#how does this man have more game than anyone else written by CLAMP

[pluckingstarsoffmoontrees]

It will never cease to amaze me how many people simp for the wet cat known as Kimihiro Watanuki.

#just look at his twinky ass #how does this man have more game than anyone else written by CLAMP #xxxholic #watanuki kimihiro #doumeki shizuka #himawari kunogi #kohane tsuyuri #doumeki haruka #zashiki-warashi #mugetsu

[cinnamonest]

Xiao - Yandere Profile

Y’all big horny for yaksha boi too??? Excellent.

Remember how I said Kaeya and Diluc were like a game on hard mode? Xiao is Dark Souls on the 6th stacked difficulty of New Game Plus.

I really like Xiao on an analytical level because he's an excellent candidate for the debate some have as to the nature of selfless vs selfish love... He's a good one to analyze for that debate bc holy fuck does this man have some of the most selfish, inconsiderate love out there. He's brutal as fuck. I feel like his would be such an interesting balance of wanting returned affection and being really obsessive, yet being so uncompromising and not really at all hesitant to wreck your shit. This is the longest one I've made, too, I had a lot of thoughts lmao.

Fun fact, when I first heard his name was Xiao I assumed it would be the hanzi for "dawn" since I've seen that used in Chinese given names sometimes... Nope, I'd never seen the hanzi for his name before so I looked it up and it's like an impish demon creature lol

I had a dilemma between to go for tsunyandere or kuuyandere, but I was in a dark content mood so I kinda went kuuyandere route.

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tws: mentions of mutilation (on reader), mentions of violence and torture (on rivals), kidnapping, Xiao is very lacking in empathy and borders on sociopathic behavior (which can be triggering to some people), mentions of misogyny bc I'm just gross like that, generally dark and awful

tws (below cut): noncon, more mentions of mutilation goddammit Xiao, forced submission, also generally dark and awful

This is probably the darkest one I've written, so, that's a fair warning.

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What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Aware, over time, and very irritated by it, really. He's above... Feeling things. He changes with time. He starts off a bit irritated, flustered even, which is something he's never really experienced before. Honestly exemplifies the "boys are mean to you because they like you" trope, he will go out of his way to be harsher and colder towards you because how dare you make him... Feel things. He'll be exceptionally harsh in how he speaks to you, even more than others. But... once he realizes it drives you away, he'll realize that he actually wants you around him.

But that's the thing - Xiao doesn't normally go out of his way to do anything to anyone, really. He's cold and a bit aggressive because he's bothered by or just doesn't really enjoy people, but if they leave him alone, he leaves them alone. You're different - he feels a weird, uncomfortable feeling in your presence, but he still wants your presence anyway. It's a lot of new sensations for him, and it's overwhelming. So many new feelings.

One, he doesn't understand why his stomach flutters when you smile at him, why chills run down his spine when you accidentally brush your hand across his. Well, he understands what it usually means for humans - but he's not human, surely, there's no way he could possibly experience that same "love" humans do, right?

Love is horrible after all - he's seen how humans obsess over it, how much tragedy it can bring to their lives, and, in particular, how much of a fool of themselves humans often make when "in love", especially the men.

He thinks he's above the human feelings, so he'll deny it to himself at first. It will likely be some kind of breaking point for him, particularly one in which you're in danger. Normally, he couldn't care less about people in danger - if someone isn't strong enough to protect themselves, they die, that's just how the world works. But he sees you shoved down, another human looming over you with murderous intent in their eyes, he sees the fear on your face and the tears streaming down and something in him snaps and bursts and gives way to the intense emotions he's tried to shove down. He'll go wild, and make quick work of the offender. And you'll thank him for saving you of course, even if the display was a bit horrifying to see.

It's not only that intense nervousness in the others presence, but an enjoyment of their presence. It's so contradictory and he hates it - he feels so nervous, so jittery around you, yet at the same time, something about your presence, your smiles, your voice is addictive to him and he needs more of it. He enjoys spending time with you - a new sensation.

Over time, as he becomes aware of how he feels, he becomes less flustered, more stone-faced and matter of fact about it. He accepts that he feels a sense of affection, now his concern is how to handle it. He just has no idea how to begin going about it. Does he just try to suppress it? Act on it? He acknowledges the possibility of rejection, what then? Of course, rejection wouldn't make him stop wanting you with him, it wouldn't even really deter him, but it would make things more difficult than if you accepted it. He spends a while contemplating, just trying to make sense of it all.

He ends up laying awake at night with you in his mind - it's pathetic, it irritates him. No human is important enough to occupy his mind. And yet, even if he tries, he can't stop. And, as much as it disgusts him, he finds himself feeling very physical sensations when thinking about you. That's the most irritating part, to him. He's always viewed humans' drive to copulate as disgusting, and really a pathetic weakness - again, he's seen the absolutely foolish things human men do and the extensive lengths they go to for just a spare crumb of sex. So the first few times he ends up getting a physical reaction to those late night thoughts, he'll try to ignore the throbbing and just go about his night, but eventually it starts to get painful. That's the point at which he decides he can't just sit around and do nothing.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

Unavoidable. But not the absolute fastest. He's far too confused by his feelings at first, and doesn't understand why he has the urge to do so. He'll experiment, spending time around you, trying to figure himself out. His prideful tsundere nature comes out then -- it's not like he enjoys your presence, no. He feels something very strange about you, and one of the possibilities in his mind is that perhaps he's being drawn to you because his subconscious perceives you as an enemy, perhaps. Something in him knows that you're up to no good, so he has to follow you, maybe. Those reasons are far more likely than actually enjoying being around you, he thinks.

As he comes to understand it better and is forced to acknowledge that he feels an affection for you, he begins to feel a darker urge. One of the things that forces him to recognize said affection is how much it irritates him to see you talk to others. He rationalizes this, as it is perfectly normal for humans to feel jealousy, isn't it? ... But are humans this upset when they see their beloved talk to their own family? Is it normal? Is it a thing with just the males, and that's why he feels that way? Surely the humans don't get this upset, or else they wouldn't let their beloveds have friends and speak to others, right? He doesn't really feel guilt for the urges, but he does feel bothered by the notion of having some abnormal desire, wonder if there's something wrong with him.

Well, he starts thinking back to history, and all the things he's witnessed, and that gives him... an idea. Teyvat has been around a long time. There have been several cultures and societies that did keep lovers... restrained. Confined to a house... forbidden from speaking to others... and that idea sounds nice, he thinks. Back in those days, no one would bat an eye at his desire to keep you away from the world, right? So really, it's not abnormal or weird at all. Things just change with time, but there's nothing abnormal about him, it's perfectly normal to want to prevent you from ever speaking to anyone else ever again. Sure, those cultures never went that far, but... it's the same idea, right?

So, he decides, there's nothing wrong with him, and in that case, he doesn't have any guilt or concern for your desires to hold him back. He's another one to take a fairly barbaric route -- he'll be one to show up while you sleep, clamp a hand over your mouth, gag you and tie you up, before leaving right out your window. He'll find an isolated, quiet, well-hidden place to reside, one with an enclosed, windowless room to keep you confined.

He doesn't like it, but he's not completely lacking in understanding human psychology. He wouldn't like to be in your shoes, wouldn't like if someone did to him what he's going to do to you, so he understands why you'll be upset, he prepares for it, even. He's not a delusional. So, from the beginning, he's already planning out how to make you compliant and love him. He settles on a simple tactic: utilize what he knows to force your human nature to love him.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

Once you do get kidnapped, it's pretty tight security. Kind of like Albedo, he'll take you far away from society. Again, he's not super concerned with your desire on the matter, since this is about keeping you with him, it's about his imperatives. He doesn't really want to harm you, though, so there is a slight consideration. He's stuck on a balance of wanting to keep you agreeable and obedient, but keeping you confined is most important, so he'll try to keep it a bit comfortable. He'll get you a nice bed, very soft things. He's so nice, he'll even get you leather cuffs instead of metal ones. But you will be getting restrained, and no amount of begging will get him to take them off. He'll also give you nothing to do, and probably nothing to wear. Clothes are a waste and totally unnecessary when no one but him sees you. And the boredom will make you compliant. You'll be so unbearably bored that talking to him will be like a privilege. You'll start to look forward to it. You'll bond with him. He'll be your only source of mental stimulation. He's smart enough to figure that out when he's in the planning stages of your confinement, and already has this planned out.

Because he... struggles to feel high amounts of empathy when it's about what he wants, it's doubtful he'll ever really lighten up without incentive. Sure, he could lighten up on your restraints, but why should he? Sure, it would alleviate your suffering, but it would present the slightest chance of an escape. Your comfort isn't worth the insecurity and worry he'd have throughout the day. Why would he be so foolish as to feel that it was?

Escape attempts are an ultimate transgression to Xiao. He understands your stubbornness and anger to the extent that they don't hurt him too much, but an escape attempt is one of the few things you can do that make him feel genuine hurt. You won't get away for long, he will hunt you down in no time and he will ensure you're discouraged from ever attempting that again. He's not very hesitant to be brutal. Really, he doesn't want to hurt you just for the sake of it, but he knows how powerful fear and pain are. He'll make sure you are strongly dissuaded from another attempt. If you're, miraculously, brave enough to try again, he'll have to take a step further and make sure you can't.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Don't. He's not stupid, he tells you, the moment you try anything. And you really, really, really should be trying to avoid making him mad. Honestly, if you're at this point, you'd have to be either incredibly unafraid of pain, or just crazy to try and do anything that could result in his anger. He'll shut it down almost immediately, and tell you exactly that.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He knows you need food and all that, so he'll generally get you whatever you want to make for yourself. He's got a limited list of things he's willing to eat so you'll quickly find yourself asking for the privilege of getting different foods please I'm begging you for something other than almond tofu, and he'll get you whatever you ask for, at least in that regard. He's not going to starve you or anything. But you'll find it's probably one of the only things you get much of a choice on.

If you want any relief from the harsh restraint and boredom, you have one option: succumb.

No amount of disobedience or disagreeableness will have him letting up on you. You might think you can hold out and be stubborn long enough to get him to cave, but you'd be wrong. You will crack before he does, and he knows it. He'll simply punish your disobedience, and wait out a bit more. And wait, and wait, and wait, because you won't last long. It's inevitable that you will succumb to him, start to crave him, start to be sweet and affectionate, and bond with him. At that point, maybe he'll let you walk around - hey, getting your muscles back to normal from the atrophy can be a bonding activity. And he might give you some approved tasks or books or the like. But at the first sign of a regression, the first sign of disobedience, the first sign of rejection from you, that will be gone, and you'll have to earn it back, starting back at square one.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

Don't run away. Obey everything he says.

He doesn't make a rule against fighting him, really, and he doesn't need to. You'll be far too terrified of him to try, and even if you did, it would be like swatting a fly, he could disarm and incapacitate you in seconds.

And now, we get into one of the darker yanderes. Once again, Xiao doesn't really get emotions too well, and doesn’t understand his own all that much. His brain thinks in actions and results. If you're trying to run away, he'll simply have to make it so that you can't... ever again. He is one of the most likely yanderes to be open to truly, permanently incapacitating you to a severe degree to keep you with him. He understands why you're upset, but surely you knew the consequences, right? You tried to run away, it only makes sense that he would do something like this, you should understand that, even if you don't like it. You're foolish to try and talk him out of it, what, do you think he's going to be persuaded by you crying? If you were that opposed to it, you shouldn't have tried to run. Really, he doesn't understand why you humans do things as if there's no consequences.

Xiao... doesn't feel guilt. When it's something unintentional, something he didn't mean to do, he can, but when it's about what he wants? There's none, really. He usually goes on what works best for him, and for the most part, that's keeping you happy. But when your happiness goes against keeping you with him, his imperative takes priority. You'll get over it eventually, and he'll help you. He can carry you wherever you need to go, you don't need to walk.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Eek.

Yeah it won't be pretty. He gets mad about rivals, and he perceives everyone as one. He's another one that doesn't really distinguish between romantic rivals and rivals for attention - your family and friends are just as much of a problem as any love interests, because you smile at them, you pay attention to them, you like them, and just that knowledge makes an unbearable rage boil inside him.

He's desensitized to violence, and doesn't really understand how it affects normal people - he won't think of how it might affect you to see it, so slaughtering people in front of you comes naturally to him. He's actually one of the ones who might get angry enough to make it slow, making sure they know what they did wrong, even if that consisted of simply being a stranger who smiled at you. If you react negatively, he won't really understand. He has some, but doesn't possess a lot of empathy. He'll chalk it up to you being a hysterical, emotional human with your incapacitating aversion to violence. He's glad he doesn't have such a strong aversion. Would make his job rather difficult.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

He's pretty easily set off. He gets frustrated because he thinks you're being unnecessarily difficult, and frankly he's very used to getting his way with things immediately. In his life, most of the things he wants are either given to him very easily, or are easily obtainable with a simple exertion of violence. Usually he can just, well, kill and slaughter and maim his way to any result he desires. This is one of the first issues he's dealt with that violence won't solve. Well... maybe not the extent he's used to. But nonetheless, perhaps a bit of controlled violence can solve his problems, at least to an extent.

His anger is, as you can imagine, terrifying. Sure, he'll reassure you that he won't kill you, but you can't get out of your head the images of the things you've seen him do by that point, the people you've undoubtedly seen die and suffer at his hands. He snarls and speaks in a deep, booming voice when he's at his angriest, and it's enough to make you panic. If he's angry enough, he knows he can't be around you, because he fears hurting you further than he means to, so he'll likely leave. If it's enough that he feels he can control it, though, it's not pretty. He's one to hold something in his hands and squeeze it to alleviate anger so hard it breaks. Just hope that doesn't happen to be your hand, arm, shoulder, or any other part of your person.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

He doesn't... really care? I'm tempted to say far below, but really, the whole concept of relative value of humans and status and the like holds no meaning to him. He thinks it's foolish and pointless to even ponder such things.

As for his superiority in certain things, it's different. He's smarter than you. He's stronger than you. He's faster, he's more perceptive, he's more capable, he's wiser, he's more skilled. These things are just facts, they are the undeniable reality, he thinks. However, he doesn't really assign these things as having any ties to the relative value of an individual, and in his mind, humans don't really, either. Didn't they prioritize the lives of children? Children are far lesser in every way, but humans treat them as most important, even if they rightfully see them as inferior in every way. So it's the same with him, he thinks. In every field, you're inferior, but that doesn't really matter, worth and relative position are worthless human ideas.

As for treatment, however, he treats you as lower, which is all that really matters. He wants obedience and submission, and he'll get it, no matter what extent he has to go to.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

He's in the middle - one of the ones that would LIKE for you to love them, but in the end, even if they feel like you never will, they still want you anyway. He'll never stop trying, though.

He's got a lot of pride and wouldn't resort to groveling and desperately trying the way some would. Like a few others, he kinda automatically feels like he deserves the things he wants, including your love. But his unfamiliarity with human emotions leads him to be a little confused and unable to read you. He knows humans play "hard to get," and may assume that's what you're doing. And he recognizes that by kidnapping you, he is removing you from your friends and family, so he concludes that you're only mean to him because you're mad. And anger settles down with time, right? He also knows that, even if humans don't like someone, if they're forced to spend time around them, they'll form a bond. So what he concludes is that simply time is needed. Time to let anger simmer down, time to forget about those others, time to inevitably come to depend on him.

With his experimentation, what he discovers is that even if you aren't affectionate, he is still happier with your presence than without. So he'll keep you no matter what, he decides. You'll come around eventually. And gradually, even if it's ever so slow, you will. You will, no matter how hard you may fight it, the effects of such isolation are ultimately inevitable.

Some yanderes might be upset by the notion that they have to mentally deteriorate their darling to obtain love - they want you to love them "organically" and feel like love born from mindbreak and isolation isn't "real." You might think he'd be like that, due to his tendency to be prideful, but he's actually not. Xiao doesn't understand emotions well enough to distinguish little differences like that. Sure he had to use a strategy, but it's still love, isn't it? It's the same thing, so why should how it came about matter? It took a little bit of extra work, is all. And although he won't say so, he thinks you're worth it.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Is somewhat reluctant to confess to you and may try to come up with some other reason as to why he did it, but it's kinda obvious when he's so concerned about you, so blushy and flustered in the beginning and the way he runs his hands through your hair when he thinks you're asleep. But yeah, initially he might try to think up some way to explain why your kidnapping is for some other weird complex reason he made up, and not just because he really REALLY wants you all to himself.

He's also very matter-of-fact about things. He says things with a straight face, no matter how horrifying, sweet, or inappropriate they may be. Doesn't matter if he's finally confessing his love, talking about how he wants to keep you locked away forever, or threatening to break your legs, it'll all generally be carried with the same facial expression and tone of voice. The only difference is the eye contact and slight blush if it's one of the former.

You may be able to catch moments of vulnerability, especially late-stage, months into your new life. If you've been highly affectionate, and he trusts you, he might seek some reassurance every now and then, in a soft, quiet voice, for a few precious moments of gentleness that don't come very often.

As aforementioned, Xiao has little to no sense of empathy nor guilt when it comes to obtaining the things he desires. What he does feel is wanting you to be happy... because it makes him feel good inside. In a way, you could say his love is incredibly selfish, because it's entirely about his happiness when it comes down to it. Normally, seeing you happy makes him happy, so your imperatives line up. And he's willing to maybe change some things to make you happier -- ok, fine, sure, he won't torture them to death, he'll just kill them. But he has limits to how much he'll compromise for you. Ultimately, when your imperatives don't align with his, he won't even consider yours for a mere moment. His brain just can't really consider anything but acting for his own desires. When he gets mad at people for hurting you, it's because it's an insult to him. It's part of why he's one that will settle for having you - ultimately, what he wants matters more than your happiness... but that's because he wants you, and loves you so, so much, you know? Don't think it's not love, though. It's incredibly selfish, self-serving, and inconsiderate, but it's hard to say it's not love.

Somewhat relating to the above, he realizes pretty quickly you're likely afraid of him, especially after what you've undoubtedly witnessed by that point. He doesn't want that, really. He wants a healthy level of fear, just enough to avoid running away, but he doesn't like seeing you cry and tremble because you're so afraid of his brutality. He doesn't help, though, because he thinks you fear death, and death alone, and in his lack of understanding, he will go through a very specific list of exactly what he will do, which frankly would only serve to make things worse.

"It's alright... I won't kill you, you know. You're foolish if you don't understand the difference... They only died because they wanted to take you away from me. You're the reason they died, so, I wouldn't kill you... I've already decided what to do at certain points. If you try to run away once or twice, I'll just break your legs, and if you try a third time, I can just take your legs off. That should prevent any further attempts, so I have no reason to kill you. So you shouldn't be so upset... don't look so afraid all the time. What? No, I don't mean your whole legs... just at the feet. Why are you still crying? I can just take off one if it's that upsetting... It's only if you run away."

You should probably know that he doesn't make empty promises, either.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Boy has no idea what to do. He's only ever jerked off and always feels disgusted when he does, he only has anatomical knowledge of female bodies from medical diagrams he's seen once or twice.  Not that he'll tell you that. But you'll know, I mean, once he forces your legs open he's just staring in both awe and confusion, probably just sits there for a moment slightly flustered because?? Where's he supposed to put it in?? How does he do this? He'll figure it out, but it might take a few rough thrusts of him just rutting against you.

Drive goes from non existent to highish, he's got what you call a reactive sexuality. Really, he used to just jerk off only to relieve the buildup, because he found it gross whenever it would happen in his sleep. Reactive sexualities are when a person doesn't have a super high drive on their own, but will react to stimuli from persons or sights around them, and will get significantly higher when around someone they love. Before, he never had anything to react to, so he rarely got horny, but now? He has you. And you... Trigger some reactions.

And that being said, he's so unfamiliar with horniness and sex that it's constantly an exploration process for him too. He'll spend some time just... learning. Touching here and there, figuring out what makes your breath hitch and toes curl. It's a fascinating thing to him, really.

He doesn't talk about it much, nor during, he just kind of... acts. You don't get much of a verbal warning, he'll just kind of pick you up and move you around to however he wants.

Pretty decently sized, but isn't aware of it. He hasn't had the opportunity to be around too many other people to know. If you try to tell him it's too big for you, he'll just be incredibly confused, isn't your body literally made to be able to do this? He's actually not going to get particularly smug or anything, he just sees it as an irritation that you're so reluctant and try to fight because of it, but he does like watching you convulse and squirm once he's already in you.

He's actually not that much of a sadist, so much as he likes power. Pain is par for the course, it's a part of every aspect of life and he's essentially desensitized to it. But power and control, now that does something for him.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Not particularly concerned with it. Once again, he's decided to utilize what he knows to maximize your acceptance and love. He knows that orgasms release a bunch of feel-good chemicals, that they cause bonding, that they make you more complacent, and, for the sake of submission, that it'll humiliate you and make you unable to really defy him, as he can hold it over your head, and with time you'll accept him. Over time, he knows, you'll come to crave any physical touch you can get. And while he's more than willing to hold you and sleep curled up with you, he'd be lying if he said this wasn't his favorite and preferred form of physical affection.

Besides, he's been fighting off the urges for forever at this point, he's not going to wait around. Pretty much will be ready to do it as soon as you wake up, and you'll probably already be bound up and lacking any clothes by the time you do. He's not very hesitant. It's yet another case of wanting what he wants and getting what he wants. He's one that will bound you up pretty heavily, hands tied above your head, legs pulled back and tied to the headboard, so it's not like you can do much against it anyway. He understands your hesitancy, be it out of anger or fear, but he's also hard and fast enough that you can't really form a lot of words, so it's not too discouraging.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

He's not really familiar with any at first, and he has to experiment around. You would think normally an inexperienced boy would want the female to take the lead, but noooo, he's way too proud for that.

Oral fixation

The most shameful one to him. It's disgusting, he thinks, it's unnatural, it goes against the very purpose of sex to procreate, but he knows it exists, he's heard of how it goes and God when you talk and smile he desperately wants to see your mouth wrapped around his dick. When you're laying under him he just has an uncontrollable urge to just buy his face between your legs and lick at everything he can, and eventually he'll cave to both of those urges. The latter will be very unprompted and unanticipated, probably you're not even getting it on at the moment - something like you're sleeping, you're just laying there, your legs open a bit and he just rips off whatever you have on and stuffs his head between your legs - he's not skilled by any means, but works with such an intensity and speed that you'll cum on his face anyway.

If he's mad, he can get rough with the former. Hearing you gag and choke, watching the tears run down your face helps satisfy his anger quite a bit. Unfortunately for you, he can last quite a while, and will grab your hair and force your face down, or really, he's one to lay you on the edge of a bed on your back and really fuck your throat out. And he won't let you spit it out either -- he'll hold your mouth shut with his hands and force you to swallow every little bit.

Finger-fucking

He was once told the trick of putting your fingers inside and curling them, and that's an easy instruction to follow. He'll try it out, and once he watches how it makes you gasp and whimper, he'll get addicted to it, moving his fingers harsh and fast. He likes it because he's not too distracted by his own physical sensations, other than the throbbing hard-on, and can really take in your faces, noises, and really watch you come undone. As an added bonus, he's definitely not going to just leave it at that, no, and he discovers very quickly you're particularly sensitive immediately after one orgasm, reacting with extra loud squeals and harsh clenching when he presses against your extremely sensitive insides. And he likes that quite a bit.

D/S dynamic / bondage

It helps him restore his damaged pride from his embarrassment over the fact that he even has sexual urges in the first place. He deserves to be worshipped, he deserves to have you on your knees in front of him. In particular, he loves to give you commands, see you follow through with them. It's empowering. It's reassuring. Probably the type to want to be called master. He feels its appropriate. And he'd definitely be one to make it an all-the-time, 24/7 sort of dynamic too. He can be gentle about it, too, and will reward you for being well-behaved. The dynamic, the rewards, the praise, all makes you all the more slowly, but surely, succumbing to him, giving in, and finally accepting him.

Tying you up prevents you from moving around too much, and that's the initial reason for it, but he realizes very very quickly that something about seeing you that way is very, very pleasing to him. It gives him a sense of power and control in addition to what he already has established. It also helps alleviate a bit of his nervousness surrounding the whole thing. When you're all tied up, probably blindfolded too, he can just run his hands up and down, stare at your body, figure out what's where and see everything without you squirming around.

Masturbation instruction/voyeurism

Something about just watching you touch yourself drives him up the wall with horniness. It also helps give him an idea of what the fuck he’s supposed to do (again, not that he’ll tell you that). But more importantly, it’s yet another control thing. He won’t just let you go at it, no, he’ll be very specific with his instructions, and expects you to follow them perfectly. He’ll make you edge yourself and even overstimulate yourself, demanding you keep going even after you cum, and even if you can’t, he’ll just swat your hand aside and do it himself.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He's... Not sure if it's even possible? If so, the whole idea makes him feel a bit odd. Small little beings, ones that look like him, ones that share his blood? The whole concept is so strange. He'd probably want to find out if such a thing is even possible, considering your differences, but he would likely be somewhat opposed to it, as it feels weird to him. He would become more accustomed to the idea with time, though. And one thing he neglects to remember, even if he knows, is that you have to pull out to avoid that, and he definitely doesn't.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Overstimulation is a go-to, as is forced orgasms. Tying back to his finger-fucking tendencies, he learns how sensitive orgasms make you, and how torturous it can be. Even if he can't keep going, after he fucks you a few times, he can still go with his mouth, fingers, over and over and over again, until you're sobbing and begging from the overstimulation. He thinks there's something weirdly beautiful about how something can bring you so much pleasure and pain, be so good yet so unbearable. Seeing you cry while you convulse, hiss from the pain when you're so sensitive that even the lightest touches are painful. Just watching it gives him an electrifying feeling. As a bonus, it will just make you more bonded, the overload of the positive chemicals in your body will bind you to the very person inflicting such a torture on your body. How ironic.

He'd be one for impact pain too, potentially with his hands, but he's one that's more likely to invest in something like a riding crop, or just a belt. He likes the fear of it, too, seeing how you wince and whimper just by hearing it crack before he even does anything to you.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Hips and thighs. He likes grabbing, pulling you back onto him. Running his hands over them. He likes that when he's rough enough, his hands leave bruises on them. It's really pretty to him, and just an ever so blatant reminder of your place... to him, and, he knows, to you.

#yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere xiao #tw: non/con #tw: dark content #tw: misogyny

[akitokihojo]

Enchanted - Part 3

“Your Majesty…”

“What is it?”

“He isn’t in the castle.”

There was a pause, tension flooding throughout every crevice of the large room as if a pipe had sprung a heavy leak. Sesshomaru’s eyes remained staring out the window, gold steadily sweeping over the horizon of his kingdom. 

“Did he notify anyone of this?”

“The guards at the gate haven’t seen or heard from him.”

The king turned to the two knights standing at ease in the corner, their gazes slanted slightly downward. Their faces were straight, hardly expressive, but it was easy to read the tension riddling their stances.

“Peculiar that we find the both of you on grounds, but not Inuyasha.”

Neither responded.

“Miroku.”

“Sire.” The guard acknowledged thickly.

“Why did I assign you to my brother?”

He couldn’t tell if that was meant rhetorically or not, hesitantly flashing his indigo eyes toward him to read his language. The king faced him fully now, lips curved in disapproval, jaw noticeably tensed as he waited. “To be his aide, My Liege.” 

“And what does that entail?”

“Protecting him, guiding him, assisting him, training him, and educating him if need be.”

“It must be hard to maintain your duties when you aren’t with him.” Sesshomaru raised his chin, staring indignantly at the man.

“Your Maj-“

“You will not speak out of order!” He barked, bringing Sango’s mouth to clamp shut, brown eyes darting back down to the floor. His glare flew back to the main person he’d entrusted to the prince, anger hot within his veins. He stepped closer, looking down at the knight before him, his voice coming out venomous. “Where is he?”

—

“You have got to be the clumsiest nymph I’ve ever met.” Inuyasha laughed, hiking the girl up on his back a little higher as he came out of the forest and onto the paved trail. The sun was hidden behind a sky of clouds, the land blanketed in a light shadow, causing a brisk air to blow through the countryside they walked.

“But I got it!” Kagome beamed, holding the plant up before his face once more.

“You seem so proud for someone who just fell and scraped her entire leg.” He peered around the green leaves to watch the road until she dropped it from his view.

“Not my entire leg.” She giggled. “And I’ve been looking for one of these for ages! It thrives during the full moon, and during which you can make some really powerful salves.”

“Yeah, if you do it right.” Inuyasha sneered.

Kagome bounced up slightly, giving a quick, harsh blow on Inuyasha’s ear, the silver appendage flicking as he jerked his head away from her. “Don’t be rude.”

He laughed, swiftly regaining composure. “That’s no way to treat someone that’s carrying you!”

“Oh, please. You’d never drop me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t you dare drop me.”

Inuyasha let her go, bouncing his knees down for added effect, her bottom falling minutely before he caught hold again. Her arms only clung tighter around his neck, a small squeak escaping her throat as he went and feigned it once more.

“No! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She laughed, resting her head on his shoulder defeatedly after he readjusted her position.

He opened his mouth to say something snarky, to rub it in a little further, but the playful words halted on his tongue as he curved the small bend in the trail and noticed the royally decorated horse standing just outside the apothecary's shop. On its back sat the king’s official messenger, small, short, and round, and far too impish to have gotten on that horse on his own. His large eyes landed on the prince, and just as quickly, Inuyasha’s smile faded.

Kagome brought her head up to see why he’d stopped, noticing the castle official staring them down, the air of displeasure wafting their way.

“Who’s that?” She asked, just above a whisper. Koga had gone slightly rigid, his fingers twitching against her thighs.

“Can you walk?”

She hummed a yes, his nervousness flowing through her and making her equally uneasy. Slowly, the knight let her down, making sure she was fine before completely letting her go. Truth be told, she never needed to be carried in the first place. He insisted in his protective nature, and being close to him was all she ever seemed to want anymore.

"Your Grace, you are requested back at the castle.” The messenger stated as he urged his horse a few steps closer to them, his tone frank. “Immediately.”

Kagome couldn’t help the slight confusion, the haze growing with the passing moments. Your Grace was a way to address royalty, and she was fighting the reaction to look behind her to see if the official was looking through them at a prince or duke she hadn't noticed. Though they were no longer touching, she could feel the tension growing denser in the man at her side. Turning her attention to him, she noticed the flex in his jaw and the thick swallow that bobbed through his throat. He took in a slow drag of breath through his nose, sighing it out as he blinked slowly, his chest not fully deflating.

"Is something wrong?" He hoarsely asked.

"His Majesty, the King demands you back at once. He's called a meeting in the great hall."

"Of course, he did." Inuyasha stiffly glanced down at Kagome, perturb written in the curve of her brow. He wanted to laugh, the absurdity of his situation almost comical. It shouldn't have gone this far for so long, and yet here they were. He was so nervous, so horribly uncomfortable, that he knew if he opened his mouth to speak, an obnoxious chortle would be the only thing that came out. What was he supposed to even tell her? As if casually mentioning that he was a prince this late in the game was remotely acceptable. More importantly, how was she going to react? She had every right to be upset with him, to shut him out, to feel like he betrayed her trust, and those were the very fears that swelled his fraught.

"What's going on?" Kagome softly questioned.

"You! Who are you?" The messenger barked, his steed fidgeting back and forth along the path.

"Uh- I-"

"Jaken." Inuyasha cautioned.

"Do not address the prince so informally! I swear, you peasants are so uncultured!"

She flinched in offense, the man beside her stepping forward before she could even fathom a response.

“That’s enough!" He ordered. "Never speak to her that way!"

"Your Grace-"

"I will warn you once: you are the one who should not address her so lowly, do you understand me?" 

The authority in his tone, the gruff reverberation, the dangerous slant of his eyes was all almost enough to make Kagome quiver where she stood. If hearing the words from the imp weren't sufficient in throwing her wits out of order, witnessing the man's power in demeanor bring another to bow their head in resentful shame would definitely do the trick.

"My apologies," The messenger apprehensively spoke. "I didn't realize you were a friend of the crown."

"Neither did I." Kagome murmured beneath her breath, unsure how else to respond to whatever was unfolding. The suddenly-proclaimed prince turned back to her, his expression softening, mouth opening but words not immediately coming out.

"I'm sorry." He said, reprehensibly. "I promise, I'll explain later. But I have to go."

He began to back away, regret written vividly on every inch of his face. It was all still processing, hitting her one brick at a time. The man she knew, the man she thought she knew, was royalty and not a knight. He was a prince. He was the prince. As weird as the gesture felt, respectfully, she was supposed to curtsey as he left. Her body felt stiff and it took a lot more effort than she thought to shut her hanging jaw. Picking up the sides of her dress and stepping her right foot back, she dipped an inch or two, bowing her painful grimace down just as he flinched and covered his mouth.

Even as she came back up, the look of clear discomfort was etched in her expression and he hid his stifled snort behind his fingers. She still noticed though, and she shied her eyes to the side in embarrassment.

The situation was just about as bad as it could have gotten, so Inuyasha decidedly kept his mouth shut, backing away until he aligned with his brother's messenger, and turning around to walk through the town alongside the horse.

Inuyasha stepped through the large doors held open by two guards, the clunk of them shutting echoing in the formal chambers. In the upper corner of the room, his two aides stood, briefly turning their heads to notice him enter, then returning to stare at the wall opposite them. At the head of the room, the root of the sliceable tension in the hall, sat Sesshomaru in his large throne, his head held high as he obviously waited for Inuyasha to tread closer. The queen sat just next to him, her own throne a tad smaller than the gaudy chair his brother claimed, her expression unreadable, as per usual. 

His footsteps echoed throughout the room, stomach leadened in his abdomen. When he reached a proper distance, the prince halted and bowed his head, meeting his brother's gaze as he came back up.

Sesshomaru had a specific air about him when he was peeved. His ember eyes practically shadowed with flaming ferocity, saying everything his unwaveringly straight expression didn't. He raised his chin to look down on a person, as he was inching upward to do now to Inuyasha, and his lip always gave an upward twitch before stilling as he spoke.

"Tell me, Inuyasha -" He paused, hinging an inch or two forward. "What about Kaede's shop interests you so much."

"By the tone, I'm guessing you already know the answer to that."

Sesshomaru arched a brow, the ends of his short, groomed hair following gravity as he cocked his head to the side indignantly.

"How long as this been going on?"

There was a minor hesitation coming from the prince as he hastily attempted to mentally prepare for the reaction he may receive. "About three months now."

He watched an archaic rigidness riddle the king, his hands gripping the ends of the armrests, his knuckles as white as snow. His muscles had gone so taut, Inuyasha could see the emphasized hollow of his throat as he turned away from him.

"All for a girl?" Sesshomaru asked through clenched teeth.

"Yes." Inuyasha calmly answered.

His brother launched from his seat, storming over to the large window to the right of him in his exasperation. The sun was setting now, though it was hidden behind the other end of the castle, the blue shadows accented by the overcast day shining over Sesshomaru's pale features.

"You've done some stupid things in your life, Inuyasha, but I think you've finally reached a new low!" He looked over his shoulder at him, his fingers rubbing at his chin - another sign that his temper was escalating. It didn't prevent Inuyasha from taking offense, his brows furrowing incredulously. "You're a grown adult, royalty for christ's sake, and you're sneaking out as if you're a rebellious teenager! Has all this privilege oppressed you!?"

"What the hell else was I supposed to do!?"

"Ask! Take your guards! Use your common sense! I'm already the father to a child, I shouldn't have to parent you too!"

"You're blowing this way out of proportion!"

"Am I!?" Sesshomaru stomped back to the center of the room, his boots providing a boisterous echo in his fervor, stopping just in front of his throne. "A fort has been attacked, we don't know who the aggressor was, and you think it's good timing to waltz on out of the castle grounds without protection, being who you are, to go flirt with some commoner!"

"I'm not-"

"No! This is completely irresponsible of you! You aren't just putting yourself in danger, you're putting another in the heap of it too!"

Inuyasha clenched his fists, the blow of his brother's words hitting him full force, like an explosion he was standing too close to. He hadn't thought of that. He hadn't considered any of it.

In the weight of the silence, Sesshomaru sighed out through his nose, the huff still loud enough to be heard throughout the hall, stepping back to drop onto the seat of his throne. He rested his jaw in his hand, his lips covered by his fingers as ember eyes stared half-defeatedly at Inuyasha; as if he didn't know what to do with him. Redirecting his sights, the king looked to the two aides to the side.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t reassign your friends.”

Miroku and Sango both looked up, dreaded concern twisting their faces before they stiffly returned to their positions.

“No, Sesshomaru, don’t do that.” Inuyasha said, slightly shocked that his brother would throw that out there.

“Why not? What purpose are they serving if they were here and you were there?”

“First of all, I don't need to constantly have them with me. It's okay to let the reigns loose once in a while, I'm a person not a horse. Second, you obviously found me, and I’m gonna guess they were the ones that told you where I was.”

Sesshomaru gave a nod, his fingers splaying out in an effortless shrug.

“I never told them.” He admitted, unable to fight his glance towards Miroku, briefly meeting his aide’s indigo eyes before he pierced Sesshomaru with a steadfast stare. “I thought I was getting away with it for a good while before Miroku called me out. They’d been following me from the beginning. The two of them knew where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with every single time, meaning they were doing their jobs and they were doing it well.”

“I’ll give them the former, but not the latter.”

“This is my fault, don’t punish them!”

“They knew you were having inappropriate rendezvous with a commoner and didn’t think to tell me. These are things I need to know.” The king said, distastefully.

Inuyasha’s blood began to boil, his skin growing hot, swallowing the further infuriation as his older brother gave an arrogant cock of his head. “Don’t say it like that.” He ordered gruffly.

“That, alone -“

“Don’t say commoner like it’s something disgusting!”

There was a flash in Sesshomaru’s eyes at the insolent tone, his lips remaining slightly pursed from the word he was cut off on until he gradually straightened his spine and raised his chin. “You’re royalty, Inuyasha.”

“That’s pretty hypocritical of you, don’t you think?” When he didn’t receive an answer, the prince continued, neither his glare nor nerve wavering. “Didn’t seem so disgusting when you were adopting one.”

Sesshomaru’s entire body reacted, the vibrations of his deadly growl bouncing off the walls. Even the queen’s eyes widened, her head rolling in absolute appall.

“That is different!” The king barked, standing from his seat once more, this time marching his way over to his impertinent younger brother. “She was a toddler! She didn’t know any difference between the common world and ours!”

“That’s a load of shit and you know it! She was old enough to understand the difference between the hell hole she came from and the life she has now! She was brought up in rags and she’s still suffering the effects of the environment she lived in, but that didn’t stop you from bringing her home!”

“Inuyasha!”

“And you’re wrapped around her little finger!” Inuyasha shouted, even as Sesshomaru stopped his trek a mere foot away from his face. “So is Kagura! So am I! So is every damn knight and caretaker in this goddamn castle! It didn’t matter if she was a peasant, or a commoner, or an orphan, or what have you.”

“The difference, little brother, is that Rin is a child. This woman you’ve been seeing is an adult - I would hope - and therefore is willing to manipulate to climb higher in this world.” Sesshomaru claimed, venom laced in every syllable he spoke. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there’s a very high chance she’s only using you for your status.”

Inuyasha could feel his temper marginally dwindling, the heat in his face dying off. Still, he gave it a moment before he spoke again. Sesshomaru was bold in his accusation, but it was admittedly a fair one. It made sense. But he was wrong in this instance and it gave Inuyasha the upper hand.

“Yeah?” His voice came out rough, low, slightly challenging but still much calmer than before, and his brother pushed on his heel to head back toward his throne, not even bothering to look back at Inuyasha as he muttered a “Yeah.” in confirmation. “Funny, considering up until thirty minutes ago she had no idea who I was.”

Sesshomaru turned back in surprise, stopping mid-stride, his expression twisted disbelievingly.

“Yeah, I made that face too. It’s true, though.”

“I don’t understand. How?”

“It’s possible. There’s a lot of people and a lot of land outside those gates, and she’s one of the few that prefers to keep her head down and go about her business. I don’t think she was born here, either, so throw that into the mix and you’ve got yourself an oblivious girl.”

“For three months, she hasn’t known who you are?”

“I told her I was a guard and gave her a fake name. So, you're wrong. It wasn’t about power to her, because as far as she knew, I had none.”

Sesshomaru leaned against the arm of his throne, eyes traveling downward as if pondering the situation. When he opened his mouth, the click from his tongue met Inuyasha's ears. "You've been lying to her."

"I have." Inuyasha's head hung at the acknowledgment, ashamedly.

"What did you plan to get out of that? You lecture me for talking down on a commoner, but yet here you are taking advantage of that same one. Was it a game to you?"

"No! It wasn't like that!"

Sesshomaru shrugged his brows expectantly, a gesture that told Inuyasha to enlighten him.

"You've got an even higher profile than me, so what would you do for a day if no one knew who you were? No limitations, no responsibilities, no expectations. One day." His brother didn't answer, though he could see the unsteadiness in his eyes. Maybe he didn't understand Inuyasha's approach, maybe he was contemplating the freedom. He couldn't tell. So, he shifted his attention to the queen, desperation beginning to expand in his chest. "Kagura?"

She leaned to the side, her elbow propping her up on the armrest as her body sank down. She'd thought about this before. She was born into nobility, too, and she fully knew what it was like to be kept on a short leash. When she married into royalty, that leash became even more restricted.

"I'd go as far as possible to see as much as possible in the span of twenty-four hours." The queen confessed, a hint of longing written in her expression.

"Wouldn't it be hard not to get addicted to that feeling?"

"I can only imagine." She chuckled.

"It got out of hand, I can fully admit that." The prince stated, turning back to his brother. "I met her on accident, and it all spiraled from there. Next thing I knew - I can't even say I didn't want to stay away from her - I couldn't stay from her. I went from not understanding what was happening, myself, to not knowing what to do, to suddenly wanting everything to change. When you've dug your grave that deep, though, apparently the only way to climb your way out is with the help of an outspoken imp." Inuyasha scorned.

Sesshomaru dropped down into his seat, slumping, raking his fingers through his hair as he heaved a sigh. "What the hell were you thinking? You're such a prick."

The prince blinked in surprise, not expecting Sesshomaru to switch from king to brother so swiftly. "I was gonna tell her!"

"And what did you want to come of that?"

"I don't -" Inuyasha's ember eyes drifted to the floor, not really having thought of that, himself. The question was heavy on his shoulders, his stomach suddenly uneasy, words thick in his throat. "I don't know."

"Does she have feelings for you?"

"I don't know."

Sesshomaru grimaced, rolling his head to the side dramatically before grunting huskily. "I really don't want to know the answer to this, but I technically have to ask: Do you love her?"

He hung his head lower at that question, honestly not knowing the answer. He hadn't fully evaluated his feelings just yet, finding avoiding them much, much easier. Every time he'd previously tried figuring out why he was so attached to her, he got flustered and confused, like he'd been presented with the most difficult riddle of all time. All he was sure of was she was constantly on his mind. Sometimes it was frustrating. Sometimes it was alleviating. When he was with her, and he saw her smile, and the backs of their knuckles grazed or the scent of her hair blew in his direction or she wore that red dress that fit so well on her or she looked at him as if she trusted him with her life, he felt a warmth growing inside of him that could rival the heat of flames. And all over again, he was unsure.

He heard the clenched sigh omitted from his brother, and though he didn't look up, he could imagine Sesshomaru pinching the bridge of his nose in displeasure. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to figure that out. For the next three weeks, you'll be on house arrest."

"House arrest!?" Inuyasha echoed incredulously.

"Rebellious teenagers get grounded for their actions. I'll just consider this practice for when Rin gets older." The king smiled. "You won't be stepping foot outside of this castle. Not even in the courtyards. You want fresh air, open a window. You'll catch up with your paperwork, and if you're feeling antsy, utilize that energy and get ahead. You won't be lonely, though, don't worry. Wherever you go, you'll have your aides. The bathroom, the kitchen, your chambers, they'll be with you. Consider it an extended sleepover."

"Bro..."

"When this is done and over with, we'll discuss, as you said, loosening the reigns. Until then -" Sesshomaru shrugged smugly. "You're all dismissed."

Inuyasha blinked to cover the exasperated roll of his eyes, waiting for his aides to saunter over to his side before he turned on his heel to march out the door. There was no point in even thinking of fighting his punishment no matter how badly he wanted. Quite frankly, he wasn't all that surprised by what he’d received. If he gave into his temper, though, Sesshomaru would only use it against him, and things would potentially get worse. He knew. He'd learned the hard way.

"Maybe next time you'll consider acting your age." His brother baited after, the hint of arrogance on his tongue. Inuyasha stuck his middle finger up behind him, flexing his jaw in agitation as he exited the room.

--

"Are you freaking crazy!?" Miroku started, flailing his arms as he followed the prince about his room. "What about that meeting didn't you take seriously!? I honestly thought he was going to deck you when you brought up Rin! Do you really want to push the boundaries and see if he does this time!?"

"I've been punched by him before." Inuyasha snorted, opening his large, walk-in closet and shifting through his shirts, hardly phased by Miroku's disposition. "It's not that bad. His right arm's weak."

"Inuyasha, honestly, would it kill you to just listen for once?"

"No." He answered simply.

"Then why are you doing this?"

"Because I don't want to listen right now." He grabbed a black Bastian shirt he favored, one that fit him nicely and had a simple collar - unlike the frilly sort his brother opted for. Exiting the closet, he set the shirt on the head of a cushioned chair, peeling the one he wore from his chest and dropping it to the floor. Inuyasha spared a glance at the flustered man, noticing the unsteadiness in his deep eyes, bringing the prince's resolve to cave. "Look, she found out the truth in the worst way possible. Don't you think she deserves to know what's going on?"

"Yes. I'll go to tell her." 

"From me!"

"Write her a letter!"

Inuyasha shot him a look of warning, ember eyes telling him he wouldn't be backing down from this. Miroku understood where he was coming from, he wasn't naive. He and Kagome had a bond, and if she was going to receive an explanation from anyone, it should be him. The problem he had was that even after having their asses handed to them on a silver platter, Inuyasha still wanted to go behind the king's back just a couple of hours later. Miroku knew the prince, though. He was stubborn when he set his mind to something, and that expression he’d just given was more powerful than words telling him to back off.

With a loud and aggravated groan, Miroku dropped his head back, flexing his fingers to control some of the frustration. "One condition!"

Inuyasha picked up the fresh shirt, straightening it out and shoving his arms through, stopping before he pulled it over his head to see what Miroku had to say. His aide's lips were curved down in condemnation, cheeks slightly flushed from his unnerved demeanor. 

"This is the only time."

The prince agreed with a nod. "I just want to tell her, myself."

--

It had been hours and still Kagome couldn’t wrap her head around what had happened. The entire thing was almost surreal, and she was left behind as if it was easy information to absorb. She was confused, confounded, and horribly humiliated, and she didn’t know if there was one specific emotion overpowering them all and causing the overbearing discomfort fluttering in her chest, or if all three were rioting together.

How was she supposed to feel right now? Was this a normal thing to encounter? Because quite frankly, Kagome had never met a prince incognito before. A part of her was offended that she’d been strung along for so long, but then she wondered: was he even allowed to tell her who he was? That theory didn’t make sense when she considered how blatantly that Jaken guy yelled at her just for speaking to him. If he couldn't say who he was, a castle official would know not to blurt out his secret. She couldn’t help but wonder how he expected her to react to all of this. It was sprung on her out of no where, and with how quickly he left with the imp, she was left feeling like a bucket of ice cold water was dumped over her head. Was she supposed to immediately understand? Think of him as the mysterious, cool prince from this point forward? Kagome didn’t at all think of him as cool at the moment. Truthfully, the thought of him made her stomach queasy.

What plagued her mind most of all, though, was how she never realized who he was. This man she’d been calling “Koga” for just about ninety days now was, in fact, Prince Inuyasha. Kagome softly dragged the tip of her finger over an old, black and white article of the royal family, the candid image snapped of him portraying a straight-faced, crown-clad man staring off to the side. He was the prince, and she called him Koga. She was such an idiot.

Cruel. It felt cruel to imagine him laughing, thinking the same of her.

In a meager attempt to calm her nerves, Kagome flipped the article facedown, sauntering over to the pot that barely began to whistle on the stove to remove it. Carefully, she poured hot water into the waiting mug for tea, picking up the cup and allowing the heat to wash over her palms, soothing out some of the crinkles of worry. 

She'd trusted him. Was she nothing but a joke?

Kagome watched the swirl of bland colors flowing from the teabag, patterns being drawn in the water, drifting upward until blending to create a backdrop of auburn and olive. As she leaned there against the counter, unmoving, silent, even her breaths shallow and short, she felt as if her home were completely empty and barren, no sense of comfort, brown eyes focused on the steeping drink, blurring, a breeze causing a loud creek to settle the walls.

A light rasp at the door was enough to startle her, a breathy gasp leaving her lips as her arms tensed and clung closer to her torso, tea spilling from the mug and stinging her fingers. Quickly, she placed the cup on the counter so she could wipe her hands on her dress, hoping the burning would cease if she removed any traces of the liquid.

She had a slight suspicion of who was at the door, and her stomach was in shambles, a lump gradually building in her throat while she turned to face it. No matter how unsure she was, no matter how muddled her thoughts or how embarrassed she felt, a natural, magnetic force moved her feet toward the door. And as she got closer, her hand outstretched to twist the knob, she'd realized just how shaky she'd become.

Where she'd expected the silver-haired liar to be standing, she found a slightly taller, slightly tanner, casually dressed, dark-haired man. He'd propped most of his weight on one hip, arms crossed over his chest with a pleasant smile on his face, donning a long sleeve, black shirt with light pants that tucked into his boots. His hair beat her own in length, tied back at the crown of his head, eyes a sharp blue that stood out brightly in the night.

"I take it you're Kagome." He spoke, his tone low and gruff.

"Yes?" She asked more than stated.

"Good. Princey boy would like to know if you'd be willing to meet up with him?"

Kagome's brows pinched together, processing the request a little slower than what was normal for her. "Where?"

"Just outside the walls of the castle."

"When?"

"Now." The man shrugged.

She huffed, sending the puff of air upward, the middle of her bangs fluttering and tickling her forehead. "What for?" She asked, irritation beginning to pool in her abdomen.

"He got into a bit of trouble earlier and isn't allowed to leave the grounds. Technically, he's not allowed to leave the castle, but the guy's gutsy and likes to push boundaries more often than he should. He said he needed to talk to you."

He'd promised to explain what was going on. A part of her hadn't expected him to pull through so quickly, let alone at all. She'd be lying if she said she didn't trust his word, though. As foolish as that seemed at this point.

"Alright." She solemnly agreed. "I'll head over there in a moment."

The man didn't budge from his spot, cocking a brow as he pursed his lips.

"You're here to escort me, aren't you?" She asked dryly.

"Yup."

"I can walk myself."

"He told me you'd say that."

"No. This isn't how it's gonna work. You haven't even told me who you are. I'm just supposed to walk with you because the prince said so?"

"Oh, sorry. You must have forgotten, we've already met. My name's Koga, I'm a knight for the crown." He said humorously.

Kagome gave a tedious nod, scrunching her nose. "Of course, you are." He chuckled and she rolled her eyes as she stepped out of her house.

"It's cold out tonight, miss. Grab a cloak."

With a groan, the sound not all that noticeable as she clenched it in her throat, she whipped back around, heading inside to grab the forest green cloak that hung on the wall.

"What are you, my mother?"

"He told me you'd say something like that, too." Koga laughed.

They walked through the back path in silence. He'd tried breaking the tension with small talk, but the girl only managed small responses, coming off guarded as she hugged her arms over her waist. He couldn't really blame her, so out of respect, he stopped talking. It was hard to feel comfortable around people you didn't know, people you had no choice but to walk in the dead of night with. He was there more for her protection than anything, but he could understand her natural disposition, especially after the shock she'd had just earlier that day.

"So," Kagome tried, her voice soft in the ongoing awkwardness. There'd been a question on her mind, tugging and twisting at her already-muddled thoughts, and she wanted it cleared. "Is your name really Koga or is this just a game you're playing along with?"

"No, my name's really Koga." The knight assured. "I'm really a knight, I'm really working for Inuyasha, and I'm really not planning on ever letting him live this down."

"Why did he send you?" She asked, without malice.

"I'm the sneakiest errand boy he's got. And his other two guys have to be glued to him twenty-four-seven now. Believe me, it's a mess of a situation they've gotten themselves into. I swear, I'm not here to be salt in the wound."

They rounded a bend in the route, the lights emanating from the castle catching her attention through the breaks in the trees. It wasn't a sight she got to peer on often unless she was doing a late delivery of medicine in town. The shop and her own cottage were too far to catch a clear glimpse, and the forest curved and tucked them away on the border of the countryside. It was gorgeous, the brick walls of the castle aged but kempt, the high towers glistening with amber lights, pointed and seemingly grazing the dark clouds in the sky. As they neared closer, just moments away from the boundaries that protected it, the place became hauntingly daunting, bringing her to shy her eyes down to the path they walked.

Koga gently grabbed her elbow, guiding her over a thick root that broke from the earth, not yet letting go until he peeked around the corner of the wall and proceeded a few feet around once he determined it was clear.

"Okay, did you see that marked tree that we just passed? The one with the "x" carved in it?" He asked, curving around to the front of her. She gave a subtle nod as she thought, the gesture becoming more prominent as she firmly confirmed. "I'm gonna be right over there when you're done talking. Come find me and I'll walk you home. Watch out for that root, even I've taken some nasty falls over it."

"Kay." Kagome gifted him a soft smile, watching the man swiftly and easily climb into a nearby tree, hopping on and over the brick wall she stood beside.

The forest was talkative tonight, crickets playing their music to the beat of the leaves rustling in the breeze. Though it was chilly, she pushed the edges of her cloak away from her core and over her shoulders, allowing the whispering wind to ripple the long sleeves of her chemise. 

"Please don't curtsey again, you're awful at it." The familiar voice came from behind her, and Kagome whipped around, startled. If he was expecting her to smile, or laugh off the jab, he was sorely mistaken. Humor was far from what she felt at the moment, and her lips only moved to seal as he stepped closer. There was a cautious smile on his face, one that dwindled away as she continuously failed to reply. "Hi." He tried, the word coming out as if he were breathless.

All she could muster was the lackluster shrug of her brows, not quite knowing what to say to the prince. Even a simple greeting seemed difficult to forge, the flurry in her stomach rampaging unnervingly. 

“How’s your leg?”

Kagome nodded, as if to say it was fine, bringing a defeated sigh from his chest.

"I planned to tell you. I'd hoped for it to come out a little more tactfully than that. I just didn't know when the right time would be." Inuyasha began, wishing she would respond at least a little to him. He deserved this, he knew. That didn't make it any easier to face. Nervously, he shook his head with a chuckle. "I should have never lied from the beginning, I get that. I've heard it from everyone. It was on a whim, and I grasped for the chance to not be me for just a moment. And that's not an excuse, that doesn't make it okay. That's the mindset I was in, though, and I wanted you to know that."

He watched her dark eyes drift downward, the color shadowed by the night, her bottom lip being sucked in and slowly raked along her teeth.

"Kagome, please say something."

She was trying to comprehend the mess of things, unable to help that she felt a little irate beneath it all. Crudely, she directed her stare back up to his. "What would you like me to say?"

"I don't know. Anything."

"Why would you let it go on for so long?"

"I didn't know how to tell you."

"You could have tried."

"It's not that simple."

"Was it fun?" She asked spitefully.

Inuyasha's shoulders slowly sagged, further and further, as low as they could anatomically go as whatever was left of his pride deflated to nothing. It was painful; that look on her face, that sad quiver in her lip that was masked with anger, and the lights shining from the castle hit her reddened cheeks imperfectly. It took too much willpower not to drop his gaze from her face. "Yes, but not for the reason you're thinking." He carefully admitted. At the slight twist of her expression, he pushed forward. "When we met, it was liberating to not be recognized. To hold a normal conversation. I knew if I told you who I was, that'd all end, and I didn't want that. I need you to understand that I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you - hey! I wouldn't!" Inuyasha insisted as she resentfully rolled her head away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. "I didn't know how you'd react, but for the first time, I didn't have to put up a front with someone."

"You put on an even larger front."

"No." He boldly and firmly denied. "I gave you a fake name, but that was me you knew. I didn't lie about anything else."

"You're a knight?"

"I'm the prince, I lead the knights." She had no rebuttal to that, her arms falling to her sides, and as her eyes held steady on him for the first time that evening, Inuyasha continued. "I messed up. I'm not trying to cover for that. I just never expected to find this along the way and I was scared of losing it."

For a small moment, she took him in, the vulnerability of his statement too real to discredit. "Find what?"

Inuyasha's lips sealed, too tense to respond immediately. Pushing through the heat, the uncertainty of how she'd feel, the hesitation, the never ceasing, rampant disturbance in his chest, he willed himself to give her one more admittance for the night. "You. This feeling. With you."

The woodlands quieted in that instance, the only sounds Kagome could hear from then on was his breathing, his footsteps inching closer to her, the sincerity in his tone. She was scared. Was she allowed to feel anything for him, or allowed to confess what was already there? Would it matter? Was it the same emotion that he was talking about? She swallowed thickly, attempting to maintain an outward composure. She needed to give him something, he deserved a response. 

"I get it. I understand why you hid who you are. It can't be easy being in your position." Her voice wavered once or twice, and she worried it was a reflection of her trembling fingers. 

“Are you upset?”

“I just feel really stupid. What’s worse is even after I found out, I still didn’t believe you were the prince.”

“Why not?”

“Prince’s are supposed to be charming.” Kagome shrugged. Inuyasha laughed at the knock, running his fingers through his tousled hair.

“Should’ve seen that coming.” He said, voice husky.

“So, how much trouble are you in?”

“I am on house arrest for the next three weeks for sneaking out to see you so often.”

“Which you’ve done again tonight.” She mentioned, watching him nod proudly. “Get back inside.”

“I’ll see you in three weeks.”

Kagome gave a curt, somewhat shallow nod, stepping around him to end their meeting for what felt like moments too soon. Rashly, the prince reached for her arm, dissatisfied with the expression on her face. What did he have to do to make it fade away? As her attention flew back to him, his palm glided down her sleeve, his grip on her hand so gentle she could have slipped away at any moment.

But she didn’t.

“Hey,” He whispered, making sure she solidly met his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

She sucked in a deep drag of breath, her attitude shifting as she efficiently swung her fist and punched the prince in his arm.

“Christ!” He cried, dropping her hand in favor of rubbing out the spot she’d just hit. “You really do have a hell of an arm.”

“That’s what you get.” She said, shaking out the hand she’d assaulted him with. Gradually, her lips pulled into a smile, sending an alarming tingle through his stomach. “I’ll see you later,” Kagome paused, briefly nibbling her bottom lip. “Inuyasha.”

He swore, even through the uneasiness between them that would settle with time, the sound of his own name never seemed so wonderful.

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Int. | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Final |

#Let the fun begin #inuyasha #kagome #Kagome higurashi #inukag #Inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha fanfic #inuyasha fic #inukag fanfiction #inukag fanfic #inukag fic #inuyasha au #royal au #enchanted #my writing #akitokihojo

[kaelinaloveslomaris]

Whumptober 23: Bleeding Out

I’ve had this one done for weeks, but since I was stuck on the previous one, I couldn’t post it until I’d finished that one. So I’m really happy to finally be able to share this one.

Drautos decides he’s done playing the long game and would rather take Noctis out.

Warning: this is the bloodiest thing I have ever written. Very graphic depictions of violence and injuries. And (temporary) major character death.

—

He’d stepped away only for a moment to answer a phone call, waving Gladio away when his Shield had moved to follow him. In hindsight, he’d think it should have seemed odd that Drautos had called him directly, but then the captain of the Kingsglaive had mentioned something about wanting to work with him on some aspects of his training, and he’d brushed off every scheduling attempt brought to him by Ignis.

Magic sizzles behind him, the only warning Noctis has before pain erupts in his chest. He stumbles forward with the force of the blow, gasping as the air is punched out of his lungs.

Warp strike, his brain helpfully informs him. He looks down at the point of the blade protruding from his chest, frowning at the familiarity of it. His vision swims as he registers that that is his blood dripping from the blade.

Noctis draws in an agonizing breath to scream for Gladio, but a hand clamps down over his mouth, smothering it. He catches a glimpse of red leather on the arm the hand is attached to, and he feels sick for reasons other than the sword sticking out of his chest.

Drautos, you traitorous bastard!

He doesn’t want to believe it. The man is practically an uncle, and he’s been a loyal member of Regis’s inner circle for as long as Noctis has been alive. But that is his sword and his leather jacket, and Noctis doubts anyone would go to the trouble of trying to steal or replicate them just for this.

The hand over his mouth muffles his shriek as he is pulled back farther onto the sword. His vision sparks and goes black for a moment. When his eyes focus again, his head is leaning back against Drautos’s shoulder and he is looking up into the face of a man who five minutes ago Noctis would have sworn loved him.

He whimpers, feeling the sting of the betrayal stronger than the physical pain. Tears well in his eyes even as nausea stirs in his stomach. He sobs against the hand pressed to his mouth, closing his eyes to avoid seeing Drautos’s cold expression.

Why? is the only thought in his mind. He can’t understand what would drive him to do this, and he doubts he will ever get an answer. Already he can feel the strength ebbing from him with the blood that is soaking his shirt.

The sword slides in him, a sickening drag, and Noctis grasps the blade before he thinks about it, sharp edges slicing into his hands, spilling more of his blood, but he doesn’t want Drautos to remove it. He knows his time is up the instant the sword leaves his body. He’s on borrowed time as it is.

He can taste the blood on his tongue, his throat is thick with it, and he coughs into Drautos’s hand. There’s nowhere for the blood to go, and he gags on it. He tries to swallow it, but he keeps coughing up more until he thinks he’ll suffocate in his own blood.

Noctis’s legs buckle, and Drautos lets him slide to the ground. He keeps a firm grip over his mouth, despite the blood Noctis can feel running down his chin, following him down to kneel behind him. He pulls Noctis against him, and there’s almost something intimate in the way he cradles Noctis. His other hand comes up to brush through Noctis’s hair, and for a moment Noctis wants to believe that he hadn’t wanted to do it, but there is no care in his eyes.

“Why?” he murmurs against Drautos’s hand, the pressure behind his eyes finally spilling over onto his cheeks. Drautos brushes a tear away with his thumb.

“With you dead, the line of Lucis will end and your father’s spirit will break. This war will be over, and Insomnia will be justly destroyed for abandoning the outer territories.” There’s a cold passion in his voice, bitter and harsh, and Noctis flinches. He knew Drautos was a refugee, most of the Kingsglaive are, but he hadn’t thought he held it against them.

This wasn’t a recent change, wasn’t something he or his father had done. He hadn’t been bribed or blackmailed. This was the product of a festering hate he had always harbored, and he had finally grown tired of waiting.

Noctis’s hands are cold and he can’t keep his grip on the blade. It doesn’t matter anyways. Both of Drautos’s hands are on his face, not his sword, and he’s only delaying the inevitable. Noctis can’t fight in this condition. He knows he’s going to die, but he can’t quite summon the fear he thinks he should probably feel. He’s numb, distant.

Drautos runs a hand through Noctis’s hair one more time in a mocking facsimile of affection before both hands are gone from his face. There’s a small shift in the pressure in his chest, and Noctis chokes on a scream as the blade is ripped out of him. He tumbles forward, barely managing to catch himself with his hands before smashing his face into the ground, and spits the blood out of his mouth. He’s now on his hands and knees before Drautos, but he can’t find it in himself to be concerned about his lost dignity. His would-be uncle is going to kill him, meters away from his oblivious Shield.

Noctis doesn’t have the strength to fight as Drautos rests his sword against the back of his neck. He doesn’t have time or the breath to scream. Gladio may only be meters away, but he would never be fast enough. And even though Gladio is an excellent fighter, Drautos has decades more experience and the added bonus of access to the king’s magic. Noctis isn’t sure who would win in that fight, and he doesn’t want to be responsible for anybody else’s death today.

Blood spatters the ground beneath him as Noctis tries to breathe with ruined lungs. He’s not surprised Drautos isn’t content to just let the wound in his chest take him. The man knows the limitations of a phoenix down, knows as well as Noctis does that if he goes for the head, there’s no chance of revival.

Noctis chokes on the blood continuing to fill his mouth, and he spits it at Drautos.

“I hope the Niffs kill you,” he gasps between coughs. “I hope Cor hunts you down… like a daemon.” It’s taking the last of his flagging strength to force out the threats, but it’s all he can manage in his last moments, and he refuses to go down meekly.

Drautos doesn’t respond, just raises his sword for the final blow. Noctis closes his eyes, sending a final apology to Gladio, to Ignis, to his dad, because Drautos is right, his death will destroy Regis, and waits.

But the sword doesn’t fall, and Noctis summons the strength to lift his head at the sound of footsteps in time to watch Gladio throw himself at Drautos.

He’s never seen Gladio move with such fury. His strikes are heavier, faster, and even Drautos falls back under the initial onslaught. But it doesn’t take long for Drautos to recover, and it’s obvious Gladio had the advantage of surprise.

Noctis knows Gladio barely has a chance against Drautos, and he wants to beg Gladio to leave, abandon him and save himself, because at this point, there’s not much that can be done for Noctis. But he also knows that Drautos will never let Gladio live now that he has seen his treason. The only way out for Gladio is to defeat Drautos, and as much faith as Noctis has in his Shield, he’s not certain this is a fight he can win.

Noctis’s arms give out under him, and he collapses in a pool of his own blood. He knows he should try to stay awake, that if he falls asleep he’ll never wake up again, but he can’t keep his eyes open and his vision is going black regardless. He tries to focus on the clash of steel, the heavy footsteps of Gladio and Drautos’s lethal dance, but it takes more energy than he has left.

Astrals, please, give him strength, Noctis begs. It’s all he can do, and he’s sure it isn’t enough, doubts the Astrals are even paying him any attention, but he can’t even raise his hand to reach for his phone to call for help, so it will have to be enough.

Every gargled breath is more blood than oxygen, each one weaker and more painful than the last, and Noctis isn’t sure how much time passes as his life ebbs away before he is startled out of his dying haze by the sound of a sword clattering to the ground and the slump of a body.

“Noctis!” Gladio screams his name before Noctis has time to wonder who won, and the rush of relief is painful.

Gladio is beside him in an instant, his hands in Noctis’s hair, and Noctis shies away from the memory of Drautos’s false affection. But this is Gladio, and there’s nothing artificial in the panicked way he grasps at Noctis, pulling him into his arms and wrapping himself around him as though he can shield him from death even now.

Noctis doesn’t want his last sight to be Drautos’s uncaring expression, so he forces his eyes open, but now he can see the guilt twisting his Shield’s face and he hates it.

“Noct! No, oh Astrals, please no…” Gladio’s voice breaks, and what’s left of Noctis’s heart breaks with it. His ruined hand twitches, and it takes all his focus just to raise his arm enough to touch Gladio’s face. Gladio captures his hand in his, and Noctis doesn’t mind the pain as he laces their fingers together. He’s just glad that Gladio is holding him, that he’s not dying alone.

“Don’t… blame yourself,” he murmurs. He knows it’s an impossible request, knows Gladio will blame himself for the rest of his life, but he still needs to say it so Gladio knows that Noctis doesn’t blame him.

“You’re not supposed to die before me, you idiot!” Gladio snarls. He is angry, but Noctis knows his grief and insecurity has always manifested as anger, knows that it’s not directed at him. Gladio is in pain, and it’s the only way he knows how to express it.

“‘m sorry, Gladdy.” Noctis can’t focus anymore, doesn’t know if the wetness on his cheeks is his own tears or Gladio’s, or maybe both. He can’t remember the last time he saw Gladio cry.

His eyes drift closed, and he can hear Gladio screaming but he can’t make out the words as painless darkness beckons.

~*~

He wakes with fire in his veins.

Noctis gasps, spine arching off the ground as life slams back into him, and he’s surprised when the breath doesn’t hurt. He claws at his chest; there’s still a worrying amount of blood soaking his clothes, but there’s no longer a hole punched through him. He rolls onto his side, coughing the remnants of blood out of his throat and mouth before retching.

“Easy, Noct.” There’s a soothing hand rubbing circles on his back, too small and gentle to be Gladio’s, and Noctis connects it with the familiar voice.

“Ignis?” he rasps.

“I’m here, Highness.” His voice is low and strained, but it is comforting to Noctis, and he takes a moment to rest and try to get his bearings. His entire body aches like he’s been trampled by a dualhorn, and he’s sticky with drying blood, but his body is somehow whole.

Noctis knows he shouldn’t be alive. In fact, he’s pretty sure he died, which means…

He finally pries his eyes open and looks down at his hands. The ashes of a phoenix feather still cling to his skin, and he is surrounded by the fading glow of magic. His eyes fall closed again. He’s been revived.

“Thank you,” Noctis says.

“Of course, Highness.” Ignis is still being unbearably gentle with him, as though he’s afraid Noctis will break. His hand hasn’t left his back, still a cautious pressure that is keeping Noctis grounded, but he has offered nothing more.

Noctis leverages himself up on his forearm, struggling to sit up, but he’s still weak and his arms tremble with the effort. Ignis supports him with sure hands, strong and steady despite their care, and he keeps a grip on Noctis’s shoulder until he stops swaying. Noctis appreciates the silent support. There’s no judgment in it, no condemnation or frustration with his weakness, and even just having Ignis with him helps calm the frantic racing of his heart.

It’s when Noctis finally turns his eyes on Ignis’s face that he sees all the emotions his advisor had managed to keep out of his voice. There are tear tracks down his face, and his eyes glisten behind bloody fingerprint-smudged glasses. His hands and clothes are covered in Noctis’s blood, and Noctis thinks that even all of Ignis’s skills won’t be enough to wash the fabric clean again.

Noctis throws himself at Ignis suddenly, burying his face in the side of Ignis’s neck. Ignis wraps his arms around Noctis, hesitantly at first, then tighter as Noctis clings to him.

Noctis feels Ignis’s breath hitch, and his advisor tilts his head to press his cheek against the top of Noctis’s head. One of his hands comes up to caress his hair, and Noctis stiffens, Drautos’s cold expression flashing behind his eyelids.

Ignis freezes against him, hand dropping from his hair, and Noctis sobs into his shoulder. He curses Drautos for taking away that method of comfort, a gesture Ignis has used since they were children.

Despite his flinch, he wants Ignis’s hand back in his hair, wants his caring fingers to replace the memory of Drautos’s cruel ones. Instead, they stroke down his back as Ignis honors his instinctual unspoken rejection, and Noctis doesn’t know how to ask him not to.

He doesn’t deserve someone like Ignis. Ignis, who would come halfway across the city to revive his childhood friend while kneeling in his blood and somehow remain calm enough to talk him through his first revival. Who could pick up on Noctis’s every twitch and adjust to them without letting his own emotions and desires get in the way, despite that Ignis has to be just as scared, if not more, than Noctis.

He also doesn’t deserve someone like Gladio, who would throw himself at a man he barely has a prayer of winning a fight against to save someone who was already dying.

That thought almost makes Noctis’s heart stop again, and he pulls away from Ignis.

“Where’s Gladio?” It was unusual for his Shield to stray far from his side when he was injured. If Noctis so much as stubbed his toe, Gladio would hover until he was sure Noctis was going to be fine. So if he wasn’t around when Noctis had literally died...

What if Drautos had injured him? Noctis would be surprised if Gladio had managed to fight the captain of the Kingsglaive and get away without a scratch, and with all of Noctis’s blood spilled everywhere, it is impossible to tell if any of it is Gladio’s.

Ignis’s mouth presses into a thin line. “He is cooling his head. He was nearly in hysterics by the time I got here, and was in no fit state to help you through the revival process. It is disorienting enough without a panicked Shield hovering.”

Noctis relaxes. If he had been seriously injured, Ignis would have said something.

“Does he know it was… successful?” he asks, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. There’s never a guarantee that a phoenix down will work. There are time and cause of death parameters that make it more or less likely, but never a guarantee. Noctis would not have been hopeful of his own chance, had he been in Ignis or Gladio’s place.

“Yes. I would never have been able to make him leave your side before he knew.”

His relief wars with his guilt over making them worry. He has come close to death before, very close, but he has never actually died before today. He winces as he remembers the pain on Gladio’s face as he died in his arms.

“Are you alright, Noct?” Ignis asks.

Noctis nods. The phoenix down has done its job, as far as Noctis can tell. He is breathing and no longer bleeding out. He imagines the aching and weakness will go away with time.

He doesn’t remember the experience of being dead. It is like he simply fell into a dreamless sleep and was unexpectedly awoken, but he has the vague feeling that he has forgotten something. It’s unsettling, and he doesn’t want to think about it.

Noctis stands on shaky legs with Ignis’s help, his eyes seeking out Drautos’s body. Gladio had been thorough, beheading the traitor as he had tried to do to Noctis. He knows it is practical, and exactly what Gladio should have done, and he feels a sick sort of vindication, but it still makes nausea curl in Noctis’s stomach.

He stumbles forward a few steps before he regains the feel of his legs under himself. He ignores Ignis’s concerned murmur of his name behind him and calls the Engine Blade to his hand.

He stares down at Drautos’s body, blood soaking his leather jacket around the slash across his chest from Gladio’s sword. His own sword, still stained with Noctis’s blood, is lying on the ground, inches from his still hand, the one he had run through Noctis’s hair. He contemplates it for a moment, kicking it with his toe to hear it clatter against the ground before crouching to pick it up and stashing it in the Armiger.

He stands above Drautos and tightens his grip on the Engine Blade before raising it and plunging it down into Drautos’s heart with a scream.

How dare this man claim to care about him? How dare he stand at Regis’s side, at his back, all those years and not mean a word of his vows of loyalty? How dare he hold their trust for years and drag it out and make them love him before betraying them...

Unexpected grief rises in him and he drops to his knees at Drautos’s side, tears spilling down his cheeks. He screams again, this time in anguish, and he hunches over, arms wrapped around himself, and presses his forehead to his would-be uncle’s chest. He knows, somewhere, that he should not be grieving over the traitor who had killed him, but he can’t hold back the tears.

Dimly, he hears Ignis and Gladio calling his name and their running footsteps behind him before a hand touches his shoulder. He doesn’t know which of his friends’ it is, but he shakes it off. He doesn’t want to think of their disappointment in him when they realize he is crying over Drautos’s death and not his own. He just wants them to leave him alone to mourn, to not see his weakness in the face of this betrayal.

But Ignis sits next to him and reaches out to brush his hand against his hair before stopping himself. He starts to pull away.

“No,” Noctis croaks. He grabs Ignis’s hand and then immediately lets go, embarrassed.

Ignis’s eyes are soft when he catches Noctis’s gaze. He slowly rests his hand back on Noctis’s head, twining his fingers through his hair, and watches him carefully.

“Is this alright?” he asks, concerned.

Noctis nods, tilting his head into the contact. It’s not, he can still feel Drautos’s touch, but he refuses to let him ruin this, so he will let Ignis run his fingers through his hair as much as he wants until the memories are gone.

He leans into Ignis until he’s pressing his face into his shoulder again, and Ignis wraps his free arm around him. He tries to hold back the tears, tries to tell himself that he shouldn’t be crying, but it just makes breathing painful.

He hears Gladio settle himself on the ground next to them, and he places his hand on Noctis’s shoulder, gently rubbing his shoulder with his thumb. Ignis rests his head against Noctis’s.

“It’s okay, Noct. It’s okay,” Ignis murmurs against his ear. “You have the right to mourn.”

Noctis sobs, and Ignis holds him through the tears, until they’re spent and he’s worn himself out. He’s too exhausted to protest as Gladio scoops him up in his arms, cradling him carefully against his chest, and carries him out of the alley.

#whumptober2019 #no.23 #noctis lucis caelum #titus drautos #gladio amicitia #ignis scientia #final fantasy xv #ffxv #my fanfiction #my writing

[sabraeal]

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Obiyuki AU Bingo Post-Apocalypse AU

There is no worse sound than the sirens.

Science agrees: every day, papers pile up in her queue, every last one of them tagged with the word kaiju and trauma. Everything from former Rangers to survivors of those first attacks to the children who still live in the cities along the coast, growing up in the looming shadow of the kaiju threat -- every single one of them has a lasting, ingrained reaction to the noise. Siren Anxiety, some papers call it, sanitized from the PTSD of other papers. Worse are the epigenetic ones; the endless articles speculating about what the alarms have done to the human psyche, calling it the next great epigenetic event in human history, not tired to any one ethic group or restricted region, but instead the entire coast line of four continents, none of them able to bear the whoop and moan of the evacuation siren.

Shirayuki isn’t sure how much of that she believes; she believes in science, not divination, and the plasticity of the human mind is far beyond their understanding. Still, it’s a sound that certainly has a starring role in her nightmares.

Along with, she’s coming to realize, the Marshal wants to see you.

“Doctor.” His voice is clipped, terse, but still polite as he stands, gesturing for her to take a seat. He’s a busy man by any standard, but no one can say his mother didn’t teach him his manners. “I’m glad you could take the time to see me.”

It’s not as if she had much of a choice; she might be one of the few civilians here, but as far as the Pan-Pacific Defense Corp is concerned, he’s her boss. Garack might be the head of K-Science, but in the shatterdome, the Marshal’s word is law.

Someone else might not know the extent of that power, might think that a summons sent to the civ division of the dome was just a polite ask, but Izana --

Well, if there was anything like royalty left on this coast, it would be the Wisterias. Three generations of Marshals since the first kaiju ransacked San Francisco, and it could be said, with little exaggeration, that his grandfather practically built the PPDC from the ground up. If anyone knows the power behind that title, it’s him.

“It’s no problem,” she chokes out, sinking into a chair. Beside it sits a steaming mug -- her mug, she realizes with a jolt -- filled with green tea and muddied up with cream. Just the way she likes it. “I had time.”

He nods, hand hooked over the back of his chair, gaze fixed to the wall. The one that would look out over the Pacific, if they weren’t underground. She’s been here six months, and training up to take Garack’s place hasn’t left her much time, but --

She’s been in this office a few times, in an official capacity. And every time she can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. That he belongs in some high-rise, looking out a fortieth floor window, surveying his domain, crunching numbers and worrying about stocks. Not down here, half-buried beneath what’s left of LA, talking to her about monsters.

None of them should be here, really, but that’s just the way things have panned out. For now. There’s no accounting for who they would have been, if not for --

“You’re settling in?”

Shirayuki nearly scalds herself on her tea, only just clamping her lips around her teeth to keep it from spilling out. She take a moment to swallow, liquid burning all the way down. “Ah, yes. It’s been...slow, but I think the rangers are acclimatizing to the shift.”

Finally, she wants to add. And only because of your brother.

It’s a mistake to say any of that. Bringing up Zen, here, right now --

Probably not career ending, but she’ll certainly approach the limits of Izana’s current goodwill. She may be the psychologist in this room, but he is the one who could sit back in his chair with that enigmatic smile of his and flay her alive. There’s no amount of insisting that will get him to believe that Zen is only her patient, and --

And, with the way Zen acts, she can’t say she blames him. She’s a professional, but no matter how much she swears to herself that she would never cross that line, would never make a patient more than that --

Well, she’s read the papers. Everyone living under one roof like this, never a day’s rest when kaiju don’t believe in filing for paid time off, civilian and military alike -- it’s a recipe for disaster. Zen wouldn’t be the first ranger to read something more in his sessions.

And she wouldn’t be the first PPDC psychologist to encourage it, if she did --

Which she doesn’t. She’s told Izana all this before, shoulders straight and stance stoic. But he’d only smiled that infuriating smile of is, and asked, but if he wasn’t your patient...?

She didn’t have a good answer to that. And the Marshal wasn’t one to miss a detail like that.

They’d been...at an impasse since then. Zen still takes his sessions with her, and she keeps her distance.

Well, as much as he allows. Which is quickly trending towards not enough and also too much.

“Good.” His fingers tap idly at the leather of his chair, expression uncomfortably thoughtful. “Garack speaks highly of your skills, you know. Best investment I’ve forced you to make.”

It’s useless to hide her blush. She knows she’s well-regarded -- there’s not many psychologists clamoring to get into the PPDC, and even less rangers wanting to talk to one -- but still. Garack practically invented the idea of trauma therapy for pilots. It’s not only a compliment -- it’s a reinforcement of her whole life’s work to date. There’s no point in hiding that she’s happy about that.

“And my brother, of course,” he mentions mildly. “Not a day goes by where he doesn’t sing your praises.”

Oh, so -- so he is going to bring this up.

“Studies have shown that having a mental health professional available to pilots has decreased the likelihood of risk behaviors as well as nearly all forms of self-harm.” Her cheeks heat, and oh, how she wish they wouldn’t when she talked about this. “A-and it isn’t unusual for pilots under stress to believe they’ve formed and intimate bond with support staff. As long as the professional--”

Izana holds up a hand with a huff of a laugh. “You don’t have to preach to me Doctor. I think we are both tired of that particular conversation.”

Her fingers tighten around the mug, and she grimaces at the pinch. “Then I must admit that I’m at a loss for what we need to discuss.”

She only just manages to bite off, if I’m not here to defend my professional credentials. By his look, he still hears them, loud and clear.

His eyebrows raise, but she’s not one of his rangers; there is no pressing need, in her mind, for her to call him sir. Some of the other civilians here might fall in line -- lord knows Suzu trips over himself to do it -- but she’s not some lab scientist, taught military hierarchy in a day’s orientation. Oh no, she’s written papers about the long term effects of the military complex under martial law, and --

“I have need of your expertise, Shirayuki.”

All her protests dry up in her mouth. She hadn’t expected that.

“Oh,” she replies eloquently. She lifts the mug to her mouth and takes a long, meditative sip, trying to buy herself some time to come to terms with -- with this. “I, uh, well...”

“I’m bringing in a new ranger,” Izana continues, graciously ignoring her sudden inability to form coherent sentences. For once, it’s a mercy she can appreciate. “I think he might present a...unique challenge for you.”

“A ranger?” The room feels off-kilter now, tilted. Izana may make this announcement so casually, but a shatterdome is a complex ecosystem of egos, an exquisitely delicate biome that can collapse into total anarchy with a single breath. And now he wants to upset that balance. “When?”

“Soon.” His mouth quirks, gaze distant. “I’m flying out today, in fact, as soon a we’re done here.”

Pressure pulses threateningly just behind her eyes. “Who would you--?”

Her mouth shuts with a click. Most of the pilots here were experienced teams, working together for years, but there was one -- one -- jaeger that has been lying in wait for half a decade, stuck in shatterdome purgatory until his single pilot managed to find a partner --

And it just so happened to be the single ranger that Izana Wisteria, prince of the Pacific, would burn half the world for, if it meant finding someone drift compatible.

She twists the mug in her hand, anxious. “Does he know?”

A stupid question, when she already knows the answer.

“No.” An easy answer for a complex situation. “And he won’t.”

She bridles in her seat, mouth pulling thin. “You called me in here to ask me to lie? Is this some sort of test of loyalty, because I don’t appreciate mind games, Marshal.”

“No. I asked you in here because I have...concerns.” He grimaces, as if it physically pains him to admit it. “About...reintegration.”

“You should be more concerned about what this will do to the dynamic of your pilots,” she tells him, setting aside her tea. “You should be telling him that --”

“Doctor, you have been here long enough -- and privy to my brother’s thoughts long enough -- to know there is only one copilot he will accept.” Izana looks at her now, and he seems so -- weary. Not even thirty, and here he is, shouldering the hopes of the world. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for him to be reasonable about this. I would rather he had less time to plan his objections than make a misguided attempt at trying to appeal to his logic.”

Her lips press together, annoyed. She wants to fight on this point, to tell him he needs to prioritize Zen’s comfort --

But unfortunately, she agrees. Were this a mediation between two brothers about a family legacy, she could counsel caution, could recommend respect -- but this is a dispute between soldier and commander, and in this, she’s loath to say Izana has the right of it. It had taken hardly a handful of sessions to see where, precisely, Zen’s hang up lied in regards to the drift.

It’s her job to provide support, to empathize, but oh, sometimes she wishes it included telling someone they were being belligerent, ridiculous. That they were risking lives for pride, for a reward that had never been promised and would never come.

“I still think he should know,” she insists stubbornly.

“Of course you do.” Izana mouth curls in that infuriating grin of his, too knowing. “You are eminently fair, even to a fault. It’s part of why you are so good at your job.”

She frowns at the compliment. Kind words, but she knows the Marshal too well to believe a kiss won’t come with a sting.

“However,” he drawls, “you won’t tell him.”

“No,” she agrees begrudgingly. “I won’t.”

“I won’t lie to you, Doctor,” Izana says, suddenly serious, fixing her with a look so intense that it’s almost a burden to bear. “This is a very...unorthodox situation.”

“I think you’ll find that I’ve seen nearly everything the PPDC has had to show me,” she said, forcing a smile. “There’s very little left that can surprise me.”

His mouth twitches, smile turning to something almost self-deprecating. “So you might think.”

Her office is empty when she returns to it, dark. The offices along the entire hall are empty, probably for dinner.

Good. She’d rather do this without anyone around to see.

It’s not as if this isn’t in her purview; Zen is her patient, and this, inarguably, will have a direct impact on his current mental health. It’s only...

There’s a difference between hearing trauma from a patient, freely given, and finding it out through a dispassionate report that is more date than substance. She’d sworn she would wait -- Zen was neck-deep in trust issues, and if flying blind would make him feel more comfortable, make their relationship seem more natural, it was a small price to pay.

But now with Izana talking about a new ranger, about reintegration --

Shirayuki may not be fluent in the Marshal’s particular dialect of doublespeak, but she’s able to read between the lines: he’s bringing someone back, someone’s from Zen’s past, someone no one will be happy to see. She only knows one ranger that fits the profile.

She flips further in Zen’s file than she’s ever let herself: far past his current benching, far past Kiki’s unexpected and upsetting arrival at the dome, even flipping through Mitsuhide’s all-too brief tenure as his co-pilot --

Right to the hole in Rex Tyrannis’ pilot history, to the year that every ranger talks around: Atri.

She doesn’t have access to his file, so she’s only gets half the story -- an endless string of appeals filed by Zen, insisting that some unexplained petty crimes could not have been perpetrated by his co-pilot. A run of misconduct charges that are strenuously sanitized. A laundry list of official complaints lodged at about Izana’s enthusiastic reprimands, Zen passionately insisting Atri was being singled out by the Marshal because of his background. And then, finally, the removal of Zen from the duty roster.

Absence of Drift Compatible Personnel, it reads. A simple way to name the gaping wound he still carries with him.

She knows the specifics of this part at least; Mitsuhide kept Zen’s past close to his chest, but he’d slipped on this, tongue lubricated by a few after hours beers. Court Martial In Absentia was what it would read on Atri’s file, since he’d been long gone with his stolen goods before Zen had caught wind of his plan. Mitsuhide had recovered the parts before they went to market, but Atri himself had never been found.

And now here he was, about to waltz back into Zen’s life, complicating the peace she’s worked so hard to maintain.

Shirayuki sits back, rubbing at her temples. If only that would be the worst of it. Having a man most of the pilots thought of as a traitor slink back under the shatterdome would be hard enough, but --

But if Izana could find Atri, that meant he knew where he was. And no matter what the Marshal would say about it, Zen would never believe he hadn’t known the whole time, that Izana hadn’t just let Atri get away with some awful proviso where Atri never contacted Zen again.

Her head tips back with a sigh. Knowing the Marshal, he probably had, too.

She reaches out, grasping to catch the handle of her mug, meaning to take a sip of the tea she inevitably had cooling in there, but --

But her hand swipes at air. It isn’t here, it’s back in Izana’s office. Or rather, in the kitchen, where he doubtlessly sent it after she left it there with half a cup of cold tea.

Shirayuki rests her head in her hands and groans. There’s nothing she can do about this now -- the Marshal will do what he thinks is best. That’s his job.

And it’s hers to deal with the fallout.

There’s only one room in the dome with windows: the mess.

Curved glass wraps around the rounded outer wall, gazing fearlessly out over the Pacific, as if daring the kaiju to come, inviting them. It’s PPDC pride at it’s finest; making a grand show of defiance when it was all just an illusion -- the glass was engineered at Shao Industries, able to withstand anything just short of a nuclear blast.

It’s always easy to tell who is new in the mess; no one but experienced personnel ever sit facing the windows. It was a game the rangers played sometimes, making the newest recruit sit on the bench opposite the window, waiting and watching for them to break, for the anxiety to overcome them and send them bolting out of the room, meal wasted.

Shirayuki’s mouth thins. Those had been some of her first patients here -- the recruits who couldn’t stop shaking long enough to eat their food.

“It’s the math.”

She jolts out of her reverie, gaze scrambling up to meet Suzu’s, hoping he hasn’t noticed that her attention drifted. He’s always been a bit sensitive about things like that, about being dismissed. A common problem, when your thesis is about trying to apply algorithms to kaiju attacks.

There’s no need to worry, of course; she tries to look attentive, but he’s too busy attempting to eat the sloppy joe spilling out over his fingers to appreciate it. “It’s worrying me.”

Yuzuri lets out a groan load enough to make a kaiju rethink an approach. “Are you on about this again?”

“When am I not on about this?” he snips around his bun, circling around for another bite. Ground meat drops down to his tray, splattering sauce everywhere. Shirayuki has met a lot of people, but until she met Suzu, she’d never known one with a splash radius. “It’s important, even if you don’t think so--”

“Me, Marshal Wisteria, everyone with a brain--”

“Hey,” Shirayuki murmurs. “Do you hear that?”

The Formica shakes under her hands, gentle at first, and she can feel the collective breath of the mess stop, every body going tense. The rangers two tables over are half out of their seats, heads twist over their shoulders.

Shirayuki follows suit, watching the waters churn at the edge of the flight deck, ripples slapping hard against the metal. Kaiju don’t typically come this far down the coast -- just the once, just that first time when Yamarashi rose up on Long Beach. The most recent, most deadly attacks have been on the other side of the rim, Russian and Japan and China, all fighting off more kaiju every month --

But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen here. That things can’t change. They all learned that lesson well, after the kaiju came.

“Chopper,” Suzu says with a sigh, settling back into his seat.

He’s the only one; already there’s bodies crowded along the windows, faces pressed eagerly to the glass as the helo swings down to the flight deck, skids bouncing once, twice before settling flat.

“I guess His Majesty had returned,” Yuzuri observes dryly, mouth ticking up in a grin. “I wonder who he’s with.”

Izana alights from the chopper first, hair whipping out in a golden banner behind him. It’s no wonder everyone is jostling to see; he cuts a striking figure on the tarmac, Marshal blues neatly pressed, golds stars shining along both shoulders. Angel of the Pacific, they’d called him right out of training. The name had stuck, though it came out with more irony now.

He half turns, gaze swinging back to the helo as a man slides along the seats. Shirayuki holds her breath, jaw clenched tight. His head is ducked, hair a wild black hedgerow, but for a moment he looks up, and --

Ah, that’s -- that’s not Atri at all.

She refuses to run.

Shirayuki is a professional, a doctor. Unless her life is on the line, she walks briskly, with purpose. Her pace this time might leave her breathless, might leave her feet aching in what she would have called sensible flats this morning, but it’s still not a run.

She gets there just in time to see it happen.

Zen’s waiting in the hangar, Kiki and Mitsuhide flanking him to either side. This is an ambush, she knows; Izana couldn’t have has enough time to officially page him, but the rumor mill works fast inside the dome. It wouldn’t have escaped him what purpose his brother’s guest would serve.

The man himself is calm, preternaturally so for a one walking into a room with hostility so thick it’s practically a wall. His mouth is curled up at a corner as he looks around, taking in the view, hands hooked in his pockets, casual. Cocky, even.

She hesitates as she draws closer, as she finally able to see his eyes, and she amends her assessment. He mimics calm, exudes it, but his eyes are half-wild, darting around the deck like he thinks the jaegers might come off the wall and stomp on him. They’re nearly all pupil, she can see it even from twenty paces away, but as they stop, as they catch on her --

She could swear his eyes are gold.

His gaze jumps away, and by then Izana has rallied, that he’s already started to speak. She can’t hear a thing, close as she is. With the whirring of drills and growls of machinery, she’d have to be nearly on top of them, part of the conversation itself. She wants to be, she should be, but --

It’s too late. Zen’s jaw sets with just one look at the man, and she knows -- that’s it. He’s done. There won’t be any drifting with what’s washed up on the deck.

No matter how angry he is, Zen keeps his head, giving Izana a tense nod as he makes introduction, as he clearly tells him this man’s purpose in the dome. She knows the exact moment it happens; Zen clenches his jaw so hard she’s surprised he doesn’t crack a tooth. His gaze shifts to the other man, forbidding, but --

But the pilot slips one broad hand out of his pocket, holding it out to him. A peace offering.

Zen stares at it like he’s been offered trash.

The man’s smile goes sharp as he pulls it back, hooking his thumb on the loop of his jeans. He doesn’t seem surprised, just -- amused.

Zen spins on his heel, stomping away, Kiki and Mitsuhide trailing behind him. The man’s mouth slants into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, easy to hear over the sudden lull, “I think that went well, don’t you, Marshal?”

No one knows who this mystery man is, but it takes no time as all for them to divine why he’s here -- another ranger for Zen Wisteria to fail to drift with, another pilot to be shown the marvel that is Kain Wisteria’s legacy and fall short. There used to be a betting pool about how long it would take to find someone compatible, someone Zen would accept, but it’s long since dried up. No one thinks Rex Tyrannis will be coming out of its box anytime soon.

Shirayuki wants to believe it will, that Zen will find someone to be his copilot, even if no one else does, but --

She doubts it will be this one.

“He’s a jackass,” Zen grumbles, head tilting against the back of her couch. A mug steams in front of him, filled to the brim with a coffee more cream than bean. “He keeps on showing up everywhere, saying ‘don’t forget, master, we have a drift to fail.’ Last time he followed it up with, ‘come on, I want to get home already.’ Just, you know...asshole stuff.”

Shirayuki nods, sympathetic, and sips at her tea. She’s good at that; it’s her job to listen, to withhold judgement. Zen’s comfortable with her like this, with a drink in front of both of them, pretending this is a social call and not an appointment, pretending that she’s the one person in his life that doesn’t need to give her opinion on every thought that passes through his head.

It’s easy to do, mostly. She has practice at non-interference, at knowing the precise time to chime in with an observation that will be heard, instead of dismissed. Trust is the most important bond she can forge with a patient; if she needs to voice a scathing remark, she can always save the impulse for her actual friends, for when she steps out for dinner and listens to Suzu talk about numbers with steadily increasing incredulity.

After all, she doubts Zen would appreciate being told that he is making this man wait, that his whole life has been put on pause until Zen gets over himself enough to decide he’s ready to try.

She presses her lips together, biting down on the impulse to speak. It’s easy to forget that he isn’t a friend, most of the time, that he isn’t some handsome ranger that she just happened to meet at work and hit it off with. But sometimes --

Sometimes it’s not.

His eyes roll up to the clock, and he starts. “Aw, sh--oot,” he mutters, throwing a wary glance at her. “Our time’s up.”

“I don’t have anyone after you today,” she says lightly, busily straightening her notes. He doesn’t have to know that’s how she usually plans it, just so she can make this offer. “You can linger, if you want.”

“Nah, I have to go.” His cheeks flush ruefully, and he gives her a shy glance from the corners of his eyes. “Izana wants to meet with me. You know, about this guy.”

Of course he does.

“Oh, go ahead then,” she tells him with a smile, swirling the last dregs of tea in her mug. “I can finish up alone.”

He hesitates, and this is the problem, this moment here, where he looks like he was to protest, like he wants her to never feel alone, but --

But instead he just nods, giving her a tense smile and a murmured see you before walking out the door.

The tea goes cold.

Shirayuki sticks out her tongue at the sour taste. She’s been working a while, knee deep in catching up on the papers weighing down her queue, but she’d thought -- only for an hour, maybe two.

Her stomach growls. Okay, maybe four.

She gets up, wandering down to the mess with a limp in her walk, foot still half asleep from being tucked under her for so long. She takes a step through the doors -- and blinks.

It’s nighttime. Well, she certainly didn’t mean to read that long.

Dinner sits in chafing dishes, rubbery and unappetizing, but it’s better than the nothing she’ll have if she turns her nose up at it. She takes a plate in hand, picking what seems the most edible and taking it to a table by the window.

It’s quiet this time of night; everyone is on-shift or sleeping. She has nothing to do besides go over her notes and eat, looking out over the Pacific and wondering about Suzu’s numbers.

“Anyone sitting here?”

She blinks, and suddenly there’s a man in front of her, mug of coffee steaming in one hand, and an equally unappetizing plate in the other. It’s the new ranger -- Obi. The asshole.

He’s not wearing the uniform. She’s not sure he ever has.

“Ah, no!” She moves her papers, stacking them on the seat next to her to make room. “Just -- thinking.”

He smiles, the kind that doesn’t bare teeth, and -- well, it’s not a bad look on him. “Thanks. Didn’t think I’d find a place to sit down. This place is packed.”

She turns, taking in the ocean of empty tables, and when she looks back, he’s grinning, trying to hide it behind a sip of his coffee.

“I haven’t seen you around,” he says, and for a moment, she wonders if he remembers her, remembers that moment their eyes met on the deck. He doesn’t seem like the type. “Not part of the jaeger crews, I take it?”

“No.” It’s annoying how her cheeks flush under that stead gaze of his. This close, she knows for certain: his eyes are gold. Even if she can’t seem to manage to meet them. “I’m mostly...below decks.”

“Ah,” he hums, eyes lighting. “Scientist?”

“Psychologist.”

His smile pulls tight, eyes crinkling with strain. “You don’t say.”

Ah, she should have known. Military personnel aren’t usually...fond of her position. Not at first, at least.

“You know,” he says, voice still thin, “I think His Majesty is going to tell me to see--”

“What are you doing here?” Zen demands, just over her shoulder.

“--you more often,” Obi finished, taking a long drag from his mug. “Just having some coffee, taking a break. Making friends, since you’re so happy to keep me here.”

“Oh, I see. If you can’t bug me, you’ll come bug my -- Shirayuki?” Zen’s cheeks flush an angry red, like he’s been slapped on both cheeks. Still, he keeps up is glare. “Can’t you just go away already?”

Obi’s eyebrows twitch, the rest of his body going still as he looks at him. “Love to. Just set the date, master.”

The flush spreads all over his face, eruption immanent. “I--”

“Did you need something, Zen?” she asks, pointed. It’s more than she means it to be, but still less than this sort of behavior deserves.

She takes a breath, calming. She’s not here to take sides.

“Yeah, I--” Zen casts a nervous look around the room, and that when she sees Kiki and Mitsuhide lingering at the door with amused and concern expressions, respectively. “I left my jacket here. After dinner.”

“It is over there?” She points to another table, one with a vest slung around the back of a chair.

“Oh.” He coughs, scooping it up. “Yeah.”

Still, he lingers.

“Is that all?” she asks innocently. “We were just going to finish up dinner.”

“Yeah. Right,” he bites out, glare sweeping in Obi’s direction. “Sure. See you.”

It’s silent as he walks out, as Kiki and Mitsuhide fall in behind with only a lingering look. Shirayuki sighs, heavy, and turns back to her plate.

Obi’s mouth bows with concern. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She sits, staring at her food, barely seeing it. She really, really didn’t. It was a mistake, a trip-up that might have cost her some of her hard-won trust with Zen, but --

“I know,” she says, spearing a noodle. “But I did.”

She doesn’t add, and we’ll both have to live with it. By the steady gaze he sets on her, he hears it anyway.

“Yeah,” he coughs after a moment, eyes skittering to look anywhere else. “You did.”

#obiyukibingo2019 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #pacific rim AU #my fic #ans #guys i am not even gonna lie I'm not sure when in the Pac Rim timeline i'm placing this #i mean i think i want to keep it 2024 but clearly there's a lot of rangers here #but also I used Shao industries #whatever guys you're just gonna need to trust me here and be foggy on everything following the movie #i mean clearly since i actually put a psychologist in here #though i think there's mention they exist in the domes? #i forgot #whatever you all know you want psychologist shirayuki

[conorjameson]

The fugitive

The Goshawk can cast a spell on you. I know this because it happened to me, and to some others I’ve met. Something in the penetrating gaze of the bird stays with you. It is a kind of hypnosis, reinforced with each rare encounter.

I can trace my love affair with the Goshawk to a picture in a book. Or rather, on a book. Goshawks made the cover of the first book on birds of prey that I saw, as a young child, in the early 1970s. It was a pair at the nest, all red-eyed rapaciousness, female brooding a downy chick, male grasping a song thrush. I was smitten. I loved everything about this bird, even the drama in the name –Goshawk. That glare.

Back then, Goshawks were in the first stages of reclaiming our remoter forests. Bar the odd escaped pair here and there, Goshawks had been effectively absent as breeding birds from the UK since the early 1880s.

Growing up in Scotland, I heard about these fugitive goshawks, escaped and unofficially released birds, apparently gaining a toehold. In my forest rovings, I always had half an eye – and ear - open for Gos, and once or twice even fancied I might have glimpsed one. But of course I couldn’t be sure. Like anyone else, through those years I was witnessing with pleasure the return of the Sparrowhawk, Peregrine and Buzzard. Somehow the Goshawk lagged far behind, out of sight, out of mind. No one, and few books, seemed to have much to say about the mysterious Gos.

I found one man who did: T H White. The author of The Sword in the Stone, White was also moonstruck by this bird. The Goshawk is regarded as a classic of its kind. I unearthed it in an antique bookshop some years ago. The prose is dense, intense, and a revelation. Here was a man who could articulate his fascination with this enigmatic bird. But he was also fixated with mastering it. I had no such aspiration, although I appreciated the insight on its character provided by White’s up-close and personal involvement with this often wretched, furious, bating hawk.

White was writing in the 1930s, in a Gos-free Britain. He had walked away from his job as an English teacher at a private school. He rented a keeper’s cottage and attempted to master the bird using the medieval method by which he was also intrigued. He sought with his Goshawk ‘to revert to a feral state’. Predictably, perhaps, the hawk beat him to it.

It was clear. Goshawks are wilder than most birds, you might say; highly strung, high maintenance, compulsive. Falconers I meet now tell me they can’t or won’t keep the species. They never show them at public demonstrations. Goshawks have a tendency to mania, to buggering off, to dropping dead. Even captive Goshawks, it seems, are hard to see.

But not everyone loves the Goshawk. And I’m not just talking about the usual suspects in the murky world of raptor persecution. There are a few birders out there who are at best ambivalent about the species. You may know some.

It is accepted wisdom that our UK Goshawk population today originates from absconded birds, and deliberate releases. Although Goshawks from the continent do move through these islands on passage, this appears not to happen in significant numbers, and they are believed strongly tied to home. The Goshawk is a fully protected species here. But even so, to some conservation-minded people it has only a faintly legitimate status, as though it has yet to be universally accepted. I know one birder who regards Goshawks with the same disdain he does Canada Geese.

In addition to being, in some eyes, ‘semi-feral’, the Goshawk’s rapaciousness can also lose it friends. It can alienate not just game-rearers, but enthusiasts for other bird species. The Goshawk tends not to like having other raptors, and corvids, around when it is breeding. It can also kill and eat anything up to the size of a Capercaillie. We don’t have many of those to spare, in the end.

It is also a difficult bird to get to know, to watch and enjoy. It has not been championed in the way enjoyed by our other renascent raptors – the eagles, kites, harriers, ospreys and falcons. It has almost as little visible presence as a nocturnal predatory mammal. It is, in the end, hard to sell what we cannot see.

The Goshawk has always been greatly valued as a falconer’s – or more properly an austringer’s – bird. The French call it the ‘cuisinier’. It may lack a Falcon’s exhibitionism in the sky, but for sheer muscularity, dexterity, focus and lethalness in a short chase, for game as large as adult hares, the Goshawk was the connoisseur’s choice. It was the choice of Attila the Hun, King John, Frederick the Great, and not just of the yeoman, as is popularly held. Accipiter gentilis was long beloved of falconers across Europe and Asia. In repose, it oozes nobility, gravitas, courage.

But they are difficult to captive breed. A male Goshawk knows better than to be around his much larger mate when she is hungry, or irritable. She makes a fickle cellmate. For centuries, captive Goshawks were traded across Europe, set free to breed, and the young harvested from tree nests. These birds were hard currency. When land was sold, rights to Hawk nests might be negotiated – or not – separately. Our Goshawk population today may have mixed Finnish, German and Czech origin, but so too do Spain’s smaller, darker wild Goshawks today produce genetic throw-backs to these larger, paler northern races.

Some may regret the somewhat ad hoc provenance of our Goshawks today, and the haphazard nature of their re-establishment, but this reflects the wider history of our relationship with the species. It is not, for me, a reason to devalue the bird. If anything, the opposite is true.

Given this trade, movement and ‘farming’ of Goshawks since Saxon times, there are those who have queried whether we can be sure it was originally a native UK species. Max Nicholson was one: ‘The Goshawk, often counted among the lost, was probably never indigenous,’ he wrote in 1926. ‘But’ he noted, ‘the evidence is bewildering’.

More recently, scenting a possible loophole in wildlife law to exploit, some game-rearing interests have challenged the Goshawk’s status. So can we be sure it was here without our help? Quite apart from the free-range ‘harvesting’ of Accipiter gentilis, early written records are unreliable because of possible confusion with the Peregrine, in particular.

Happily, the recently published History of British Birds by Yalden and Albarella presents conclusive evidence on the matter. There are scattered bone deposit records of Goshawk since the post-glacial, even more than for Peregrine. It was here, ok. The authors estimate a UK population of Goshawks in the ‘pristine Mesolithic forests’ of pre-human Britain touching 14,000 pairs. They base this on extrapolations from Bialowiecza Forest in Poland, Europe’s largest intact fragment of this ancient woodland.

Even without this hard evidence, it would be hard to conceive of the Goshawk absent from our wildwood. My instinct is it was probably pre-eminent. In the absence of the Eagle Owl, the Goshawk must have enjoyed alpha predator status among the oaks, limes and pines that cloaked mainland Britain. It’s an interesting thought that this forgotten, fugitive, poorly understood and occasionally resented species might once have lorded it over our wildwood landscape.

The Goshawk re-cast its spell on me two years ago. I found one in Yorkshire. I came face to face with the most vivid specimen: a first-year female, all subtle saffron tints and chocolaty arrowheads, talons clamped on a prone magpie, glaring at me as I teetered on a ladder. I was in a junk shop. She was in a glass case. Stuffed. As she fixed me with that glare, she fixated me with these questions about what we did to her kind, and to ourselves in the process. 

The Goshawk was the first of the raptors we wiped out in Britain. We usually call this persecution, but looking at this bird in the case, it occurred to me that admirers played their part in the extermination process. We killed beautiful things the better to look at them. I’m not judgmental about the trophy hunters of the killing age. Any of us might have done the same thing, in their position.

Our last Goshawks are said to have bred near MacBeth’s Birnam Wood, Perthshire, in 1883. But there is another troubling question. Can we be sure they were completely extirpated? Given the secretiveness of the species, it seems feasible that some might have held on, in a quiet corner somewhere.

I spent a few weeks in spring 2010 with Goshawk experts in the remoter forests of Britain where Goshawks survive today. Mick Marquiss, whose study area covers north-east Scotland, is in no doubt that the Goshawk was exterminated by the end of the 19th century.

‘I used to think that maybe they had held on,’ he told me. ‘But I don’t believe that now.’

There is one clinching reason, for Mick: ‘They may be hard to see, but they are very easy to trap,’ he says.

Writings by the Victorian naturalist W H Hudson leave us a vivid idea of what Goshawks were up against in the period.

‘I heard of another case at Fonthill Abbey (Wiltshire). Nobody could say what this wandering hawk was – it was very big, blue above with a white breast barred with black – a ‘tarrable’, fierce-looking bird with fierce, yellow eyes. All the gamekeepers and several other men with guns were in hot pursuit of it for several days, until someone fatally wounded it, but it could not be found where it was supposed to have fallen. A fortnight later its carcass was discovered by an old shepherd, who told me the story. It was not in a fit state to be preserved, but he described it to me, and I have no doubt that it was a goshawk.’

You can only imagine how demoralised Hudson and others like him felt in that era, when a wandering Goshawk would face such overwhelming odds. A century further on, he might be minded to ask if the Goshawks are back. We could tell him the apparently encouraging news that the UK Goshawk population can now be estimated at around 400 pairs, thanks to data compiled by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel, from information provided in large part by the Raptor Study Groups. But he might be slightly puzzled that it hasn’t changed much since the Atlas of 20 years ago. It is quite likely, we could suggest, that there are more Goshawks out there than this, but probably not many more. ‘Although they are cryptic what’s clear from our work is that there’s no large population sitting there undiscovered,‘ say the experts (Rutz et al).

Until recently, we might have concluded that the lack of large-scale coniferous forest was the limiting factor for Goshawks in Britain. But just across the North Sea in the Netherlands, for example, Goshawks have reclaimed the landscape, from lowland farmland to urban centres, exploiting the corvids, pigeons, thrushes, gulls, rabbits and rats that proliferate across these habitats.

‘Goshawks in The Netherlands tell a complicated story,’ says Rob Bijlsma, who has studied them there for many years. ‘A story of huge successes and spread into densely populated areas, followed by demise more recently.’

It seems reasonable to wonder why our Goshawks haven’t done something similar. Mick Marquiss and fellow Raptor Study Group researchers are in no doubt that illegal killing is the main reason.

’Goshawks, for all their prowess as hunters, cannot resist an apparently free meal,’ he says. ‘Their foraging areas overlap, and they wander a lot outside the breeding season. One trap with a live crow or pigeon as bait can draw in Goshawks from a wide area, and act as the ‘plug-hole’ down which a local population can vanish. Easy to catch, and easy to hide: so proving the true scale of this crime has been difficult – at least up to now.‘

Advances in technology and tracking are helping us to understand the Goshawk better, and work is now being done to get a better handle on the Goshawk’s situation in the UK.

My search for this bird has left me convinced that there could be a Goshawk-shaped hole in our world. This incredible animal remains AWOL in much of our landscape — spinneys, parks, towns, even cities — and largely absent from our consciousness. The Goshawk isn’t out of the woods yet, but it might be if we’d let it. The shackles have not yet been broken. And nor, for me, has the Goshawk’s lingering spell.

Conor Jameson

This article was first published in Birdwatch magazine.

Photo of a male Goshawk taken in the Scottish borders by Chas Moonie. 

#goshawk #Looking for the goshawk #Looking for goshawks #Birds of Prey #birds #birdwatching #The Goshawk

[jeanklemwriter]

Marvel recently made yours truly (and a good number of other people) pretty cross with their recent statements that their attempts at diversity aren’t working and that “people don’t want diversity”.

Let’s ignore how Marvel charts sales only via floppies, and not trade paperbacks and/or digital copies. Let’s ignore how Marvel fails to hire new writers to reflect their diverse characters or audiences. Let’s instead focus on a graphic novel industry that’s currently eating Marvel’s pie while it complains about SJWs and makes old characters Nazis (because women inheriting Thor’s title is cardinal sin, but making them Nazis is A-OK).

Let’s talk about manga.

The Big Two, these being DC and Marvel, have a lot they should be learning from manga. It’s a growing industry! It survived a cataclysmic bubble-burst in 2008, but currently is still in a growth period. Shonen Jump has survived its print parallell being shuttered, as a digital-only publication. What are the likes of One-Punch Man, Please Tell Me! Galko-Chan!, and Attack on Titan doing that DC and Marvel aren’t? Well, for starters (more after the break)...

Manga is cheaper. Used to be, people on Gaia Online would joke that manga was a drug because it was more expensive than crack, but that’s not quite true. When it started, a Shonen Jump trade paperback (commonly called a “tankoubon”, because that’s what they’re called in Japan) would retail at $7.95. Eventually, Viz bumped up the price--to $9.95 a pop. Today, you can expect to spend as much as $12.99 a pop per tankoubon, although Shonen Jump stuff still retails at just under $10, for something between 190 - 256 pages in length. Meanwhile, the MSRP for a 168-page-long Spider-Man trade paperback is $24.99. A lot of arguments can be made here: anime is only in black-and-white, the paper stock is different. But why is an imported comic that needs to be licensed, translated, edited, published, then distributed a cheaper alternative than a comic made in the US? Monthly issues (”floppies”)  are a terrible investment, clocking in at $3 - $7 a pop, only 16 pages, and flimsy/fragile as all heck! Worse yet, in Marvel’s case, digital copies of the same issue cost the same as the print copy. (With Shonen Jump? They’re three bucks cheaper.) People only have so much cash, and they want their money to last: a story that’ll last you ten minutes isn’t going to be considered if that same money can go to a game that’s on sale on Steam. Considering how much work goes into a comic, I’d never even dream to consider that comics should be cheaper, but at least give people more bang for their buck.

Manga stories aren’t a messy web. When I started reading Dan Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man run in 2014, there was a whole extra series being sold alongside it that I also found myself needing to read: Learning to Crawl, which was sold as--get this--decimal-issues of Amazing Spider-Man. LtC counted as issues 1.1 to 1.6 of ASM. What. It can be argued that Learning to Crawl wasn’t necessary to understand Amazing Spider-Man, but then an important character introduced in LtC became an important recurring character in ASM. Now, let’s get even messier: ASM continued with the Spider-Verse event, with no less than four comics tying into the darn thing: Edge of Spider-Verse, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Woman, and Amazing Spider-Man. All of those characters and comics were involved, and had a hand in that event. I didn’t read all of those comics, only EoSV and ASM--so I can’t begin to explain why Spider-Woman was hiding in the Inheritor World when she was, or how Kaine appeared. Compare this to 20th Century Boys, Naoki Urusawa’s tale of childhood, post-war Japan, friendship, and political intrigue. If you want to understand that story, pick up volume one (I insist, it’s so good) and start reading. Wanna catch up on Berserk while its on hiatus? Just buy a volume and start reading! Anyone jumping into a comic book has to be ready to read three different books just to get the low-down on one story, which doesn’t combine well with the aforementioned pricing problems. Floppies are already a tough investment, and they feel even cheaper when you’re supposed to supplement them with even more purchases. It gets worse when you remember...

Manga stories don’t come with baggage. Amazing Spider-Man wasn’t as great an introduction to the character as it could have been. If Peter Parker wasn’t such a cultural marker, that story would have left me confused. Who is this guy in the red-and-blue? Why does he have spider-powers? On a deeper level, what happened with him and Doctor Octopus?! Yeah, see, ASM takes place after a period of time where Doctor Octopus switched minds with Peter Parker and took over his body, becoming the “Superior Spider-Man”, and ASM starts with Peter having regained his body and finding the messes that Doc Oc left for Peter--and trust me, not having read the SSM books, I was surprised to see stuff like Electro and Black Cat having a vendetta against Spidey, or Mary Jane having married someone else. In other words, to understand a current comic book character, you’ve had to have been reading about them for over two years--or dived into a wiki. Now, few manga in the US have lasted the forty-plus years that the likes of Captain America, Batman, or Animal Man have, but even after 84 volumes One Piece is somehow still easier to jump into than an alleged reboot (they’re pirates looking for treasure, also yo-ho-ho Luffy took a bite of gum-gum). If your point is to create an entry point for new readers, you’ve failed when people need to read at least one other book to understand the current one.

Manga covers a lot of ground. Used to be, comics in the US had all kinds of genres: besides superheroes, we had romance, horror, suspense, crime thrillers, and comedies. The rise of the Comic Book Code changed all of that; now all DC and Marvel publish are superheroes. Shonen Jump may be the house that’s ruled by Dragon Ball and One Piece, but Shonen Jump still has piles of variety. Besides action stories, they also cover comedy (Cowa!, Gintama), romance (I’’s, Strawberry 100%), horror (Muyo and Rohji’s Supernaural Detective Agency), sports (Prince of Tennis, Eyeshield 21) and thrillers (Death Note). I’m only covering series that are licensed in the US, mind--Japan has weirder stuff from Shonen Jump, like the positively-ancient KochiKame. Too much emphasis is put on capes in the Big Two. Even their attempts at moving away from that are overshadowed by capes: Grayson may have been a spy thriller, but it still starred Dick Grayson, alias Nightwing (and onetime Batman). Gotham Academy was a fun adventure series set in a large prep school--in the middle of Gotham City. The closest we could hope for Marvel to do as a romance would be Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane. It seems Marvel and DC aren’t capable--or willing--to release anything that isn’t attached to their superheroes. (There’s a lot to unpack with that last statement, and there’s no space and time to cover that--let’s just say you can’t have an audience you don’t cultivate, and you can’t complain about people ignoring you if you ignore them.) Finally...

Manga actually hires women. Two of the most beloved manga of all time, each responsible for an entire generation of manga fans, are Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. They’re both romantic comedies with lots of action; the former is more comedy than action, the latter is more action and fantasy than romance. Both of these came to be genre-defining works. Their creator? Rumiko Takahashi--a woman. She’s not alone, either: Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon, Yana Toboso’s Black Butler, CLAMP’s Chobits, xxxHolic, and Tsubasa Resorvoir Chronicles, Hiromu Arakawa’s Full-Metal Alchemist... there is a not-insignificant list of very, very prolific manga that are written and drawn by women. Meanwhile, DCs policies during the New 52 meant that only two women worked with them: writer Gail Simone and artist Amy Reeder. A lot of people on the internet argue for a total meritocracy: that creators should be hired for their talent or skill, and not because they’re women/people of color. But you can’t have a healthy industry without a wide variety of creators. A wide, diverse team of writers means you have a wide, diverse set of viewpoints and experiences that translate to different stories. Ranma 1/2 isn’t a great story because Rumiko Takahashi is a woman, it’s a great story because Rumiko Takahashi is a great writer and artist. But she actually had to get hired in order to make Ranma 1/2. The only reason for Marvel and DC to not have more women in their teams is if they don’t give a crap... and, really, that’s quite telling: you can’t complain attempts at diversity aren’t working if you’re not willing to commit to it. Manga isn’t great at diversity either, owing to Japan’s far-more-ethnocentric population, but there’s still startlingly-more variety with manga than there’s ever been with comics in years. If publishers in the US want to make better business, start looking at how their international fellows handle business. Millions of One Piece fans worldwide exist for a reason.

#marvel #dc #shonen jump #diversity #comics

[winterrsun]

Avengers x Supernatural crossover

Summary: A Supernatural AU where the famine horseman hits the Avengers’ area and they all subsequently go nuts- lust and hunger and all kinds of crazy. take over the tower. 

A/N: Ok this got really smutty wow whoops, this is the most insane thing I’ve ever written and its quite possibly a hot mess...but thats kinda the point when the entire team loses their inhibitions? It’s my first attempt at a crossover, also the first fic I’ve written in third person and without the reader as a character and ALSO my first time writing Stony AND winter widow.

Warnings: SMUT, alcohol, unprotected sex, public sexual activity/basically an orgy, over eating and drinking?? 

If you aren’t familiar with Supernatural and have no idea what I’m talking about see the explanation below :) - its essentially based on this scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaYnz8HR6yY

Supernatural explanation: The apocalypse hits and it brings four horseman with it; war, pestilence, famine and death. When the famine horseman arrives he makes basically everyone in town go crazy for whatever it is they crave; whether that be a certain food, food in general, sex, alcohol, (in Sam’s case, demon blood) etc.. and basically they have no will power against it and aggressively indulge themselves to death. I’ve decided the Avengers wouldn’t get QUITE so effected by it but they still can’t resist it fully. 

Its a dull day, following a stubborn clump of dull days that has formed a dull week or so in the tower. Its not like the Avengers at all to have such a long quiet period, to have so much time on their hands and so little to do. They’ve trained, sparred, practised shooting, firing and using every weapon they have, they’ve cleaned and tidied, gotten drunk, even did a day of touristy sight seeing as well as cleaned out all their Netflix watch lists. And still the days are dragging on. 

Nat’s decided to take up baking after Wanda offered to teach her cook, so now she stands behind the kitchen bench wearing an apron and furiously mixing.  Drops of cake batter spatter something every now and then, while Wanda sits at a stool on the other side of the counter, sifting through a magazine and affectionately rolling her eyes at her teammate. A continuous tapping noise rings throughout the room as Sam, Steve and Clint toss a small ball between them while Bucky watches, having grown bored of the mundane game quickly. Tony and Bruce are upstairs occupying themselves with something in the lab, and otherwise the tower is a ghost town, with Vision and Rhodey away at the UN on official business. 

“Nat I think your batter’s good now!” Bucky says, wiping some off the side of his face. 

She sticks her tongue out at him and laughs, but proceeds to tip the bowl into a cake pan and place it in the oven. 

“And how long is that gonna take again Wanda?” she asks. 

“About 40 minutes” the Scarlett Witch replies without looking up from her magazine. 

Nat nods before strolling over to the couch and plonking herself down.

“And now what then?” she sighs. 

“Come on lets finish the last of that Twilight movie series” Bucky offers, sitting down next to her.

“We really have hit a new low,” she mumbles, turning on the TV. 

20 minutes into Breaking Dawn part 2, Tony strolls into the room. 

“Guys! I’ve got uh, good news and bad news.” They all stop to focus on him, as the Iron Man continues. 

“Well, we aren’t going to be bored anymore. There’s something coming and its something big. So big I kind of wish we had more help but I think its gonna have to just be us.” He pauses, gazing around at his fellow teammates and feeling a sense of pride and confidence in their abilities, before taking a deep breath.

“Any of you familiar with the four horsemen?” he asks.

Most of the gang nod and murmur that they are familiar with the concept but not much else. 

“It’s like...a biblical thing right?” asks Bucky.

Tony nods, Bruce now behind him. “Yeah, they’re associated with the apocalypse traditionally. But um, well apparently they’re as real as Thor and Loki, and one of them has to decided to pop in and say hi and fuck shit up” Tony says. 

Steve sighs before asking “do we even want to know which one?”

“Well,” Tony replies, “debatably, one that is the least dangerous. It’s famine”

“As in, we’re all gonna starve to death?” asks Wanda, wide eyed. 

“I’d say its more complicated than that, kiddo” chuckles Clint. 

“They aren’t certain what the full impact is gonna be, just that he will have an effect over everyone, at a pretty decent distance but we don’t know the exact radius. I don’t even really know how we can prepare for this to be honest..” Tony trailed off, throwing his hands in the air. 

“So when does it hit?” asks Nat. 

Tony raises his eyebrows and shrugs, prompting a “great” from Nat. 

“Who did you get all this information from?” Steve inquires.

“Fury. He called me.” Ton replies, a bit on the defensive. 

Steve remains silent but glares at Tony for a bit. He likes to be the leader of the group; he’s the captain for gods sake. And he’s far more responsible than Tony.

“Alright boys put your testosterone away, we need all our strength and teamwork to combat this it sounds like” Wanda placates. 

Tony raises an eyebrow at her, then glances back at Steve before turning away. 

The team all head off to their own rooms and apartments to get changed and grab whatever they think might help, though of course everyone’s feeling uncertain and frankly a little worried. 

By the time they meet in the conference room to await any news or disturbance, Sam, Clint, Nat and Tony have started feeling a little weird.

He’s eaten lunch only about an hour ago but Sam’s suddenly feeling very peckish. He licks his lip and chews down on the bottom one, trying to occupy his mind with something else.

“So uh, what do you think this is gonna be like?” he asks Clint, who is agitatedly tapping his fingers on the desk.

“What?” Clint snaps, looking at Sam before instantly softening his expression. “Sorry man. I..I don’t know. I’m feeling really edgy about it though.” 

Clint looks over to his best friend and frowns at how rigidly she’s sitting, but gets distracted immediately as another wave of it washes over him; the craving for alcohol. 

Wanda’s getting her magic fired up, making a chair levitate in front of her before dropping it to the ground and raising it up again, when Steve addresses her.

“I’ve been thinking, you might be the best one to diffuse this situation quickly Wanda. I think your ability to manipulate the mind is going to be a real advantage.”

“Actually Cap we don’t know whats doing to be an advantage here, that’s kind of the point”. Tony snaps.

Bucky raises his eyebrows and smirks at Wanda and Bruce; the only other two in the room paying attention. 

“I’m aware of that, Tony” Steve says through gritted teeth. “I’m just being logical and trying to deal with this the best way. Just because we don’t know much about this enemy doesn’t mean I don't know what I’m doing as a captain.” 

Tony rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the blood he can practically feel and hear rushing through him, clenching his fists.

After laughing at their stupid friends, Bruce and Wanda start to feel it too. Something intense and just...off. Then it grows and Wanda remembers the cake they left in the oven..it should be nearly done now. Bruce shifts uncomfortably and assures himself of his amazingly developed self control, though beginning to wonder if he should have removed himself from such an unstable situation. 

Not longer after it hits Bucky and Steve too. The two super soldiers almost mirror each other as they beginning fidgeting in their positions and become vaguely aware that their blood is also rushing, and that it seems to be rushing to one particular, downstairs spot. 

The entire room sits uncomfortably, now having internal battles. They’re somewhat aware that they are all in this predicament, that each of them is experiencing it, but only because they’re all so skilled and highly trained to monitor the environment. Suddenly, Clint snaps to his senses if only for a moment. 

He clears his throat; “guys, I think its hit...the famine effect.”

His teammates gaze at him blankly.

“Is anyone else” he continues, “um...craving anything?” 

Realisation hits them as hard as the famine did. The problem is, he must be getting closer because the feelings are getting stronger and stronger. 

Tony, not even really knowing what he's doing and definitely not able to control himself, starts to palm himself through his pants. Everyones wrapped up in their own thing but Steve notices him, feeling anger and disgust at his audacity to do that in front of everyone, ignoring the fact that he feels something else too. Because actually, its kind of hot. And he was going to yell at Tony and tell him to stop, but now he thinks maybe he’ll watch a bit longer. 

Steve licks his lips slowly as Tony closes his eyes and tries to resist the urge, thats getting stronger and stronger, to just stick his hand right into his pants. 

Suddenly Sam jumps up and strides quickly from the room. The gang are all sort of snapped out their dazes from this and they follow him into the kitchen to the sound of the fridge door slamming open and watch him help himself animatedly. They’re transfixed for a moment before becoming overwhelmed with their own feelings again. Wanda rushes past him to the oven, forgetting to grab a glove and yelping as her finger makes contact with the scalding hot metal of the cake pan. No matter for the witch, she levitates the cake out of the hot tray and begins devouring it.

Nat, who had been biting her lip and clamping her legs shut ferociously, suddenly yells “Screw it!” and grips the back of Bucky’s neck pulling his lips to hers hungrily. He instantly complies and slams her body back against the wall. 

“Wow right, okay then!” Clint exclaims at the pair, before striding over to the bar and helping himself to a 20 year old scotch, drinking straight from the bottle.

“I gotta get out of here” Bruce says to no one in particular. He rushes outside, not knowing how to handle his potential hulk out while he’s in this state, the only one to crave nothing in particular, not being able to identify this overwhelming feeling of desire, just knowing that he’s losing control. 

Steve noticed his best friend, who is now grinding against Natasha, trying to relieve his tension and is painfully reminded of his own. He hears a soft moan and is shocked to see Tony, hand in his pants stroking himself, watching the Captain. They make eye contact and Tony’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t stop. 

Steve walks over to him slowly, like its the hardest thing he's ever done, but at this point he doesn’t have a choice. 

“Take your hand out of your god dam pants” he orders in a low voice, and Tony slowly complies, eyes glued to Steve’s blue ones. 

Steve then thrusts his own hand inside his teammate’s pants, doing something he’s tried to suppress the fantasy of- the fantasy that sneaks into his head late at night when he can’t sleep- for god knows how long, grabbing his frenemies cock firmly. 

“Oh GOD Cap!” Tony is on the verge on losing control completely and thrusts into Steve’s hand. 

Steve begins rapidly stroking him and groans, disoriented and single-mindedly focused on this innate task; “Fuck Tony..I don’t know what I’m doing I-” he trails off. He succumbs to his urge further, leans over and attaches his lips to Tony’s neck, making the latter gasp loudly.

“We should’ve known–ah” Tony interrupts himself with a moan, “this would be the best way to handle all that tension between us.” 

Steve raises his head to give him a ‘shut up’ kind of look, before grabbing either side of Tony’s face and bringing his lips to his own, kissing his teammate’s smart-ass mouth aggressively. 

Everyone else in the room either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care what the rest are up to,  so engrossed in their own current actions. Wanda’s stomach has begun screaming as she is already three quarters through the fresh vanilla sponge Nat has completely forgotten about, having been so excited to produce it less than an hour ago. Sam, on the other hand, isn’t slowing down any time soon. He wraps an entire block of cheese up in salami and munches contentedly, though far from fulfilment and satisfaction. 

Clint has begun hicupping, with all instincts telling him to STOP drinking he now stands still, fighting against himself, the bottle frozen halfway to his mouth. He knows they need to snap out of it but dam it they can’t, he’s thinking of his wife and kids as he tries with all his might to put the bottle down while also trying to suppress the equally disruptive thoughts in his mind saying ‘nobody else is fighting it..you aren’t stronger than them...give in to it’. 

A loud, female moan echoes throughout the floor. Bucky and Nat had enough of their wits about them to make it around the corner into the somewhat privacy of the hallway before ripping away each others clothing. Bucky had hooked his metal arm underneath Nat’s legs as she jumped up onto him, pushing her against the wall and thrusting straight into her, bringing them back to now. 

Bucky pounds into the girl he has always been attracted to but had never felt enough desire to act upon, now wanting nothing more than to ravish her over and over as she writhes in his hands. He feels her wet slick folds envelop him with every thrust and groans into the crook of her neck.

For once, Nat happily lets her male colleague take charge as she succumbs to pleasure and the feeling of receiving something she craves so, so badly. The Winter Soldier is merciless as he drives into her, filling her wonderfully and sending her senses into overdrive. She has never felt so blissfully overwhelmed. Her stomach tightens and her pleasure builds and she whimpers, managing to stutter “Bucky..fuck i, I’m gonna come” before it crashes through her.

She shudders and shakes turning to putty, thankfully still fully supported by Bucky who if anything pounds into her harder after that encouraging display. Exhausted but still wanting more she happily complies, wrapping her hands around his neck when she gathers the energy and beginning to bob up and down, riding his cock the best she can, eliciting a deep moan from Bucky. 

Meanwhile, Steve continues to jerk Tony off, now craving his own release as well. 

“If this doesn’t stop soon, you know I’m going to have to take you into the conference room and fuck you” Steve murmurs into his ear, Tony bites his lip at the notion.

“Whatever you think is best, Cap” he responds lethargically. 

Steve nods and yanks his hand back and grips Tony by the wrist, marching out of the room. 

Wanda, having nearly demolished the cake, gazes around realising the indescribably strong feeling of desire is still there, but it has changed. Her hunger quelled she now feels...lust? She definitely desires something other than food. But maybe she can fight it. She swallows the last mouthful of cake and grips the bench determinedly, trying to clear her mind. 

“Fuck it” she murmurs and strides over to a positively drunk Clint. She places her palms either side of his face and kisses him square on the mouth. 

Clint lurches backwards, stumbling in his intoxicated state. “Kiddo-WHOA slow down there wha-what are you doing! God I need another drink.” 

His whisky soaked breath is off-putting, washing over her face, yet the unsatisfied craving in her remains, though she knows how much of a mistake her action was. She turns away and frustratedly bites down on her finger, willing the feelings to subside. 

Sam is less than four feet away from them but he hasnt even noticed the interaction, his face being stuck in the fridge that is rapidly being drained of its contents. 

In the hallway, Bucky and Nat are still going at it after he’s come inside her, his ejaculate dripping down her legs as they continue to desperately thrust at an unrelenting pace. She bites down on his neck hard enough to break the skin and tiny droplets of blood appear from the wound. 

Steve slams the conference room door shut and pushes Tony backwards until his legs hit the desk. Without hesitation he spins him around and bends him over.

“You sure you can handle this Stark?” he asks, with no intention of stopping now.

“Just fuck me already Rogers” Tony replies, hastening to undo his belt. 

Somewhere near the Avengers compound, the officials working with famine receive information that Fury and his team are aware of their presence and working against them. As suddenly as they had arrived, famine and his accomplices depart the area.

Its fast and intense, like waking up from one of those dreams where you’ve fallen from a height and your heart jumps. Feeling like they had all been dowsed in cold water to sober them up, the Avengers come to their senses.

Steve’s holding his proud American cock in his hand, had he really been about to put it in Tony? Tony. Who has stood up as fast as if he'd sat on a pin and yanked his pants back up. The men both awkwardly clear their throats, looking anywhere but at each other. Steve sort of half nods before pivoting on his heel and striding determinedly back into the main rooms. Tony rubs his hand across his jaw, shaking his head. 

Their discomfort holds nothing, however, to their teammates. Nat finds herself suspended in the air, Bucky’s metal arm hooked under her knees while his chest presses her against the wall. He’s still hard, and still inside her. Wet, sticky and very messy, their eyes widen as they stare at each other, faces an inch apart. Clumsily, quickly they separate and he puts her back on the ground. They attempt to redress with nothing really to clean up with. 

“Sooo we just...” Bucky starts.

“Yup,” replies Nat, “famine huh?” 

Bucky clenches his teeth and nods, however the two manage to not feel too ashamed given the extremity of the situation. Nat tends to make everything easier and they both have to admit, they’ve always had chemistry.  

“Come on” Bucky laughs, “I guess we gotta all go and...debrief?” he lazily throws an arm over her shoulder and they walk together. 

The first thing Sam notices is that he has never been so full in his life. Not when he went to three thanksgiving dinners in one day, not when he got back from Afghanistan and hit the Taco Bell, McDonalds and KFC drive thru’s all in a row, never. He groans and clutches his stomach, thinking to himself how famine did a number on him, being completely oblivious to what the rest of his team went through.

Wanda is mortified. She tried to kiss Clint. She did kiss him. After scoffing an entire cake. Actually, mortified doesn’t really begin to describe it. She glances at Clint but he's running to the sink to vomit. Guiltily she can’t help but be relieved; hopefully he will have been too drunk to remember. 

Steve, Nat and Bucky come back into the room looking sheepish, followed by Tony. The air is thick with tension until Sam breaks it.

“So guys, that was some experience huh? But... I ate everything in the fridge, how was everyone else dealing with their cravings?” 

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