w a girl as messy as nina...cuz evidently jeff did all that and still didnt miss HIS shot. LMFAO... but he'd encourage kate to get her shit together and just talk to nina about it. and for some reason nobody listens to tobys damn advice so kate just sits and waits.

ok this is just very straightforward. kate is constantly mulling over it and pissed and sad and bummed out. (oddly enough, tobys relieved to see her stressing over crushes instead of like.... being torn apart from the inside by a cryptic entity)

'it sounds like settling' down or givin' up, but it don't sound much like you, girl' OK i think this line works for kate AND nina.

toby would be saying something like this to kate. its kind of warped, cuz i think when kates in the chaser mode, she does not give up. she is persistent and she attacks with a goal. he's watched the chaser run to the brink of exhaustion, to the point where kate was bed ridden afterwards. SO WHY WOULD SHE GIVE UP ON SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS A GIRL ?!?!?!

and in turn, kate would be thinking this towards nina. settling down doesnt seem like nina. giving up is also not like nina cuz she is also quite persistent until feelings fade... which frustrates kate cuz she gets stuck in this loop of 'even if she were to leave jeff, why would she settle for me? why would she stay with me? there's no point in getting deeper into this'

kate would eventually have to snap, as stories go. grabbing nina and confessing, going on about how fucking dumb nina is being. honestly, kate would probably accidentally choke out things she heard from EJ, clocky, and toby all scolding nina... which would either upset nina, or feel like a full circle moment where FINALLYYYYY all the shit that she's been told all this time has come together. and finally she can be like oh.... this is really embarrassing for me...... also oh my god wait

the idea of kate writing nina a letter. oh my god. wait. GUSY WAIT FUCK KATE WRITING NINA A LETTER WAIT FUCK FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK KATE WRITES HER A LETTER THATS CANON NOW IM SORRY IM SORRY IMSORRY

#ninakate #i love lesbians.. eugh...#asks

30 notes · View notes

aleyah-lavelle · 2 days

Text

Skateboard 4

Wind breaker

author's note: interaction with Jay is now finally happening 😩👊

✧˖° — windbreaker men

✧˖° — mdni, smut, description of not safe for work content.

✧˖° — this is a story not one shot.

The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about what happened. The events of yesterday were driving me crazy, and I wanted to scream in my room. The Sabbath Crew kept popping into my mind—Wooin, Joker, and especially Jay from Hummingbird. I bit my finger while staring at the blackboard. Our physics teacher was checking our assignments. I did Dom’s assignment as promised, and I also did Jay’s. I ignored his suggestion to work on it together. There was no way I was doing that. Besides, I could handle it on my own.

But when I handed Jay his assignment, he seemed annoyed. Was he really mad at me, or was that just his usual expression?

"Is this real?" Our teacher looked up in surprise. "Dom, Jay, and Demitra got the highest scores on the assignment," he announced to the class. "All three of them tied for the highest score."

Dom’s jaw dropped as he stared at me, but I kept looking out the window. Honestly, the assignment was tough, but I managed to ace it.

"Come on, Sir! Can't you believe I have some hidden genius too?" Dom shouted, making everyone laugh.

"Well, I just can't believe anyone matched Jay's score. He always gets the highest in our class." The teacher looked at me. "It seems our new student is competing with him. This is very exciting." He grinned.

Jay kept his usual cold expression, staring at his notebook. I shrugged and started packing my things since the teacher was leaving and it was time to go home. Our classmates started making noise again as soon as the teacher left. It was like a zoo with all the ruckus they were causing. I never expected Korean students to be this loud.

I froze when I saw someone standing in front of my desk. It was Dom...

"Can we talk to you?" he asked with a sweet smile plastered on his face.

"Who's 'we'?" I replied, then noticed Jay, Mia, and Yuna also standing up.

"We saw how you ride a bike, and I gotta admit, you're really good," Dom said, stroking his chin as if deep in thought. "I don't know what happened yesterday that made Jay win when it was obvious you should have."

"Maybe Jay's just better than her," Yuna interjected, giving me a dirty look.

I smiled sarcastically. "I still don't see why you're all here in front of me."

"Join us." We all turned to Jay. His eyes were directly on mine. "Join our crew," he clarified.

I laughed, but when I realized they were serious, I laughed again.

"What is this? This is so random." I shook my head and put my notebook in my bag. "I lost, so why would I join your crew? Besides, I already did your assignments, so why—"

"Shelly's been gone for months now because of a family emergency in England. We need a rider for the cycling tournament. We're short one person for the next round. It's only temporary," Dom explained, making puppy eyes at me.

I felt like a bucket of cold water was poured over me when he mentioned Shelly's name. I had suspected she might be the Shelly I knew, and now I was right. It really was her.

I clenched my fists.

"And didn't you say that if you beat Jay, you'd join their crew? It means you really want to join—" Mia started, but I cut her off.

"Believe it or not, I was just joking back then." I looked away from them. "I didn't expect you to take it seriously. Look, I'm selling my bike because I don't use it anymore. Just find another rider or bring Shelly back." I stood up. But before I could leave, someone grabbed my arm. I looked up to see Jay staring at me with no emotion on his face.

"I'll do all your assignments this time," he uttered. "Just join us," he said firmly.

"I don't need your help."

"But we do."

I looked at him in disbelief, meeting his gaze. Okay, I had to admit, I wanted to try their tournament, but I didn't want to show my face. I knew Sangho was handling that event. He might recognize me, and I didn't want him to know I was in Korea.

"Fine," I said, and Dom, Yuna, and Mia's eyes widened as if I had said something shocking. "Don't help me with physics, just Korean," I added, looking away.

"Wow, you really don't seem like someone who struggles with our language," Mia remarked, amazed.

I gave them a small smile. "Just tell me the time of your training," I said to Jay.

"We were planning to train right now," Dom chimed in.

Oh fuck

This isn't bad, right? And it's only temporary. They just really need a player for a new match. I sighed, thinking about Shelly again. That woman... So she's Jay Jo's girlfriend. I thought they were talking about a different Shelly because there was no way that woman would come to Korea. Last time she told me, no matter how boring her life got, she wouldn't go to her mother's country.

"I really appreciate you accepting our request," Mia said suddenly as we walked out of the school. "If I could join them, I would, but I'm not really good at biking." She said sadly.

"When is Shelly supposed to come back?" I asked, looking at the parked bikes. I can't believe I kept saying I wouldn't bike, but I still use it to get to school.

"We still don't have any news from her... Actually, I'm starting to worry, especially for Jay." We both glanced at Jay, who was now putting on his helmet.

"Why?"

She swallowed. "Ever since she left, Jay hasn't had any contact with Shelly. These past few months, it's been obvious how down he's been. He really loves Shelly," she said with concern. I paused and looked at Jay Jo again.

He frowned when he noticed me staring, so I quickly looked away.

"She'll come back," I said to reassure her. I can't believe I had a crush on a guy who was Scott's boyfriend.

"YUNA, MY LOVE! CHEER FOR ME IN FRONT OF DEMITRA, OKAY? SO SHE KNOWS HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME!" Dom shouted from afar.

Disgust was written all over Yuna's face. "You're just training. What cheer are you talking about?" she rolled her eyes. Dom pouted like he was being mistreated by his girlfriend. I just grinned. They are really entertaining to watch. Why would Vinny leave this crew?

I saw Mia approach her friend Yuna. I watched them from behind as we walked, carrying my bike. I didn't know where we were going, but I just followed Dom. They seemed to have a specific place for their training.

I was surprised to see Jay walking beside me. He wasn't riding his bike either, but he was already wearing his helmet. I couldn't help but laugh. He looked cute, though. He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

"So... Inertia drift is your thing, huh?" I asked, surprising him. "It was impressive, I watched some videos of you racing." I said, looking at the road. I noticed we were falling behind. Dom walked really fast.

He still didn't say anything. He was like a mute.

"I also watched how you lean in." Based on what I saw, it was surprising that he could pull off that move. It wasn't an easy skill; it was dangerous.

"But your slide is a bit risky. Your grip on the bike isn't in the right position."

"What?"

And now he was finally talking.

I smiled at him. "You need to balance your body. The grip of your hand and your body should be opposite so you can slide lower. That's the technique to make the lean-in look better." I explained. I showed him how I held the bike. "And also, this is how you should hold the handlebar."

He looked confused, but then he suddenly got on his bike and tried the position I showed him. His grip still seemed wrong, so I walked over to him. I parked my bike to the side.

"I noticed from the video that this is why you almost fell. You need to widen your elbows." I moved closer and adjusted his elbow.

I narrowed my eyes as I focused on his grip, then reached out to adjust the position of his hand. Just as I lifted my head to explain, I realized he was staring right at me. My eyes widened in surprise when it hit me that I was actually holding his hand! I quickly pulled away, feeling a rush of embarrassment.

"It's fine." he muttered, causing me to feel flustered.

"So yeah. That's how you do it." I cleared my throat before stepping back a little.

He was silent for a moment. He lowered his hands while sitting on the bike. How could he look so hot?

"Did you master it before you did it in the tournament?" I asked, looking at him.

He shook his head. "No..." It was obvious.

My eyes widened. "So you did it without practice?"

"Hmm," he nodded.

"Where did you learn that, by the way?" I asked as I finally sat on my bike.

"I don't know his name." irritation plastered on his face.

"So it's a 'he'? Does he have blonde hair?" I smirked. "It was Owen, right?"

He stiffened when he heard me mention that name. His expression darkened. He seemed shocked that I knew.

"How did you know?"

"Because I'm the one who taught him that move." I said with bitterness in my voice before looking at the road.

He was silent, but I could see the amusement in his eyes. I couldn't blame him. He might be even more surprised if I told him I knew his girlfriend too. I didn't want to mention that because he might ask more questions. I don't really want to talk about them anymore.

"What's your relationship with him?" he asked suddenly.

"Just someone I know." I lied. "Why? Is he your friend?" I asked, but his face darkened even more. He looked so annoyed.

"I'll teach you about Korean after this training." he changed the topic.

"Why so sudden?" I laughed.

He stared at me for a few seconds before looking away. "Your Korean sounds lame."

"What?!"

38 notes · View notes

en-geneisaxx · 2 days

Text

𝒲𝑒𝒷𝒷𝑒𝒹 𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒶𝓃𝑔𝓁𝑒𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈

𝑷𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: 𝑺𝒑𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏!𝑯𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒇𝒆𝒎!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

🄵🄴🄰🅃🅄🅁🄸🄽🄶: ᴇɴʜʏᴘᴇɴ, ʏᴇᴏɴᴊᴜɴ ᴏғ ᴛxᴛ

E̶n̶e̶m̶y̶s̶ 𝚝𝚘 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝕾𝖚𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖔 𝖆𝖚.

Ｗａｒｎｉｎｇｓ: ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ

𝑇𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔: @jaylaxies @pockettwinzz @diorsyun @rinbowaman @heeslomll @hoonieshoneymain

sʏᴘɴᴏsɪs: Sunghoon is quite a confusing man. He's the renowned spiderman that's keeping its identity a question, but he is also quite a mean guy to a certain lady. But, your natural charms had a go at him, and now he's looking at you at a different persepective: someone he could spend his forever with. It'll take time though, from pain to growth, but rest assured, he's quite a lover.

ʅιƙҽʂ, ɾҽႦʅσɠʂ αɳԃ/σɾ ϝσʅʅσɯιɳɠ ɱҽ ɯιʅʅ Ⴆҽ ɱυƈԋ αρρɾҽƈιαƚҽԃ!!

Part 1: Meeting her...

Dividers by @dollywons!!

Sunghoon's successfully survived the start of his Uni life with the help of his friends, Jake and Jay. It was time for chemistry, and neither did your nor Sunghoon expect this to be the fateful encounter, and a start of a blossoming relationship.

The trio sat in the back, especially in a corner, knowing that the professor wouldn't look so high up. They were busy judging girls, and were disgusted when a few thought they could really have a chance with them, using their 'cute manner'. To Sunghoon, it was just faces scrunched up in weird positions, and annoying high-pitched voices that secretly let out their inner whore.

Ah, then came a beauty that had no intention of boasting her divine looks, someone gentle and innocent. It seems she didn't have a person she knew, coming in and sitting alone, silently, three benches to the back. She did everything so gracefully, like as if it was something she always does. Maybe he could have a shot at talking to her, hoping she won't bite.

Once class ended, Sunghoon packed his bag in a hurry, glancing every few seconds in case you were leaving. To his delight, you were still organising your bag, giving him the oppurtunity to talk.

"Umm, hi.." Sunghoon knew how awkward it felt. He may be loud, but he was an Introvert, limiting his ability to speak up.

You felt you should continue it on, seeing how shy he was, he's probably panicking that you were going to ignore him. He was very handsome as well, encouraging you to continue this new meeting.

"Hi...nice to meet you." You can't lie, your heart was going to explode when you saw his smile, eyes with a sparkle of hope.

"I-I'm Sunghoon!" He squirmed at the fact he stuttered, thinking it made him look absolutely pathetic.

(Cute..) You thought, starting to become more delusional by the second. Could he possibly like you? Why was he stuttering? In any case, it would be nice making a friend.

"I'm Y/n...Y/n L/n" You chuckled, seeing the way a pink tint began to reveal on his bread cheeks.

Jake and Jay hanged about in the corner, amused by this sudden conversation. Sunghoon wasn't the type to initiate one with a stranger, giving them the idea he may have fallen for her. Why wouldn't he though? She was very pretty, and looked like she was wife material.

"So uh, do you wanna hang out with us..? I-I'm gonna go get some lunch then uh..walk around.." He honestly didn't know what to do with such a woman, because he wanted to give his all.

"That would be nice, I'll go pack up!" You flashed him a smile, assuring him that you were excited about this.

You and Sunghoon just decided to walk around campus, gifted with a beauiful, sunny weather and vibrant colours of green and orange on mother nature. When people eyed you both down, you figured it was just Sunghoon's perfection. Turns out, this whole time your arms were linked together, giving anyone the impression that you were a couple. It looked unreal, for you both were gorgeous.

You guys just exchanged things about life in general, from talking about favourite foods to the most embarassing moments, you two almost shared it all: almost. Sunghoon got way too comfortable with you, sharing many things that had happened in his life. He only snapped back into reality when you asked what he does. He needed to make something believeable, and quick. 'Entertainment'...AH!

"Oh, I'm just a singer and dancer that's payed good money, I also do a bit of modelling here and there." He laughs it off in an attempt to make it look casual.

You weren't suprised, his good looks would've carried him if he was part of the entertainment industry.

Today seemed like it was in Sunghoon's favour, bell ringing to cut off any possibilty of her asking to come around.

"Oh, shoot! What class have you got next?" Sunghoon asked, feeling a bit panicked as Jake and Jay were nowhere to be seen.

"I think we have the same class, let's just go." Dragging Sunghoon, who looked like a lost puppy.

"How was your date with Miss Y/n L/n?" Mocked Jake, rubbing his shoulders with Sunghoon.

"Do you know where she lives?" Asked Jay, cringing at Jake's faces.

"Why d'you ask?" Grunted the youngest, shoving Jake off him.

"If you like her, protect her." Stated the eldest of the trio, making Sunghoon sprint to you, because it's not time to swing about just yet. Geez, Jay's so damn smart.

"H-hey! Y/n!" Sunghoon called out, a slight pant coming out his lips. You liked seeing Sunghoon, and you trusted him.

"What's up, Hoon?" He bit his lip at the nickname, loving you as each second passes.

"Uhh, can I walk you home?" Shit, why did he have to be perfectly positioned in the sunlight, like as if you were meeting an angel in heaven.

You couldn't deny him, and, you pretty much wanted it. You took your time packing your things, so that you could be one of the last people, and less interference.

"Yeah, maybe you could protect me..." You muttered while running away, "OR THOSE MUSCLES ARE FAKE AND ARE ONLY ON DISPLAY!!"

That hurt his pride, and boy, the time at the gym was worth it.

Jay and Jake shared one mind at this point:

"He's down bad."

#en-geneisaxx #enhypen #fyp #enhypen sunghoon #engene #kpop #enha #fanfic #enhypen jay #enhypen jake #park sunghoon ff #sunghoon x reader #sunghoon x y/n #enhablr

26 notes · View notes

captainsophiestark · 19 hours

Text

Lost Memories

Elijah Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Requested by Anon! Hope you like it!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

Summary: Elijah's spouse of the last thousand years, since before they became vampires, has had their memory taken by a witch. The immediate after effects are a little rough, but they've made it through worse together before.

Word Count: 2,423

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"...wake up... my love?"

Blearily, I opened my eyes. My head was pounding, and I had no idea why. I blinked a few times, trying to get my blurry vision to clear while my wits returned. I was laying on a nice, soft couch, and after a minute my surroundings came into focus enough to see a handsome man I didn't recognize kneeling before me, another stranger standing and hovering a short ways behind the first.

"Finally, she wakes," said the man standing, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a smile. The man kneeling next to me still looked gravely serious.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice low and soft and soothing. "Are you alright?"

"Uh... not great, honestly... where am I? Who... who are you?"

The face of the man before me fell instantly. The one behind him crossed the room closer to us, brows knit in concern, but the soft voice of the man kneeling returned my attention to him.

"My love... please tell me you're joking."

Slowly, I shook my head. "I'm sorry, no. I... should I know you?"

I could see the gears turning in his brain, a storm of emotions flitting across his face before he carefully wiped them away, a gentle expression settling in their place. He started to reach out a hand as if to take mine, then apparently thought better of it and stopped short.

"My name is Elijah Mikaelson," he said, speaking slowly. "And you are my wife."

My eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry, but I think I would remember getting married."

"And do you remember anything else? Any other significant events? Details about your life?"

Elijah's voice was gentle, like he worried I might break. And as I though about his question, going back in my memory and trying to remember anything and I kept coming up blank, I got very close.

"What... what happened?" I finally breathed, meeting Elijah's gaze with wide eyes. I searched for any spark of recognition, but found nothing. My heart raced as I got closer and closer to tipping over the edge into panic until Elijah genlty rested a hand on my forearm, momentarily grounding me.

"You were kidnapped by an enemy of ours," he said. "Niklaus—my brother—and I thought we got to you in time to prevent any harm being done, but... evidently not."

His voice broke a bit on the last word, and I found myself reflexively taking his hand in mine and giving it a soft squeeze, despite the insanity of what he'd just said to me. He gave me a strained smile and squeezed back before taking a deep breath to continue.

"Hopefully it's something we can fix easily," he said. "Just look into my eyes..."

I did as he said and then, a moment later, it was like I couldn't look away. My whole world narrowed to the man in front of me and his gorgeous brown eyes as he spoke.

"Remember."

The word echoed around in my head, followed a moment later by a blinding pain. I screamed as an invisible spike pounded into my skull and everything around me disappeared. I wasn't sure how much time passed, but eventually the pain started to fade and the room came into focus around me again.

This time both brothers knelt before me, looking incredibly concerned. I blinked a few times as the last of the pain faded, my gaze landing on Elijah.

"I don't know what that was, but... I don't think it worked."

"Right! It's going to be just like breaking compulsion then, and you know what that means, Elijah," said the brother, Niklaus, as he stood and started heading for the door. "I'm off to go kill a witch."

My mouth dropped open and I turned to Elijah, expecting some joke or else an attempt to stop his brother. Instead, Niklaus just looked back at me over his shoulder, pausing briefly as he reached the door.

"You take care of yourself in the meantime, love. Don't worry, we'll get this fixed."

And with that, he was gone.

I turned my attention back to Elijah, who apparently wasn't phased by any of this in the least. He just kept watching me, wariness and concern etched into his expression.

"Elijah... I think you need to explain some things to me," I said. "Witches? Enemies of mine? And what on Earth was that... thing... you did before with your eyes and saying the word 'remember'? And why am I just... absolutely starving right now, but nothing I can think of sounds good to eat?"

Elijah sighed and reached to take my hand again, although I didn't remember him dropping it. Still, I let him, sitting up and moving over so he had room to sit next to me instead of kneeling on the floor.

"This is going to be... quite an explanation if you have no memories, so I'll need you to bear with me, alright?" I nodded despite my nerves as Elijah took another deep breath. "You and I.... are vampires."

My eyebrows shot into my hairline, but I managed to muzzle any response other than that, since I'd just promised Elijah to let him get through his whole explanation. Still, I didn't remember a lot about myself or my past, but remembering that vampires existed felt like something that probably shouldn't have disappeared along with everything else if it were true.

"You and I met a thousand years ago as humans," Elijah continued, now taking both my hands in his. I let him, especially as I noticed his eyes getting a little misty. I had to admit I felt something when I looked at him, some lingering feeling that wouldn't quite go away, although I couldn't name it. "We were married, and when the rest of my family and I turned, you turned with us. Since then, we've been inseparable, no matter how many different things have tried to change that. However, as a result of being what we are and... a few of my brother's more problematic choices, shall we say, we've developed a fair number of people in all that time who wish to do us harm, or to get revenge for some wrong, whether real or percieved. More recently, we've been trying to resettle here in New Orleans, and there are several groups who don't like that, some witches included.

"One of those witches kidnapped you, and evidently found a way to deeply erase your memory. As for the hunger you feel, it's most likely a result of your need to feed. If you haven't had blood in some time, well... then it'd be like starving a human."

I shook my head, trying to process most of his words while really blocking out the last sentence.

"But I don't remember vampires and witches and whatever else being real. If I rememeber... I don't know, things like the sky being blue, even though I haven't been outside since I woke up, why wouldn't I remember that creatures like that exist?"

Elijah grimaced and squeezed my hands a little tighter. "My guess would be the witches intentioanlly made you forget. Out of all of us, you've always been the most... human. The most connected to your humanity, no matter how long we've been alive. I think their hope was to make it as hard as possible for you to regain your memories or readjust to the world with the rest of us, knowing what it is that vampires do."

"And... what exactly is it that vampires do?"

"We do quite a lot of things," he said, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a slight smile. "But hopefully, you'll remember all of that on your own soon enough. The only thing we need to deal with immediately is... blood."

I grimaced, even as my stomach grumbled and tightened painfully. Elijah gently squeezed my hands again, bringing my attention back to him.

"I brought some with me, assuming you'd be hungry. If you'd like to try it...?"

I immediately started shaking my head, continuing as Elijah dropped one of my hands and reached into his jacket pocket and intesifying when he pulled out a small bag of what must have been blood.

"No. No no no, no way. I can't... drink that. And do you just, like, carry that on you?"

"Only recently, for you," he said, carefully considering the bag before holding it out to me. My stomach growled, but my mind and heart recoiled even as my body urged me forward. I shot back, forcing myself away. That had come from a person, and even worse, most likely out of a blood bank or something, where it should've been used to help save someone's life. Not for me to drink.

Elijah pursed his lips as I rocketed backwards, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he laid the bloodbag aside and turned back to me. His stare was intense, but kind. He started to move forward as if to reach for me again, but stopped short.

"I'm sorry. This was the hardest part the first time for you too, and it didn't get much easier for the first hundred years or so."

I let out a slightly hysterical laugh, the beginnings of tears forming in my eyes and threatening to fall. I bit my lip, trying to keep it together, but the pain and fear and hunger and confusion I'd felt since waking up was starting to catch up to me.

Just as the tide was starting to overwhelm me, strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a close, warm embrace. Finally, I couldn't hold back anymore. I started crying.

Gently, one of Elijah's hands came up to rest on the back of my head, gently and soothingly running down from there to my back. I cried harder, tucking my face into his shirt and breathing in the smell of him. It wasn't familiar, even though I felt like it should be, but it was at least comforting.

"Is this... alright?" Elijah asked, barely loud enough for me to hear, his voice sounding almost as fragile as I felt. "Is it alright that I'm holding you like this?"

I could only muster a nod as I curled further into Elijah's chest. He pulled me closer to him in response, wrapping his arms around me a little tighter as we huddled together on the couch.

I wasn't sure how long we stayed like that, holding each other, as my overloading emotions finished running their course. Most of the problems that had caused them still existed, but the tears combined with Elijah's comfort had at least lightened the load. Elijah rubbed soothing circles on my back as he finally spoke again.

"You've always been the most human of us, since the day we turned," he said, voice raw. "Normally, it's something we're all incredibly grateful for. You keep us grounded. You care, and you haven't let a thousand years on this Earth make you stop caring, or stop loving life. But right now, it's also making this even worse on you. And for that I am so, so sorry."

I huffed a short laugh, pulling away from him at last while wiping at my eyes.

"I wish I could say I remember you. I'm sorry that I don't. But thank you. Somehow, just being near you seems to make me feel better."

Elijah smiled slightly, reaching out to take my hand again. I gave it a squeeze, then slowly turned to look at the blood he'd set aside.

"If there's any way for me to make it easier, all you need to do is say the word," Elijah assured me. "Or if it might be easier to... drink mine?"

I turned to Elijah with wide eyes. "That's... an option?"

He nodded, then moved to roll up his sleeve before I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"I appreciate the offer, but... I think that would probably be harder for me, trying to drink a live person's blood. At least this way I can kind of pretend it's a juice box or something."

Elijah chuckled as I steeled myself to reach forward and take the blood bag. I wanted to be more grossed out by it than I was, but I was also so hungry, and I just knew that this would fix it, the way nothing else could. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it was just a V8 or something as I bit into it, feeling fangs pop out from my mouth naturally. Even after I finished drinking the last of the blood, I kept my eyes closed. I didn't want to face anything that might force me to think about what I'd just did.

Wordlessly, while I kept my eyes shut, I felt Elijah take the blood bag and ease it out of my hands. I heard a woosh and felt a light breeze brush across my face, and then Elijah spoke again.

"It's gone," he said softly. I opened my eyes and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Sorry about that."

"You never have to apologize to me, especially not for something like that. Your first time drinking blood was actually much worse, although I'll just let that story come back to you on its own. But no matter what, memories or no, I'm here for you. Always and forever."

We shared a smile, a warm feeling spreading through my chest at the sight of the man before me. I still didn't really recognize him or remember him at all, but clearly, I'd done a good job when I'd found him. After a moment, I took a deep breath.

"So... what now?"

"Well, for the moment at leaest, nothing. Hopefully my brother will be able to solve this before it becomes something we have to involve ourselves in."

I nodded, then opened my mouth again only to chicken out and close it. I repeated the process a few times before finally getting up the courage to say what I wanted to say. Elijah, for his part, just waited patiently, a soft smile on his face.

"Elijah? Can you... hold me? At least for a little, while we wait?"

"Of course, my love. Nothing would make me happier."

The two of us settled into the couch, arms around each other. While it didn't magically unlock anything in my memory, it did feel warm and safe to be there with Elijah. If we'd really made it through hundreds of years of time and space together like this... well, I didn't need my memory to know we'd be able to get through this together, too.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

17 notes · View notes

silverselfshippingchaos · 5 days

Text

I just know that Ash pulling one of these would drive S.eifer nuts in the best way possible

#ash rambles 💚#your knight until the end 🤍#this post has nothing to do with l.eon btw i just like cool gun animations #for context. my f.f8 s/i is a gunslinger! and a damn good one at that!#shes also a very goofy young adult/teenager throughout the game so theres a lot of segments of her getting really excited and just infodum #ping about her beloved guns. you see s.quall go 'you think that shes a cool and responsible honors student. shes actually just an idiot'#ash's guns are her most precious thing. she loves them both so much and built them herself and when shes not training or studying #shes usually cleaning them. s.eifer is all ??? and honestly he doesnt really get her fucking obsession (he asks once and she says that #theyre hotter than he is whatever that means)#but you know what s.eifer does know??? that a woman with a gun is attractive and that he loves seeing how well ash can handle her weapons #it feels him with this sense of pride #hes all 'fuck yeah. thats all mine.'#although. uh. he's well aware that her guns pack a punch! shout out to that one time she shot him! haha!#... they werent always friends you see-#if it makes it better. ash has a giant scar on her back from s.eifer's sword #i have a lot of s/is that fight but not all of them feel so passionately about their weapons #f.f8 ash... I'm slightly concerned about her love for her guns- whatever makes you happy ash!#although. well. shes been in Mercenary Academy since she was a literal kid. shes a little fucked up- f.inal f.antasy viii is fun i swear #anyhow #c.yberpunk ash comes close with her love for her gun! if you do her sidequest she gives it to you! a pistol she calls Ashes and Dust #carried her through many a street fight when she was still feared on the streets of night city back in the day #anyways what was the point of this post lol i started rambling #yeah! s.eifer thinks a woman that can kick his ass is super hot!#me too! i think that too!

1 note · View note

strawberrymatchawhore · 1 month

Text

baby

summary- babying your "tough" hubby rafe.. maybe some freakydeakyness at the end

note- this is the complete opposite of the rafe ive been writing about LMAOOO.. this man is SO BAD help me

it was 2am and you were in your bedroom scrolling on your phone, a random netflix show playing in the background. you've been waiting for your husband to get home for hours, being the wife to the chief of police did have its negatives. this was one of them.

you heard footsteps walking up the stairs and immediately turned off your phone, throwing the covers over yourself you pretend to be asleep. the door opens and you feel the weight of the bed shift.

"hey baby. sorry for getting home so late" rafe says giving your forehead a kiss, you jokingly ignore him.

"c'mon now i know youre awake.. get up and hold me." he begged tiredly, you couldnt help but giggle at how desperate he sounded.

"fine." you mumbled into the sheets but stayed in your position, he hugs you putting all of his weight on your body.

"okay okayy, i got it. now get off me you fatty." you whined, pushing his large frame off of you. you leaned against the bed frame and opened your arms, the both of you adjusting to a more comfortable position. which was the both of you propped up against a pillow.

"im so tired." he yawns into your chest, you played with his hair as the both of you stayed in silence.

"i know you are, you need a day off. youve been working too hard." validating him, his hand plays with the ribbon of your pajama shorts.

"see? youre still in your uniform, youre gonna make the bed dirty." you patted his back and drew circles on it.

"what, you want me take it off? if you wanted to see me naked you couldve asked sweetheart." he looked up at you and smirked. you glared at him, lightly slapping his arm.

"not what i meant.." you blushed.

"youre so cute you know that rafey, honestly when i look at you i just want to eat you." you confessed and massaged his temples, his face nuzzles into your chest even further. clearly he was blushing as well.

"i dont know how i got so lucky, im so glad i have a such a beautiful boy in my life. everything about you is just perfect." you cooed admiring his sculpted face, the way his plump lips curled into a smile.

"stopppp" he whined. you couldnt help but pull out your phone and take a picture. because if you didnt, who wouldve believe that your 6'2 husband loved to be babied like this? not like you were going to show anyone, its just for your eyes only. you wanted to cherish this moment forever.

"did you just take a picture?"

"let me see it." he shot up and reached for your phone. you put your phone under your pillow and laid on it, making sure he wasnt able to grab it. the two of you started play fighting.

"nooo please, you look so cute. let me keep it!!" you laughed, he started to tickle you. and you slowly started to fall off the bed. your legs wrapped around his waist and dragged him down, if you were gonna fall he was going to come down with you.

the laughing coming from you both died down and you looked up at him, what a funny position. you both were on the floor and he was in between your legs hovering over you.

rafe leaned downed and passionately kissed your lips, his hand starts to play with your shorts. you eventually pull away and slap his hand.

"nuh uh. go shower first. you stink." you got up to your feet then helped your boyfriend get up as well. you looked up at rafe with your head tilted, what was this man plotting?

"not unless you join me.. you cant say no" he quickly said and grabbed you by the waist. hoisting you over his shoulder and carrying you to the master bathroom.

"ahhh! rafe stop!!" you busted out laughing, kicking your feet as he practically dragged you to the shower. he put you down and turned on the warm water, it poured over you both. you furrowed your eyebrows.

"great now my clothes are all wet." you pouted crossing your arms over your now soaked tank top.

"more reason to take it off... lift your arms f'me"

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe fanfiction #rafe outer banks #rafe x y/n #obx fanfiction #outer banks #rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine #obx #rafe smut #rafe cameron blurb #rafe cameron prompt #rafe cameron concepts #rafe cameron headcanons #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron obx #outerbanks blurb #husband!rafe

2K notes · View notes

peachdues · 7 months

Text

IN THE NETHERWOOD

PART I

KINKTOBER 2023 ♤ WEREWOLF!SANEMI X RED RIDING HOOD! READER

A/N: did I get carried away? Yes. Do I care? No.

Part I is plot + smut. Part II is minimal plot and a lot of smut. Like a concerning amount.

Forgive the pace/editing errors. This was supposed to be a one shot that turned into a two part fic lmao.

CW: violence/some description of gore • mating • knotting/discussions of knotting • biting/mating • feral/protective Sanemi • virgin!Reader who is a big time monsterfucker • oral sex (F!receiving) • Sanemi makes a mess of his breeches • implied murder/other violence by Douma, but left purposefully ambiguous • brief description of another human being eaten

This honestly could be a multi-part fic that continues after Part II, given how much I leave open — but I’ll let you all decide if you want that. For now, enjoy the ride, monster-fuckers. Happy Kinktober!

You’d known Douma’s band of acolytes had been pursuing you for at least a quarter of a mile through the dark wood, and you’d only grown more and more desperate as the excited titter of their voices drew nearer.

You were panicking; with every moment that passed, your legs grew heavier as the weariness of the last day and a half of your journey became a weight you could no longer ignore.

Find the huntsman of the Netherwood! Your grandmother had pled as she’d fastened the thick, scarlet cloak around your shoulders. He guides those in need to far-away villages. He will take you somewhere safe — where Douma cannot find you.

Grandmother did not dare let any of the tears sparkling in her eyes fall as she looped her hands behind you and pulled the hood of your cloak up over your head, concealing your hair from sight. Head north until you come to the river and then head west. You will find his cabin. Go!

Granny had all but pushed you out of her small cottage — the cottage you had come to regard as your home — and off into the chilly, autumn night.

You hadn’t questioned the urgency, though the realization that you would likely never again return to your grandmother — or even see her alive — hadn’t stung any less. But you knew, as well as the old woman who’d raised you after your parents disappeared in the Netherwood, that if Douma got his hands on you, you would never be seen or heard from again.

Just like his four other previous wives.

The last woman he’d taken as his bride had been a dear friend of yours — Kotoha — and she’s arguably lasted the longest, though perhaps that was because she’d been pregnant when the frost lotus containing his marriage demand arrived at her parents’ hut.

The eclectic village worship leader hadn’t apparently minded that Kotoha had been pregnant with another man’s child — she was unmarried, young, and beautiful; it was all Douma required.

The tension among the village women had dissipated once Kotoha had survived the first week of her union with the rainbow-eyed monster. After all, the other three wives had barely lived to see the next morning, never mind seven.

Kotoha had lived several more months — even giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy whom she’d doted over, and even you thought that perhaps the rumors swirling through the village had been wrong. Perhaps those other three women truly had run off into the night with various lovers, leaving Douma alone in his mansion in the eastern wing of the village.

The last you’d seen her, your friend had been smiling and bright, happily making her way back to her marital home, baby Inosuke happily snuggled against her chest, as she’d cheerfully waved you goodbye.

Kotoha was never heard from again. Though the village elders had dispatched a recovery team to search for her, no trace of either her, nor the precious baby boy whom she’d loved so dearly, could be found.

A week later, your grandmother opened the front door of her homely cottage to find a single frost lotus resting on her doorstep.

No one turned down Douma’s marriage proposals; but neither did anyone survive them.

And so, your grandmother had packed a small satchel with what meager provisions she could scrounge, wrapped you in her heirloomed scarlet cloak, and pushed you out the door, begging you to find the mysterious huntsman of the Netherwood so that you would not become the village’s newest ghost.

Douma had surely slaughtered your beloved grandmother by now, having learned of her insolence.

You clamped down on the mournful sob building in your throat, knowing if you allowed yourself to give into your grief, it would only slow you down even further, and make it more likely that her sacrifice for your life would be in vain.

Though, in fairness, it might all be for naught anyways; the Netherwood was not a humble forest with only the occasional gray wolf or hungry bear to fear.

For centuries, your village had stood on the outskirts of the dark, ancient wood which divided it from the nervous system of villages and bustling little towns that made up the region. That isolation meant your village had become largely self-sustaining, though a few brave souls managed to make a yearly sojourn across the Wood to trade with establishments on the other side. The forest stretched for miles, encompassing small mountains and rocking ravines that were difficult enough to navigate on their own, especially in disagreeable weather.

But rugged and often temperamental terrain was child’s play compared to the horrors which lurked within the shadows of the Wood.

To start, as you’d come to realize over the last day and a half of your trek, the Netherwood was nothing but shadow. Though you’d surely traveled through the night and well into the following day, not a trace of daylight had pierced the thick canopy of leaves and twisted vines which loomed overhead. Your only indicator that day had, in fact, arrived, had been your sighting of a few songbirds quietly fluttering from tree to tree, as their songs swallowed by the deafening silence of the forest.

But the eerie quiet of the Wood was nothing compared to what you knew prowled within its depths.

You’d grown up hearing tales of the various beasts and cryptids that made the Netherwood their home – and made any unsuspecting traveler their meal. Your own parents had embarked on a dangerous trek into the Netherwood, seeking out a village on the other side rumored to have much-needed medication for your ailing grandfather, only to never be seen or heard from again. Your grandfather had succumbed to his illness not long after, though you’d often wondered whether his guilt and heartbreak hadn’t hastened his demise.

And so the Netherwood had taken your parents and your grandfather, leaving you with only your cherished grandmother as your family. Over the years, those who dared venture into the Wood often did not return, the dark of the forest swallowing them whole and leaving no trace of them behind.

Now, it was through this very Wood that you found yourself running, clinging to the desperate hope that perhaps you’d find this mysterious Huntsman and be saved, though the sluggishness that had entered your exhausted limbs seemed to suggest that you were more likely to be caught by your pursuers. And that was assuming you didn’t end up as something dinner’s before then.

You continued to stumble through the trees, ducking under various branches and batting away stringy spiderwebs, trying not to allow your frustration to get the better of you. After a while, the voices tracking you grew more and more silent, before the walls of the forest swallowed them completely, leaving you utterly alone.

As you shoved brush and thorns out of your way, the forest opened to give way to a small river, though it was barely more than a creek. It bubbled merrily, as though completely unaware of the horrors lurking behind the shadows of the ancient grove of trees.

Several lengths ahead, you spotted something crouched beside the water. Your first instinct was panic, thinking you’d stumbled across one of the nefarious creatures of the Wood, a meal being offered to it on a silver platter, but as your vision adjusted, you realized it was only a man, splashing his face with the creek’s cool reserve.

“A-are you the Huntsman?” You hated how timid your voice was, but truthfully, you’d been running for what felt like an eternity, and each snap of a twig in the Woods around had you on edge. You deserved to be frightened, dammit.

The man snorted before rising to his feet. “I am a Huntsman; whether I am the one you seek, I cannot say.”

He was taller than you and well-built. His tunic boasted a deep v at the chest exposing a vast swath of the man’s sculpted chest, the skin as scarred as his broad forearms. His breeches were by no means skintight, but it was clear his legs were also made from the same, sinewy muscle that covered the rest of him.

Idly, you wondered whether he was as scarred beneath his clothing as he was out of it.

He was handsome, there was no doubt, but his appearance was striking. He had a mop of silvery-white hair, parted slightly to cover the criss-cross of scars etched into the right side of his forehead. Below a pair of startling lilac eyes, you could just make out another jagged scar that extended from his right ear to the bridge of his nose.

He turned back to you, mouth pulled down in an annoyed grimace. “What is your business in the Wood, girl?”

His eyes roamed the crimson cloak draped around your shoulders, and you swore for a moment there was something akin to amusement glinting in his eyes, despite the severe set of his mouth.

You shuddered at the sharp intensity of his lilac gaze. “I seek a guide through the Wood — I need to get to one of the villages on the other side.”

Something in the forest snapped and you flinched, though it did not bother the Huntsman, who only narrowed his eyes at you.

“Are you being pursued?”

You nodded, your fingers tightening around the folds of your cloak and wrapping it tighter around your shivering frame. “I do not know how many, but they have dogs.”

The Huntsman nodded, stroking his chin in contemplation. “I can get you to the other side in two days; three at most, should your followers pose a problem.”

You were floored at how easily he accepted your request, even with the additional threat of being hunted like animals by Douma’s men, but you were grateful all the same.

“I have payment,” you started, hands shooting to dig through the small pouch fastened around your waist, but the wild Huntsman only shook his head.

“I do not take payment. I will escort you and then I won’t have to worry about any creatures of the Wood sniffing out your bones and getting too close.”

Charming, you groused in your head, though the implication nestled in his words sent another shudder down your spine.

“What is your name, girl?” The Huntsman’s voice pulled you back to him and the forest, his face expectant.

You gave him your name and felt a warmth spread through you as he repeated it, mouth mulling over each syllable like it was wrapped with velvet.

“You can call me Sanemi,” the Huntsman said, reaching for the hand-axe lying on its side by the riverbank. “Follow me.”

---

The Hunstman led you through a winding path that would have been untraceable had you not been watching the way Sanemi’s eyes marked certain landmarks — an errant tree branch here, a particular thorn bush there.

“Since you are being tracked, we need to move right away,” Sanemi had explained as you stumbled after him, your feet snaring over the various bumps and snarls of tree roots that jutted out from the forest floor. “But I need to gather a few things from my cabin. It’s just a little ways off, and then we will leave.”

Sanemi had largely ignored you for the rest of the trek, though he’d only cut his eyes back to you to ask a single question.

“Where did you get that cloak?”

You fingered the heavy edge of the ruby wool that your grandmother had fastened snug around your shoulders, its thick folds providing you protection against the biting chill of the autumn wind. “It is an heirloom. My grandmother said it would keep me safe.”

The Huntsman hummed quietly to himself. “That is one word for it, I suppose.”

“How do you mean?”

Sanemi slowed his pace so that you could catch up and walk beside him as he spoke.

“That cloak is enchanted. Have you not noticed the strange stitching along the hood?”

Your hands flew to grip the edge of the hood drawn over your head. Sure enough, beneath the pads of your fingertips, you could feel the odd swirls of thread forming some indiscernible shapes along the outermost portion of the cape’s top.

“I’d not; this was not my cloak to begin with. It was my Grandmother’s.” You did not know why the Huntsman’s tone made you feel self-conscious, as though you’d been too stupid to notice such an obvious variation in the cape snugly fastened around you. It wasn’t as though you’d been afforded a great deal to time to look over it, in those hurried moments before Grandmother had shoved you through her front door and into the Wood beyond.

Sanemi only shrugged as he continued on ahead, putting distance between you once more, but he called back one final time. “Red is a symbol for many things, girl. I hope your Grandmother at least warned you of that.”

----

Sanemi's cabin was small, but homely. You'd been waiting uneasily near the unlit fireplace at the center of the single-room cabin, unsure whether it would be considered ill-mannered for you to drape yourself across one of the overstuffed armchairs pointed towards the hearth, as the Huntsman milled about, gathering various supplies.

"Have you any preference for which village I take you to?" He called as he rifled through a sparsely-stocked cabinet, scooping up dried provisions into a small leather pouch.

You shook your head. "No, I wish only to get as far away from the Wood as possible."

Sanemi nodded, stalking past you to open another cupboard. Glinting against the dimming light outside, you saw the curved blade of an axe, sharp and polished.

"I can make do with that," the Huntsman said simply. "Though should we run into any weather, it may take longer than three days to reach the other side of the Wood."

You picked nervously at your nails. Any response you could have given him was cut off by the faint cacophany of voices somewhere in the distance.

Brow furrowed, Sanemi crossed the floor of his cabin to a small window and squinted through the fogged glass. Over his shoulder, you could spy the faint glow of fire making its way towards the cabin.

Torches.

You did not need to guess whose torches they were; there was only one reason for a band of men to be in the Netherwood at this hour.

"It's them," you whispered in horror, your heart sinking to your stomach. "The man who is after me -- they're his -- followers. I hesitate to call them men."

Sanemi's eyes narrowed as he glanced back out the window, and you swore you saw his nostrils flare, as though scenting the air.

He gripped you by your forearm, tugging you further into his cabin. “We don’t have much time until they come knocking. I think I can hold them off — but you have to trust me.”

You looked over the wild man, from the thick, silvery scars seared into the rippled muscles of his forearms to the thinner, more delicate scars which crossed half his face, swallowing down any fear you’d had of the huntsman upon first stumbling upon him by the river.

You’d been scared of him, but you feared the fate awaiting you at the hands of Douma and his cronies far more; and so, you were desperate enough to place your life in Sanemi’s rough, calloused hands.

“I trust you,” you vowed, though your voice trembled slightly. “Please just don’t let them take me.”

Something in Sanemi’s eyes tightened as he looked over you, but he nodded, hands reaching for the small pouch strapped to his upper thigh.

“I’m sure you’re going to protest what I’m about to do,” he said quickly, producing a small hunting knife from the pocket. “But I need you to believe me when I say this is the only way.”

“Take off your cloak.” Sanemi ordered, standing tall before you, hand out in waiting.

Your hands flew hesitantly to the metal clasp resting just below the hollow of your throat. “But my grandmother said —“

“I know what your grandmother said, girl, but I’m telling you, that cloak will do you no good indoors. It is only effective out in the Wood.”

You could tell the huntsman’s patience was wearing thin, but still, you hesitated.

Sanemi huffed impatiently. “I swear to you I will return it the moment they leave, but you must remove it now. They will use it to track your scent.”

You shuddered as your fingers quickly freed the small latch, and the crimson wool draped around your shoulders loosened. With some hesitancy, you held your cloak out to the huntsman, who balled the fabric up tight before crossing the floor of his cabin, shoving it into a small armoire and behind several hung pelts and well-worn leathers.

Sanemi was before you once more before you could blink. “Turn around,” he ordered, twirling the knife in his hand to motion you to spin and put your back to him.

You complied without protest, hands twiddling nervously before you, until you heard the unmistakeable sound of fabric tearing at your back.

The corset worn over the cotton layers of your dress loosened and fell to the cabin floor, it’s ribboned ties neatly severed where they’d been laced at your back.

“What in the devil —,” you began hotly, arms jumping to cross over your unsupported chest as you twisted to glare at the huntsman.

A warm hand firmly pushed your shoulder, keeping you facing forward. “Hold still, woman,” Sanemi barked, and the heat at your back disappeared for a moment as you felt him kneel behind you.

To your horror, you felt the outermost layer of your dress lift up and away from you as Sanemi rose, bringing the garment up over your head.

“I asked you to help me, you dog!” You squealed, your attempts to squirm away from the mannerless huntsman at your back futile. “Not strip me bare to do with as you please!”

Behind you, Sanemi gave a great snort. “Helpin’ you is exactly what I’m doing, if you’d shut up for one second.”

Left in nothing but your thin, cotton shift, you silently wondered whether you should’ve taken your chances and continued your trek through the Wood. Surely, being eaten by one of the Netherwood’s more nefarious creatures of horror was preferable to being stripped nude by a half-wild brute in his isolated cabin.

Your musings were cut short, however, as a firm hand wrapped around your forearm and tugged you towards the back of the cabin, where a small doorway closed off the hut’s only other room.

Sanemi kicked the door open revealing a surprisingly large bed, draped in blankets made of the furs of several different animals.

“N-no —mmph!” Your protest was cut off by Sanemi’s free hand as it clamped over your mouth as he hissed at you to shush.

Over the sound of your thudding heart and hard breath as you planted against the huntsman’s palm, you heard the faint but unmistakable sound of male laughter and jeers, cruel and cold.

“They will be here any moment,” Sanemi said lowly, and he removed the hand from your mouth in favor of shoving you none too gently into the small bedroom. Before you could speak, the huntsman gripped you around the waist and tossed you effortlessly onto the bed, your body bouncing slightly against the soft plush.

“Get under the covers and lay face-down in the pillows. Let your hair cover you.”

Scrambling up against the headboard, you looked back to your savior or your villain — you’d not yet decided under which category he fell — but saw that he was already standing back in the doorway, jaw tense and his eyes trained on the front door of his cabin.

He glanced back to you only once. “And move that thing off to your shoulders. Make yourself appear as though you’re indecent.”

With that, the huntsman quickly shut the door to his bedroom, just as a fist pounded against the wood of the door outside.

You kicked your way under the many pelts adorning the bed, savoring their warmth against your chilled skin. Remembering Sanemi’s final warning, you tugged the sleeves of your shift off your shoulders, concealing it and the rest of your body below the soft fur blankets.

The front door of the cabin opened, and you buried your face into one of the pillows resting against the headboard, begging the comforting scent of forest pine and cedar to calm your raging pulse.

“How can I help you gentlemen this evening?” Sanemi called, and you almost laughed at how cordial he sounded, as though he hadn’t just cut your dress from you like a brute.

Any smile you had was immediately wiped from your face at the cold, steely voice which answered him. “We’re searching for a woman. She belongs to someone who is eager to get her back.”

You balled the pelts below you in your fists, teeth grinding. Of course, you’d never actually agreed to marrying Douma, and yet the beast felt entitled to claim ownership over you, as though you were no better than a piece of furniture.

Though, you supposed that wasn’t quite an accurate comparison. Furniture survived Douma; women did not.

“Is that so?” Sanemi’s hardened tone sent shivers down your spine, and you wondered whether his face matched the stony, scathing cadence of his voice. “Well unfortunately for you boys, it’s just me and the wife here. And you’ve interrupted us.”

“Our apologies,” the scout said, though it did not sound as though he was sorry at all. “But you won’t mind us taking a peak? Just t make sure you and your wife don’t have a visitor.”

Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft, but it did not conceal the deadly threat contained within. “Surely you understand why I cannot let a number of strange men into my home, while my wife is indisposed.”

You had to give him credit; Sanemi sounded every bit the dominating, over-protective husband he was pretending to be.

There was a beat before Sanemi sighed, his irritation almost convincing. “Make it quick. And do not enter the bedroom.”

There was a shuffle of feet, heavy and booted, that crossed the threshold of the cabin, and the hair on your skin rose at the charge of violence which filled the air. Breath caught in your throat, you buried your face deeper into the huntsman’s mattress and prayed his ruse would be successful.

The door to the bedroom banged open, startling you with a squeal as you ruched deeper below the pelts.

“I told you to stay out of the bedroom,” Sanemi’s voice almost sounded bored, but it was thankfully close. Your eyes slid closed as you willed your heart to slow its drumbeat against your sternum as the resulting silence hung thick in the air.

“Our apologies,” the apparent leader of Douma’s band of henchmen bit out, his tone acerbic, and his frustration evident. The bedroom door slammed shut once more, and the heavy footsteps quickly made their way back through the cabin and out the front door.

All remained silent in the huntsman’s cabin for several, long moments, and you did not dare to rise from the bed that had become your sanctuary.

After what felt like an eternity, the door to Sanemi’s sleeping chamber pushed open, the light from the main room of the cabin flooding in.

“They are gone,” the huntsman said simply. “It is safe for you to come back out.”

You turned over and rose from his bed, quickly tugging the sleeves of your thin shift back up over your bare shoulders, if not to preserve the last shred of your modesty that the huntsman before you hadn’t cut away.

You were startled by his appearance in the doorway. Though his eyes remained fixed on the wood floor of the cabin, you saw that the man before you was nearly as stripped as you were.

Somehow, in the few precious seconds between him throwing you onto his bed and Douma’s men barging through the cabin door, Sanemi had discarded his lined shirt, leaving everything from the waist-up bare. The only garment which remained on him were his deerskin breeches, and Sanemi had somehow undone its front laces, loosening their fit around his hips. Between the undone cords, you spied a thin trail of silver hair that begun just below his navel and disappeared below the seam of his pants.

It was admirable the dedication Sanemi had shown in perfecting your ruse. To the untrained eye, it truly looked as though Douma’s men had indeed interrupted a husband and his wife as they’d been engaged in acts you’d been told were reserved for the marital bed, the disheveled state of Sanemi’s breeches giving the distinct appearance of having been just barely tugged over naked hips.

The thought made your mouth run dry, and something hot flared in your belly.

Sanemi ignored your apparent ogling of him, as he produced his discarded tunic from the floor where he'd tossed it and shrugged it back over his head.

Wordlessly, he gathered the shredded remains of your corset and handed it to you, keeping his gaze averted to allow you to redress. You managed to pull on your outer skirts back over your shirt, but you fingered the torn strap of your corset.

“You ruined it,” you said, nose wrinkling as you punched it between your thumb and index finger. “I cannot lace it when you’ve torn the stays.”

Sanemi frowned, and if you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he looked slightly apologetic for the state of your outer-corset.

“Corset woes aside, we need to go now, if we are to have any chance of getting you to another village before your fiancé’s men catch up to us.” Sanemi grabbed the leather satchel he'd been packing before Douma's men had interrupted and began filling it once more.

You scowled. “He is not my fiancé,”

“Your keeper, then.” Sanemi amended. The Huntsman stalked back over to the armoire in his sitting room and wrenched the worn doors open, pulling out several pieces of cloth.

“Here,” he said gruffly, tossing you a balled wad of crimson wool. “As promised.”

You accepted the cloak with a small, uttered thanks, and fastened it quickly around your shoulders. The Huntsman then turned to dig through a small cabinet, returning before you with a small spool of sturdy, leather cord.

He held it out to you. “For your corset,” he said gruffly, his cheeks slightly pink. Feeling your own blush creep up your neck, you accepted the offering. Picking the torn garment up once more, you slid it over your shoulders and used Sanemi’s cords to lace the front together.

Truthfully, the finished product wasn’t half bad; the cord was long enough to cross all the way up to the top of the corset, with enough leftover to allow you to pull it and secure it in place around your bust. You tied off the cord with a pleased nod, before looking back to Sanemi in gratitude. Before you could properly thank him, the Huntsman thrust a small basket into your newly freed hand.

"Provisions. For the journey." He said by way of explanation, and you nodded, nestling the handle into the crook of your arm.

Without so much as a glance around the cabin, Sanemi wrenched the door open and allowed you to pass through the entryway first, pausing behind you only to tightly latch the door shut.

And the two of you set off into the Netherwood.

———

You were no time-keeper by any means, especially in a place like the Wood where daylight was hard enough to find; but it felt like hours had passed since you last spoke to the Huntsman, and the silence was pressing heavily upon you — especially the deeper you ventured into the dark of the Wood.

Though Sanemi had been walking ahead of you, you took it upon yourself to increase your pace, until you walked astride with him.

“How long have you been guiding others through the Netherwood?” You asked lightly, hoping that some — any — conversation you could have with the stoic woodsman would distract you from the odd growls and noises concealed within the forest’s shadows.

“A while.” Sanemi’s answer was as brisk as his pace, and you struggled to match it.

“Have you lived here your whole life, or are you from one of the villages nearby?” You pressed, scanning your memory as you tried to recall whether there had ever been a boy with white hair and a scarred face in your village.

“No.”

You waited for him to elaborate, but Sanemi offered no further explanation. You sighed and fell back behind him; if this was to be his attitude the entire journey, you were in for a long few days.

The pair of you had traveled for what felt like several more hours without a word before the silence began to irritate you. You sped up your pace until your stride matched the Huntsman’s, walking with him side by side.

“Why do you live alone in the Netherwood?” You twirled the basket around your hand as the pair of you walked, the nerves you’d felt upon first starting the journey through the Wood having long since abated, in no short part due to the presence of the Huntsman and his axe by your side.

Sanemi did not turn towards you, his eyes remaining fixed on the bramble ahead. “Why did you venture into the Wood alone?”

You groaned. “Is this how our entire journey is to go? Either you give me mono-syllable answers, or every time I ask a question, you avoid answering by responding with your own?”

“That depends, do you intend to keep asking me questions?”

You barely resisted the urge to whack the sullen Huntsman with your basket. “Unbelievable,” you grumbled. “Your time here in the Wood has turned you into a curmudgeonly hermit.”

Sanemi snorted. “You assume I wasn’t one to begin with.”

“I can’t imagine someone who helps travelers cross the Wood was always so churlish and miserable.” You shot back.

The Huntsman remained quiet for a moment, though his air did not carry the same cold standoffishness that you’d come to understand meant he was ignoring you. Rather, Sanemi seemed to be in thought.

“It has been nearly four years,” he said after a long while. “Since I began helping travelers cross the Wood.”

Your eyes widened. “Four years?” That was an awfully long time to risk one’s neck for the sake of strangers — some of whom, you realized, may not have been all that good.

Sanemi nodded and you whistled. “I’m sure you’ve seen many kinds of people attempting to traverse through the Wood.”

“There are only two types of travelers,” Sanemi disagreed. “Those who live to make it to my door, and those who do not. I try not to pry into the privacies of those who do manage to find me.” He cut his eyes at you, accusingly. “And usually, they aren’t so eager to pry into mine.”

You ignored the jab, though it bruised your ego more than you wanted to admit. “You don’t like people, yet you’ve crafted your entire existence around serving them.” You could not stop the amused edge in your words. “It is quite ironic, you have to admit.”

Sanemi refused to dignify you with a response, and so the first leg of your journey continued in relative silence.

The stifling quiet that extended between the Huntsman and you finally subsided once Sanemi announced you’d be stopping for the night and making camp. He’d been quick to notice your unease as you’d cast your eyes nervously around the shadowed trees of the Wood, assuring you that you all were in an area less-frequented by the various terrors that called the forest home.

“I will sit and keep watch,” Sanemi said as you’d curled up against the leaves of the forest floor, your red cloak pulled tight around your frame to block out the autumn night’s chill. “So try and sleep.”

“You are asking me to put a great deal of trust in you, Huntsman,” you said softly, but in truth, you did not feel nearly as afraid of him as you perhaps had earlier in the day.

He snorted, dismissively. “I’ve had you in my bed already, have I not? If I was going to harm you, girl, I would’ve already done so.”

Something tightened in his eyes as he dropped your gaze. “And I would never do such a thing to a woman.”

There was a quiet pain in his vow, such that you did not think his words were entirely meant for your ears. But they comforted you nonetheless, and so, still facing the handsome and mysterious Huntsman, you allowed yourself to relax enough to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

---

The journey was taking longer than Sanemi originally believed.

Three days into your travels with the Huntsman, and you’d barely reached the halfway point in the Wood. Though, that was not due to any fault of Sanemi’s; there’d been a few times when he’d stopped mid-stride, eyes narrowed on some unseen thing deep within the forest that you could not see, but concerned him enough to change course. When you asked, the Huntsman had only grumbled that he’d heard suspicious movement ahead, and that he knew whatever it was, it likely wasn’t human.

You didn’t bother to question his judgment. After all, it was Sanemi who was the expert in traversing through the Wood. You, however, had spent the better part of three days understanding how utterly helpless you were without him.

You hadn’t meant to stumble across it.

You’d only meant to go relieve yourself behind a tree — a simple evergreen, that had looked innocent and unassuming enough.

As you’d quickly learned, however, upon squatting near the tree’s base, it was anything but innocent. For no sooner had you moved to pull your skirts out of the way had you felt a spiny hand close around your forearm, its knife-sharp fingers digging into your flesh.

The withered, bony had was connected to a sinewy arm, covered in ridged, black skin that made up the panting, salivating bat-like creature that had managed to camouflage itself against the bark of the tree.

You’d taken one look at the rows of sharp, yellow teeth and screamed loud enough to startle the dead.

Loud enough to bring a certain Huntsman crashing through the brush, axe clutched tightly in hand, his eyes wild and bright.

“Duck,” he’d barked once, and somehow you’d managed to wrench yourself to the side of the devil as Sanemi’s weapon buried deep into the creature’s face, the beast releasing your arm and stumbling back with a pitiful gurgle before it dropped to the floor.

You’d hardly had the chance to collect yourself before the Huntsman was stomping over to you, yanking you up by your bicep and dragging you away from the nefarious little tree.

“A goddamned hidebehind,” he furiously spat. “Of all things to provoke, you choose a fucking hidebehind.”

Sanemi ignored your slight protests at being manhandled back to the path he’d identified as leading out of the Wood, too lost in his own raging assessment of you.

“How the devil a pretty little thing like you managed to make it to my door in one piece is the only thing that makes me consider there may be a higher power, given how foolishly reckless you act in the Woods where there’s no shortage of creatures that would want to devour you —“

The Huntsman continued his rant, but your ears only picked up on a single fragment of his ramblings.

“You think me pretty?” It was silly, yet the notion that the devilishly handsome Huntsman accompanying you found you worth looking at made something in your stomach flutter.

Sanemi shot you a withering glare. “You may think me a miserable recluse, girl, but even I have eyes.”

You didn’t know why, but the comment made you smile for the rest of the night, a curious warmth blooming in your chest.

----

You settled for the night among a small circle of trees. Sanemi had helped you shake down a bed of pine needles from a nearby tree, allowing the fragrant nettles to form a soft bed for you against the forest floor.

You watched him repeat the process to make his own bed, your eyes curious. "You seem to have a great deal of experience with this," you mused.

Sanemi produced a single apple from his pouch and sliced it in half with a small hunting knife he kept strapped to his hip. He tossed you one half before he stretched out on his pine needle bed, propping up one cheek on his fist as he faced you. "I s'ppose sleeping outdoors is something of a family trait."

That piqued your curiosity. Though Sanemi had not divulged any details of his personal life with you, you'd assumed he'd been a true loner in his cabin in the Wood.

“You speak as though you still have family,” You bit into your half of the fruit, chewing slowly as you thought. “Do you?”

Sanemi nodded. “No parents to speak of, but a younger brother — a few years younger than you. Still a boy, though in a man’s body.” He scowled. “The little brat has outgrown me.”

You smiled at the obvious fondness belying the irritation on his face. “A boy bigger than you? I find that hard to believe.”

Your gentle praise had the intended effect of making the Huntsman look slightly smug, before the same sour look passed his face. “He has grown slightly taller than I, and by all accounts is still growing. I have a feeling he will try and hold it over my head the next time I see him.”

You wondered if Sanemi’s younger brother would literally do so, and the thought made you smile.

“You said the next time you see him, but you’ve said you have no parents — where does he live, if not with you?”

Sanemi grimaced, chucking the last of his apple core behind his shoulders. He remained quiet for a long moment before answering.

“He lives with a friend; he can take better care of him than I can right now.”

Something about the Huntsman’s tone made it clear the topic was a sensitive subject for the young Huntsman, and so you elected not to press the matter further.

“And what of you?” Sanemi said gruffly, surprising you with his willingness to engage in conversation as the two of you continued your trek. “I know you said you had a Grandmother, as she was the one to give you that.”

He nodded pointedly at your cloak, and you saw that curious heat enter his eyes once more at they combed over the scarlet wool draped around your frame. But the mention of your grandmother caused a lump to form in your throat that took you several moments to work around, the damning prickle of tears stinging your eyes.

“I do,” you said hoarsely after a moment. “Though I do not know if she survived after helping me escape Douma. Even if she did, I know I shall never see her again.”

Though your vision had become blurred by your tears, you could have sworn you saw Sanemi’s hand twitched towards you at the sound of the wobble in your voice.

“Douma,” he repeated. “Is that the person you’re fleeing from?”

You nodded, exhaling a shaky sigh. “He claims to be my fiancé but I accepted no such proposal.”

Sanemi leaned against the wood of a tree opposite from you, arms folding across his chest. “Then he does not know what it means to be a fiancé,”

You gave a watery chuckle. “No, I suppose he does not.” You chewed on your lip for a moment. “But Douma does not ask; he demands and he expects. His offer was not really a request for my hand — it was a warning that he would collect me to do with as he pleased.”

Sanemi tensed. “What do you mean by that?”

You combed your fingers through the tangled tresses of your hair, and anxious habit you’d had for as long as you could remember. “In the last three years, Douma has taken four young women from the village to be his wife; every one of them has since disappeared.”

The Huntsman sucked in a shocked breath. “What has happened to them? Has anyone searched?”

You smiled ruefully. “I do not know; no one does. Search parties were dispensed each time, but those who looked came back empty-handed.” Your eyes remained fixed on the small, flickering flame of the campfire. “He claimed the first three ran away into the Wood; said they’d left him to be with a lover.”

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself, seeking comfort in your grandmother’s cloak. “Quite the coincidence, is it not?”

“Quite nefarious,” Sanemi remarked darkly, shaking his head. “And what of the fourth wife?”

Your head dropped. “My dear friend, Kotoha,” you felt the tears begin to gather in your eyes once more. “She was pregnant when Douma demanded her hand, but he did not appear to care. She gave birth a few months later — a beautiful baby boy named Inosuke.”

“She seemed happy for a while after that, and I thought perhaps Douma had been telling the truth; by all accounts, he was kind towards her,” you continued, fighting the shiver trying to lick its way up your spine. “But then Kotoha disappeared, and Inosuke, too.”

Sanemi stiffened at that. “When was this?” He asked suddenly, his tone urgent.

You looked up at him, startled. “Just a week before I found you.”

Sanemi swore lowly, his hand dragging over his face. At your questioning look, he continued.

“A few days before we met, I was leaving to check on a series of caves that I frequent in the east,” he began. “I was half a kilometer from your village when I —,” he hesitated. “Spotted a few men, dragging something through the trees. They seemed to come from your village.”

Your heart dropped to your stomach. “Did you see —?” Your question choked off as your voice cracked.

Sanemi shook his head. “All that was left was a pile of bones. Just one person’s. But there were shreds of cloths mixed in,” Sanemi’s mouth twisted down in a snarl. “Clothes belonging to a young child. But no sign of their bones among the adult’s.”

A cold, clammy sweat broke out across your forehead. “But Kotoha was hardly missing a week — surely that’s not enough time for her to be reduced to bones?”

Sanemi opened his mouth but closed it before he spoke, his eyebrows knitting together as he struggled for words.

“I have seen things in the Wood that are capable of stripping flesh in a matter of minutes,” he said carefully, eyes trained on your face. “It would not be unheard of.”

You felt the blood drain from your face as nausea wracked through you. “Oh gods,” you moaned, arms shakily coming to rest upon your knees to brace your head as it fell into your hands. “Oh gods — Kotoha.”

You remained like that for several moments, viciously fighting against the roiling of your stomach, desperate to keep down what meager rations you’d managed to eat.

Sanemi called your name, soft and gentle. You waited a moment, focusing on taking several, steadying breaths before you lifted your head to meet his gaze.

“So that is to be my fate once he catches me,” you whispered in horror. “To be reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones and tossed into the Wood like garbage.” You shuddered as another wave of nauseous dread sluiced through you. “And I cannot even fathom what will be done to me before then.”

“It will not,” Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft but vicious, and it broke through the cold terror threatening to knock you off your axis. “I will get you out of this forest and you will be free. Mark my words.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep, Sanemi.” You warned, your eyes still wide, haunted. “If he catches me, he will do worse to you; death will be a kindness he will withhold.”

Despite the solemnity of your words, Sanemi only scoffed. “I assure you, he would do no such thing.” He looked to you, eyes serious. “And I would kill him before he had the chance to so much as look your direction.”

You wanted to dismiss his words as nothing more than the bragging of an overconfident, idiotic man. But something in both Sanemi’s tone and the way he was leaning against the tree — one foot resting causally against the bark, the other stretched out before him, supporting his weight, with his arms folded across his chest — made you think perhaps Sanemi’s confidence was more than mere bravado.

Even though you knew you shouldn't, you took comfort in it; in him.

"You're a good man, Sanemi," you said quietly. "Better than most."

Sanemi scoffed, shaking his head, but the shadow over his face betrayed his own internal turmoil. "I am not half the man you'd like me to be."

You quirked an eyebrow at him, head tilting in question. “Do you care what I think of you?” When the Huntsman did not answer, you pressed. “You worry that I think ill of you — why?”

Sanemi, at best, was confusing. Maddening. He spoke to you gruffly, as though his years in the Wood had made him forget all semblance of decorum and basic human decency.

Yet, there was something else, too; though you hadn’t much experience being desired by men, Sanemi had shown you a particular level of care. He always handed you your dried rations first, ensuring you’d eat your fill before he; he always offered a hand to help you over a particularly tricky stretch of terrain, carrying your basket for you without so much as you having to ask.

Then, there’d been the way he’d cradled you close earlier in the day, when you stumbled upon the poor man whose body had been mangled and half-eaten by one of the Wood’s inhabitants. He hadn’t needed to tuck your head against his chest like he did, holding you tight as he spun the two of you out of range, to avoid joining the lost soul whose entrails were strewn across the forest floor; he hadn’t needed to comfort you and wipe your frightened tears.

But he had.

The realization hit you like a boulder. “You feel protective of me,” you murmured in awe, your eyes locked onto him even as he shifted under the weight of your stare.

Sanemi tried to scowl, but it came off as more a wince. “I feel protective towards any woman who is being treated as something to abuse. What your fake-fiancé has done is abhorrent.”

His voice quieted. “You do not deserve that fate. You deserve to find something good — something that will make you happy.”

You hummed, pretending you were in thought as you began to slowly close the distance between you. “I would like to be happy,” you conceded.

“You should be,” Sanemi answered.

“I have felt happy here in the Wood,” you continued. “Have you, Huntsman? Felt happy here in the Netherwood, I mean?”

Sanemi swallowed hard. “Perhaps.”

You took another step. “Recently?”

“Recent enough,” Sanemi watched you warily, his voice like gravel.

You clicked your tongue. “Have you enjoyed our time together? However brief?”

At this, Sanemi rolled his eyes. “You have certainly kept things interesting, when you’re not desperately trying to become a meal for some hungry beast.”

When you did not answer, Sanemi looked nervously back to you, and his voice softened. “Yes. I have enjoyed it.”

You felt like you were stripping him back, peeling back layers of sarcasm and steel that he’d carefully erected to keep himself from getting close — from caring.

But you were doing it; and he was letting you.

“And you think I’m pretty,” you added, taking another step towards him.

“Aye,” Sanemi croaked, his eyes fixed on your face, the the flicker of the small fire only adding to the heat blazing in his lilac gaze.

You drew up before him, the toes of your boots just touching his. “I find you quite pretty as well, Huntsman.”

Sanemi’s eyes closed, his shoulders tense. “I am to deliver you safely to the nearest village.” Lilac irises opened to meet yours and he looked at you gently; apologetically. “We cannot do this.”

You did not balk. “And if I wanted to stay with you?” You whispered, fingers coming to toy with the folds of his tunic. “What would you say then?”

Sanemi breathed out a soft sigh of your name, the syllables dripping like honey from his lips. “It is not possible, I’m afraid.”

You looked up at him through lowered eyelashes and noted how his gaze flicked down to your lips before back to your eyes. “Why?”

Sanemi’s hand gently brushed a few loose strands of hair back from your face, tucking them behind your ear, and you leaned into the warmth of his touch. “Because you are a beautiful, little lamb, and I am a wolf in a forest of beasts. You do not wish to spend your days here, in the darkness.”

“You cannot speak to what I want,” you challenged, your fingers rising to clench around his wrist, to hold his hand in place against the side of your head. “My life is my own now; I have no set path.”

“But I would like to travel down yours,” you added quietly, after a moment.

“It is not one open to transients,” Sanemi warned, though his other hand rose to rest against the dip in your waist, holding you against him.

You only shook your head. “I do not intend to be temporary, Sanemi. I wish to stay with you. I wish to help others as you have helped me.”

“I’ve yet to help you,” Sanemi said wryly. “Our bargain was that I deliver you to one of the villages on the other side of the Wood. We are still making that journey.”

You stretched up on your toes and boldly pressed your lips against the hollow of his throat, savoring the skipping pace of his heart beneath your mouth.

“A new bargain, then,” you offered. Sanemi said your name once, as though in warning, but when he did not levy any threat, you only continued, moving your lips up under his jaw.

“You get me to the other side of the Wood. If I still want to stay with you, then you will let me. If I don’t, we will part ways at the first village we come to.”

You’d kissed your way to his lips, but held back, allowing that final line to remain in place between you even as your resolve wavered against the force of your desire for him — for this Huntsman of the Netherwood.

Sanemi’s eyes fell to your lips, hovering so very closely to his own. “You assume I want you to stay,” he murmured, though he made no move to push you away. “You assume I want to look after a lamb forever.”

You smiled softly. “Even a lamb can help take care of a wolf.”

Sanemi’s eyes were full of a wariness edged by the faintest trace of hope. “Aye, I suppose that’s true.” The hand against the side of your head fell to caress your cheek. “And as infuriating as I find you to be,” he leaned in close, his lips just barely touching yours. “I do think you quite beautiful, little Lamb.”

You surged forward with a breathy gasp, lips feverishly meeting his as you begged the Huntsman to consume you whole.

Sanemi responded with equal fervor, his arm locking tightly around your waist as the hand against your face tilted your head slightly to the right, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

You’d shared a few stolen kisses here and there in your youth with some of the village boys, but never before had you been kissed like this. Never before had you known the passion and all-consuming vigor that the Huntsman poured into you, as he walked the two of you back over roots and loose stones to press you against the roughened bark of a nearby tree.

No, those kisses had been child’s play. For the way Sanemi’s mouth moved against yours was enough to make you feel as though you’d been dipped in lantern oil and set aflame, and yet you could not find it within yourself to care that you were burning. Not when he molded you against the rigid planes of his body as though to absorb you into his being; not when his thigh slotted between yours, its muscle brushing against a sensitive spot between your legs that had you gasping and Sanemi groaning into your mouth.

As quickly as it began, it ended, Sanemi breaking away from your lips with a strangled pant as he leapt back, as though scalded by the inferno he’d lit within you.

There was something untamed in his gaze as he regarded you, his breath choppy as he collected himself. Still stunned by the ferocity with which he’d kissed you, your fingers jumped to your lips, noting the slight swelling now there.

“I was wrong about you,” Sanemi said breathlessly, his cheeks tinged an alluring shade of pink. “You may not be a lamb after all.”

Your fingers dropped from your lips as you raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying I am a wolf?”

Sanemi shook his head, that wildness still blazing in his eyes. “No, not a wolf.” His voice dropped to a purr as he regarded you with a look that made your thighs clench. “You are temptation given physical form.”

——-

Neither of you spoke of what transpired against the tree for several hours, though you’d managed to brush aside any lingering awkwardness with light conversation about Sanemi’s time in the Netherwood.

And, despite any lingering doubt as to the sincerity of your words he may have had, Sanemi seemed to naturally gravitate towards you, his hands never straying far from your form as you walked.

Truthfully, it made you giddy. You’d never experienced the thrill of another man’s touch while in the village, though Kotoha certainly hadn’t spared you any details. Vivid descriptions furtively whispered behind hands, however, were nothing compared to reality. Even Kotoha’s most blush-inducing tales paled in comparison to the electric flash you felt each time Sanemi’s warm hand gripped yours to steer you back from a particularly darkened corner of the woods, or the flutter in your stomach when he lifted you easily up and over unsteady ground, his hands always lingering for a spare second on your waist or the small of your back as you settled.

It became harder to imagine leaving him once you reached the end of the Wood. With each passing hour, your conviction that you would remain alongside the mysterious Huntsman grew all the stronger.

The pair of you were resting near a blackberry bush, you perched on a small boulder while Sanemi sharpened his axe, his hand running the small whetting stone against the curve of the blade with precision.

“Have you ever been in love?” The question broke the comfortable silence before you could think better of it.

Sanemi’s sharpening stone paused briefly before continuing along the curve of his axe. “Once,” he said, gruffly. “Though we were so young, I don’t know if you could properly call it that.”

You sat up, your curiosity piqued. “Where are they now?”

The Huntsman hesitated. “She is long-gone. Died here, in the Wood.”

Your heart clenched. “I’m sorry. I cannot imagine that grief.”

Sanemi did not respond, instead refocusing his attention back to his blade. “It was around four years ago, now.”

Four years ago. Around the time Sanemi had begun escorting lost souls through the Netherwood.

“Have you been in the Wood since?” You asked gently, trying to focus on a loose thread handing from your cloak so that he would not feel pressured by your stare.

Sanemi nodded. “I think,” he cleared his throat. “I think I started helping others as a way to honor her. She was kind that way.”

You smiled at that. “She sounds wonderful; and you do right by her memory.”

The Huntsman said nothing more, his silence more contemplative as he finished sharpening his weapon.

By the time the pair of you set back off on your path through the Wood, the morning fog had somewhat subsided, though it’s mist lingered in the denser sections of the forest.

“Is it normal to not have encountered many of the Wood’s creatures?” You bit down on the shudder you felt at the memory of the partially-eaten corpse you’d encountered a few days prior. “I feel as though we only see the aftermath of the beasts, rather than the monsters themselves.”

Sanemi smirked quietly to himself, though you did not know what he found amusing about your question. “I suppose that cloak is keeping them at bay, Lamb.”

You rolled your eyes, knocking your shoulder playfully against his. “Perhaps they’re frightened of the big bad Huntsman,”

“Perhaps. I’m quite scary.”

Your hand found his. “Not at all. In fact, I find you quite —“

Your thought was cut off, however, as Sanemi tore his hand from yours to hold an arm out before you, stilling you. You’d traveled with the Huntsman long enough to know he was telling you to be quiet while he listened, his ears far more discerning amidst the silent noise of the forest than yours.

Only it was not silent; in the distance, you could hear raised voices, yelling, and the distinct howls of several hounds.

Your eyes found Sanemi’s, and you were certain yours were as wide as his, as your heart began to thunder against your chest.

There was a strange melodic chant rising above the cluster of voices some distance through the trees, and you both turned back and strained to listen.

As the jeering voices and barking of dogs drew nearer, it became clearer what was being said — what thing those voices were loudly whooping and mocking amidst the excited titter undercutting their bloodlust.

Your name.

Douma’s men had picked up your trail, and they’d caught up.

“Run.” Sanemi ordered, tearing the leather satchel from his shoulders and looping the strap around yours. “Do you remember which direction north is?”

Eyes wide and limbs trembling, you nodded, your breath hitched in your throat as every instinct within you was overtaken by sheer terror. Sanemi placed his hands on your shoulders, squeezing firmly to get your attention back on him.

“Run north,” he repeated. “Follow the river and do not stop. It is against the wind, so it should be harder to track your scent,” Sanemi’s eyes darted up over your shoulder, narrowing as the unseen force drew nearer. “I will catch up to you. Do not drop that satchel.”

Your mouth opened and closed several times as you gaped at him, fear, so deep and primal, engrained in your every nerve as you realized he intended to send you deeper into the Netherwood. Alone.

“I cannot — Sanemi,” you begged, your hand gripping his forearm in a desperate attempt to stay close to him, your protector.

Gently, Sanemi removed your hand from him. “Y/N, I promise I will find you soon. I need to get them,” he jerkily nodded backwards to the voices and dog howls drawing closer and closer to you in the distance. “Off our trail.

You shook your head, only trembling harder. To separate surely would mean one, if not both of you would die, and you could not bear to leave him to deal with the onslaught of Douma’s men alone.

“I promise,” you’d not realized Sanemi’s hands had cupped your face until you felt the press of his forehead against yours. “I will find you. Now go.” He urged, and with a slight shove, Sanemi sent you stumbling in the direction you assumed was North.

With a great deal of reluctance, your legs began to move as you hurried over fallen branches and twisted roots, every pump of your legs growing stronger as your fear intensified.

You hadn’t known how many men were in pursuit of you, and you’d left Sanemi alone with only an axe to protect himself.

You’d as good as doomed him.

But you kept running in the direction you thought was north, eyes frantically trying to track the watery sunlight filtering through the trees.

The moment you’d chances scanning for the sun meant you did not see the thick, twisting root that had broken across the forest floor, not until your foot became entangled and you were sent sprawling across the dirt.

Moaning slightly, you scrambled up, refusing to acknowledge the faint bruising pain you felt in your ankle as you moved to keep running.

A snap of a tree branch froze you in your tracks. As stupid as you were, you turned towards the source of the sound, dread coiling in your gut. A shadow emerged from behind one of the ancient trees of the Wood, clutching something shiny.

A sword; long, wicked and cruelly sharp, and yet somehow, the blade frightened you far less than its wielder, for his face was familiar.

You’d grown up alongside it, after all.

“Well, well,” the boy — man — cooed at you. “We’ve been looking for you for quite sometime, you know?”

You took a step back, eager to put whatever distance you could between yourself and the smirking village boy who looked at you like you were his next meal.

“K-Kaigaku,” you stuttered in disbelief. “What are you doing? We were — we were friends.”

The boy’s laugh made your blood curdle. “Don’t mock me,” he shifted his sword to rest against his other shoulder as his free hand twirled a small dagger. “I only align myself with the strong, and you are nothing but a weak and pathetic little mouse.”

“But Lord Douma,” Kaigaku mused, his grin offset by the malice alighting his eyes. “Lord Douma is strong; powerful. I am loyal to him, not you.”

“Lord Douma?” You repeated, your voice as sharp as the blade glinting in the faint daylight as the boy before you tilted it back and forth. “Is that what he’s told you to call him? What, pray tell, is he lord of — being an egomaniacal, fatuous, greedy murderer?”

Kaigaku’s smirk unfurled into an ugly sneer as he shifted to point his sword at you. “Watch your mouth, girl.”

“And what of Kotoha?” You demanded, your anger an untamable fire that burned in your veins. “You were sweet on her once — did she deserve her fate?”

There was no sign of that fondness in the cruelty which lined Kaigaku’s face as he spat, “She spread her legs for some man like a whore and bore his bastard. Lord Douma only made sure she met an end befitting of her filth.”

“You vile, wretched creature,” you swore. “Damn you! Damn him!”

That hair-raising smirk reappeared as Kaigaku stepped towards you. “I cannot wait to see what Lord Douma has planned for you. You should’ve seen what he did to your beloved Granny, the hag.”

Your blood turned cold and a stone like lead settled in the pit of your stomach. You’d assumed, of course, that your grandmother had paid with her life in helping you escape, but you could not bear to hear the ways she’d suffered in exchange for your life.

Somewhere, in the depths of the Netherwood, a wolf howled.

“Shall I tell you all about it, Y/N?” Kaigaku taunted. “Shall I tell you how your dear Granny screamed as Lord Douma flayed her alive, piece by piece? How she sobbed for your grandfather? For you?”

Tears burned, as hot as acid in your eyes as you shook. “Stop,”

“It was quite pathetic, really,” Kaigaku sighed. “She went rather quickly. I suppose that’s what happens when you play with old crones — their pathetic little hearts can’t withstand the fun.”

You were at a loss; part of you wanted to lunge for the boy, to sink your nails into his eyes and rip, to tear him limb from limb as you screamed with rage until even the beasts of the Netherwood could not tell whether you were human or kin.

But on the other hand, you were just a woman, who’d spent the last five days in the Netherwood and didn’t have so much as a dagger with which to defend yourself.

And Sanemi told you to run.

You remembered as a boy, Kaigaku had been slow; always the last person to finish a race or outrun the seeker in hide and seek.

You, on the other hand, had always been faster; you could outrun him.

You had to. You would.

There was a roaring in your head as your mind disconnected from your body and you turned to flee.

“Don’t you run from me, bitch!” Kaigaku thundered after you, but you did not slow; you hurtled over root and rubble, adrenaline pumping hot and fast to your legs as you ran.

You’d thought, for one blissful moment, that perhaps you had a chance of evading him, when a silent whirring cut through the silent forest air.

Pain, blinding pain, exploded somewhere from the side of your thigh, bringing you to your knees as you cried out. Rolling over, your stomach dropped at the unmistakable sensation of blood dripping down your leg, hot and fast.

Behind you, you heard the thud of Kaigaku’s knife cluttering to the forest floor.

“Hn, I missed,” the boy scoffed, eyes roaming over you as you bled. “No matter, you can’t run on a wounded leg, can you little girl?”

Ignoring the dizzying lash of pain that flared in your leg, you scrambled backwards in a crawl, desperate to put some — any — distance between you and your captor.

“Lord Douma only said to bring you back alive,” Kaigaku hummed, drawing his sword once more. “He did not say to bring you back unscathed.”

Kaigaku put the tip of his blade right at your chin, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. You glared defiantly up at him, though your show of courage was a mere facade as you beheld the salacious glint reflected in his beady eyes.

“I think I shall take my time with you,” Kaigaku decided, using his blade to tilt your head back and forth. “After all there is no one here who shall care if you scream; in fact, I prefer you do.”

Your eyes widened, what remaining fight you still had wavering.

Alone. You were completely and utterly alone.

Sanemi had not come; either he was still fighting the other men sent by your cursed fiancé, or he’d been slain, and now the others were making their way to you, to take you back to Douma and let him do as he pleased.

You were going to die; but you would not die by his hands. Your eyes lowered to the blade still pressed under your chin, its tip grazing against the delicate skin of your throat, teasingly.

Kaigaku’s blade was sharp, even if it’s wielder not; it would not take much effort to slit your own throat on its edge, and it would take even less to bleed out upon the Netherwood’s earthen floor.

Before you could move, however, Kaigaku’s sword lowered, its tip teasingly tracing along the front seams of your dress.

“Perhaps we could make this interesting,” Kaigaku smirked, tracing up the valley between your breasts. “He said only to ensure you were untainted for him; he did not say we couldn’t have a taste.”

Your stomach churned with a toxic mixture of both rage and dread as the sword cut through the first stitch of your bodice. You tried to gather your feet beneath you, enough so that you could launch yourself forward and impale yourself on his blade, when a low growl sounded from behind your assailant.

Kaigaku, too enthralled by his slow torture of you, did not see the mass of white fur and bloodstained teeth leap from the shadows of the Wood; not until it was too late.

You looked on in horror as a large beast lunged for the boy from your village, tackling him to the side, his sword arm severed at his shoulder from a single swipe of the monster’s mighty claw. Kaigaku only had time to scream once before the nightmare’s massive maw clamped around his neck and tore, spraying his blood and bits of gore across the forest floor.

Your breath caught and died in your throat, helpless from where you were still splayed pathetically across the dirt as you watched the animal paint the Netherwood with remnants of Kaigaku.

The monster turned on its haunches towards you, its maw dripping with blood and bits of sinew and flesh, its lip curled back in a snarl. You whimpered as the creature’s silver-lilac eyes settled on you, every inch trembling in abject terror.

Though overcome by your fear, your brain was able to put together the sight before you that was sure to be your last. The beast slowly advancing towards you was a wolf, though it was much larger than any wolf you’d ever seen, and its brawn rivaled that of an ox’s.

The wolf boasted a thick coating of silvery-white fur that seemed to glow, as though it bore the essence of a full moon, though its brilliance was dampened somewhat by the smears of crimson saturating it. Under the dim light of the forest, you could not tell whether the blood was that of the wolf or another.

One colossal paw stepped hesitantly toward you again, and you felt yourself nearly go faint. Weakly, you tried to scramble back further into the wood, but your left leg had gone slightly numb from its wound, and the blood loss was starting to make you feel dizzy.

It seemed the Netherwood had answered your silent plea to not be sent back to be killed by Douma; instead, you would serve as the next meal for one of its monstrous residents.

The wolf drew short of you and watched you closely for a moment. With a great shudder, the wolf began to tremble and shake, and your horror melted into wide-eyed disbelief as you watched the wolf shrink and contort until all that was left was a man, blood-stained, naked, and panting on his hands and knees, fingers dug deeply into the dirt below. The man convulsed as began heaving up bile stained with blood and gore.

The sight of scarred forearms and snowy-white hair broke you out into a cold sweat.

“S-Sanemi?” You croaked, equal parts relieved and terrified, even if another part of you desperately hoped that you were simply hallucinating the image of the nude man wretching up blood before you.

“Aye,” Sanemi grit out between great, shuddering breaths as he spat one final time at the dirt. “It is me.”

He rose, bloodied and naked, from the forest floor and looked to you, his eyes back to their familiar, lavender hue, though they still retained an otherworldly glow.

There was a loud ringing in your ears as you stared at him, though you weren’t sure if it was from your panic or your blood loss. Sanemi took a cautious step towards you and it sent you scurrying back, a whimper of fright building in your throat.

He faltered, something like pain crossing his face. “Perhaps you should be afraid,” he said quietly. “And you can be — but I need you to throw me that satchel.”

It took you a moment to recollect yourself long enough to register what he was asking. With shaky hands, you unlatched the leather bag from your shoulders and weakly tossed it towards the Huntsman.

Sanemi was quiet as he dug through the bag, producing a fresh pair of breeches and a clean tunic. With a deftness that seemed as supernatural as his wolf form, Sanemi dressed, concealing his muscular, scarred form from sight once more.

He said your name once, quietly. “Are you alright?”

You trembled, hand clutching weakly at the front clasp of your cape. “He killed my grandmother,” you whispered. “H-he tortured her.”

Sanemi approached you slowly, and when you did not flinch away from him once more, he knelt down beside you. His hand came up to gently stroke your hair, and the touch startled you out of your trance, blinking back fat tears as you looked up at him.

“We need to go,” he said gently and you closed your eyes, nodding.

You’d known, of course, that your Grandmother had been killed; made peace with it, even. But you had not foreseen that she would be tortured for trying to secure your freedom, and the very thought made something inside your heart wither and die.

“I know,” you murmured quietly. Sanemi straightened, extending a hand to you to help you up when your fingers closed around his wrist, your eyes urgent.

“Did you kill them?”

Sanemi grimaced. “Yes, Lamb. I killed them all.”

You nodded. “Good.” You released his wrist and slid your hand into his. “Good.”

Your shock had dulled the sharp, burning throb in your leg while you’d processed the fact that Sanemi was not a mere huntsman, but a wolf of the Wood. But now that the shock had worn off, the pain slammed back into you with full force as you tried to stand, your leg collapsing uselessly under you as you cried out.

Sanemi’s nostrils flared and there was a murderous glint in his eyes as he crouched down beside you, eyes locked onto your left side, fingers clenching around the torn folds of your dress and lifting it up.

“S-Sanemi!” You squeaked, batting his hand away but no to avail. The huntsman — the wolf — managed to pull back the skirts of your dress to reveal the torn flesh of your thigh.

“Was it him?” Sanemi’s voice was low, his head jerking back over his shoulder in the vague direction where he’d left Kaigaku in pieces.

You nodded, eyes wide as you watched him inspect the wound. “A knife. He threw it.”

The huntsman exhaled harshly through his nose. “We’re too vulnerable in the open like this — especially because you’re bleeding.”

Sanemi sat back on his haunches and pulled his small hunting knife from the leather satchel strewn on the ground. Silently, he leaned forward and wound some of the bottom fabric of your dress around the blade and wrenched, tearing a sizeable scrap cloth from the skirt in one clean stroke.

Sanemi then reached under your skirt and tugged the shorter end of your linen shift down. “It’s not ideal but it’s cleaner than your outer skirt,” he said by way of explanation at your raised eyebrows and hitched breath. “It’ll do until I can get you somewhere safer. We’re sitting ducks out here. Your scent is bound to attract something.”

You nodded, gulping. Words were still far too difficult to come by, so you settled for watching your handsome guide as he worked, mouth set in a firm, hard line.

Sanemi tore another strip of linen from your shift and laid it delicately over his knee. His eyes flicked to yours, once, and you felt slightly ashamed at the way your breath hitched, as though waiting for those lilac irises to bleed silver once more.

“May I?” His hands were stilled above the exposed flesh of your shin, and you knew he’d need to lift more to bandage your thigh. You nodded after a moment, though your hesitation did not stem from any fear you held for the scarred man delicately sliding his hands up the length of your wounded leg; rather, the heat that crept up your neck came from the way goose flesh erupted over the skin beneath his roughened yet gentle touch.

Sanemi’s fingers were steady as he gently guided your leg to the side, rotating it in his palm so that the gash was perpendicular to the forest floor.

At the sight of your bloodied, torn flesh, Sanemi growled. “I should’ve made the little bastard suffer far more.” He said darkly, reaching into his satchel to pull a small skien of water to clean off the wound as much as possible.

At the first splash of water against your ragged skin, you flinched, hissing through clenched teeth as the cold fluid chased away the spare bit of blood. For a moment, you could see that the cut left behind the blade was deeper than you’d thought, though not so much so that it required more than a good bandaging and perhaps some stitching.

At least it had not been entirely flayed open.

The hand Sanemi had braced on your knee to keep your leg steady rubbed soothingly at your skin as he repeated the motion once more, letting the water cleanse the wound once more. “Atta girl,” he praised softly. “It’s done. I just need to wrap it.”

It amazed you that such a hardened, rough Huntsman — Wolf — had such a gentle touch. His hands were like feathers as he wound the clean strip of linen around your thigh, the only pressure stemming from the knot he’d fastened to keep it secure around your leg. Sanemi then wrapped the other torn fabric from your outer skirt around the makeshift bandage, knotting it in a similar fashion to the one beneath.

“To keep the one below from becoming dirty,” he offered plainly at your raised eyebrow. “Can you stand?”

Now that the adrenaline of yojr earlier encounter had worn off, the throb in your leg had become all the more pronounced. Teeth clenched, you gripped the Huntsman’s hands tightly as you rose from your seat on the tree stump, eyebrows furrowed in determination. Sanemi did not remove his hands from you, but kept them out and ready as you tentatively shifted your weight to test your wounded leg.

It was no good; the pain shot through you like an arrow and nearly buckled the knee on your good leg. With a cry of frustration, you stumbled back against Sanemi, the Huntsman’s arm looping easily around your waist to help lower you back down against the stump upon which he’s sat you.

“Damn it all,” you cursed, wincing at the angry throb in your leg. “It cannot bear weight.”

Sanemi pursed his lips as he looked over you, considering. “Allow me,” he said after a moment, squatting down next to you, motioning for you to wrap your arm around his shoulders.

You hesitated; you were not scared of the Huntsman, even after witnessing his terrifying true form, but your apprehension lingered, a primal fear baked deep within your core that told you you should be scared of the predator beside you. That, mixed with your blood loss, made you pause, even though you’re traveled alongside the fearless Huntsman for nearly a week.

And Sanemi noticed.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his arm locked steadily around your waist as he lifted you to your feet, your weight pressed against his chest.

You did not trust your words so you only nodded. Despite the remaining wariness you felt, you longed for his comfort more. You lifted your hand to cup the side of his jaw so you could tilt his face down, bringing his forehead against yours.

Sanemi whispered your name and your eyes lifted up to meet the smoldering heat of his gaze.

A knuckle brushed against the curve of your cheek. “Are you frightened of me now, little Lamb?”

Your fingers gripped the collar of his tunic, a desperation wracking through you at the thought he might pull away and remove the steadying warmth of his arms from around your frame.

“No. It is not you that frightens me; it is him.”

The arm around your waist tightened. “He will not get to you; I swear it. I will not allow him to lay a finger on you.”

Your breath shuddered and your eyes squeezed tight. You felt the discomforting press of panic building in your lungs, threatening to choke the air from your throat until a warm finger curled under your chin, followed only by a rugged whisper of your name.

You opened your eyes and there he was; the only person left alive who you could count on; who had proven, time and again, that your welfare mattered to him. Who treated you like you meant something.

You craved that feeling — craved him.

“Kiss me, Sanemi.” You murmured, your lips separated by a breath. “Please.”

Sanemi did not hesitate as he gently brought his lips against yours, the hand under your chin moving to cup the back of your head, holding you steady against him like he was the only real, solid thing in the world.

Your hands, no longer shaking, unclenched from where they’d been locked around the collar of his tunic and slid behind his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.

Sanemi sighed against your lips, allowing himself to get lost in the way they moved against his, just as you did. Against the solid rock of his body and under the spell of his soft mouth, it was easy to allow yourself to forget the danger that threatened to creep in from the shadows.

Lost in your kiss, you made the mistake of trying to shift your weight from your good leg to the bad, causing both knees to buckle. At your small whimper of pain, Sanemi broke away.

“You’re too injured to walk,” He murmured against your lips. “So I shall carry you.”

He broke away with a final peck, stepping back and reaching behind him to haul his tunic over his head. “Unless you would like to see all of me, little Lamb,” Sanemi’s smirk was devilish. “Then I suggest you close your eyes for a moment.”

The heat his words sparked in your veins dulled the throb of your wounded leg. “And if I desire to see you?”

Sanemi only shrugged. “Then I suppose I shall have to put on a show.”

The huntsman held your eyes as his hands went to the hastily tied laces of his breeches, tugging the strings open with ease.

You fidgeted against the broken stump he’d perched you on, just as Sanemi shrugged down the soft suede of his breeches, revealing that damnable v-line that made your head spin. A few more inches lower, and there was his manhood, hanging thick and heavy between his muscular and scar-speckled thighs.

He was a sight to behold.

“Is this your first time seeing a man, Lamb?” Sanemi’s voice broke you out of the reverent trance you’d been in whilst admiring every rocky plane of his body.

Your mouth had turned dryer than a summer drought, and so you only nodded your head, unable to tear your eyes from the immaculate form that made up the huntsman of the Netherwood.

To your dismay, Sanemi stepped back from where you sat, again and again until he was several lengths back. You opened your mouth in protest, but he only shook his head.

“Don’t want you to be too close, my sweet.” He called from a distance.

You frowned. “Too close for what —“

Your question was cut off by a small scream as Sanemi leapt forward, that silver fur exploding forth from him as a large wolf landed only feet from where he’d once stood.

Now it was clear why he’d put such distance between you; had Sanemi been any closer when he shifted, one of those mighty claws embedded in his law — nearly as long as your hand — would have surely ripped you clean in half.

Your heart hammered in your chest as Sanemi’s wolf form drew closer. Now, without the weight of terror and the pressing conviction that you were about to die, you allowed yourself to fully appreciate the wolf before you.

His scars were still visible, though less so in contrast to his human form, his thick fur providing a fair degree of cover. In this form, you could see that were you to stand, your head would barely reach his shoulder.

Sanemi grunted as he crouched out, the puff of air from his considerable snout warming over your legs. He looked up at you expectantly, an amused twinkle in his wolffish eyes.

You gaped at him. “You want me to ride you?”

Another amused chuff.

“And how, great and mighty wolf, do you suggest I climb onto your back with a half-severed leg?” You dramatized. “Shall I flop?”

You couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the Wolf rolled his eyes. Sanemi pressed his large body against your good side, nudging you with his great shoulder to signal for you to grab his fur.

You took a handful of the silvery coat, surprised at its softness. “Do not bite me just because you think I pull too hard,” you warned, half serious, and Sanemi huffed in annoyance.

Using the wolf as leverage, you heaved yourself up, Sanemi pressing steadily into your side as you found your footing against him. Slowly, and with less grace than you were willing to admit, you managed to climb atop Sanemi’s back, awkwardly swinging your injured leg over the opposite side.

Once settled, Sanemi rose beneath you, rising to his full height. Sat atop him, you were willing to bet he was taller than most horses back in the village.

The great wolf sniffed at the air once before lowering himself into a crouch, and springing forth into the Wood.

————

Riding atop Sanemi had been the most exhilarating experience of your life.

Though, you also could not recall the last time such a ride had left you more frightened, given that you’d spent a great deal of it crouched low against his neck, fearing that if you rose your head even a fraction of an inch, some low-hanging tree would embed itself in your face.

You supposed you would have kept riding longer, had your stomach not given a great gurgle after an hour or so atop the wolf. With a growl that you thought sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Sanemi paused in a small clearing near a rocky, moss-covered cliff, disappearing behind the lip of the rock once he’d situated you upon a felled log.

A few moments later, human Sanemi emerged, re-dressed, but his face was severe.

“They will keep coming,” Sanemi’s frustration was clear as he shrugged the fresh tunic over his head, the delectable ridges of his abdomen and the alluring dip of his hips concealed from your sight once more. “So long as they can track your scent, they will keep pursuing you.”

You did not need to ask to whom he referred; the very same fear had gnawed at you even despite the exhilaration of riding Sanemi’s wolf form.

Your appreciation of the huntsman’s physique stalled as fear bubbled again in your gut. “What can I do?” Your whisper was shaky and it made Sanemi pause, his hand twitching towards you. “I cannot change my scent in the middle of the damn Wood—“

“You can,” Sanemi said quickly, and to your surprise, the tips of his ears turned pink. “Or— rather, I can help.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Because you are a wolf? Should I call you that now, instead of ‘Huntsman,’ or ‘Sanemi?’”

“You can call me whatever you desire, so long as you allow me to protect you.” Sanemi retorted evenly.

You tried to keep your voice steady even as you blushed. “And how would you do that, Wolf?”

There was a dark glint in Sanemi’s eyes at your new nickname for him. “A bite from a wolf can change your scent.”

You balked at him. “A bite?”

“Aye,” the Huntsman said casually, as though he was merely discussing the weather. “It would leave a small mark, but that mark would alter your scent enough to make you harder to track.”

You thought for a moment, the blush on your cheeks deepening. “Where would you bite me?”

It was Sanemi’s turn to turn pink. “Likely your neck,” he fidgeted with a stick he used to poke the dying campfire.

You gulped. “Would you have to transform?”

Sanemi’s small smile was handsome, even if it looked a little feral. “No, Lamb. I can stay in this form.”

You watched your protector for a moment, weighing your options. “Come here, Sanemi.”

His eyes snapped to yours, a bottomless heat turning his lilac gaze molten. Slowly, with the grace of a predator silently stalking its prey, Sanemi made his way over to where you sat, drawing short once the tips of his boots grazed yours.

“Do you swear it? It will keep them from being able to track me?” You asked, voice trembling slightly as you peered up at the Huntsman.

He nodded, slowly. A hand reached out to caress your cheek, and your breath lodged in your throat as you found yourself leaning into his warmth.

You managed to exhale around the lump that had formed in your throat. “Then I will allow it.”

Your heart skipped like a rabbit’s against your sternum as Sanemi leaned in close, the warmth of his breath chasing away the chill of the Wood’s air.

“So delicate,” Sanemi murmured, his nose skimming along the slope between your neck and shoulder. “So soft.”

“W-wolf?” Your voice was high, your hands trembling as they jumped to clutch at Sanemi’s forearms, nails digging into his skin in anticipation. “Will it hurt?”

He huffed a laugh against your skin, the gentle tickle of his warm air sending goosebumps along your exposed skin. “No, little Lamb,” his lips danced along your shoulder, back towards the sensitive spot connecting with your neck. “You will feel a prick and then you will feel warm.”

You nodded, the ends of Sanemi’s cornsilk hair tickling your throat. “I’m ready. Bite me — please.”

Sanemi’s groan was followed by a cold, sharp sting that sunk into the tender flesh between your shoulder and neck that was quickly chased away by a soothing warmth. The huntsman’s mouth latched to your neck as he buried his teeth in you, his tongue stroking soothingly around where he now bit.

It felt like someone had poured warmed honey into your veins. It spread, thick and sweet from your neck throughout your body, making you feel like you’d sunk into a hot bath on a cold day. That warmth coiled in your belly and ignited something fluttery and pleasurable between your legs as you tilted your head to the side, exposing more of your neck to the wolf caging you in against the tree.

Your submission evoked a low growl from his chest, deep and rumbling as Sanemi pressed harder into you, his hands bunching your dress at your sides as he continued to suck at your neck. The feeling of his body molded tightly against yours and the way his mouth worked at that delicate spot made you moan out, the sound finally jolting something within the huntsman as he gave you one final kick, before tearing himself away.

“Dear gods, woman,” he heaved, breath coarse. “Are you trying to drive me wild?”

You flushed as you panted, staring at him with wide eyes. Whatever you’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that; you’d not foreseen that the act of Sanemi biting you could feel so intimate, could make you long for him to run his hands under your dress, to touch you in your most sacred places until you begged for him.

He was dangerous; it was thrilling.

“Kiss me again,” you breathed, and Sanemi obeyed, his mouth moving fervently against yours as his tongue caressed your lower lip. Sensing the silent request, you opened for him, and Sanemi’s tongue swept into your mouth, licking at yours as his teeth nipped along your lower lip.

You thought he might devour you; you wanted to let him.

But Sanemi suddenly pulled away from you as though he’d been burned, eyes wide and breath hard.

You blinked in surprise. “Sanemi, what —,”

“We need to go,” he said firmly, his cheeks flushed red. At his sides, his hands curled tightly into fists.

—-

The rest of your journey was oddly strained. Despite having grown closer with enigmatic Huntsman over the last several days of your travels, you suddenly felt as though you’d been catapulted back to square one.

Though he still allowed you ride upon his back in wolf form, gone were the amused chuffs and snorts that he used to signal he was listening to your mindless chatter. Instead, the wolf below you remained tense, a cord pulled tight that was liable to snap at the drop of a hat.

As much as you wished it made you angry so that you could snipe at him, Sanemi’s sudden introversion stoked an uncomfortable self-consciousness within you, and you found yourself desperately grappling for an explanation.

Had you tasted badly, when he’d bit you? Did he suddenly no longer find himself drawn to you, now that your scent was different?

Or, even worse, had he realized that perhaps he did not want you to stay with him in the Wood after all, and was now attempting to put distance between you so that you would be more willing to leave him once you reached the edge of the forest?

The thought made your stomach clench painfully.

Sanemi’s distance did not abate even by the time he slowed to a stop for the night. He’d brought the two of you to a clearing in the Wood that bordered alongside a winding river, crested by a waterfall. Sanemi finally lowered himself to the pebbled ground of the riverbank, muscles twitching as though to hasten you along in sliding off him to balance yourself against a mid-sized boulder, before he stalked back towards the trees, his leather satchel in his mouth.

He avoided even your gaze as he stalked into the shallows of the river, spearing two fish with a sharpened stick he’d fashioned. Sanemi hadn’t so much as thrown a word your way as he’d started a small fire, apparently relying on dusk to conceal the small smoke billowing up.

Despite the coolness of the evening air, you noted Sanemi was sweating as he’d flung out the stick bearing your flame-cooked fish dinner towards you.

In accepting the spear, your fingers accidentally brushed against his and Sanemi recoiled — hard.

“What is wrong with you?” You snapped. “Why will you not touch me? Why do you flinch whenever I am near?”

“I do not,” Sanemi answered hotly through clenched teeth, though the muscle that ticked in his jaw betrayed his frustration. “Am I suddenly required to touch you?”

You folded your arms across your chest, eyes narrowed. “You certainly had no objection to it earlier — especially not when you threw me up against a tree.”

“Threw you —“ Sanemi choked off, his returning glare both indignant and enraged. “As I recall it was you who kissed me.”

“And as I recall, it was you who started doing that — that thing with your tongue,” you accused lamely, though any bite in your words was tempered by the blush creeping up your face.

Sanemi scoffed. “You cannot even speak of it without blushing like a little girl, and yet I am the one acting strange?” He leaned back on the piece of driftwood he’d claimed as his seat, arms folded across his chest, head turned pointedly away from you.

As you mulled over a number of insults to call the temperamental Huntsman sitting across front you, the last remnants of the sun faded from the night sky, and overhanging clouds briefly parted to reveal the moon — nearly full, its silvery glow illuminating the riverbank.

The moon’s rays reached where you and the Huntsman had set up camp when suddenly your hand jumped to your shoulder as you cried out.

Sanemi startled forward with a worried growl of your name. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

You grit your teeth, fingers digging harshly into your shoulder as you winced. “Something is — is burning, but I do not know what.”

You were certain the only injury your sustained had been the wound to your thigh by Kaigaku’s knife. But you’d spent enough time in and around flame to know what a burn felt like, and it felt as though something had been branded into you, its throb almost crippling.

You cried out again and Sanemi quickly crossed the dirt and took you into his arms, though you felt him flinch as he did so. “Where?”

You gestured wildly to your shoulder, too distracted by the way his presence made the burn now pulse, sending lashes of heat throughout your body, though there was a maddening edge of pleasure blooming from every part of you that was pressed against him.

Sanemi’s fingers grasped the collar of your dress and wrenched it to the side, swearing softly as he beheld whatever it was he saw.

“What is it?” You managed to grind out, your fingers digging into the muscles of his forearms to keep him anchored to you, as though he were capable of keeping the flames licking at your skin at bay. “Kaigaku did not touch me there — at least, I don’t think —,”

“It was not that boy who did this,” Sanemi said severely, his finger gingerly caressing the spot where your neck met your shoulder. You moaned as his touch extinguished some of the burning fire which had ignited your skin, too lost in the temporary relief to note the way Sanemi’s hands tightened around you. “It was I.”

That stilled you. “What do you mean?” You turned your head, peering up at the Wolf with wide eyes. “From when you changed my scent?”

Sanemi, for once, looked discomforted. “I think —,” he swallowed once, avoiding your gaze as he stepped back. You almost cried out at the loss of his body against yours, as the burn returned once more.

“I think I marked you; but I-“ Sanemi stuttered, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion as he stared at the ground, his weight shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “But it shouldn’t be affecting you — not like this.”

“You marked me?” Your hand fluttered to the fleshy juncture between your shoulder and neck. You gasped as your fingers brushed against a curious raise in your skin that hadn’t been there before, the strange curvature burning a few degrees warmer than the area around it.

The huntsman’s eyes remained resolutely fixed on the ground of the forest. “I told you I would cover your scent.”

You stroked the the mark, fingers tracing the odd curve, like that of a crescent moon. “What does the mark mean?”

Sanemi hesitated.

“Wolf?”

“It is a mating mark.” Sanemi admitted after a long moment, hand jumping to his hair as he ran his fingers anxiously through his silvery-white locks.

A stunned breath blew past your lips, your eyes wide. “M-mating mark?” You repeated, hand freezing where the telling crescent was emblazoned upon your skin.

Sanemi looked equal parts apologetic and scared. “I swear, I did not know it would affect you — wolves have to accept the mating mark to feel it, so I did not think —.” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair, his anguish apparent. “I thought I would be the only one to feel its call. I swear it.”

In the back of your mind, it registered that the mark perhaps was the reason for Sanemi’s sudden change towards you, but the incessant burning you felt would not allow you to question him on it.

“What does this mean?” You cried out again as the mark surged, the pain reaching all the way down between your legs, making you gasp. “Are we — are we m-mated?”

Sanemi’s eyes flashed. “No,” his voice was firm, urgent. “You still have to accept the mark for us to be mated — that’s why I thought it was safe. It was supposed to change your scent enough for us to avoid those men.”

“I swear to you I do not plan on acting on it; I meant only to help protect you. I fully intend on escorting you to the nearest village, as promised, and then I will leave. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.”

You believed him. The slight panic in his eyes as you winced at the mark’s repetitive flare once more could not be faked. Furthermore, you knew Sanemi would have no reason to bind you to him; not when you’d already made it clear that you wanted to stay.

You still did.

Sanemi’s earlier words echoed in your mind. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.

“But it will mean something to you, yes?” You demanded, drawing yourself up tall even as you sat perched upon the driftwood. “The mark?”

Sanemi hesitated again. “Wolves only mark once.”

He did not offer any further explanation, nor did he need to; you understood well enough.

The Huntsman had marked you, knowing full well he’d never be able to claim another as his mate. He’d done that, knowing that if another came along that won his heart, he could not be with them completely — not in the way his nature would desire.

And he’d done it nonetheless; all for the sake of giving her a chance to escape Douma’s clutches and to be free.

He’d put you first.

You hadn’t doubted the sincerity of your offer to him earlier, but now, there was no way he’d get rid of you. You would not allow it.

“And what would you do if I said I accepted it — accepted the mating bond?” You asked, voice as soft as a feather.

Sanemi snorted, pulling away from you to busy himself with stoking the small campfire. “I would say that you are an innocent, little lamb who does not understand what it means to be claimed by a wolf.”

“I understand well enough,” you replied, indignant. “I know what it means for people to give into their carnal desires.”

“You know nothing, you’ve never even seen a man before today.” The huntsman shot back, tossing another piece of kindling into the small fire. “You have never laid with another, much less a wolf.”

“It cannot be all that different,” you pouted. “You appear before me man enough.”

Sanemi closed the gap between your bodies then, coming to sit beside you on the rock, fingers curling under your chin to tilt your head up.

His eyes glinted with a sudden predatory heat. “It is quite different, little lamb.” He murmured. “I may now stand before you a man, but I am very much still a wolf. I would not take you like an ordinary human.”

There it was again — that heat, so foreign and yet so enticing, flickered to life once more in the depths of your belly, and the urge to rub your thighs together suddenly became overwhelming. With bated breath, you watched as Sanemi’s nostrils flared softly, his pupils dilating as the grip under your chin tightened ever so slightly.

“Then how would you take me, wolf?” You whispered, eyes not wavering from his. “How would I accept the mating bond?”

Sanemi’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, opening only after a shaky exhale of his breath. “You would have to take my knot.”

Your gaze dropped to his lips, the warmth from your mark spreading across your skin along with the sudden urge to feel them move against your own. “Your knot?”

“My knot,” Sanemi repeated, “and that is precisely why I cannot mate you, little lamb.”

You tugged your bottom lip between your teeth, a movement Sanemi’s eyes followed, his tongue flicking out to wet his own lips.

You pressed your chest flush against his front, hands seeking out his in the dark. “And what if I wanted it?”

Sabemi groaned, fingers latching onto your waist, though whether he sought to push you away or keep you anchored in place, you could not say. “Christ, woman. One would almost think you enjoyed torturing this poor wolf.”

You leaned into him, head tilting as you sought the knowledge of his soft lips against yours. “Not torturing,” you whispered, a hair’s breath separating your mouth from his. “Willingly offering myself to him.”

Your lips brushed against his and Sanemi moaned, his hands reaching to snare in your hair as he moved his mouth desperately against yours, teeth nipping and sucking on your lower lip, like he was hungry to consume you. But before he could, your pulled your head back, breaking the kiss.

“Do it, wolf,” you whispered. “Take me. Claim me as your mate.”

Sanemi grabbed you by your jaw, cheeks squishing beneath his firm grip. “Do you know what that would mean?” His voice was rough, his eyes burning with his desire. “If I did, we would be bonded. Permanently. For life.”

He said it as if you had not guessed it to be true; as if you weren’t prepared.

You gazed up at him through your eyelashes, eyes round and full of the innocence he claimed he could not taint. “Would you have it be another?”

Sanemi took the bait, a feral growl tearing from his chest as he crushed your body against his.

“No,” he snarled, and his mouth descended upon yours once more, his hot tongue sweeping into your mouth to swallow your breathy gasp as you threaded your fingers through his soft, moon-kissed hair.

You moaned into his mouth, hands greedily roaming the rocky planes of his chest, nails scratching lightly along his skin.

“You will be the death of me,” the Huntsman breathed against your lips. “You truly want to accept the bond?”

You moaned, nodding vigorously as Sanemi trailed his lips across your jaw and down your neck, his hands beginning to roam up your sides, tugging you down with him against the boulder so that you straddled his sides.

“Very well,” he murmured. “But I will not claim you here,” Sanemi said gruffly against the delicate skin of your throat, lips pressed against where your pulse fluttered. “I cannot.”

You whined and ground your hips down against his thighs, savoring the way the steely firmness of them pressed against something between your legs that made you feel electric.

“I must take you to my den,” the huntsman clarified, pulling back slightly in spite of your small whine. “When wolves like me claim a mate, we…do not like to be disturbed.”

Sanemi’s fingered the front laces of the stay secured around your bust, slowly undoing the careful lacing as he spoke, though his eyes did not leave yours. “And because it will be a full moon when I mate you, I will go into heat. It will last a very long time.”

“How long?” You fought to keep your head from falling back as you watched Sanemi work, the warmth of his hands seeping through the cotton and linen layers of your dress, making your breasts pebble with every loosened tie of your corset.

Sanemi hummed as he leaned forward, tracing his lips over the exposed skin just below your collarbone as his fingers worked the last of your stays. “At least a day; perhaps two. Other wolves have claimed it lasts shorter when one has a mate, as opposed to having to weather it alone.”

The top swells of your breasts were exposed as Sanemi finally freed you from your outer corset, allowing it to fall to the ground beside you.

The huntsman skimmed his nose over the top of your shift where the tops of your soft mounds peaked over, letting his tongue peek out to follow the trail. The feeling of the hot wetness of his mouth made you fidget in his lap, a whine building in your throat, desperate to have him touch more.

“A-and will you — ah,” you moaned as Sanemi tugged the bodice of your dress and shift down your shoulders, exposing your peaked breasts to the night air. “Will y-you mate m-me the whole t-time — oh god, Sanemi,”

“I could get used to you saying my name like that,” The huntsman chuckled, bending to take one of your breasts fully in his mouth, sucking and rolling his tongue over your stiffened nipple. The contact made the mark on your shoulder burn with a sensual heat that you felt shoot straight down between your legs, and you ground against his thigh, mewling for more.

Sanemi looked up at you as he swirled his tongue over the fleshy skin of your mound, his pupils blown wide. “Perhaps,” he muttered in response to your question, in between light sucks. “It depends on how well you take my knot, you sweet thing.”

You moaned again as Sanemi moved his mouth across the valley between your breasts, taking the other mound between his lips and teeth, his hand rising to keep the other warm. He suckled at you for a moment until you were a whimpering, trembling mess atop him, before he pulled off with a lewd pop!

“But no matter,” You shivered as Sanemi’s teeth grazed your ear. “I promise I will make you feel so good, little Lamb.”

“Why must we wait,” you asked impatiently. “I am ready to be your mate now — I promise I can take your knot right here.”

Sanemi snarled against your skin, but it was not in warning. Rather, your words seemed to stir something deep within him, as the bulge between his legs hardened even more, and the building friction between it and demanding ache in your core intensified.

Sanemi shifted your hips in his lap so the apex of your thighs was no longer pressed flush against his hardness.

“You, my flower, smell far too tempting for me to risk having you in such a vulnerable way in the middle of the damn Wood, without any cover.”

Sanemi, lips traipsed along your jaw as he hummed. “There are many creatures lurking in the shadows that would see my mating you as an opportunity to take a bite for themselves.”

You tugged on his hair, trying to get him to meet your eyes. “I thought my scent was alluring only to you?”

“You don’t just appeal to me, little Lamb,” Sanemi said pointedly. “You have a rare scent that attracts all sorts of creatures here in the Wood.”

“But it is different now?” You pondered, fidgeting in the Huntsman’s lap until the ridge of his thigh pressed against that spot between your legs that made you want to sing.

You hummed and used your grip in his hair as leverage to tilt his head to the side, your lips caressing down the side of Sanemi’s neck, savoring the faint, salty taste of him on your tongue as his fingers dug into your hips.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Your scent has changed, thanks to your mark.”

You pulled away from your assault on his neck to pout at him, lower lip jutting out in a way that made Sanemi’s eyes darken. “So I do not smell as good anymore? To you, that is?”

With a low growl, Sanemi stood, hands gripping under your thighs as he lifted you before he laid you out against the river stone. “Quite the opposite, Lamb,” he quipped, voice low and heady. “To me, there is no finer perfume. Your scent calls to me; it nearly sends me into a frenzy.”

You found yourself incapable of coherent thought — much less speech — as Sanemi’s hands slid up your legs, bunching the skirts of your dress with every inch of skin he passed over until you felt the night air delicately brushing the heat between your legs.

Your legs spread and supported between his grip and the smooth of the rock, Sanemi leaned forward and kissed you, his tongue sliding past your lips to lick teasingly at the roof of your mouth before he broke away, imprinting his kiss down your exposed torso.

You watched him, enthralled by the way your body seemed to come alive under his touch. Even in the dark of the Wood, you could make out the lilac swirls of Sanemi’s eyes as he watched you, noting every gasp and sigh he pulled from you as his hands and mouth explored the planes of your body.

“What curious eyes you have, Wolf.” Your breath was short, choppy as Sanemi’s lips descended past your breasts, caressing the soft of your belly.

“The better to see your pretty face, my sweet,” Sanemi murmured, pressing a sweet kiss right below your belly button, the fire within your gut leaping like oil in a hot pan.

“W-what — oh,” you moaned as you felt his lips press against your hip, the broad expanse of his hands smoothing down over your thighs, pushing the last of your skirts up, and allowing the searing heat of his hands to meet your untouched skin. “What large hands you have.”

“The better to feel you — to caress every inch of you,” Sanemi’s voice was husky as his fingers trailed up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, spreading them wider so he could kneel. One hand gripped the back of your knee and gently tugged your injured leg over his shoulder, so your foot rest against the middle of his back.

His hot breath danced teasingly along your inner thigh as Sanemi’s mouth drew closer an closer to where you ached for him, the night air cool as it licked at your tender, heated flesh.

The feel of his mouth drawing nearer to to the most intimate part of your body made you feel as though you’d been set alight. “Such soft lips you have, Wolf.”

Sanemi chuckled, the sound so dark and rich it sent a shiver up your spine. “The better to taste you with, little Lamb.”

Your breath hitched as you felt something warm and hot flatten against your folds and drag up, Sanemi groaning into you as he repeated the movement, again and again.

His tongue, you realized as a strangled cry fell from your lips, your head falling back against the creek stone. He was exploring you with his tongue.

“Sweet,” Sanemi groaned in between wet, sticky laps against your folds. “So fuckin’ sweet.”

Every nerve in your body felt as though it had been set alight, the mark between your shoulder and neck burning deliciously.

Sanemi’s tongue flattened against your core, his nose pressing sharply against the pearl between your legs as he rocked his face from side to side, smearing your juices all over his maw.

“O-oh gods,” you cried out, hips bucking against his ministrations.

Sanemi’s hot tongue circled your entrance once before dipping inside, his teeth grazing your most sensitive spot as he buried the wet appendage inside your core.

His name fell in a breathy scream from your lips as you bowed up off the creek rock, hands shooting to anchor themselves in his hair as Sanemi began moving his tongue in and out of your fluttering core, his nose bumping and pressing against that delicate pearl at the apex of your thighs as he moved.

“My gods,” Sanemi grunted into your folds. “You are heaven on earth.”

You bucked against him once more, though you could not tell whether you sought more of his tongue or whether your body was trying to squirm away, too overcome by the pleasurable sensations Sanemi bestowed upon you as he worked his mouth against you. It did not matter either way, however, for every time you twitched away from him, the Huntsman’s hot, silky mouth only followed you, your cunt this predator’s dinner.

And apparently, he enjoyed playing with his food.

The frequency of your moans increased as the sounds of Sanemi feasting between your legs grew louder and ever more lewd, his own sounds of pleasure muffled by the repeated wet smacks of his mouth against your dripping folds as he sucked you between his lips and teeth and continued fucking you with his tongue.

“S-Sanemi! Oh — oh gods,” you cried as something coiled tightly behind your navel, making your thighs clench around the Wolf’s head as he worked.

Sanemi only responded with another groan, his hand leaving the supple flesh of your inner thigh to stroke against your folds, making you buck all the more against the stone as his roughened fingers brushed delicately against the spot that made you see stars.

His tongue pulled out of you in favor of flicking the bead at the apex of your legs, his fingers moving to your entrance and deftly pushing in, the wetness leaking from your core ensuring that they slid in without much resistance.

You cried out then, utterly overwhelmed by the way Sanemi’s finger began to work inside you, curling and pumping and stroking along your innermost walls until your entire body vibrated below him.

The hand supporting your thigh over his shoulder tightened as Sanemi resumed his oral assault on that small nub above your entrance, sucking and licking at it until the only sound leaving your throat were feverish cries of his name, your hips involuntarily jerking against him. With each passing moment that Sanemi spent feasting between your legs, something began to mount behind your navel, like a coil being steadily wound tighter and tighter.

You thought it should concern you, this foreign feeling, but as that feeling intensified, so too did your desire to see what would happen when it — you — came undone.

You left one hand gripping harshly at the Wolf’s hair, in some pathetic attempt to keep his face locked against your core, and lifted the other to pinch and roll your breast. You jolted at the stimulation, feeling yourself grow even wetter despite the fervor with which Sanemi lapped and suckled at you.

This appeared to please him, as Sanemi’s free hand moved from your thought to grip at your hip, pressing you even closer to his face until you wondered whether he could breathe. If he could not, the Huntsman did not seem to mind; his groans and growls against your cunt only intensified.

Sanemi slid a second finger into you, and then a third, and the resulting stretch made you see stars, your toes curling in your boots.

That thing in your stomach seized even tighter and your entire body tensed, as though you were on a precipice merely awaiting a slight force to tip you over and sending you hurtling to the depths below.

Whatever was happening to you, the Wolf seemed to anticipate it; for the moment that tight coil within your belly unwound, Sanemi’s fingers pulled hurriedly out of your opening only to be replaced by his tongue, his teeth pressed against your pearl. He lapped up every drop of release that spilled forth, humming and growling as you rode his tongue through the waves of crippling pleasure coursing through you.

As you came down from your high with a breathy sigh of his name, Sanemi shuddered beneath you, a strangled groan lilting out from his mouth between lazy slurps at your cunt. Though your vision was hazy, you could see the faint whites of his eyes peeking through his lids as they rolled back into his head, his fingers tightening their grip on your thighs until it was painful, before releasing once more.

The mark on your neck burned but it was no longer in agony; instead, it felt warm, like a part of your body left too long in the summer sun. but the heat was not entirely unwelcome, especially as Sanemi untangled himself from you, allowing the chill of the late autumn wind to sweep in and lick at your exposed skin.

“That should hold us both over until tomorrow,” Sanemi said after a moment with a throaty chuckle. “Though I will be hard pressed to keep my hands off you, little Lamb.”

Sanemi’s hands eased your skirts back down over your legs. Once your nether region was covered, he helped you sit up, allowing you to cling to him for warmth as he refastened your stays and helped you lace your corset back up the front.

Gingerly, Sanemi brushed your hair back from the shoulder bearing his claim on you. You followed his line of sight, twisting slightly and saw what he did: the crescent-shaped mark, which had burned a violent lavender only minutes prior, had faded back to a pale silver, its ache apparently soothed for the time being.

Sanemi leaned forward and brushed his lips against your mark, his tongue flicking out to caress it as you felt that warmth flood your veins once more. With a moan, you tilted your head, exposing more of your neck again to him, begging him to repeat the action again and again, but Sanemi only drew back.

“Apologies, Lamb,” his eyes were dark once more, and his hands fidgeted at his sides. “Seeing that mark pulls at something within me.”

You allowed your hair to fall back over the crescent bite mark and in an instant, Sanemi’s eyes lightened and a sheepish grin spread across his face. “Wolves are territorial. Seeing your mark makes me want to claim you, even without regard to the danger surrounding us.”

You frowned for a moment. “Are you only drawn to me because you’ve marked me?”

Sanemi’s gaze softened. “I am drawn to you, you vexatious woman, because I find you brave, kind, and at times, even a little charming.”

His hand lifted to caress your cheek, tilting your head down to meet his for a gentle kiss. “The mark is only a physical manifestation of what I already feel towards you. It is simply a way to display our bond to the world.”

Sanemi’s face turned grave and the way he said your name was serious. “You do not have to accept the bond if you’ve changed your mind.”

You shook your head hurriedly. “I want the bond — I want you,” the sincerity of your words resonated with Sanemi, as he pulled your hand to his lips, pressing soft kisses against your fingers. “This is all new to me; I just wanted to know you were sure.”

Sanemi’s soft laugh made your heart thrum, and a blush spread across your cheeks. “I am certain, Lamb, that I would not want anyone else to cause me stress apart from you.”

With a quick peck against your lips, Sanemi rose, stretching his arms high above his head. The moonlight, coupled with the residual flames of the small campfire allowed you to rake your eyes over his lithe form, appreciating every scar and swell of muscle dotting his mouthwatering physique.

But your eyes snagged on a dark stain that had spread across the front of Sanemi’s breeches. “What —?”

Sanemi did not look embarrassed, but he did turn away from you nonetheless. “I told you, Lamb,” he said causually as he dug through the satchel, pulling out a spare pair of pants. “The mark affects me far more than it affects you; at least, for now.”

“That is because of me?” Your eyes trailed his form in wonder, and the sight of the stain made your thighs clench together though you knew not why. “Is that — is that your pleasure?”

Sanemi’s lopsided grin widened, a faint snicker on his lips as he regarded you once more, spread out atop his own traveling cloak. “Yes, Lamb. It is my pleasure.”

You looked up at him, head slightly cocked in question. “But I did nothing to you — not like you did to me.”

Sanemi removed his soiled breeches and re-dressed before returning to your side. “You did not need to; as I said, the mark affects me more than you right now. My body knows I have marked you as my mate, and it is eager to make you mine.”

You shivered at the possessiveness in the words and sat up as he leaned against the small boulder, reaching up over his shoulders to tug his tunic up over his head.

“So it was only the mark?” You asked slowly, eyes dropping down to where you knew his manhood lay under his clothing. “The mark brought you pleasure?”

Warm fingers gripped gently under your chin, forcing you to look back up and meet his piercing stare.

“No, sweetling,” Sanemi said, a low growl tinting his words. “It was not merely the mark. I took pleasure from giving you pleasure.” His thumb stroked the underside of your jaw. “A great deal of it, it seems.”

You shifted until you were on your knees before him, and even the dark of the night could not conceal the way Sanemi’s eyes darkened at the sight.

“Shall I give it back to you, my Wolf?” You whispered, leaning forward to graze your lips against the crotch of his breeches. “I should like to taste you as well.”

To your surprise, neither growl nor groan rumbled from the depths of Sanemi’s chest as you poked your tongue out between your lips and gently dragged it up the seam of his pants, just as he’d done to you. Instead, what fell from Sanemi’s lips was a low, breathy whine, the wolf’s head tipping back slightly as his eyes squeezed shut.

Below the barrier of his clothing, something between his legs began to stir. Curious, you brought your hand against it, palming him slightly through the material.

“Fuck,” Sanemi hissed, and the hand around your jaw tightened, forcing you to rise to your feet.

Sanemi cracked an eye open to glare at you, but he melted at your answering pout, his thumb running over the bottom lip you’d jutted out.

“I promise you, Lamb,” he said gruffly. “I will give you plenty of my pleasure once the full moon rises; so much so, you will not know what to do with it.”

Your curiosity disrupted your self-pity. “From your knot?”

“Aye,” Sanemi confirmed, his voice like gravel. “Speaking of which,” Sanemi then tapped your rear, eliciting a small yelp from you as you separated from him.

“If you’re truly committed to taking my knot, you will need your rest, you tempestuous woman,” Sanemi scolded, and before you could protest, he bent low, wrapping his formidable hands around the backs of your thighs and hoisted you up, forcing you to lock your legs around his waist with a small gasp.

Gently, Sanemi laid you out atop his traveling cloak, bracing himself on one steely arm next to your head as he lowered himself down, allowing one quick press of his lips against yours before he pulled away, stretching out on his side.

“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and an even longer night.” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made you rub your thighs together, even as you scowled at him.

“I don’t suppose you will give me another taste of what to expect,” you sighed, resigned as Sanemi moved his head so that he could lazily dance his lips down the side of your neck.

“I’m afraid not,” his answering smirk was smug as you began to squirm beneath the hand idly fondling your breast. “But I shall make the wait worth your while.”

Your breath lodged in your throat as Sanemi leaned in close, his breath tickling your ear. “When we get to my den,” he promised, tone mischievous, yet you knew he meant every word that followed. “I am going to fucking devour you, little Lamb.”

Devour he will. Part II is fucking filthy. Stay tuned if you want to see her take his knot (again and again).

#demon slayer #sanemi shinazugawa #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #kny x reader #kny fanfic #kny sanemi #sanemi x reader #monster fucker #werewolf fucker #sanemi shinazugawa x reader #sanemi smut #kny smut #demon slayer smut

4K notes · View notes

prettygiri222 · 9 months

Text

Wax

Summary: You tell your boyfriend you got waxed by a man…

Eren x Black Fem Reader SMUT

"Eren!" you called out as you entered his room. he looked up at you with his low red eyes making your heart skip a beat. you were already regretting your decision but you were going to power through. you gave him a little twirl, "notice anything different?"

you saw a trend on TikTok where girls would tell their boyfriends they got a wax done and you wanted to try it. you hesitated knowing Eren he could flip but your friends convinced you to do it.

Eren's eyes trailed over your body stopping at your ass that hung out of your miniskirt. "that ass getting fatter ma? shittt i've been feeding you good." he said as he licked his lips before making eye contact.

you turned around to look at it in the mirror. "i've been hitting the gym with Mikasa and Annie. i ain't even noticed the gains."

"cmere lemme touch it." Eren took a hit off his blunt motioning for you to come sit on his lap. if you didn't actually get a wax today you would've sat on something else. but it was now or never.

you walked over to Eren not missing the way his eyes watched as you purposely swayed your hips. "no, I got waxed." you said placing your foot on his lap.

"you’re so smooth." Eren started rubbing all up on your leg. "everywhere?" he asked as he trailed his hand up higher looking you in the eye.

"baby oil and cocoa butter, love." you said before giving him a nod. a smile graced Eren's lips as he pulled you down so you were straddling him.

"we can't do anything for at least 24 hrs…" you whined out onto his shoulder. "but that's not the point." you said as you shot up. you moved to the bed to create some space between you two, Eren rolled his eyes.

he picked up his phone but signaled to you that he was still listening.

"so I went to get a brazilian today and my regular lady wasn't there so they gave me someone else and honestly, i like them a bit more. they were getting all in there, like really in there and it didn't hurt as much. plus the guy was so ni-" Eren's head shot up.

"hold on ma, did you just say a 'guy?'" he put down his phone and looked into your wide eyes with his red ones.

"y-yea he did a great job…" the wall behind Eren suddenly became very interesting to look at.

"nah, i don't think i'm hearing you right." Eren sat up in his chair with his jaw clenched. "a man waxed you?”

"yes."

"you let a man touch you down there? see you naked."

"it's his job Eren."

"nah you pissing me off right now ma. you let another man touch your pussy and you telling me you're fine with it?" eren moved so he could look deep into your eyes causing you to flinch. you could see his anger building up and it frightened you.

he was always so quick to anger, especially around Jean, you can't say how many times they got physical. but he's never yelled at you much less put his hands on you but you didn't know what he would do now. he was unsettlingly quiet. you only nodded afraid you would get on your knees and beg him for forgiveness but a small part of you wanted to push him even further.

Eren surprised you as he started laughing, he rubbed his tattooed hand all over his face looking at you through his fingers. "you expect me to believe you let a man wax when you still get so shy when I say 'pussy'."

you looked away from him, if your skin was any lighter he would've been able to see you blush. "well he said I had the prettiest 'pussy' he ever saw. gave me his number to hit him up if my boyfriend didn't satisfy me enough." you were shy but you weren’t a pushover.

Eren took a big hit off his blunt before blowing the smoke in your face."ass up, face down ma." you quickly regretted your words.

"Eren wait-"

“ass up. face down. now!" Eren's never talked to you like that, he was always so sweet and nice to you. but right now he was so demanding, it was kinda hot.

you quickly moved to position, making sure your back had a nice arch in it before looking back at Eren with a pout. "Eren we can't…"

"mmhm." he mumbled ignoring your eyes. he pushed up your skirt and delivered a slap to your clothed heat.

"Eren!" you cried out in shock, you shoved your face into the sheets in embarrassment. you've never done this before. you and Eren were vanilla so far because you were a virgin up till a few weeks ago. this was something new and you kinda liked it.

"head up ma, you had a lot to say right? said you'd fuck your waxer cause i wasn't good enough?" he said grabbing your butterfly locs. they were about a week old so they weren't as tight but his grip still hurt. but you were coming to understand that you liked a little bit of pain. "lemme hear it."

eren planted a firm slap against your ass. "ah! It hurts!” Eren gave you another hard slap causing you to jerk forward. you heard him kiss his teeth before you were pulled down to the end of the bed.

“this not gon work.” he said as he maneuvered you so you were bent over his lap. “you keep lying to me, ‘s like you trying to get me mad on purpose ma. you like it when I’m angry?” Eren asked as he delivered another slap to your bare ass. your dark skin was starting to bruise.

how’d he know? you weren’t that bad of a liar. “i was the one who set up and paid for your appointments ma, they would’ve told me if there was a change.” oh, right. you brought your hands to cover your face in embarrassment.

“m sorry” you whispered.

“if you really got waxed by a man, i can’t tell you what would’ve happened.” Eren let out a bitter laugh looking at his dresser. it brought your attention to the gun Eren kept tucked in his pants when he went out. he always placed it in his top draw when he came home not wanting you to see it but you knew about it. it made you shiver thinking about him using it on someone. “but don’t worry you’ll be sorry. count to 10.”

“10 wha- ow!” Eren raised his hand high and brought it down on your ass making you jump. you reached back to grab his hand but he just slapped it away

“you run, lose count or complain and you start over from one.” he spanked you again watching as your ass rippled. you let out whine, you weren’t used to Eren being so mean to you but you were soaked. each slap sent a new wave of tingles to your core.

“how many are we at now baby?” Eren asked in that sweet voice he always spoke to you in.

“9.” you sobbed out. you don’t even know when you started crying and whether it was from the pain or the neglect of your core.

“think you can take one more?” despite being so mad at you it made your heart swell at how nice he was still being. he messaged your ass while waiting for the answer.

“yea…” he delivered one more slap but he directed it toward your clothed heat, fingers coming in contact with your clit, “ohhh fuckkk!” your body started to convulse as you felt pure bliss.

“fuck ma… did you just come from me spanking you?” Eren breathlessly asked as he placed you beside him, you winced at the contact. you nodded as you hid your face in his shoulder. “that’s my good girl.”

#aot x black reader #x black reader #anime smut #aot smut #aot x reader #aot #eren yeager #eren x reader #eren aot #eren smut #eren x black reader #eren x black y/n #black y/n #black reader smut

4K notes · View notes

eddiesghxst · 2 months

Note

A one shot of Mechanic!Eddie x F!reader

Established relationship, Eddie loosing his mind and relentlessly fucking you NASTY into your shared bed all because of how turned on he was by seeing you bent over moving laundry to the dryer in a pair of jeans that hug your ass so nicely🙈💗

stink…. don’t do this to me

18+ — MINORS DNI

————

Those devious, cheeky little shorts of yours will be the death of Eddie, honestly.

Everytime you wear them he ends up balls deep, mumbling promises to knock you up and start a family. He wouldn’t be surprised if one of the few pregnancy scares you’ve had were a product of those fucking shorts.

He’s just getting home from work so he’s tired, but the second he sees you bent over the washer with your ass practically hanging out of your shorts, he’s pumped like a goddamn energizer bunny, so god knows how many rounds he’s fixing to pull out of you tonight (you both lost count at 5).

He’s stepping up behind you with a hum as you toss the clothes in the dryer and shut the lid, pressing his body to yours and nuzzling his face into your neck. His hands coast over your hips and stomach, greedy fingers searching to palm at your tits over the flimsy tank top you have on.

“What’d I tell you about these goddamn shorts, hm?” He nips at your ear, squeezing at your skin when you lean away from him with a grin and a roll of your eyes.

“I didn’t have any clean clothes left, okay?“

Eddie hums, pressing a kiss to your neck as he pushes your hips back against his growing bulge, “Mm, and these just so happened to be the only clean pants?”

“…Maybe.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, giving your ass a quick tap and causing you to yelp, “Maybe.” He mocks.

You roll your eyes, somehow slipping out from between him and the dryer and Eddie groans as you pick up the laundry basket, “I’m busy, Eddie. The laundry isn’t gonna fold itself.”

As if Eddie believes you’re really that eager to fold laundry.

He’s on you as soon as you dump the clothes onto your shared bed, pressing himself to you once again and ignoring the whine you give him. “I’ll be quick, come on. You can’t wear these and expect me to not hump you like a dog, are you serious?”

“Self control, Eddie. It’s a thing.”

“Fuck off.”

You’re giggling as he reaches forward and pushes the clean laundry out of the way before pressing you face first into the bed.

“Ass up, come on.” He pats your hip, “You wanted to wear these cute little shorts, now put them on display for me.”

Eddie watches as you arch your back out for him, softly swaying your hips in a taunting manner as he palms himself. It’s like Eddie looses his mind, honestly.

He nearly ripped these same shorts one time, but he realized if he did then he wouldn’t get the privilege of seeing you in them again and god is Eddie so glad he thought that through.

His palm comes down on your ass quick and hot, cock stirring in his jeans at the moan that slips from you. He gives your other cheek a slap, squeezing and pulling at the fat skin before he decides he can’t wait any longer and he has to fuck you.

The shorts are off in record time, and Eddie thanks whatever shitty manufacturing company made those as he flings them to the ground. He makes even quicker work of unbuttoning his jeans, growling when you sway your hips and wriggle a hand down to your pussy, teasing yourself in preparation for what’s to come.

Eddie doesn’t even bother taking his jeans completely off, he lets them rest at his thighs as he wraps an adrenaline-shaking hand around his throbbing cock and shuffles forward. “Move your hand.” He sharply orders, placing a hand on your bare hip as he aligns his tip with your entrance. You oblige without question, hands sinking into the sheets to hold as Eddie sinks into you.

You’re so fucking warm and hot and wet, and the moan you let out is sinful enough to make Eddie want to do the unthinkable.

“Oh my god,” You gasp as Eddie presses in to the hilt. You’re mumbling and babbling about how big Eddie is, your pretty cunt squeezing and fluttering around him as he settles. “Yeah? This what you wanted, huh?” Eddie teases as he slowly drags his cock out before pressing in again, balls pressing snug to your clit as you squirm.

You pant, whimpering and failing to answer Eddie, so he leans forward, hips working up a toe curling pace as he talks into your ear, “Baby just wanted a good dicking down, huh?” He hotly whispers.

You whimper loudly, clenching around his cock as you desperately nod into the sheets. “Yes, yes please.” You beg.

Eddie peppers kisses across your neck and shoulder, dragging his teeth across your soft skin as his hips relentlessly pound into you. “You know you just had to ask, baby. Instead you wanna slut yourself out—“ “F-fuck off.” You gasp, drunkenly grinning when you hear Eddie chuckle.

Eddie presses himself back up, calloused hands pressing into your hips to pin you to the mattress before he begins drilling into like it’s the last chance he’ll ever fucking get.

Wet sloshing, skin slapping and needy moans fill out the air and Eddie’s practically bouncing you onto his cock with the help of the bouncy bed and you’re just speechless— grappling back at Eddie with shaky hands as Eddie fucks you into oblivion.

“Gonna cum?” Eddie huffs. You answer with a loud moan and your warm walls clenching around Eddie, and he hums, “Give it to me, baby, come on. Want you on top after so I can see your pretty tits bounce in that lousy excuse of a shirt you’ve got on.”

He strikes a hand down on your ass, watching as the skin ripples beneath his force— and suddenly, you’re cumming and tensing around Eddie so hard that Eddie almost struggles to fuck himself into you.

And Eddie didn’t plan on cumming yet, he wanted to hold off for a while longer, but you feel so fucking good Eddie can’t even think of holding back.

He cums with a loud groan, pressing his weight onto you as he spills himself deep inside of your pulsing cut— and there’s so much that it spills and drips down onto the laundry that Eddie failed to move out of the way.

“Jesus— fuck,” Eddie moans as he pulls out, still cumming in lazy spurts as he fists himself, painting your pretty folds. You’re shaking beneath him, back and thighs quivering with pleasure, and Eddie curses at the sight. He barely lets you come down before palming your ass, cock twitching when you let out a drawn-out moan as he speaks, “Flip over, baby. We’re not leaving this room for a while,” He drawls, “Gotta knock you up, remember?”

#mary i love u #he would soooo lose his mind when you wear any form of slutty tiny clothes #rachie’s moots 🫧#eddie x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie smut #mechanic!eddie #mechanic!eddie x reader

1K notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 10 months

Text

Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.

It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.

The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.

Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...

#Good Omens #Good Omens spoilers #Good Omens 2 #Good Omens 2 spoilers #GO2 #GO2 spoilers #mymetas #this is so rough and I'll probably write better metas later #but I just have FEELINGS RIGHT NOW OKAY

3K notes · View notes

ellemj · 5 months

Text

What Am I To You?

Bucky Barnes x Reader One-Shot: SMUT

Summary: You pissed your fuck buddy off and now he only has one question, but it takes a few orgasms to get the right answer out of you.

Warnings: profanity, oral sex (female receiving), fingering, facesitting, light choking, light breeding kink, no use of y/n, praise, spanking, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!

Feel free to comment and let me know if this requires any other warnings. Thank you to @littlemiss-yeehaw for the ones listed above, she's a gem.

Word Count: 4.4k

A/N: This filth came from a random 4am thought that created the dialogue in the first paragraph. I had to use it. Everyone should totally beg @littlemiss-yeehaw to post the horny lil sketch she started for this one-shot. Side note, should I start a tag list for people who want to be tagged in all fics I post? Idk, I'm still way too new to Tumblr to be running a blog like this lmfao. I need a team of advisors.

“Do you know who the fuck you’re talking to? Get on the bed, I’ll show you.” You stay where you are, standing in the doorway of his bedroom with your arms crossed over your chest in a show of defiance. “Get on the fucking bed, right now.” He repeats, pointing a finger at his bed. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s seconds away from dishing out a punishment, one that he’ll enjoy far more than you, so you shuffle forward and crawl onto the bed as he watches. Good girl.

You’ve been here before. You know what he wants from you. He wants you on your hands and knees, with no looking back over your shoulder to see what’s coming. So that’s how you settle yourself, on your hands and knees, staring down at the soft, ruffled up bedding beneath you.

“What am I to you?” He asks, his tone scarily calm and even. You take a deep breath and close your eyes. What kind of answer is he looking for? You’re just fuck buddies. You use each other to de-stress after missions. It’s never been anything more, not once in the past two months that it’s been going on has there ever been so much as a hint that it could be something more.

“I don’t know.” You answer honestly. You listen intently as the familiar sound of Bucky’s belt buckle coming undone fills the silence in the room. A chill races through your body, dancing across the surface of your skin and leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.

“You don’t know…” Bucky tsks. You can’t see him, but he’s standing a couple of feet away from the foot of the bed, letting his eyes rake over your nearly exposed ass as he unbuttons his shirt. The little black dress that you’re wearing barely covers anything with the position you’re in, and he’s fucking thankful for it. In fact, if you hadn’t pissed him off tonight, he probably would’ve found some way to fuck you during the mission just because of that dress. But you pissed him off. “I’ll help you figure it out.” Bucky steps forward now, his warm right hand and cool, metal left hand both gracing the skin of your right ankle as he begins taking off your heels. He drops one to the floor before moving on to the other, and then he strips his shirt off and tosses it to the side as well.

“I thought we were just—”

“You don’t want to finish that sentence.” Bucky warns, effectively cutting you off and giving you a chance to save yourself. It’s beyond clear now that this isn’t just a fuck buddies situation to him anymore. It did start out that way though. Two months ago when you two stumbled into bed together, he proposed a friends-with-benefits type of relationship so casually that you would’ve thought he’d had plenty of them in his lifetime. It worked so well, with the two of you meeting up once or twice a week at either your place or his to blow off steam with good sex. It wasn’t until you were a month in that Bucky started to realize he hated the way you’d leave within half an hour of finishing each other off. He hated that you never slept over. He hated that you still had the freedom to talk to other guys, hell, you could even go out on dates with other guys if you wanted and he wouldn’t be able to say shit about it. Because this was nothing. It was just a casual agreement between friends.

Bucky trails his fingers along your calves slowly, taking his time as he decides what he’s going to do with you. Every other time that you’ve been together, he’s let it be a mutually beneficial thing. There was never a time where only one of you pleased the other, because that would’ve defeated the purpose of the arrangement. He would’ve been perfectly content with solely pleasuring you here and there, giving you everything while taking nothing for himself, but you always reciprocated and he never stopped you. But now, he’s going to do exactly what he wants. He’s going to show you what he is to you in the best way that he knows how: by making you come undone for him, by reminding you that no one else has ever or will ever make you feel the way that he can.

As Bucky pulls his hands away from your calves, you hear the sound of his pants dropping to the floor, the sound of his dog tags shifting around his neck and tapping against his bare chest with his movements, and then the sound of a deep sigh leaving his lips. Anticipation courses through your veins and mixes with adrenaline, creating a dangerous compound that only seems to encourage the wetness seeping into your panties. You shift on the bed, wiggling your hips and wishing you could clench your thighs together for even the smallest amount of friction. Bucky, of course, notices you moving and quickly gains control of the situation.

“Impatient, huh? Do you need something?” He questions slyly, letting his hands connect with your calves once again. You’re fooled by his gentle touch, your body not at all expecting his flesh hand to suddenly smack against your ass. “Answer me.” Holy shit. He’s never been quite like this with you before.

“I need you.” You answer, hoping he’ll give you anything in return.

“You don’t even know what I am to you, yet you need me?”

“Bucky…” Your voice trails off as his hands glide further up your legs, past the crooks of your knees and along the sides of your thighs. When both of his hands reach the curve of your ass, he begins pushing the hem of your dress up around your waist. The silence is deafening.

He wasn’t planning to be so rough with you, but as soon as his eyes land on the tiny black thong that was previously hidden beneath your tiny black dress, his hands start functioning on autopilot. A low groan rumbles past his lips as he pulls your panties to the side with his vibranium hand and shoves two fingers into your cunt, without a single breath of a warning.

“BUCKY!” You cry out, arching your back and trying to pull away from him. He moves his vibranium hand to grip your left hip, holding you firmly in place while his fingers are still buried knuckle-deep within you. Giving you little time to adjust, he begins sliding them in and out, in and out, giving himself a chance to feel how wet and tight you are for him. Fuck. It’s going to test every bit of his resolve and self-discipline to get through what he plans to do to you tonight.

“That’s it, say my name.” He encourages you, pumping his fingers in and out at a steady pace. When he leans in and attaches his lips to your clit, you fist the bedding in both hands and squeeze your eyes shut. Breathy moans and curses fall from your lips as his tongue circles over the most sensitive part of your body, all while his two fingers are curling inside of you. You’ve never been one to go careening toward an orgasm with little-to-no effort, but Bucky is skilled. That familiar knot is twisting tighter and tighter in your lower stomach as he relentlessly toys with your pussy. He can tell you’re already close to your first orgasm of the night, and as much as he wants to withhold it until you admit that he means something to you, he wants to see you come undone for him even more.

“Bucky, I’m close.” Your voice is breathless, all of your energy is focused on actively denying yourself of your release. For the briefest second, you wonder why your body won’t just go ahead and cum, but then you realize that you want his permission. You want him to tell you to let go, to cum on his fingers and lips. Bucky fucks his fingers into you a little harder and deeper, reaching a spot that has your eyes rolling back in your head and your toes curling. Another loud moan from you has Bucky digging his vibranium fingers into your hip with enough force to leave bruises. He knows you’re right on the edge, and it takes him only a second to figure out why you’re not letting go. He pulls his head back for a moment but lets his fingers continue their work.

“Do you want to cum for me, baby?” He asks. There’s a teasing lilt to his voice that sends heat rushing to your cheeks. You nod your head fervently and he chuckles at your neediness. “Who gets you this wet? This desperate for release?” Fuck.

“You, Bucky.” You moan out your response as he pulls his fingers nearly all the way out and slides them back in at the slowest pace yet.

“Who else?” He demands to know, picking up the pace once again.

“No one, only you.” Your answer is honest and it earns you his mouth back on your clit. He sucks and licks at it like his life depends on your impending orgasm. He gets you right back to the edge within seconds, before breaking away from your clit momentarily just to say cum for me. Your orgasm washes over you in an instant, your pussy clenching down on his two fingers as you unintentionally grind against his mouth. He flattens his tongue against your clit and lets you take everything you need. After a few more seconds of immense pleasure, the legs and arms that have been so dutifully holding you up are threatening to collapse.

“What am I to you?” Bucky repeats his question from earlier, but still, your answer is the same.

“I don’t know.” Your voice is quieter now, weaker since the first orgasm took so much energy out of you. Bucky shakes his head, though you can’t see him from your current position. He didn’t think you’d have a better answer after just one orgasm, but he’s going to give you a chance after each one anyway.

“Lay on your back.” Bucky commands. You do as you’re told. As you finally make eye contact with him, he can see the thankfulness in your gaze. You were getting tired of holding the same position. Bucky steps forward and places one knee on the bed, his hands sliding up your thighs. His fingers snag along the waistband of your thong before he begins pulling it down your legs. You bend your knees to make it easier, and he slips it off gently before dropping it on the floor with your heels and his clothes. He climbs onto the bed now, your legs instantly spreading to let him between them. He crawls over your body and the new sensation of his warm skin against yours is delicious. You wish he would’ve taken your dress off already. When you feel the outline of his hard cock, still covered by his boxers, pressing against your wet, sensitive cunt, your eyes flutter closed and your legs instinctively wrap around his hips. You’ve always been a sucker for this, for having him pressed against you so close yet not close enough. It’s always made you a bit feral and Bucky’s fully aware of that. A knowing smirk spreads across his features as he puts a little more weight into your position, pressing his cock against you a little harder. When you open your eyes and look up at him, he has to remind himself that he can’t just give in a fuck the shit out of you right now. He has an end goal.

“Why do we still have clothes on?” You ask, referring to your dress and his boxers. Bucky chuckles lowly starts circling his hips against you, drawing a soft hum from your pretty lips. He dips his head down and starts leaving light kisses along the side of your neck. He knows that’s a weakness of yours too, his mouth anywhere on your skin. It’s one of the first tactics he deploys when he wants to fuck but he isn’t sure if you’re up for it or not.

“Do you want our clothes off?” Bucky breathes the question against the skin just below your earlobe and you find yourself having trouble concentrating. He can feel you nod, but he doesn’t actually give a damn about what you want right now. He’s not a monster though, so he’ll give you half of what you want. He pushes himself off of you in one swift movement and stands on the floor beside the bed. You turn your head to watch as he slides his boxers down his legs and kicks them off. They join the pile that consists of the rest of his clothes, your heels, and your thong on the floor. When he returns to his position on top of you, you stick out your bottom lip in a pout over him not removing your dress. He’s quick to lean in and suck that bottom lip in between his teeth, biting down on it lightly before slipping his tongue into your mouth. He always tastes so fucking good, though you can never pinpoint what he tastes like. It’s just him. Honestly, you’d let him spit in your mouth if he wanted to.

Bucky kisses a lot like he fucks, with so much passion that it makes your heart race and your mind reel. It makes you think about how mediocre every other kiss with any other guy was, about how kissing was just a minor part of foreplay until you started kissing him. Now kissing is everything. Your hands travel up his sides and settle on either side of his face as you fight to deepen the kiss. When you suck on his tongue, he groans into your mouth and pulls back. You love the way his lips and nose get pink when he kisses you like that.

“No more kissing.” Bucky rasps. You let out a whine that makes his cock twitch. He loves hearing how needy you are for him, but it’s especially enjoyable when he hears how needy you are just for him to kiss you. He starts grinding his now bare cock along the folds of your pussy with just the right amount of pressure, focusing his efforts on your clit. He probably should’ve used his mouth and fingers again for this one, because he’s far too close to cumming just from feeling how wet you are against his shaft. His cock collects your wetness more and more with each thrust of his hips, and for a second he thinks about just letting the tip slide in. He won’t do it though, not yet. He won’t put his cock inside of you until he’s ready to make you cum for the third time.

“You’re being a tease tonight.” You pout, letting your hands find his hips and using your grasp there to pull him harder against you. He stills himself and you let out a frustrated sigh. Why isn’t he giving you more?

“You’re being greedy. You already came once, you should be saying thank you.” Bucky retorts, pushing himself up with his hands and sitting back on his knees between your legs. Your eyes are quick to zone in on his cock, just as his flesh hand is wrapping around it and giving it a firm stroke from the base to the tip. God, you’ve always loved seeing him touch himself. He doesn’t do it in front of you often. Normally the two of you are quick to get down to business and just fuck, but there have been a few very memorable times where you get to see him stroke his cock right before he guides it inside of you. Your tongue darts out, wetting your bottom lip, and for a second Bucky imagines that same tongue all over his fucking cock. No. This isn’t about him tonight. This is about finally making you see what’s been right in front of you all along.

“Please.” The word leaves your lips so softly, so gently, that Bucky’s hand hesitates around his length. He’s never heard you beg before. You’ve never had a reason to, he always gave you what you needed, before you had to ask. A dark feeling settles within his chest as he realizes he likes it.

“Please?” He repeats the word, as if he doesn’t understand the meaning. You see the way his gaze changes from one of lust to one of pure desire. He wants more.

“Please, Bucky. Fuck me.” You give him the most innocent look you can muster up as you lay there in his bed with your pussy exposed and nearly dripping onto his bedding. He tightens his fist around the base of his cock and scrunches his eyes closed, clearly trying to talk himself down from blowing his load way too fucking soon. If he sits there and looks at you any longer, he won’t last, he won’t be able to make it to his end goal tonight. The only thing he can think of to keep himself on track is something that’ll easily obscure his vision of you.

“No, you’re going to sit on my face.” He says roughly, positioning himself on his back next to you. He looks over at you impatiently, he almost looks offended that you’re not already changing positions for him. You’re quick to sit up and swing a leg over his torso, straddling his chest but not making any contact with him yet. “I said my face, sweetheart.”

“I know, but—” You’re about to point out that he’s already eaten you out once tonight and you haven’t even had the chance to reciprocate, when he abruptly grasps your thighs and pulls you over his head. “Fuck.” You mumble the curse word out as he easily pulls you down, your cunt making contact with his mouth as he dives in. You can’t form a single thought as his tongue delves into you. He fucks you with it almost as thoroughly as he did with his fingers just a few minutes ago, thrusting it in and out while your clit brushes against the tip of his nose. His hands slide back to grip your ass and you have to brace your hands on the headboard to keep from putting your full weight on his face. He can feel your resistance and he hates it. He lifts you up an inch just to chastise you.

“I said sit on my fucking face, not hover over it.” He pulls you down again but this time he brings his right hand in to rub harsh circles against your clit as his tongue continues its work on your entrance. You’re panting and breaking out in a sweat within a few seconds. You still haven’t fully sat on his face, so he’s going to give you one more punishment and see if you’ll give in. His vibranium hand moves away from you and the swings back once more, slapping your ass so hard that you fall forward a bit, your cunt landing firmly against Bucky’s mouth. He hums against your pussy in approval, and the sound sends vibrations through your core. Fuck. You’re going to cum a second time and he hasn’t even fucked you yet. When he sets just the right pressure and pace with his flesh fingers on your clit, and his tongue starts lapping into you like eating pussy is his fucking career, your orgasm hits you like a freight train. Your chest is heaving and your knuckles are turning white as your death grip on the headboard threatens to bruise your palms.

“Fuck, I’m cumming. Oh my god, Bucky!” You cry the words out so loudly, yet your voice sounds so far away in your own ears as your orgasm short circuits your entire nervous system. After a few seconds, you realize you’re grinding lazy circles against Bucky’s mouth, and he’s letting you. “Shit.” You mutter, using all of your remaining strength to try to dismount his face. He grasps your thighs to stop you, and then places a long, gentle kiss right against your clit, sucking on it in the slightest bit as he pulls back. Then, he lets you go. You collapse on the bed next to him, your breasts threatening to spill over the low-cut neckline of your dress from tonight’s activities thus far.

“What am I to you?” Bucky asks a third time, rolling onto his side to face you. He gazes at you with a much gentler expression than earlier as he brushes a few loose strands of hair away from your face. He thinks you look so damn perfect like this. You always glow after sex, but after two orgasms you could be mistaken for the fucking sun.

“Bucky…” Your voice trails off as you desperately search your brain for the answer he’s looking for. He obviously doesn’t want you to say that he’s your fuck buddy, and maybe he isn’t. You probably shouldn’t feel as jealous as you do when he ends up on missions with Sharon instead of you, that’s not very fuck-buddy-friendly of you. You also probably shouldn’t hate the few minutes after sex when he’s catching his breath in bed while you’re pulling your clothes on, hoping he won’t be annoyed with how long it takes you to get out of his apartment. Maybe you’re more than fuck buddies. But still, you don’t know what to call it. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure.” Bucky repeats slowly, as if he’s tasting the words. His facial expression remains gentle, but the light in his eyes darkens. “Take off your dress.” He doesn’t have to tell you twice. You push yourself up and sit on the side of the bed before pulling the dress over your head and letting it fall to the floor. You haven’t even had the chance to lay back down when he starts moving to sit right behind you, letting his legs come around either side of you so your back presses against his chest. Ah, you see where he’s going with this. The wall that you’re both now facing has a tall standing mirror, giving you the perfect view of your naked body in front of his in the dim light of his bedroom. “Look at yourself.” Bucky coos, cupping your chin with his flesh hand and tilting your head up the tiniest bit. “So fucking pretty.”

His words have you blushing for some reason. Of all of the times you’ve been naked in his bed, you don’t recall him ever saying sweet things to you just for the sake of saying them. Maybe he thought them, you wouldn’t know, but he sure as hell never said them. It sends a wave of warmth throughout your body, and your already pink-tinged cheeks take on another layer of blush. With almost no effort, Bucky places his hands on your hips and pushes you up to a standing position. He then tucks his legs between yours and then grips his cock in his hand. He gives it a few slow pumps before angling you above it and then guiding you to sit down. Right on his fucking dick. The moan that leaves your lips as your head falls back against his shoulder could’ve come from amateur porn. The penetration feels as if it’s happening in slow motion, as you take one-fourth, then half, then three-fourths, and then…his entire fucking cock inside of you.

“That’s it, baby, all of it.” Bucky begins peppering kisses across your neck and right shoulder, but his eyes are locked on the mirror, staring at where the two of you are connected. “Whose fingers make you cum?” He asks, as his right hand skims down your side, straight to your clit. He uses his middle and ring fingers to start gently massaging your already-sensitive clit. You lift your head to meet his gaze in the mirror.

“Yours.” You answer quietly, slowly beginning to slide up and down his length. You’re only moving an inch at a time, not yet adjusted nor ready to fuck his cock how it deserves to be fucked.

“Good girl.” Why does such simple praise from him make you feel like you’re having a mini orgasm on the spot? Jesus. You start fucking half of his cock now, lifting yourself up and then sitting back down, but not daring to pull off anywhere near the tip. “Whose mouth makes you cum?”

“Yours.” You say again, a little louder this time as the pleasure begins building low in your stomach once more.

“That’s right, you’re doing so good for me, baby.” Bucky picks up the pace with his hand. His work on your clit is making stars flash in your vision and your pussy continuous clench around his cock. “And who do you let cum in this perfect little pussy? Huh? Who does this belong to?” He asks, his eyes once again drifting down in the mirror until they land on where his cock is disappearing inside of you. He groans as you sit fully down on it again.

“You, Bucky.” You moan, now fully adjusted to his thick length. You start bouncing on it, unable to control yourself any longer. Bucky’s having none of that. He quickly slides his flesh hand up your stomach, between your breasts, and wraps it around your neck. He isn’t choking you, he’s merely gaining your full attention with an authoritative move. You freeze, your eyes locking onto his in the mirror as you sit there with his entire length inside of you.

“I’m going to fuck the shit out of you, and then I’m going to cum inside you so fucking deep that you might end up pregnant.” His filthy words give you as much pleasure as any touch, any kiss, any physical thing he could ever do to you. Your pussy tightens around him at the promise that he’s just spoken. “Now tell me, why would you be here right now, letting me do that? What am I to you?”

“Everything.”

Finally, you gave him the right answer.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #mcu #bucky barnes x you #marvel #the winter soldier #winter soldier #bucky barnes smut #smut #mcu smut #marvel smut #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes

3K notes · View notes