Tumgik
#i say this bc i am looking at the final game and the beginning has some varied / added scenes from the demo
4giorno · 7 months
Text
omg the screenshots in this dream place are basically accurate 😭💖
Tumblr media
#its like im finally like i can see him i see my darling boy!!!!!#even if the side on our left isnt exactly right still#believe it or not its a big deal to me hkdxjjdfkfkf#anyway some more lore of him that i didnt yet share is that his instrument is the violin his subclass in college of lore#and he has the guild artisan background. so maybe that gives more of a picture of what hes like jdjfhdjjf#lmao SORRY for posting abt him again im just rlly attatched to him bc this game has consumed my brain#and ive played as him for over 30 hours now 💀 and im only at the beginning of act 2 which is crazy bc i didnt do nearly everything in act 1#(but im kinda like am i gonna get to a place over ground again? 💀 i dont like exploring places like the shadow lands or the underdark#in any game so i find it hard to find the strength to wander from the main quest. plus i have a vampire with me#and his bite is useless against the undead 😭)#speaking of which omg i obv just looked at my media gallery and bc the time i died from letting astari0n drink was the first time#that i had that event it gave me the trophy and the ps5 saves a clip of you getting trophies so i have it forever saved#when my character faded away and the 'oh no something terrible happened' comment and the clip KILLS me#also even tho this hair is perfect i have one regret and its that it hides his elf ears 😭#anyway have you seen my boy? now you have byeeeee#(EDIT i actually think i did already say his instrument is the violin....... whoops its too early in the tags to fix)
1 note · View note
zegrasdrysdale · 7 months
Text
[ slip of the tongue ] n. hischier
Tumblr media
paring : Nico Hischier x fem!reader
summary : after a Devils win, Nico gets interviewed in the locker room after scoring his first NHL hatty. he slips up in front of the cameras and mentions his girlfriend for the first time. it doesn't stop her from showing Nico how proud she is of him though ...
warning(s) : smut ! p in v protected sex, oral (m receiving), pet names during sex, language throughout. possibly wrongly translated german (i'm learning)
author’s note : this plot has been in my head for a while so here i am. pls just indulge me w this bc i was having a moment while writing it
18+ below the cut ! MINORS DNI
༺═──────────────═༻
(Y/N) swears she won't have a voice come the morning.
As soon as the puck went into the net and the goal horn went off for the third time, she's been screaming in the suite with the other Devils wives and girlfriends. Her boyfriend just scored his first NHL hat trick and she couldn't be prouder of him. They're now up 5-2 on the Sabres with less than a minute left in the game.
Jack and Dawson have a goal each along with Nico's three goals. It's a four-point night for her captain boyfriend since he got an assist on Jack's power play goal. She remains standing until the final horn that signals the game is over. The Rock is buzzing as the Devils give Vitek some goalie hugs.
She records when Nico is announced as the first star of the game for his four-point night. The crowd cheers as loud as they did when Nico scored the hat trick. Her lips hurt from smiling for nearly ten minutes straight.
As soon as Nico skates off the ice, (Y/N) makes her way down to the players' lounge room that the wives and girlfriends usually hang out in before and after the game. She hangs out with Vitek and Erik's wives as she waits for the players to come in after they've changed and showered.
Notifications start coming through about a half hour after going to the players' lounge. A lot of notifications. New followers, lots of likes and comments on Instagram. A lot of mentions on Twitter. She has no idea what's going on.
(Y/N) reads one tweet that's in her mentions that has a clip attached to it.
vina @/hischiers i knew there were rumors but nico hard launching his relationship after the game was not something i expected to happen today of all days
She clicks on the clip of Nico in his postgame interview and watches it.
Amanda Stein asks off camera, "Did you have any friends or family present for the game today to witness your first NHL hat trick?"
Nico doesn't hesitate to reply, "My girlfriend came to her first Devils home game today." He smiles and bites his bottom lip. "Yeah, she, uh, this game was really special for me because she's here and she got to witness my first hat trick in person." He blushes and doesn't stop smiling in the clip.
"Oh my God," (Y/N) gasps as the clip restarts.
They never talked about going public with their relationship. They've been dating for about seven months. Nico is one of hockey's most popular players, and (Y/N) has seen how loved he is among the fans. She's basically a no one from Newark dating the captain of a hockey team in the NHL.
The players begin to make their way into the lounge area. They make their way to their wife or girlfriend or really whoever they invited to the game. Her eyes are on the door as she waits for Nico to come in.
Jack and Luke walk into the room with Nico five minutes after the rest of the team does. They're deep in conversation but she can't help but run over to her boyfriend and basically jump into his arms.
Both Hughes boys both laugh as Nico catches her and she wraps herself around him completely. He wraps his arms around her torso so she doesn't fall.
"Congratulations, baby," she says against his hair. It's still damp so he recently showered. "I'm so proud of you."
"Guess you're my good luck charm," he laughs in reply. (Y/N) pulls back so she can see his face and he looks genuinely happy. "I play a lot better when you're in attendance."
She shakes her head and smiles. "I think that's bullshit," she tells him. "There's a reason you're one of the league's best players since you came back from your injury. It's not because of me."
"I think you should come to more games anyway," Nico says. "Clearly I like when you come to games."
(Y/N) laughs and rests her hands where Nico's shoulders meet his neck. "I'll come to games whenever you want," she replies. "You like to show off when I come."
He smiles and nods. "I gotta show off for my girlfriend," he retorts. "Especially when she looks so good in my jersey."
"Flatterer," she laughs before she leans down and captures his lips in a soft kiss. Nico laughs into the next kiss before she pulls back and looks at him. "By the way, did you know you told the entire league and it's fans that you have a girlfriend during your postgame interview?"
"You saw?"
"It's all over social media, Nico. People are saying you hard launched our relationship."
She lets her legs drop and Nico lowers her to the ground. "There were rumors anyway," he replies. "It was bound to come out. Did it bother you? It just kind of came out when I was asked and I wasn't really thinking about the fact that we never talked about it."
"I just would've liked a little heads up," she tells him with a smile on her face. "Are you ready to go?"
He nods and begins to make the rounds to say goodbye to the Devils. She never lets go of his hand as he says goodbye to his teammates. It's his job as captain to tell the team how good they did so he doesn't forget about that. He congratulates Jack and Dawson on their goals before they finally head to the parking lot.
Nico drove them to the Prudential Center in his car so she sits in the passenger seat of the car so Nico can drive them to whoever's place is closest. Which is Nico's apartment.
As they leave the parking lot, Nico stops and says hi to some fans. Pictures are taken where (Y/N) is definitely in the background but at this point, she doesn't care. Nico already told the entire world that he had a girlfriend that was at the game.
He signs some jerseys and pucks, takes some pictures, and gets more than a few congratulations on his hat trick before Nico finally pulls out of the parking lot. He looks over at (Y/N), who gives him a small smile as they stop at a red light.
"You played really well tonight," she tells him. "I'm not just saying that because you had a four-point night but you played really well. I'm so proud of you for getting your first hat trick tonight. I can't believe that I was able to watch it happen in person."
Nico laughs and says, "I told you that you're my good luck charm. The first game you come to after we start dating and I score my first NHL hat trick. It's not a coincidence."
She shakes her head with a smile on her face and looks out the window until they get to Nico's. She plays with her thumbs under the sleeves of her too big jersey that Nico gave to her a few weeks ago.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the arena, Nico pulls into his apartment building parking lot and parks in his usual spot. Her car is parked next to his. They get out and begin the trip up to the top floor of the building where Nico lives.
The building is ten stories tall so it takes a minute for the elevator to get up to the tenth floor from the first floor. Their fingers are laced together the entire time.
(Y/N) follows close behind as Nico unlocks the front door to his penthouse apartment. She wraps her arms around his torso as he unlocks the door and presses her front to his back. "You can't wait until we get inside?" Nico asks as the stupid door finally unlocks.
"Nope," she replies, popping the "p". "I wanna show you how proud of you I am."
He laughs before he pushes the door open. (Y/N) stumbles inside after her boyfriend. She closes the door behind her and Nico presses her against it with his hands on her waist. She stares up at him like she’s challenging him to do something.
Nico looks her up and down. “I wasn’t lying earlier when I said you looked good in my jersey,” he tells her. His voice is deeper and accent thicker than it normally is. “I love seeing my name and number on your back. Knowing you’re mine. It’s so hot. You're so beautiful.”
“Do something about it.” Her voice almost comes out as a whisper. She is absolutely challenging him at this point.
He leans down and captures her lips in a searing kiss. Her heart leaps in her chest when their lips touch. Her back hits the door with the force of the kiss and her fingers grasp at the collar of the jacket Nico is wearing. (Y/N) pulls him as close to her as she can get him.
He presses himself completely against her and slots a thigh between her legs. She has to resist the urge to grind up against his thigh to give herself some relief from the pressure that's building between her legs.
"Off," she mumbles as she pushes Nico's jacket off his shoulders. He helps her out and shrugs the fabric off. He kicks it to the side when it hits the floor and grabs her by the waist.
She pushes her waist off the door and they stumble toward the master bedroom where Nico sleeps. Their shoes are kicked off by the door and Nico's jacket is abandoned on the floor. He loses his tie in the living room and his button-up is lost in the hallway.
When Nico falls onto his back on the mattress, all he's wearing is his suit pants. Even they're unbuttoned and the belt is on the floor. (Y/N) looks down at her boyfriend on the bed and gnaws on her bottom lip.
Sometimes she doesn't know how she got so lucky. She fell in love with the most beautiful and loyal guy. He's captain of a NHL team but still manages to find time to see her whenever he can. He's a talented hockey player that fell in love with her.
She can't believe this is her life. Being able to fall in love with Nico has been the best thing that's ever happened to her. Being able to be loved by Nico is an honor.
"You okay?" Nico asks as he sits up. His hands run up and down the back of her thighs. "You look deep in thought."
"Just thinking," she tells him as she crawls onto his lap. She straddles his waist. "I don't know how I got so lucky to love and be loved by you. You could've fallen in love with anyone but you fell in love with me."
Nico smiles up at her and wraps his arms around her waist. "I fell in love with you because you are the most incredible and beautiful woman I have ever known," he replies. "You're so supportive of me despite my crazy schedule. I don't know how I got so lucky."
Her face gets hot as she smiles. "I'm proud of you, Nico," she says. "I am so happy that I get to see you grow as a person and a player." She leans down and presses a quick kiss to his lips. "Gonna show you how proud of you I am."
She slides down to her knees on the floor at the foot of the bed. Her fingers work on unzipping his pants. She pulls Nico's pants and boxers off in one pull. His hard dick pops out of its prison and stands against Nico's stomach. (Y/N) throws them to the floor and kisses up the inside of his leg from his knee.
After placing a soft kiss to his hip bone, she takes him in her hand and gives him a few slow pumps. Nico grabs a pillow and uses it to prop his head up so he can see her without straining his neck. She smiles up at him before she takes him in her mouth.
"Oh, fuck me," Nico breathes out as (Y/N) moves her head up and down on him. "That mouth of yours feels so good, liebling."
(Y/N) loves it when Nico uses German nicknames on her, especially when they're in bed. They sound ten times hotter when her mouth is on him or when he's inside of her. There have been times when (Y/N) has been in control and Nico has been reduced to speaking his native language.
She'll never get enough of it.
One of her hands makes up for what can't fit in her mouth while the under snakes into the leggings she's wearing under the jersey. Her own fingers run through her folds and work her toward her orgasm. She lets out an occasional hum, which drives Nico crazy. She knows it drives Nico crazy by the way he squirms under her touch every time she does it.
Then she does the one thing she knows gets Nico to come almost as soon as she does it. She hollows out her cheeks and sucks before she swirls her tongue around the fire red tip.
"(Y/N), baby," Nico pants. "Gonna come in about two seconds if you keep doing that."
With a pop, she pulls off his leaking dick. She uses her tongue to get a bead of precum that was on the corner of her mouth. "We wouldn't want that to happen so soon now would we?" she asks as she stands up.
Nico's eyes widen as she begins to undress. The leggings come off first. She reaches down to pull the jersey over her head and Nico sits up quickly. "Uh uh," he says. "Jersey stays on."
"If you come on it, you better get me a new one," she tells him as he slides back on the bed. "I'm not walking into games wearing a jersey you came on." He laughs as he reaches into his bedside drawer and pulls out a foil package.
She finishes getting undressed but leaves the jersey on. Nico slides the rubber contents of the packages onto himself as (Y/N) straddles his thighs. He sits back against the pillow and headboard. She leans down and captures Nico's swollen lips in a tender kiss. He matches her pace and slowly kisses her back. He puts a hand on the back of her neck. His fingers curl into her hair.
All of her emotions are poured into this kiss. Her hands are on his jaw so he can't go anywhere. Not that he could go anywhere since she is sitting on his lap.
(Y/N) begins to move her hips slowly. She hums as Nico's dick slides through her folds and against her clit. A soft moan falls from her lips into the kisses she exchanges with Nico.
One of her hands leaves Nico's jaw and she positions him at her entrance. She presses a long kiss to his lips and leaves them connected as she slowly sinks down onto him. A whimper comes from her as the familiar pressure fills her. Nico takes the opportunity to lick into her mouth before he pulls back to look at her.
"You feel so good, schatzi," Nico tells her. "So good for me. You take me so well, you know that?" She replies with a soft hum as he completely fills her.
She allows herself a moment to adjust before she begins to roll her hips. Nico's hands fly to her thighs before sliding under the jersey to her waist. "Fuck, Nico," she breathes out as he moves in and out of her while she rolls her hips. Her hands are on his torso to keep her balance.
Slowly, she begins to pick up her pace. Moans fall from her lips the faster she moves.
One of the best things about being with Nico is how intimate these moments are. It feels amazing to be physically connected to him like they are one person. She wouldn't trade this for the world.
They fit together like two puzzle pieces. His hands fit perfectly on her waist. Their lips mold together every time they touch. The way his nose fits perfectly above hers when their foreheads touch is her favorite thing. She molds against his body every time they lay in bed together.
It's like they were made for each other.
"(Y/N), liebling," Nico breathes out. His eyes are on her as she rides him. "Ich liebe dich so sehr."
This is what she means. It's like he's forgotten how to speak English when they're in bed together. She loves it.
"I love you too," she pants because she's slowly been learning simple phrases and knows what Nico said. He tells her he loves her all the time in German. "I love you so much. I'm so proud of you. Fuck. You're amazing."
One of Nico's hands slide to the back of her neck and he pulls her down so their foreheads rest against each other. Her nose brushes his every time she moves. Her eyes close and Nico's thumbs brush her cheeks. "Open your eyes, baby," Nico tells her. "I want to see them. Please."
Her eyes open back up and meet Nico's big brown eyes. He smiles and she leans down to kiss him. She breathes hard into the kisses that are exchanged between them.
Nico takes advantage of the distraction and rolls them over so he's hovering over her. She smiles up at him until he begins to thrust hard and deep inside of her. A pornographic moan passes her lips and she arches her back to get closer to Nico.
He reaches between them and his fingers find her sensitive clit. She gasps when he touches the bud then whines when he begins to rub her closer to her pending orgasm. "Holy fuck, Nico," she cries out. "Keep going. Fuck."
Nico throws her legs over his shoulder so he can get a new angle and move even deeper into her. She has to bite her lip to keep from screaming his name as he begins to slam into her g-spot over and over again.
"Let me hear you, liebling," Nico says. "Don't hold back."
His pace quickens and she has to grab on to something. She chooses his hair when her hands slide up into his locks and her fingers curl. "I'm gonna come, Nico," she warns him. "Fuck, I'm close."
He keeps the same pace and uses his fingers to bring her over the edge. She comes so hard she sees stars. Her vision goes almost white and Nico's name passes her lips along with a string of curses. Her legs shake as they hang on his shoulders and she cries out as she has one of the most intense climaxes of her life.
Only Nico could ever get her to come like that. No one has ever made her come like that. No one besides Nico will ever get her to come like that.
There's a weight on her chest as she comes to and she realizes that Nico is lying on her chest. They're both panting messes as Nico gets off of her after resting for who knows how long. He ties off the used condom and tosses it into the trash can by the bed.
(Y/N) pulls off the jersey and takes off the bra she's wearing because she's sweating before she crawls under the blankets to cover her naked and spent body. Nico joins her and she rests her chin on his chest. Her eyes are on his the whole time. She traces little shapes on his belly.
"I think I got a little carried away," Nico admits. "I blame the jersey."
She laughs and shakes her head. "Good to know you have a thing for me wearing your jersey," she replies. "I'll have to remember that when you're having a bad day or you have a rough game."
Nico smiles and brushes a piece of hair out of her eyes. "I really do love you a lot," he tells her. "Thank you for coming to the game tonight. It meant a lot to me that you were there to watch me score my first hat trick."
"Thank you for inviting me," she says. "I had a lot of fun watching you score your first hat trick. It was incredible."
He leans down and presses a soft kiss to her lips.
Their night is nowhere close to being over. Nico has a day off so she is going to make sure she takes care of him and gives him whatever he wants for the rest of the night. All because of that hat trick.
༺═──────────────═༻
MASTERLIST
have a request ? check out the guidelines !
1K notes · View notes
officialdaydreamer00 · 5 months
Note
Dear Star Child, if this letter could see it's way to Idia Shroud, I would be most grateful. If you could get the gummy sharks to Idia I would be very happy, but the rest of the sweets are for you ^w^
Tumblr media
Dear Idia Shroud,
Wow, it has been a while since I've written a letter that's not for school. Nvm, I have never written a letter outside of school; guess I'm finally putting that knowledge to use… Oh where to to begin, I'm rlly bad at doing the whole social thing yet if you would let me I'd be yapping on for eternity but luckily this is a letter and I have to condense it.
Well, Happy New Year! How the sale going? From what I can see into your world it looks amazing especially Ortho's gear. I'm always so impressed that someone was able to make a robotic body that ranged in movement-- here it feels like we just barely started to touch on robotics here, yet you are designing outfits for Ortho like it's nothing. Honest question, did you bless me with luck for the gacha or something did you know I fell like right when the clock hit midnight or someth, but srsly getting three SSRs without even indenting on getting them is something? I had to get a blessing from you or something. My irl would say that is a blessing from you… they have said "At this point I'm scared your obsession with Idia will transport you into the game" well I do wi Imagine if that happened? I don't even know what I would do? I think I would miss my friends but idk if they would miss me.
ANYWAYS, thats sad, moving on. I could have actually missed all of this I could have been boring and sad and still stuck on my utdr phase. Though it wouldn't be too bad Undertale and Deltarune still have th- WAIT YOU ARE A PURE SOUL-- FREE FROM UNDERTALE SPOILERS. Well I know whats happening if I ever get isekai'd. Gosh I would love to actually sit beside you and watch you play games. It's almost fascinating watching someone who is good at games play… Ehe.. I rlly don't know how to end this? Thx for existing please continue to do that.
P.S. Rlly srry for an typos, I wrote this at like 3 am cause I woke up n couldn't go back to sleep.
~ Your moonlight
(HELP ITS 4:30)
oh I LOVE THE BLUE THEME!! had a bit of oopsie delivering this letter but it's all good!! ( ^-^)/ *
Hey Moonlight.
Ugh nvm that sounds cringe please ignore that-- You know I'm not good with this thing either, so I'm gonna ramble if you don't mind. (I hope you don't or it'd be so embarrasing hhhhhhh)
I guess because of our worlds' differences that you'd find Ortho's gears impressive. I mean, I still do, and he's my brother now, he's gotta have the best tech to accomodate his needs. Your world sounds lowkey slow if they haven't even scratched the basics of robotics yet. Still I gotta hand it to them for making a kinda gateway connecting our worlds together.
YOU GOT? THREE?? SSR CARDS OF ME??? IS THAT WHY I KEPT FAILING GACHA EVENTS?? BC MY LUCK WENT TO YOU???? /j but congrats ig. Hope my cards been helping you through the game(?) By the Sevens, that is so weird knowing that I'm just a game character in your world.
But anywho, ignoring that blatant spoiler of fandoms I've never heard of before, for some reasons, I don't exactly mind having someone like you playing games with me beside Ortho. Maybe it'd be easier to breathe than going out and socialise with normies ugh.
Help how do I end a letter Happy New Year, may you be blessed with luck through the gacha system ig.
Idia Shroud
Tumblr media
tags: @identity-theft-101 @twistwonderlanddevotee @ameleii @vioisgoinginsane @cave-of-jade
remember to reblog if you enjoy my works!! ^-^
343 notes · View notes
runningfrom2am · 9 months
Text
in this life or the next
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
summary: It's the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games, and you were just unlucky enough to get picked; but lucky enough for this Quarter Quell to feature pre-selected teams. You get paired up with District One's pride and joy, the one and only Rafe Cameron.
pairing: rafe x fem!reader
wc: 15k (oh my LORD)
tags/warnings: its the hunger games so like... yeah... violence and gore and stuff. definitely swearing, spoilers for the og Hunger Games movie I guess (but also not bc i changed it up a bit- you'll see), reader has a special talent that i won't spoil here, Rafe is lowkey a dick at the beginning, Ward being a shitty dad (what's new). also this isn't thoroughly edited bc.. its 15k words and i'm lazy.
masterlists // nav // requests
join my taglist here
a/n: hello lovelies!! oh my gosh i have been slowly chipping away at this for actual literal months, and i am so proud of how it turned out!! i’m really glad i could finally post it by my birthday!! (i’m 23 wtf??)
thank you so much if you're going to put in the time to read this, but it honestly means a lot to me that you've made it this far. reblogs and likes would be so appreciated and let me know your thoughts in the replies! i really, really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. let me know if you want a part two of what happens post games, bc i think i left it at a minor baby sized cliffhanger. anyway, i’m off to eat cake now! enjoy!
Tumblr media
Staring blankly out at the crowd in front of you, you attempt to process the echoing of your heartbeat in your ears.
"I'd like us to give a round of applause for our brave, brave tributes this year, and wish them the best of luck in this year's quarter quell!" Your attention is drawn to the woman next to you, the District Five escort, Opal, dressed head to toe in bright yellow. A universally happy color- what a joke.
The crowd is mostly silent and you can't bear the thought of even glancing in the direction of your parents. You turn silently as you're ushered back into the building from the stage, tripping slightly over your feet as the shock sets in. People are talking, possibly to you, but you can hardly hear a thing. You almost made it. You were almost eighteen- one more year and you would have been free.
You were granted the briefest of goodbyes to your family, but you were tempted to even turn that down. An action you regret not taking as your parents walk into the room, your mother with tears already coating her cheeks and your father trying to keep a strong resolve for you and your siblings.
"We'll see you soon, Bug. Remember we love you," He whispers into your hair as you sob into his shoulder. You know he doesn't necessarily mean in this lifetime.
Your tunnel vision settles back in as you're walked out of the room, glancing one last time over your shoulder only to see your dad's shoulders shaking from his silent cries as he turns his back to you.
You are quickly pushed onto the train taking you out of District Five, ignoring the other three tributes and your mentors as they talk. You just stare out the window with tired, red eyes and say a silent goodbye to the home you're already sure you'll never see again.
"Y/N..?" The girl next to you says, tapping you on the shoulder and making you jump.
"Hm?" You hum your acknowledgment, looking at the girl beside you. She's only a year older than you, and you went to school together for years; Maisie, you remember.
"I just wanted to make sure you hear them," Maisie whispers, gesturing to Opal as she starts to explain what the premise of the games is this year.
"So," she claps her hands together, clad in tacky yellow gloves. "I'm sure you have noticed that this year there are four of you, and you'll each be paired up with another tribute to compete. Not necessarily from your own District, but, anything is possible, I suppose. The exciting news is that there's a possibility for two winners this year! You and your teammate will be given a score throughout the games, and if your score as the final two is above ten, you will both be crowned victors!" The woman says excitedly- like it's a good thing.
"And if we don't have over ten?" The boy sitting across from you asks flatly.
"Well... the games shall continue," Opal explains vaguely, but you know what that means. You've seen it before.
"Okay, well, how do we get a good score?" The boy asks.
"I-" The escort starts, hesitance clear in her tone as she's quickly interrupted.
"You kill people," Your female mentor answers. She's leaning her elbows on the end of the table, standing with a knife in her hand, spinning it around like it's some kind of toy.
Your eyes drop from her form, staring down at the table in front of you, suddenly remembering your glass of water and quickly grabbing it when you realize your mouth has gone completely dry just from the idea of what's to come.
You arrive at the Capitol in the middle of the night and despite this fact, the crowds are still there. You didn't expect this, even though you've seen it on the beat-up television in your living room every year. It feels less real, somehow, when you're the one getting pushed through the crowd, not knowing what to do besides give awkward smiles to people yelling your name.
Your room is beautiful. You've never seen anything like this, but you can fully customize it at will with a remote, and this level of technology fascinates you. You spend hours flicking through different images that can appear on the walls, surrounding you in another world. Exhaustion and the sound of an artificial thunderstorm put you to sleep with the remote still resting in your palm.
"Up, up, up, my dear! We've got a big day ahead!" Opal's cheery voice startles you awake from your less-than-cozy spot on the floor. "There's breakfast on the table then we've got to get you down to prep, so hurry up, please." She says, and just like that she's gone, no doubt off to wake the other District Five tributes in a similar fashion.
"You're going to be meeting your teammates for the first time today so you can train together- gosh isn't that just so exciting!" Opal claps as you all stand in the elevator. There's a silence that follows as you and Maisie just nod, not excited about the whole idea. You're about to meet someone who will either be spending the last days of your life with you, or be killing you themselves, and you're not fond of either.
"This way you'll get to train together first, which I do believe to be a very generous act on behalf of the game makers." She adds, making you roll your eyes. How considerate. The most you can hope for is someone who is capable, and preferably someone who isn't in the twelve to fifteen age range, having seen that there were several drawn from different districts.
You shift on your feet as you try to adjust to the uncomfortably tight catsuit they squeezed you into, covered in what must be sapphire and diamond rhinestones, pinching your skin with every slight movement. Gold accents line the seams of the suit, extending out into something that resembles wings and lightning bolts protruding from your back. District Five; power. You get it, but we're the diamonds necessary? You hardly take note of the varying outfits you're surrounded with from the other kids in your district, before Opal is guiding the four of you up the line of extravagant carriages you're meant to parade out on for the people of the Capitol to fawn over.
You take note of where all of the other tributes from Five are lead, guessing based on the order of carriages that Maisie got paired up with another girl from Eleven, and the boys somehow ended up paired together. There must be some sort of personal aspect to this decision, considering you have watched those two boys fight back home. You're last, and Opal looks at you excitedly as you follow her up, and up, and up- to the very front of the line.
"Surprise!" She grins, clapping excitedly as you approach the very first carriage. "Y/N, getting paired with a career is huge. Your odds are good already, your partner has trained his whole life- he even volunteered."
"Sucks for him." You mutter under your breath as you get closer, eyeing up the boy in front of you, wearing an almost matching outfit. All the rhinestones make sense now, blending power with luxury could only mean as much.
"Y/N Y/L/N, meet Rafe Cameron. He'll be your teammate in the games." She smiles as she introduces you.
"Hi." You say quietly, taking his hand as he holds it out to you to help you up onto the carriage.
"Hey." He mutters, avoiding your gaze. It's off to a rough start for him for sure, seeing he's being paired up with someone from an outlying district must be daunting, when for you it should be exciting. Rafe did volunteer, yes, but he doesn't want to risk any kind of attachment- despite what the people of the Capitol want for their entertainment. He wants to come out alive, he doesn't care so much about who he's with.
"Okay, Y/N, remember to smile, please." Opal reminds you and you nod, looking down at her as you hold onto the handle in front of you.
You promise her with a nod, willing to do almost anything at this point to win the favour of possible sponsors. Again, your odds look better next to a career on that front, as well.
Quickly everyone is cleared away from the horses and the carriages and you start moving, catching you off guard and you stumble a little, readjusting your grip on the railing. "Careful." Rafe says beside you, quick to reach out to steady you if you needed it. You think you see the smallest of smiles on his face, but that must have just been your own mind trying to find comfort in anything around you.
"I got it." You whisper, blushing slightly. You've been with your teammate for all of a minute, and you're already proving yourself to be clumsy.
The lights hit your eyes the same time all the cheering does, being the first carriage, it's already so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. You snap out of it quickly, plastering on a smile once you see your own face on a giant screen ahead of you, you don't even look like yourself anymore. Your eyes land on the screen adjacent to the one showing you, seeing Rafe as well. He's smiling too, clearly having headed Opal's advice, or his many years of training is getting to him and he's excited. You really don't know. Then his head turns, and you turn your head as well, making dead eye contact with him for only a moment before he's looking past you into the crowds, taking in the moment.
When you finally get out of the extremely public eye and back into the building you exited from, you feel like you can finally breathe again. Not fully, in the tight, rigid suit they had you dressed up in, but more than you realized you were with all that yelling in your ears and lights in your face.
"District Five, right?" Rafe asks you as you're both stepping down and you nod. "Jeez, you don't talk much, do you?" He follows up with, taking a water bottle from someone who's walking by with them.
"I talk." You reply quietly. "Just... not much to talk about at the moment."
"The shock? Yeah, that'll do it." He nods, taking a sip from the water bottle and holding it out to you. You shake your head and push it away, making him shrug. "Shitty bust when you're not a volunteer."
You just stare at him, taken off guard by the comment. "That being said..." He leans in closer to make sure no one else hears. "I've been waiting my whole life for this, so don't ruin it for me, yeah?"
You pull back away from him and just nod again, not wanting to get on his bad side already. He won't be the one to kill you, probably, but it would still be nice if you spent your final days without your teammate hating your guts. "Thanks, darling." He smirks, patting your shoulder and brushing past you to go to the elevators.
The next day, bright and early yet again, you have your first day of training. You're sure Rafe won't even need it, but you certainly will. Your mentor told you he will likely be using it to size up the other tributes, especially considering there is a staggering amount of them this year, and you will need to focus on survival skills. Only survival skills, if you had to pick one thing- and your mentor drove that into your head until it was all that was echoing in your mind when you entered the training center.
After the trainers speech which ironically tried to do the same thing, you beeline straight for the fire making station. You're shocked to see almost no one else listened, definitely none of the boys, mostly lining up to show off their physical strengths, likely to try and intimidate each other. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't working.
You look up as you hear echoing laughter coming from the other side of the room, eyes scanning over the wall lined with silhouette targets, and racks with an array of weapons before landing on your teammate, laughing away with the other career tributes over a joke you didn't hear. He's got a spear in one hand, leaning his weight on it as his head drops back with laughter. You shake your head to get back on task, rolling the rough wood in your palms in hopes of making a spark. Good to see at least one of you is having fun, especially in your final days.
After a few minutes you get it, sitting back into your calves where you were kneeling on the ground, taking a breath of relief as you're satisfied with your success. You glance around to see how others are doing, giving a small smile and wave to Maisie when you see her, reading a book about different edible plants and trying desperately to memorize every image. You watch as Rafe takes the same spear he was leaning on before, hurling towards one of the targets. A direct hit, right in the chest, slightly right of the centre. You jump a little at the sound it makes on impact, looking finally at the boy who threw it.
He's pacing, huffing and looking a little frustrated with himself. A little to the left would have been perfect, but it was a kill shot nonetheless. There would be no coming back from that, and you count yourself lucky that it likely won't be you in place of the target in the games.
You quickly put out your fire and try again, making sure you've got the hang of it. You'll sit here all day if you must. After three more successful attempts, you're satisfied for the day, deciding you'll return to that station tomorrow and try again. You get up and brush the dirt off your knees, trekking over to where they have supplies to make game traps. You've never done this before, but there's no better time to learn, especially since your teammate has shown no interest in survival skills so far today.
"What are you doing?" Suddenly Rafe is standing behind you, as you're once again kneeling on the ground attempting to get the trigger on your bladeless trap to work.
You jump a little, startled by someone talking to you. "Uh, trying to make a snare, I think." You answer, turning to look up at him.
"Looks good." He nods, crouching down next to you. "Uh, isn't there supposed to be a blade or a spearhead or something on that piece?" He says, pointing to it.
"Well, yeah, I just didn't want to stab myself by accident." You laugh slightly, trying the trigger again- and this time it works, snapping forward into his arm.
"Ouch, yeah, fair enough." Rafe chuckles, rubbing the spot on his arm where the wood made contact.
You just nod and begin to reset it to test it again. "What if you can't get any of this shit in the arena?" He asks.
"What, a stick?" You ask, hitting the trigger one more time, sending the stick into his arm again, which he had decided not to move.
"Ow! Yes, a stick. We don't know what it will look like." He rubs his arm, examining the trap you built closer now.
"Then we're screwed I guess." You joke, leaning back on your calves again, watching him dissect it piece by piece to figure out how it works.
"So, is this like, your thing?" Rafe asks, and you tilt your head at him as you think it over.
"My thing?" You ask, unsure entirely what he meant. "I've never made one before, if that's what you're asking."
"Really?" He seems shocked by this.
"Uh, yeah, really. Unfortunately for you, you got paired up with someone who has zero survival or combat skills."
Rafe looks at you, a smug grin crossing his features. "Ha ha, very funny." He clearly thinks you're joking, but you're definitely not.
"I'm serious." You say, confused as to why he doesn't believe you.
His smile falters, replaced with wrinkles of confusion on his forehead. "But- I just watched you look at the instruction book for no more than like, three seconds before sitting down to make this."
"And..?"
"If you've never done it before it's supposed to be harder than that."
"Well, I've seen other people do it on TV and stuff every year for like, ever." You shrug. "I've just got a good memory, I guess."
Rafe nods, looking at the deconstructed trap in front of him for a moment, thinking about the implications of this. How far does this go? Could he use it? He'd never dreamt of having to work in a team in his games, but maybe it would benefit him after all. "Come with me." He stands up, and you follow as he paces over to two big screens, covered with a large array of different symbols.
"Try this, I just want to see something." Rafe says, standing next to you with his arms crossed as you quickly look over the screen, reaching down toward the one in front of you. You notice quickly that the screens mirror each other, all the images placed in the same spots as they are above. You look up at your teammate briefly who nods at you and then you tap one, watching it disappear from both screens before you tap the matching symbol. It's a matching game.
Your eyes are locked on the top screen as you tap away at the bottom one, quickly making all the images disappear one by one. It takes you no more than a minute to get rid of them all, and then a timer appears on the screen replaying your every move in real-time. Forty-two seconds. Were you really going that fast?
"Neat." Rafe says to himself, nodding as he watches it replay on the screen. That was impressive, sure, but his mind is straining to find a practical implication for this in the arena. "Go back to survival stuff. Learn as much as you can." He settles on, turning and walking off back to where he was before, returning to combat training.
The four days of training fly by insanely fast, and that's likely due to your dread of what's to come. you've got through everything in survival no less than three times, and you're pretty sure last night you dreamt of plants and making a fire. Not surprisingly, Rafe has left you pretty much alone the whole time, but you did watch from a distance as he cycled through every weapon the training center had to offer, proving he's almost mastered every last one. Of course, with over ten years of training, anything less wouldn't make sense. What scares you is the other careers showing a similar skill level to that of your teammate, but he seems to be on good terms with them. Again, maybe this would be a good thing in the beginning of the games.
You sit down for your last day of making fires and fishing hooks, working solely on memory since day one, you're feeling pretty confident that the elements or exposure won't be what takes you out- but you don't know if that's a good thing or not. You just hope your death will be quick.
"Y/N, c'mere." Rafe is suddenly calling to you, motioning for you to join him in the combat area. Not seeing much of a choice, and not looking forward to another day of doing the same thing over and over, you listen.
You make your way over, avoiding the gaze of other tributes who are looking at you like you're about to make a fool of yourself. It's possible you are. "I want you to learn how to use this." He says as you walk up, holding out the handle of a knife to you.
You take it, turning the sharp blade over in your hand. "I thought you were the weapons master." You joke, looking up at him briefly.
"Well, I need you to make fires and shit so you have to stay alive somehow, and if we get separated or something I need to know you can at least defend yourself. These are good from a distance and up close, but remember that any weapon you have they can take and use against you. So keep distance whenever you can." He answers, pointing over to the target about fifteen feet away. "So, throw it."
You look over to where he was pointing, adjusting your grip on the handle as you nod, taking in the information he's dumping on you. He is probably right, especially since you don't think he plans on protecting you himself. Why would he? If you die, he can still win without you.
You lift your arm over your shoulder, closing one eye to narrow down your aim before throwing it hard towards the target, which the knife bounces off of and clatters to the ground. You and Rafe both turn at the same time to look at the group that's laughing at you, the clang of the metal on the cement echoing loudly in the vast space.
"Don't worry about them. They're not there." Rafe is quick to grab another one, handing it to you the same way. "Try again, this time, hold it like this..." He says, grabbing your hand and placing your fingers in the correct spots on the handle. "Keep your wrist tense and straight, don't flick it or anything. Yeah, like that." He nods, taking a step back.
You look over how you're holding it, committing the feeling and finger placement to memory before raising your arm again. You throw it again, and this time it sticks, but your aim is off and it ends up in the target's leg. You look over at Rafe, unsure if you're hoping for approval or just satisfaction. "That's perfect." He nods. "Not a death blow, but that'll buy you time to get away. which is all you need."
"Okay." You agree quietly.
"Would it help if you watched me?" He offered, already grabbing a new knife while you nod. "So, you want to follow through with the throw, your shoulders should end about here if you're doing it right. You get more power that way, and better aim." He explains, standing with one foot forward, parallel to the target.
You step back to watch his strategy, noting the way he held the blade and his form when he aimed to throw it. He lets it fly from his fingers as his shoulders fall forward, smirking to himself as it hits the bullseye circle, right in the chest.
"You got it?" He asks, standing up straight again. You nod in response and he's handing you yet another knife to try again.
You go back and forth for hours, not caring that you're keeping anyone else from practicing. You're not the best at it, but it's become muscle memory now, and every time it sticks, most of the time hitting the silhouette somewhere. You tried the moving targets briefly, the gold, pixelated figures running at you quickly. You were immediately overwhelmed, and Rafe ended up having to step in to help. He said after that the minimal skill you had would be good enough to get away, and that is all you would need. You just have to focus on that.
You didn't talk a lot, besides taking a few short breaks to gather the knives and his arrows as Rafe explained the pros and cons of every weapon they had present, showing you briefly how to use some of them. Mostly how to defend yourself against them. It's hard for him to sum up years of training in one day, but he's dead set on the idea that you won't need most of it- just having to focus on keeping the two of you sheltered and fed, he can handle the rest; hopefully.
You sit outside the training center next to Rafe, waiting for your name to be called. It was the youngest female tribute from his district first, so if you had to guess, you would be third and fourth to go, which doesn't buy you a lot of time to decide what to do to best show your skills.
"What are you gonna do?" You ask, whispering in the deathly quiet room.
"Huh?" Rafe hums, leaning closer to hear you better.
You clear your throat, before speaking this time, unsure if you were clear enough. "What are you gonna do? Like which skill?" You clarify.
"Oh, uh..." He mutters, adjusting how he's sitting as he thinks about what to say. "I'm just going to cycle through some different weapons, different distance targets, I think. My mentors want me to show like, a variety of what I can do."
You nod at this, making a mental note of that. Maybe you should do the matching game and then try the knives. Opal told you that you would be scored both individually, and as a team. You hope you won't bring down his score too much, since you know he's aiming high. You planned on going for a mid-level score, not to be seen as a threat but also not as an easy kill. A perfect six would be your ideal score. "What about you?" Rafe interrupts your thought process.
"I'm not sure." You answer honestly.
"You should do your survival stuff. That will improve our team score, if we show them we have strengths at both." Rafe suggests. That's not actually a bad idea. Your individual score will likely be lower, but that's a risk you're willing to take.
"Yeah, I'll do that."
You ended up scoring a six, the judges obviously not seeing you as any kind of threat. This is what you expected, though, and you were correct about your group score as well. Rafe and you together scored a ten. On his own, he scored a ten, so you hadn't affected it in the way you feared. This left you reeling over the idea of other tributes seeing you both as a threat as you stand in yet another extravagant dress, waiting in line to be called out for your interview. The games were tomorrow, and the last thing you wanted was to get in front of a crowd and subtly plead with them to let you live, to send you gifts, and to give you their sympathy.
So far it's been in the same order they called everyone for assessments yesterday, which means you would be next. Rafe stands behind you, arms crossed in a suit that looks more expensive than any you've seen back home in all of your life, but he looks comfortable in it. Your dress is once again covered in rhinestones, and your waist is cinched in so tight you can hardly breathe as it is, so you're not looking forward to going on stage.
"Our next tribute, welcome to the stage from District Five, Miss Y/N Y/L/N!" You hear the familiar voice of Caesar Flickerman calling you out and some guards usher you forward onto the stage, very briefly glancing over your shoulder at Rafe.
You're quick to smile as you turn back around, giving a small wave to the host and then out to the audience as they cheer for you. For a brief moment, you feel as if they don't plan on watching you die as early as tomorrow, you feel as if they're rooting for you. "Hi!" You say as you get closer and Caesar stands up to greet you, shaking your hand and giving you a quick hug before gesturing for you to sit down across from him.
You look around the large theatre, spotting every camera you can. Your family is out there watching, somewhere, and you know they'll see right through this show you have to put on. You wish they wouldn't. You can picture so vividly your living room back home, with your parents and siblings scattered across the couch and the floor watching you with bated breath, they can see you- and on some level, you can see them too.
"Miss Y/L/N. Thank you for being here." Caesar sighs, reaching out and patting your hand where it sits on the armrest next to you.
"Well, I didn't have any other plans for the night, so..." You shrug, making him laugh. Laughter echoes from the audience and you smile, hoping that your plan to win people over is working.
"What? A beautiful girl like you?" He asks after he's done laughing. "You weren't planning on spending some of your free time with your teammate?" As if you got even a minute of free time since you've been here.
"Well, I guess we'll never know." You chuckle, looking back at the boy where he stands in the wing, giving you a small smile.
"Now listen, Y/N, Rafe is..." He has to stop after mentioning his name as cheers erupt again, laughing as he waits for the audience to quiet down. "Your teammate is, as you may have guessed, a popular face in the Capitol right now. Are you feeling lucky about your pairing?"
Rafe crossed his arms as he watches intently, feeling smug about his odds, especially now knowing the Capitol's opinion of him. He knows his dad is back home watching, full of pride that his son has become a fan favourite.
"I am." You answer honestly. "He's very talented."
"And handsome, don't you think?"
"I mean, who am I to argue with the people?" You joke, waving your hand dismissively as you hear the cheers pick up again. "Besides, his looks won't save us. We will save ourselves." You add seriously.
Caesar nods in acknowledgment, showing that to an extent, he agrees with you. "Well, I hope that you are right, dear." He smiles, getting up to signal you've run out of time. You stand as well, taking his hand as he holds it up above your heads. "It was so lovely to meet you, and may the odds stay ever in your favor. Y/N Y/L/N, everyone!"
You smile and thank him quietly, waving to everyone with both hands as you walk across the stage to exit on the other side. You take a few deep breaths as you step into yet another waiting room, watching the screen as Rafe is called out right behind you.
Rafe sits down on the chair across from Caesar after his introduction, which allows a few moments for the audience to quiet down. He smiles proudly as he rests one of his feet on his other knee, bouncing his leg with anxiety. He hopes it's interpreted as excitement. "Rafe." Caesar smiles at him, sitting back down as well. "I'll be honest, I have been so excited to finally meet you."
"It's good to meet you too." Rafe grins, chuckling slightly at the few whistles he gets scattered from the crowd.
"You got a fabulous score, how are you feeling about that?"
"Really good, yeah. Obviously I've been waiting my whole life for this opportunity, so it feels amazing to see it all paying off." Rafe answers, focussing on keeping the confidence in his tone.
"We can tell, can't we?" Caesar laughs, riling up the audience again, making Rafe laugh to himself as he softly shakes his head. "Yeah, yeah. So, with all this planning you've been doing, how do you feel about getting paired up? You probably expected to be going in solo."
"I did, for sure, but I don't think this is a bad thing." Rafe admits.
"Oh, getting along well with your teammate?" Caesar asks, a hint of suggestion in his tone.
"Yeah, we get on really well." Rafe exaggerates your relationship a bit, knowing it will earn you more sponsors, and maybe keep other tributes away from you in the games. "At least I think we do, I'm not fully sure about her thoughts on me, though."
"You scored incredibly well together, despite Y/N having a fairly average score on her own. What are your thoughts and feelings on that?"
Rafe chuckles as he leans forward a bit, pointing out to the audience as he speaks. "Don't underestimate her based on the score. I won't give you any spoilers, but trust me, don't overlook her. She's got as good a shot as any of us. Maybe better."
Caesar makes a surprised expression as he nods. "Well okay! Does she have some sort of secret weapon we should be worried about?" He chuckles, gripping the armrests and looking around as the audience laughs.
Rafe just shrugs in response, smirking slightly, which you can tell the audience just eats up. You're trying to decide if this is good or bad for you, though, as you watch, gnawing at your nails in anticipation as you stare at the screen.
"Okay, alright, don't spoil anything then." Caesar laughs. "It'll make for a better show, and I can get behind that."
After a moment of waiting for the cheers to die down, Caesar speaks up again. "Rafe, if I can ask, I know your father has a lot of influence in your district- how is he feeling about your selection for the games?"
You furrow your brow a little bit as you look at the screen, finally learning something interesting about your teammate. If he's from a prominent family in District One of all places, that would certainly explain his attitude. Rafe, on the other hand, doesn't want to talk about his father at all- but of course they would bring him up.
"Yeah, of course." Rafe replies, shifting in his seat. "He's thrilled, it's a huge honour to be here, and to be the first out of his children to be chosen is really special to me. I just hope I can make him and my sisters proud, he's always encouraged us to volunteer."
"I'm sure that you will." Caesar smiles at him. "I hope I will have the honour of hosting one of your sisters on this stage one day, as well."
Your stomach churns just watching this. How can any father who loves his children want this fate for them? This was your father's worst nightmare. You watch as Rafe nods with a smile, and you can see behind his eyes that he doesn't want that, not at all.
The audience cheers as they both stand up, shaking hands before Rafe leaves the stage, a cocky smirk on his face as he waves and winks at the audience. Before Rafe makes it down to the waiting room, you're grabbed an escorted out, heading for the elevator back to your room.
You can't eat, but you know you should. This will likely be your last meal for a while. You decide on just taking a large bowl of fruit and toast to your room, trying to get it down slowly with all the nerves, while you have a bath. Your parents never let you eat in the bath. It's hard to get out knowing this is likely the last bath you'll ever have.
The morning goes by in a blur, you feel Opal's arms around you as she hugs you goodbye and wishes you luck. You know you'll need all of it. You stare down at the ground in front of you as you're pushed onto a plane, of sorts, along with all the other tributes. Once you're sat down, you look around at everyone else. You remember all of their names as you scan over their faces, but you wish you didn't. You get stuck on one of the girls from District Eleven, Hope, who was only thirteen.
She's shaking, and you can see that from where you're sat down the row from her. She reminds you of Rue, the tribute from last year. Her death was a tragedy, it broke the hearts of everyone outside of the Capitol and the career districts. Hope's curly hair sat in a bun on top of her head, and tears fell down her cheeks as she sniffled. She got paired up with a girl from Twelve- the lengths the Capitol will go to to make a mockery of last years games will never cease to amaze you.
"Hey, you look a little pale." Rafe whispers, leaning close to you. You didn't even notice him sit down on the other side of you.
You shake your head slightly, looking down at your knees. "I'm fine."
"Don't think about it." Rafe instructs you, holding his arm out for the tracker to be injected as a guard approaches with the device.
You wince as you hear it get shot into his arm and he chuckles, shaking his arm off to ease the sting. You raise your shaking arm as they hold their hand out expectantly to you. You don't know what it is they're putting in you, but you've never been fond of needles. This is a million times worse. "It's not that bad," Rafe tells you, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you feel pressure on your forearm, followed by a sharp, stabbing pain. You bite your tongue to keep from making a sound, dropping your arm onto your lap as they quickly walk away.
"What did they do?" You ask him, trying to keep a steady tone.
"It's a tracker, so they know where we are in the arena." He explains quietly. You were the only two talking, and you notice it's earning you glares from several other tributes. Rafe notices this as well, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms, taking this time to size everyone up.
The plane takes off, and before you know it, you're landing at the arena on the outskirts of Capitol property. You wonder if you're close to the ocean, not that you'll get to see it anyways.
You're paraded off of the plane, still trying not to let it show how afraid you are of what's to come. You make the briefest of eye contact with Maisie as she's pulled towards a different hallway, and neither of you have it in you to smile anymore.
"We've gotta get supplies, that's our first move." Rafe says to you as you're led out of earshot of other tributes, into your own hall.
"My mentor said to run." You reply quietly.
Rafe scoffs, shaking his head. "Your what, one mentor said that? Cool. I have fifteen that are still alive and well enough to show up every year. I think we should get supplies." He tells you firmly, but you know that will get you instantly killed, maybe not him, but you stand no shot. "Just stick with me if you want to live."
You just nod a little bit, glancing at him again briefly before you're directed into a separate room across the hall from him. His pedestal will be next to yours, which is a bit of a relief. Your stylist quickly instructs you to strip, and then she helps you into the uniform you assume you'll all be wearing. It's exactly the same as last year, you notice this quickly, but with a '75' logo embroidered on the chest where the District Twelve tribute had her pin placed. Katniss, you remember her name was. She had volunteered for her sister, and at the time you contemplated heavily on whether or not you would do the same. She was so, so close to winning- to getting to see her sister again, but she and the boy from her district, the final two tributes, ended up committing together rather than giving the Capitol their Victor. It was an admirable stance, but you couldn't imagine what that was like for her family, and his.
You step off the concrete floor once you're dressed, instructed to get into the pod that will lift you up into the arena; a glass elevator. Your stylist says nothing to you as they walk out of the room, the glass door sliding shut in front of you. Your knees get weak as you realize you are totally, completely alone, and likely no more than twenty minutes from dying. You think of your family, your siblings, your dad- and the last words he said to you. You'll see him soon.
Your thoughts are halted when the elevator starts to move, lifting you up as the ceiling falls away and you can see sunlight coming through. You squint and shield your eyes as you try to look up to get a better grasp on your surroundings before you can even see anything. Once trees come into view you're frantically looking around, trying to process as much information as you can, and quickly. It's exactly the same as last year, but from what you can tell, flipped in reverse, and made larger to accommodate twice as many tributes. Or everything on camera last year was flipped. There's a silver cornucopia in the middle with the timer that's immediately counting down and supplies inside and scattered around the field in front of you. Rafe is to your right, and a boy from Seven on your left. He scored a six, the same as you, so he's not the biggest threat to you immediately.
You adjust your stance, getting ready to run once the timer hits zero. In what direction, you don't know yet. Rafe wants you to run to the supplies, but statistically, the most deaths will happen in the next five minutes and you don't want any part of that. The supply bags and weapons spread out on the grass are all the same too, by the looks of it. The closest bag to you got picked up by the girl from Seven last year, and it didn't have much of anything helpful. If you're remembering right, it had a rope and some matches, and that was it. It definitely would be useful, but you know you can do better. There should be a bag four pedestals to your right, with a water bottle, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, a first aid kit, and a knife. Right now, that's the one you have to get to. That's your best bet.
Ten, nine, eight... The timer ticks down to the final seconds as you look over at Rafe, who's already looking at you. You point to the bag as your eyes land on it on the other side of him across the field, and he looks at you confused. He's closer, he has a better shot, but you know he won't take it.
Rafe is confused, following your finger and spotting the bag. Why would you want that one specifically? There are others closer, he doesn't feel like now is a time to be picky.
Four, three, two...
Your ears ring with shock as the clock reaches zero, and you're watching most of the other tributes booking it for the center. No one has seen your bag yet as you jump down, beelining across the field and narrowly brushing past Rafe in your move for the small backpack. He stops to let you pass, almost crashing into you head-on. He doesn't have time to worry about you, so he continues on his path to the middle, but he's lost time. Precious time that he doesn't have to lose right at the beginning of the games.
He gets into the bloodbath that the cornucopia has already turned into, looking back over his shoulder quickly as he grabs at any weapon he can get his hands on. He quickly has to sacrifice the blade he just grabbed when he hears footsteps quickly approaching from behind him, turning quickly and plunging it into the boy's chest. He doesn't think to look at who it was.
Cannon's echo around you, and you're counting how many internally as you get to the bag, reaching down to grab it as you run past, trying not to slow down. You look back over your shoulder, hoping to spot your teammate somewhere, but you can't see him. You're scanning the area, blocking out the blood you see flying and scattered along the silver metal of the cornucopia. You can hardly hear any screams over the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You can't help but watch as the girl from Three jumps on who is supposed to be her partner, a girl from Twelve, snapping her neck in a second. Within moments, she just drops to the ground next to her- another cannon following. That makes a strong incentive for working in teams. At least Rafe won't betray you early on.
You freeze up for a moment, stopping to scan your surroundings. You still can't find Rafe, taking in the number of bodies scattered around the cornucopia and a few tributes running into the tree line. At least some people were smart. Something flies past your head, making you jump back a step as you look up ahead of you. Within an instant, you're being tackled back by the body of the boy from your district.
"Y/N, fancy seeing you here." He chuckles darkly while you try and fight him off.
"Don't!" You squeak out, him pressing his forearm down against your throat on the ground.
"I've wanted to do this since the second they called your name." He growls, shoving you down again.
"We can help each other, Jack..." You say weakly, clawing at his arm.
"You don't need me. You've got your career boyfriend- and whatever your secret weapon is." He scoffs. "You don't have a secret weapon, Y/N. He's bluffing and he won't convince us."
You gather all your strength and knee him in the crotch, scrambling to get away as he fumbles for just a moment. "God- you are a bitch!" He shouts, grabbing for your ankle just has you pick up the knife he had thrown at you. You grip it the way Rafe had shown you, quickly shoving it into Jack's leg. You just needed to get away.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" You exclaim, backing away quickly. Jack doesn't say another word, cutting his losses and getting up to make an escape for the woods. You hope he ends up okay.
You make your break for it as well, running back towards the woods as you once again scan your surroundings for your partner.
Suddenly you're on the ground, having run straight into the side of one of the pedestals and falling over it. You yelp with the sudden impact of the ground, scrambling to get up and continue when suddenly someone is grabbing your jacket, slamming you into the pedestal again. You scream, trying to shove them off, but they're much stronger than you. "Jael! Wait, wait- Jael!" You make out your own voice yelling the boy's name, which makes him falter. He's the oldest tribute from Eight- he seems shocked you even know his name.
In the moment when he loosened his grip, he jerks forward and then falls over you, a cannon booming making you gasp as you panic to get away. Rafe is quickly running towards you, slinging the bow he just used over his shoulder and yanking the arrow out of the boy's back. "Y/N, let's go!" He shouts, motioning for you to follow him as you continue toward the tree line, both of you keeping an eye on what's happening behind you as you disappear into the woods.
"Let's stay close, but not too close," Rafe suggests as soon as you feel safe enough to slow down, your chest heaving with the exertion of energy and boost of adrenaline. He glances at you briefly, then does a double take. "You okay? Are you hurt?"
You shake your head, coughing to ease the stinging in your throat. "I'm fine. You?"
"Good," Rafe answers, slowing his pace to match yours.
"We, uh, I think we should go the other way." You say, looking around to try and mentally place where abouts you are.
Rafe stops and furrows his brow at you, seemingly frustrated by your resistance. "Why does it matter?"
"The arena, it's the same as last year. Exactly the same. Just, scaled up a bit." You explain. "We should head south, that's where the river is. We'll need water soon."
Rafe laughs slightly, his demeanor changing as he places his hands on his hips and looks at you. "No shit," He says, truly surprised and impressed that you could tell. A lot of the games tend to look like this, and he would never notice a repeat arena down to the rivers if it punched him in the face. Your 'secret weapon' is already paying off. "And you could tell that right away?"
"Yeah, I mean, I guess so. The bags were all the same, everything was laid out the same. I bet there's a river down south." You nod, having a sudden realization. "We should get to that cave- the one the tributes from Twelve holed up in last year. That'll be a good, stable shelter. We can pretty much wait it out." You say, starting to walk in what you believe is the right direction.
"No," Rafe replies, making you stop in your tracks. "Unless you want me to have to kill you in the end."
"Oh, right." You forgot about that part, keeping score. "We're still going to need somewhere to sleep, though."
"Yeah, we'll find it anyways." Rafe nods, carrying on in the direction you started heading. You follow a few steps behind, keeping a bit of distance in the somewhat awkward silence that fell over you two after his comment about having to kill you.
You walk in the thick of the woods for about an hour before you feel like you're reaching the river. You can feel it under your feet, the soil is slightly softer, and the trees a little more green.
Cannons interrupt your thoughts a few times in the hike, totaling up to twenty-three by the time you reach the riverbank. "You were right." Rafe chuckles, mentally disparaging any skepticism he faced during the long, quiet walk.
"Thank god." You giggle, dropping your bag and crouching down to dig through it, hoping for a water bottle. You were right, everything you expected was accounted for.
"Why that bag?" Rafe says, already sitting down on the rocky water's edge to rest for a moment.
"Huh?" You question, unsure you heard over the shuffling of the bag while you zip it up.
"You pointed to it, during the countdown. Why did you want that one?"
"Oh, uh, like I said they all looked the same as last year, and I hoped I remembered what was inside." You say, laying down to reach into the water and fill up the bottle.
"Were you right?"
You nod with a small smile, sitting back up and holding the bottle out to him as you cross your legs.
"That's actually insane." Rafe shakes his head in disbelief as he takes it, downing just about everything in it before handing it back.
You take it and refill it again for yourself. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
Rafe wouldn't admit it, but at this moment as he's watching you drink, he's grateful that he got paired up with you. But now, that it's been shown on national television that you know the arena in and out, he wonders what obstacles the gamemakers will desperately throw your way.
"We should keep moving. I feel like a sitting duck out here in the open, I don't like it." Rafe mutters, checking his attitude as he stands up. You're quick to fill up the bottle again, following behind him yet again as the arrows in his quiver rattle together against his back walking over the rocky and unstable terrain, knife gripped tightly in his hand.
You wonder to yourself how he's feeling about leaving behind his predestined alliance of the career pack, but with the factor of most of them being paired up with other districts, it was already too unpredictable. You wouldn't have stuck around either.
The sun started to set as you followed the river upstream. You didn't want to settle without some kind of shelter, and you were committed to finding that cave before you could relax. You could tell that Rafe had the same idea, his steps ahead of you gradually picking up speed with the bow still gripped firmly in his palm.
"It's a beautiful sunset." You speak your mind before thinking, desperately wanting to fill the silence.
Rafe just hums in response, looking up only briefly before training his gaze once again on the ragged rocks at his feet and continuing on. "What's it like in District One?" You ask.
"Fine." He replies coldly. You aren't sure what you expected, but this response was pretty on par. You knew you had almost no chance of survival, so it would at least be nice to get to know the person you spend your final days with, even if he would be the one to kill you in the end.
"I've never been, but I've heard it's... nice." You've only ever heard about it from the perspective of other bitter individuals from Five, jealous of the cushy lifestyle everyone knew they must have lived.
"Yeah." Rafe agrees, clearly not wanting to discuss it.
"What are your sister's names?" You ask, deciding to push a little bit. It's not like he can kill you just yet.
Rafe sighs, but answers anyways. "Wheezie and Sarah."
You're shocked that he answered at all, but you could tell in his interview that he has a soft spot for them. "Cute." You nod, smiling to yourself. "Is Wheezie a nickname?"
"Yep, it's short for Louise."
"That's adorable." You grin, shaking your head.
"Hey, look. There." Rafe says, changing the subject and pointing down the rocks, where there's a small opening under a ledge.
"That's it!" You exclaim, deciding to drop the topic of his sisters in favour for finding your shelter for the night. You rush past him, watching your step as you climb down into the small cave.
Rafe quickly draws his bow, slowing down and peaking into the cave and bracing himself for your screams. How could you be so careless in a game like this? He doesn't understand your lightheartedness, your somewhat positive attitude, and your ability to make small talk despite the circumstances. "Hey, careful!"
"It's perfect!" You call back out as you look around, and Rafe steps down carefully, looking around more carefully than you had. He relaxes once he's satisfied that there's nothing down there waiting to kill you.
"Nice, okay." Rafe nods to himself, and you both get to work making a small fire near the entrance, hidden from view.
You take off your jacket and roll it up, using it as a makeshift pillow as you lay next to the fire, staring at the orange flicker of the flames you made.
Rafe is sitting across from you, knees tucked up to his chest as he does just the same. His mind is absolutely reeling- he needs to find something to eat, and soon. That will be the first thing you'll do in the morning, he'll have to employ your help to find something edible. "How are you with making traps?" He asks.
"I can do it." You reply, sitting up and leaning on your elbow so you can see him. "I'll set some up in the morning."
Rafe nods a little bit. He already knew you could, of course, but he's wondering about the logistics of how they work. "So like... hypothetically, would they work the same if you made them bigger?"
"Like... human-sized?" You ask, catching on to what he's suggesting. It's not ethical- but nothing about this game is. For you, this would definitely be preferable to fighting other kids to death over and over again.
Rafe nods, adjusting how he was sitting and crossing his legs.
"Yeah. I can't see why not." You answer. "It would be harder since I've never done it, but I think it could work."
"Then I say we try it."
The next day, you wake up as the sun rises and the light beats down on you from the entrance of the cave. You didn't sleep comfortably, that's for sure, waking up twice throughout the night to the sound of the cannon. That's twenty-seven. You wonder how many teams have already reached their ten-kill quota, you imagine someone in the career pack already has. Both times when you were startled awake, Rafe was standing at the cave entrance, bow drawn as he squinted into the darkness, hoping that whoever was out hunting other tributes wasn't nearby.
You sit up slowly, stretching out your tired limbs as you look over to see Rafe, fast asleep with a blade in his hand. You should let him sleep, and get to work on finding something to eat, and making some traps.
You grab one of the knives Rafe somehow collected from the bag laying next to him as quietly as possible, sneaking outside and taking in your surroundings. The sound of the river flowing and the smell of morning dew was amazing- you wish you could truly enjoy it in different circumstances.
You quickly get to work tracking down something to eat, landing on a few different plants you know to be edible. You're trekking through the woods near your cave when you come across an apple tree- making you pause as you look it over. It looks out of place- and maybe no one got close enough to it in the games last time that you wouldn't have seen it, but that seems unlikely. It must be new; it makes for the perfect place to try and set up a trap for the next hungry tribute who would be unfortunate enough to wander too close to your hideout.
You're digging a hole in the ground with your hands, avoiding the roots of the tree and sticking in some sticks you sharpened when you hear a twig snap behind you. You freeze, hoping that by some miracle, it's just an animal. You slowly turn your head to try and look, picking up the knife from the ground next to you and holding it tight.
"Just me." Rafe's voice relaxes you, and you stand up, brushing off your knees.
"You scared me." You admit as he takes to looking down into the hole you just dug.
"That looks... awful." He chuckles, patting your shoulder. "It won't kill, but it'll slow someone down enough that I can finish the job."
You nod slightly, staring into the dirt as well. You hated the idea that you were crafting something intentionally to bring harm to another person, but realistically you have no choice. "We'll set up more, along the riverbed and closer to the career pack. We can't monitor them all at once, though- can you make more fatal ones next time?" Rafe asks, pointing back towards the river to accentuate his point.
"That depends, how many arrows can you spare?"
The next few days saw the death toll rise to thirty-six. You kept track every night, scratching their numbers and names into the walls of the cave despite being able to remember anyway. You viewed it as a small memorial, Rafe saw it as a timer ticking down to when he'd have to kill you.
Your first trap had worked on one person, their screams of pain from a cut-up leg summoning your teammate back to the apple tree. He insisted you stay behind as he finished what you started. You had to reset several other traps as well, closer to the cornucopia.
Rafe would never admit it, but he was really starting to like you. He didn't want to hurt you- he was worried the traps wouldn't do enough. The passive approach you so preferred wasn't what he expected, and he knew his dad would be disappointed in him. But Ward would never understand.
He sighed as he poked at the fire with a stick, leaning his head back against the rocky wall of the cave, another cold night ahead of you.
You had your head laid on his lap, his thigh replacing the thin material of your coat that you had been using the last few days.
"How old are your sisters?" You ask out of nowhere, prompting him to look down at you. He had thought you fell asleep a while ago.
"Why does it matter?" Rafe replies, and you just shrug a little bit.
"Gives us something to talk about."
"Fifteen and Eleven." He relents.
"Hey, me too." You smile a little to yourself.
"You have sisters?" Rafe asks. He never asked much about you- he didn't really want to know, in the case he had to kill you.
"Yep. And a brother." You nod, sitting up a little bit. "He's older though, he aged out last year."
Rafe finds himself clenching his jaw. He can't hear that- to see you as a little sister. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like to see his sisters face the same fate. "Lucky guy." He says quietly.
"Why? I thought it was a privilege, and all that." You chuckle.
"Well, yeah, but not for most. For the outlying districts like you."
"At least you get it." You agree. "How does it feel? Now that you're here, I mean."
"Scary." Rafe admits, throwing caution to the wind now with what his father will think. "Not what everyone tells you it'll be like."
"Is that because of me?" You ask after a few moments, and he nods slightly.
"Not in a bad way, though. It's just different. I expected to be on my own, to die alone, or kill my allies if I had to. Now... I don't know that I have to. Or if I even could." He can practically hear his father shouting at their large screen at home, or storming out claiming he was an embarrassment. He was told his whole life to never show weakness, to 'be a man', but now, at the end, that doesn't matter to him.
"I won't take it personally." You giggle softly, voice shaking as you try to make light of it. "My family won't either, I don't think. Maybe my dad, at first, but eventually he'll understand. They'll forgive you." You try and ease his mind, knowing that in the case that Rafe does win without you, he'll have to face your family in the next month or so during the victory tour.
"I wouldn't ever expect him to." Rafe tells you, tossing his stick into the flames now. He feels sick hearing you talk about it like it's inevitable- but if he has anything to do with it, you'll be coming home with him.
"They're good people." You assure him.
"Don't say that." Rafe chuckles, shaking his head. "I would never forgive myself."
"Okay, fine. They're awful. Just... the worst." You smile, looking up at him and resting your chin in your hand.
"That's better. Thank you." Rafe laughs, poking your forehead and gazing out onto the river as the flames illuminate the water.
In the morning, you're awoken to something brushing your leg. You groan and roll over, head landing once more on Rafe's extended arm underneath you. At least he was finally getting some sleep, pretty much unable to close his eyes since you set foot in the arena. You feel the brush again, followed by something moving on your arm, several things, suddenly, and your eyes fly open and look down when you remember where you are. You let out a scream, scrambling to sit up and pushing yourself back against the wall.
Rafe wakes up quickly, scrambling for the bow next to him when he realizes it won't be any help. You're surrounded by and quickly almost covered in a sickening combination of snakes and spiders.
You're still screaming, trying to shove the creatures off of you. "Come on- come on!" Rafe is yelling at you, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards the exit. You don't get the chance to grab your back and you regret that as you're jumping into the river in attempt to get the spiders off of your skin and out of your clothes.
You're breathing heavily as you come up for air, and Rafe is quickly there, brushing his hands over your hair to make sure every last spider is gone. He looks back at the entrance of the cave, chest heaving like yours as the bugs and snakes spill out of it. It sends a shiver down his spine- he was never a fan of snakes.
"I guess that's the gamemakers telling us enough was enough." He sighs, gently pulling you towards the shore again a safe distance away. "Are you bit?" He asks once you're a safe distance away.
"I don't think so..." You reply, hiking up the ankles of your pants to look at your calves and over your bare arms as you sit on the shore. "You?"
Rafe shakes his head, doing the same. "It was probably just a warning. We have to move." He quickly lowers his pant leg over the puncture wounds in his leg, hoping you didn't see. If it gets worse, he'll tell you. The bite itself didn't hurt much, so if it's going to be fatal, he's glad he won't have to hurt you.
Rafe helps you up, leading you up towards the tree line. "They probably want to push us in toward the other tributes, I think we should go with it before they throw something worse at us." You, the two of you now left with nothing but what you had on you, along with Rafe's bow and a few spare arrows.
He nods. "It's our best move anyways. How many tributes are left?"
"Twelve including us." You answer quickly. "There's Avril, a boy from six, Maisie, she's from my district, most of the careers I think are still in it but not their teammates," You begin to rattle off the list,
"I don't want to know names." Rafe cuts you off, and you understand why. He's been doing all the dirty work, and part of you knows it's because he's hoping to have time to learn names and feel guilty about it later. Right now, he can't afford to see them as human.
"Right." You agree. "It doesn't really matter, anyways."
"Do you know scores?" He asks, walking alongside you now.
You nod, beginning to list off all the remaining tributes and their scores, from lowest to highest. The lowest being you- and the highest being ten, shared by Rafe and a boy from district two.
After hearing two more cannons that day, and checking all the traps you had set, you're circling back to the river to be near fresh water before you set up camp again. You don't have your water bottle anymore, or anything to set up any kind of shelter with, you do your best. You set up a fire, Rafe insisting that if it draws other tributes to you so be it- he's ready for this to end just as much as you, but you don't want to rush into your death or an ambush. It's safe to say you won't be sleeping tonight.
You didn't sleep, but at least, curled up under a tree, the night sky was beautiful. The stars seemed realistic, and you wondered if somehow they were real. Between the two more cannons that struck overnight, you still wondered if you were somewhere near the ocean, or somewhere closer to home. While you're sitting next to each other in a peaceful silence, both admiring the vastness of the night sky, you hear a ringing sound coming from above.
Rafe quickly stands, reaching for the small silver pack with a parachute before it hits the ground. He's quick to open it as you stand up, looking into the container. You grab the small card, tilting it into the light of your fire to read it.
For our Y/N,
Keep fighting. Please come home to us.
Love You Always, Dad
Tears form in your eyes almost instantly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth. "It's just a water bottle and some kind of granola bars... or something." Rafe says, turning the water bottle over in his hand.
He looks up at you, frowning when he sees how upset you look. "Hey, what's wrong?"
"Nothing." You quickly shake your head, wiping your eyes. "Uhm, it's from my dad."
The fact that your family could spare enough money to send you something in the games at all was amazing to you. You heard horror stories of the astronomical prices of trying to send something from outside of the capitol, without the status and funds of a sponsor.
"Oh." Rafe replies, handing you the tin and bottle now, taking the card from you gently. He reads it over slowly, and over and over again. His family had seemingly endless amounts of money, and they had sent him nothing. He knew his father viewed it as cheating, and that you shouldn't need any kind of help to win. If he loved him, though, that wouldn't matter. He should be willing to do anything he could to keep his son alive. The way your parents did.
"My mom made these." You sniffle, grabbing a small bar from the container in her hand. "They're my favourite, she only makes them on birthdays or special occasions." You explain.
"That's... that's really nice." Rafe says, putting the card back in the tin. He doesn't know how to handle this, or what to say.
You smile sadly as you sit back down against the tree, placing the tin on your lap as Rafe joins you. "Here." You hold the bar out to him.
"They're for you." Rafe shakes his head, pushing it away.
"They're for us." You insist, holding it out to him again. "They wouldn't have sent two if I wasn't meant to share."
"Thank you." Rafe smiles genuinely, for the first time in weeks as he takes it. He's starving, having eaten only small amounts of meat and plants over the last week or so, so he's quick to take a bite. It's sweet, more so than he expected. He never thought he could enjoy sugar this much.
"No wonder they're reserved for celebrations, hey?" You giggle, having intently watched his reaction.
Rafe nods. "Yeah, it's really good. Super sweet." He says, mouth still full. You grin, satisfied as you take a bite of your own.
The night flew by so quickly, you're feeling as though it must have gotten shorter. The sunrise went by fast too. You're guessing the gamemakers and the viewers were getting antsy. To be honest, you were as well.
Renewed with your energy the sugary baking your parents had sent, you set about gathering food and water, while Rafe goes on to check a few of your traps to see if they needed to be reset. He could do it on his own, but he liked watching you do it, working the ropes between your fingers and tying intricate knots, pulling back on the stick used to trigger the arrow. By the afternoon, having taken a mental note of the amount of cannons that had fired. It was a few, at least. You must be getting down to the end. He prayed it wasn't you, but the cries of some kind of mutts in the distance right before the cannons lead him to believe that you were fine- but he should be getting back soon anyways.
You were wandering down to the water, reluctant to leave your camp, but you knew water was a priority. You were just filling up the new bottle when you heard a scream. It sounded like a boy. You quickly look back over your shoulder, noticing it was nearby. Toward the apple tree. You stand slowly, looking around as you attach the water bottle back to your side with a carabiner, reaching instead for the knife Rafe had left with you. God, you hoped it wasn't him. The absence of a cannon gives you hope, though.
You quietly head in that direction, watching your step so your presence isn't detected. When you get closer to the tree, you hear crying. Painful crying, as you're faced with the reality of the trap you set.
You watch from behind a tree as the boy from eight tries to pull his leg up from the ground, screaming out again as the sharp sticks dig into his flesh. You should go get Rafe- you feel guilty, but you can't kill him yourself. You turn quickly, and before you can get a step away you're face to face with one of the other careers- a sword held up against your neck.
"Don't move." Blake says, a smile that can only be described as evil spreading over his lips.
You try and scream out for help, hoping Rafe was still in earshot but a hand is quickly covering your mouth. "Not yet." He whispers, shaking his head. "We've got a plan, it'll be fun. You wouldn't want to ruin that, right?"
As Rafe gets back to your small camp, he expects to see you there waiting. He scans the trees above him, wondering if you had climbed up for some reason. He calls your name when he doesn't see you, brow furrowed. You definitely should be back by now. As he's heading down to the water to look for you, he hears a cannon, which at this point wouldn't bother him- if it wasn't for the scream that followed after. It was you. No doubt in his mind that it was you. With his bow drawn, he's moving quickly towards where he heard your voice, throwing caution to the wind.
You scream again, crying as the tip of the sword is dug into your shoulder, laying down next to the apple tree. You can't help it- but you don't want their trap to work. You don't want Rafe to come, so you bite your tongue until you taste blood, hoping to keep quiet. "It'll only get worse for you if you don't scream, Y/N/N." Blake scolds you, digging in the blade more. "He has to hear you." He adds through gritted teeth.
You hear a twig snap just outside the small clearing, and Blake is quickly turning to look with the sword still pinning you to the ground. "Rafe it's a trap!" You shout, hoping that it's him.
Rafe steps out then, into full view with his bow drawn as he aims at the boy in front of him. When they first met, he knew they would have been good friends if they met anywhere else. "You won't shoot me." Blake chuckles, and Rafe quickly readjusts his grip.
"I will." Rafe says sternly, pulling the string tighter as Blake moves the sword to hover over your chest. Over your heart.
"If you shoot, the last of my energy will go into killing her. I don't think you want that." He shakes his head, smiling smugly.
"I don't care." Rafe says, making your heart clench. You know that you're friends, at the very least. He does care. He's bluffing- you have to believe that.
"If you didn't care you would have shot me already." Blake calls it, and Rafe tenses up, looking down at you only briefly.
"Then what do you want?" Rafe spits.
"Oh, nothing. I just wanted you to watch." Blake shrugs. "Just makes it a little more fun, you know? But don't worry, you'll be next." You know he just wants to prove himself, somehow, not having scored as high as Rafe did. You wonder if his family was somehow similar- that he needed some kind of approval that he thought he might find through sadism.
Rafe looks down at you again, and you just nod, tears streaming down your temples to your ears. He quickly readjusts before letting the arrow fly, planting straight in the shoulder that held the sword as you quickly roll over, slicing across your chest and shoulder in the process. It was well worth it.
Rafe fires another arrow into his chest, not taking any risks and the cannon quickly follows as he rushes to your side.
"Are you okay?" He's asking, hands hovering above you as he's kneeled next to you, unsure what to do.
You nod, still biting into your tongue as blood continues to slide down your skin, dampening your now torn up clothes.
"It's not that bad." Rafe says, looking over the cuts as best he can, but you wince when he pulls the fabric away. "You're gonna be fine, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah..." You mumble, letting your head fall back against the brush below you. Rafe is quick to take his coat off, using it to push down on the deepest part of the wound on your shoulder, trying with his other hand to apply pressure to the rest of it. You try and focus on your breathing, rather than the pain, but it's hard when a significant amount of weight is being applied to your shoulder and chest.
"I'm sorry, I have to." Rafe tells you, jaw tense as he lifts his coat to check whether or not the bleeding has slowed. You didn't even realize you were crying.
After a few minutes, he's lessened the pressure a bit, still holding the fabric firmly over your skin. "You could have ran." You mumble, voice hardly above a whisper.
"I wasn't gonna leave you." Rafe shakes his head, gently peeling away his now blood soaked windbreaker.
"You at least shouldn't have saved me. Not much point in that, is there?" You smile softly, trying to sit up and Rafe is quick to help.
"There is. You have to win." He mutters.
"I'm not winning, Rafe." You smile sadly at him. "Infection will kill me if you won't, and if no one else does first."
"No, they'll fix you up. This cut will be gone in a week, the technology they have is-"
"Rafe." You grab his attention again and he looks up to meet your eyes. They seemed to suck in all the light of the sunset above the two of you, reflecting back at him in a way that makes his breath hitch. The thought is cut short, however, when you say something that breaks his heart. "Don't give me hope like that."
"Why? You're gonna go home. I mean it." He promises. "I'll make sure of it."
"I don't think we have enough." You remind him sadly, a small smile still evident on your lips as you reach up to cup his cheek in your palm. "I never expected to go home. I'm okay with that."
Your friend shakes his head softly. "That doesn't matter. You have your family to get home to, I read that note from your dad. They need you, I can see that. For me, these games are all I was raised for. I have nothing left for me after this." He admits, avoiding eye contact with you.  "I could never forgive myself if I didn't get you home."
Tears are forming in your eyes again as you look up at him. The world is watching, and in this moment of vulnerability you feel that more than ever- despite the quiet sounds around you being only the rushing water in the nearby river and the birds chirping around you. "You're a good person, Rafe." You smile at him, watching as he gently raises his hand to yours, grabbing it in his own. "I hope you know that."
In this moment, you settle on the idea that you would die for him. You never understood last years tributes, honestly, how they were willing to die for each other instead of getting home to their own loved ones, but now you do. Completely.
Without a second thought, you find yourself leaning closer, Rafe doing the same as he kneels next to you in the dark. Your eyes meet once more, lips only an inch from touching when you hear a howl in the distance, and you snap your head to the direction it came from. "The Mutts... Already?" You say, scrambling to get up and ignoring the pain in your shoulder.
"I- I heard them earlier, they sound far away." Rafe says, trying to calm you.
"You heard them? You didn't tell me?" You ask, frantically grabbing his bow from the ground and handing it to him as he goes to pull the discarded arrows out of Blake's body.
"I didn't think it mattered!" He defends, trying to hide the panic in his voice.
"There were four left last year when they sent them out. I think... yeah I think that's right. There's four of us. We have to run." You say in a panic, pulling on his hand. "Our best bet is making it back to the cornucopia."
"It'll be too open- can't we climb a tree or something?" Rafe says, following after you as you're running through the bush now in the direction of the open field.
"I don't know if that will work, but I know we'll be safe there." You explain like it's obvious. "We have to risk it- and if you can get to the others first, if they have the same idea, we'll be at ten."
You're out of breath already, adrenaline pushing you through as you hear scattered barking getting steadily closer after one more cannon. Part of you wants to stop, turn, and force Rafe to take the win if you couldn't have it, but with any hope left, you have to try and get back to where this started. The traps was an unfortunate choice in how you got your kills, because you couldn't keep track of how many since by the time you got around to checking them, the body's would have been airlifted off if it wasn't a misfire. If you had to guess, though, you were sitting at eight.
Rafe is running similar calculations in his head as he lets you lead him by memory straight to the field, mind short-circuiting as he sees the silver moonlight reflect off the cornucopia.
You sprint across the open field, blood pouring from your undressed wound again with the intense exertion of energy. Rafe doesn't pass you, though, despite you expecting that he would. You have tunnel vision as you make it to the metal structure, practically slamming into it before you can even stop. Rafe is quick to lift you and shove you up, both of you looking over your shoulders as you struggle to hold onto the edge, kicking the sides to hold yourself up.
You finally get up, reaching down to help pull Rafe up. He grabs onto your arm for leverage, mostly pulling himself up and you wince as you feel the tension from his weight in your cuts.
You flop down onto your back on the cold surface as he climbs over you, immediately standing up with bow drawn as he intently scans the surrounding area. He's only got the two arrows left, which makes him nervous if that's all he has to defend the both of you with.
You try to settle your breathing, which only lasts for a moment until the sky lights up with the recap. You miss your cave, where you could contribute to your memorial, especially seeing the face of Maisie flash above you on the sky while the anthem plays.
You close your eyes, just listening to the music now until you hear barking just outside of where Rafe can see, and you're quickly sitting up. He draws the bow tighter, aiming in the direction the howls came from just as someone pushes out into the clearing. Rafe is aimed straight at them, bow string pressed to his cheek. He's getting dizzy, and quickly. His aim can't fail him now, he doesn't have that option.
You watch them, in the dark you think it's the other boy from district one, and in your exhaustion you can't remember his name. You wouldn't dare say it, anyways. He's screaming for help, a call you know you can't answer, and you watch as they stumble on their feet, shoes and hands digging into the ground as they try to get up, just ten or so yards from you by now.
Rafe wants to shoot just then, it would be as simple as letting his finger loose and the arrow would fly towards its target. It would be a merciful end for the boy he's trained with for years now, only a couple years younger than him. The muscle in his jaw is aching from the tension he's put on it when he forces himself to let go. He has to do it, for himself, if he wants to go home.
He misses. The yelp of one of the mutts tells you it landed in a paw or back, and you look up at Rafe who's already drawn his second. "Rafe!" You cry out, pushing yourself up onto your feet and standing behind him now.
He hates to admit that your empathy has rubbed off on him. Watching you every night carving seemingly endless names and numbers into the rocks that lined the space you stepped in. He recalls waking up one morning and seeing your name and his carved in as well, closer to where he laid by the fire, his underlined and yours with a heart at the end. Like a signature on the top of a math test. He had wondered if you always wrote your name like that, and in this moment as he releases the bow again, he knows he has to find out for himself.
It happened so fast, the mutts knocking down the boy and the arrow flying from Rafe's shaky hands into where he should have been right as the cannon sounds. You don't know that it was Rafe's arrow that did him in.
"No..." You mumble, clamouring forward and onto your knees again to look over as the boys body is torn apart by the mutts. "You had to have done it. You had to." You say, trying to get a better view.
In a second, Rafe's arms are around you and he's pulling you back from the edge, sitting now behind you with his arms wrapped tightly over your body. "It's okay.. it's over." He mumbles, kissing the side of your head as the sunlight comes over the trees. He's fighting off the urge to vomit, everything spinning around him now.
You sit with him, gripping onto his arms and crying. Nothing is happening, so you must not have made it to ten. You feel sick- your heart is in your throat and suddenly you're really hot, moving away from him to look over the edge again, this time incase you have to throw up. You freeze, looking over to where the boy's body once was. The second arrow was in the ground. He missed again.
Rafe sees it at the same time as you. He sighs, hanging his legs over the edge. "Shit... Y/N, I'm sorry." He mumbles, gently reaching over to rub your back.
"No, no. It's okay." You insist, sitting up next to him. "I knew this would happen."
"I'll get you home." Rafe says, sliding down the side of the cornucopia before you can stop him. He stumbles the landing, swaying in his walk as he heads towards the arrow lodged into the dirt.
"Wait! Wait, wait, Rafe!" You're sliding down after him, running to his side and grabbing his arm before he can get to the arrow in the ground.
He turns to you quickly, hand on your cheek and he's pressing his lips to your forehead. "Sit with me?" He asks, knees already giving out as he falls to the ground.
You're instantly on the ground beside him, practically holding his head up with your free hand as you search him visually for some kind of injury.  "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"Uh, I guess so." Rafe mutters. "Snake bite. I think."
"You didn't tell me? I could have fixed this, I could have helped..." You ramble on, his eyes dropping shut now. "Hey, eyes open."
"It's okay. Just sit with me..." He says again, smiling weakly. "Wait with me... please?"
You nod, sniffling as you fight back the tears that want to fall. "Yeah, of course. I'll stay."
Before he closes his eyes, the music starts again and your eyes are drawn up to the sky after you notice Rafe is looking first.
Then, begins a similar slideshow of faces you recognize. Ten in total. Rafe's eyes flicker with slight recollection, remembering any kills he made himself and you gasp when you see Jack. Whatever damage you had done when he tackled you on the first day must have killed him. "Rafe.." You mumble, lowering your eyes to meet his. "I think we won."
Your point is accentuated by the voice of the head gamemaker over some unseen speakers. "Introducing the Victors of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games!"
"We did it." Rafe laughs weakly, squeezing your hand.
You fully ignore the aircraft hovering down in front of you on the grass, turning your head to look down at him. You don't say anything, neither of you do, and you finally feel your lips against his. The kiss is bad, it doesn't really work when both of you are stuck smiling ear to ear, but you don't care one bit. The only thing that matters is that you got this chance at all.
Rafe pulls away from you slowly, using all the strength he has left to lift himself onto his feet as you steady him. "He needs help!" You shout to them, and you're quickly being lead onto the plane.
"They've got really good technology," You mock what he said to you just the day before. "It'll be like it never happened in a week, okay?" You chuckle, feeling waves of happiness, worry, and relief all at once as you quickly wipe away a tear with your free hand, other arm wrapped tightly around Rafe's waist to hold him up.
He laughs, and you lean into him more, your forehead against his shoulder as the aircraft door slides shut behind you.
Tumblr media
taglist: @bookishbabyyy @madelynie, @whore-4-drewstarkey, @slut4drudy, @winterrrnight, @totalswag, @sadfury @fullfledgedemo @rafemotherfuckingcameron, @urfaveluvr, @chenslucy, @hxnnah-397, @s-we-e-t-t-ea, @tahliac11, @saccharinesammie, @ietss, @maybankslover @redhead1180, @suzyheartsrafe, @wpdailyminimeta, @aegons-bitch, @rafegirly, @lovelyxtommy @dee127
585 notes · View notes
rush-the-stars · 24 days
Text
AFFECTION'S EDGE: PART III
━─━────༺༻────━─━
|| alpha!suguru getou x omega!afab reader || E/18+ || wc: 6.8k || ao3 || <- part ii || masterlist ||
minors and ageless blogs do not interact, 18+ only
━─━────༺༻────━─━
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he murmurs, “but what am I to expect from a stray like you? You’ve lived off scraps and abuse your whole life; of course you don’t know what to do now that I’ve given you food and shelter.” Suguru’s fingers ease up towards your neck as he continues, “a warm bed to lie in. Toys to play with. A collar—so you’ll never be lost again. No one’s ever given you this before, hm?”
***
Suguru tries to tame you.
━─━────༺༻────━─━
✧ SPRING FEVER collab ✧
cw: omegaverse, brat taming, mind games, toxic behavior, yandere suguru getou, yandere reader, biting, blood, marking, one slap from the reader to suguru and he sorta likes it, fainting, fainting from lack of food, reader refuses to eat because she doesn't want getou to feed her, getou does not let reader eat unless he feeds them; forced feeding. forced bathing, smut; masturbation, dirty talk, voyeurism, a blurring of boundaries, consent as punishment?
a/n: happy mother's day to alpha suguru getou <3 this is the third and final part of this lil series for @lorelune 's spring fever collab! pls mind the warnings, i added some! i will be honest this part feels like a fever dream to myself lol...,.not beta read..,.i barely read it back bc im terrified of my own smut JFDKLSK enjoy LMAO but on a real note, thank you to everyone who has reached out and been so kind ab this fic! i hope you enjoy this last part! let me know your thoughts <33
━─━────༺༻────━─━
When Suguru first offers you food from his own hand, you push it away. He cooked it for you and you refuse it, turn your nose up at him and shut your mouth resolutely, feel your lips cage your teeth like a muzzle
“I’ll do it myself.” You tell him firmly. 
But then he holds the food away from you. 
You go nearly a day and a half, feverish and woozy, without eating. 
You do not plan on conceding, but end up fainting not long after. Your body is under too much stress; you need sustenance. You need food and water. 
So he begins to feed you as your lashes flutter and you are too weak to deny him this time. 
It’s easier, when you can hardly keep your eyes open. His hands are impossibly gentle. You feel his fingers against your lips, careful, and loving. 
When you’re feeling better, you glower at him. 
He is rather pleased, though. 
The next time he tries to feed you by hand, you turn and bite his hand, sink your teeth into the meat of it. 
He laughs warmly, fondly. 
“Feel better to get that out of your system?” He asks, when you finally pull away. 
You don’t respond to him.
He grabs your face swiftly then, big hand fitting around your jaw and bearing down. This time, he holds you steady, and brings the slice of orange to your mouth. 
You squirm, but he says, “I will not have you fainting again.” 
“Let me feed myself then.” You manage to get out, but he holds you tighter, presses at your jaw to get it to unhinge. 
The orange pops into your mouth. 
“You’re insufferable.” You say around it, cheek puffed with the fruit. 
Unfortunately, it’s good. Sweet. A little cool. Refreshing. You do want more. 
“This doesn’t have to be so difficult.” He responds evenly, peeling away the next piece of the orange. It looks so small in his hands. 
You swallow the piece in your mouth. 
“You’re right,” you respond stubbornly, “it doesn’t.” You reach for the next piece but he holds it away from you. 
Frustration overcomes you, chokes you like thorny vines strangling out the softer plants around them. Heat hits your face again and you have to wonder if you’ll ever get over it all. If he’ll ever stop making you feel this way.
Tears prick your eyes again. 
You turn your face away from him. He sighs. 
“It isn’t so bad,” he says softly, “if you’d just give in.” 
You sniff. “I could say the same of you.” 
“I’m trying to take care of you,” he says, “and at every turn, you are still trying to refuse it.” 
“I don’t need—”
“But don’t you want it?” He asks gently, hand reaching out slowly, knuckles first, so they skim your cheek. “It’s okay to want.” 
Stubbornly, you remain silent. 
“You’ve been so alone, for so long, my little stray. It’s okay to be taken care of.” He consoles softly, voice just a rumble that warms to your ears. 
“I’ll not think you any less strong, if you let me feed you now.” He promises, “if you let me care for you this week.” 
You don’t know why, but a tear slips down your cheek. There’s a lump in your throat, hard and aching, and threatening your resolve. 
He catches your tear with a thumb. “Poor thing, so torn up.” 
You sniff hard, trying to hold everything in. It’s trembling and tender, though, your heart. The ache in your chest.
You don’t think you’ll win this one—
Your head is foggy and throbbing. You don’t even know what you’re winning or losing. Or what you’re fighting for, when he puts it that way. 
You feel silly for denying him.
Perhaps worse for agreeing.
Finally, in a voice smaller than intended? you ask, “can I have another piece?” 
Suguru studies you for a moment. 
He lifts the curved bend of the orange up to your lips, testing. Waiting. It's a half moon curve, ripe and tempting.
You give in and part your lips, accept the crescent into your mouth like holding the moon on your tongue for him. 
He presses it inside, on your tongue, and you accept the crescent like holding a soft, tangerine moon in your mouth for him. His fingers skim your teeth, placing a world there, on your tongue.
“Good girl,” he says, pleased and warm, when you close around the slice. 
And then you obediently swallow it down—worldeater that you are, hungry dog that you are. 
Another tear slips free as you chew it slowly. It’s tangy and sweet and lovely. You feel the well of emotions inside you open up, threatening to drag you down into its depths—you think if you start to cry now, you won’t ever stop.
Suguru dutifully peels off another piece of orange, making sure it’s free of rind or unwanted seeds. 
When he lifts it to your mouth, you open readily for it now. Close your lips around his fingers gently, around the sweet orange.
With tears in your eyes, you look up at him, through wet lashes. 
His scent has darkened, pungent and spicier. It lingers in the back of your mouth. It’s—it makes your head spin.
And there's a strange look in his eyes now. 
Almost hungry himself, if you didn’t know better. 
A cramp rolls through you, hips and lower back churning, and you whimper, reaching for him. 
He takes hold of you easily. 
“Hurts?” He muses softly.
You nod, tense and quick. 
“Breathe,” he urges, shifting between your knees from where you’re sitting perched on his counter. 
Instinctively, you cling to him.
You let yourself pull him closer, fit himself to you—
“Breathe,” he says again gently.
But you can feel him between your legs, you can feel his own desire, and it strikes you like a bolt of lightning. Like crashing to earth.
He’s hard and heat sweeps through you in a whirlwind, so fast it makes you feel dizzy. Your head spins as you sink your nails deep into him, bear down with your strength like a bad dog, like you could get him to stay. 
Distantly, you think he’s such a strange, awful man. 
Is he so turned on from feeding you? Or from the fight? 
“Suguru,” you mewl, clinging to him desperately. And he holds you, keeps you close, until your hips twitch. 
You seek friction and he denies you. 
Frustratingly, tears spring to your eyes again. 
“You’re so—“ you try to get out, “why are you also denying yourself?” 
“Because I made you a promise.” Suguru responds evenly. He pauses, eyes flickering over you, a lightning flash of violet, “and, perhaps,” he squeezes your waist, “to teach you a lesson.” 
A noise of frustration works its way out of you, a little growl or whine, somewhere in the back of your throat. 
“Won’t you do anything to help me?” You get out, pawing at his shoulders, his chest. 
“I’m feeding you,” he says, “I’m caring for you.” 
And then he draws away, back to the orange, and your fingers grip the edge of the counter until pain presses into them. You have to force air into your lungs, try and make your head stop spinning. 
The wooziness and the aching is perhaps the worst part. You feel out of your mind, wish you could crawl out of your body. 
When Suguru returns, he has another piece of orange between his fingers. 
You glare up at him with glassy eyes. 
“Open,” he says, warm and low.
Pleased.
Turned on. 
Your lips part and you accept the fruit and his fingers into your mouth. You let yourself close around them, feel his knuckles on the inside of your warm, wet cheek. 
You’re slow about it, or maybe he is. 
You hold his gaze furiously. 
Maybe it was time you taught him a lesson, too. You bite down hard into the orange. It bursts in your mouth. 
***
The third day is perhaps the worst.
You’re so hot and somehow both overstimulated and undertouched. Your skin crawls until Suguru touches you. You ache in a way that makes you fear for your own health; several times you start to cry—not just cry, but bawl—from the pain. From the frustration.
At one point, you beg Suguru to take you to the hospital. To help you. To save you. 
You babble that you’re going to split apart. You’re going to lose your mind.
Like a colicky baby, you can’t calm down. 
And this time, he can’t quite seem to soothe you, either.
You twist and turn and pull at your clothes and your hair. You dig your nails into your own skin and drag them down in vicious, curving marks. 
You press and scratch at inflamed, painful scent glands. 
Your jaw hurts strangely in the joints. 
(You realize you want something in your mouth. Maybe you want it between your teeth.) 
Suguru tries to hold your hands away from yourself, tries to keep you from tearing into your own skin, but it only worsens you. It only makes you fight harder and cry harder. You lash out more, using more force with yourself, with him. 
When he snaps finally, pinning you roughly and with a flash of his sharper, greater canines, something inside of you howls. 
All you can do is beg and plead and cry. Press up against him desperately. Sink your face into his throat and inhale and—
Bite.
Your teeth close around the skin of his throat and bear down harshly.
He inhales sharply, spine going rigid with the pain for a moment.
You taste his blood on your tongue and feel your eyes roll blissfully to the back of your head. Darkness as your lashes flutter shut. You whimper into his throat—
“Is that what you needed?” He hisses, slipping his hand behind you to cradle your head to him, to keep you at his throat, “you just needed to get your teeth into me?” 
As if in response, you twine yourself around him, hitching your legs around his waist. Your arms winding around his broad shoulders, as if you could absorb him into your very body, your very soul. 
“Too bad it won’t take, hm?” Suguru muses, unmoving, allowing himself to melt into your vice grip on him. 
You make a soft noise; one that would be embarrassing if you didn’t—if you weren’t so—
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To Mark me properly?” He continues, voice bedroom soft, “you want to scar me with your own teeth?” 
As if in response, you try and fasten your mouth down harder, grinder your teeth into his flesh until he groans. The sound reverberates through you, rattles around inside your head until you’re mindless with it. 
When you finally manage to unlatch your teeth, he hisses and pulls away to grab your jaw. 
“What a little beast,” he sneers at you, “with my blood all over your mouth.” 
Something inside of you snaps. 
Unintentionally, you shudder into your cursed form—teeth elongating, nails sharpening. Strength rips through your otherwise feeble, heat-laddled body. In a sudden move of power, you shove him hard, and throw him off you. 
In an instant, you are back atop him. 
This time, when your teeth sink into the juncture of his other shoulder, they are far longer. 
He actually cries out in pain. 
The sound sparks beneath your skin, roars to life like a sudden fire and when he tries to grab your jaw and pry you off him, your claws sink into his wrist. 
You struggle with each other, using your cursed energy, using all the strength you have. 
Blood drips down his chest, dampening the collar of his shirt. 
He barks out a pained laugh, “you really are a curse.”
And then he is forcing you off of him, wrenching your teeth out of his skin in a brutal drag, shoving you away from him. 
You hiss, baring your dripping fangs at him and he growls back. The sound low and primal. Warning bells ping around your head, but you lunge for him again. 
This time, he isn’t so ill-prepared. 
He grapples with you on the bed, shoving you down into it with his forearm bearing down hard into your chest. 
You make a noise of pain but he doesn’t let up.
He’s panting and bleeding, his long hair slipping from its usual half-up appearance. 
Something inside of you is quite pleased at the image of him. 
Not so pristine. 
Perhaps unsure, for once in all the time you’ve known him. 
“Calm down.” He says low and soft. Part growl, part purr. “Your aggression is misguided.” 
Your teeth are bared in a snarl, “you are my tormentor.” 
“I am only respecting your wishes.” Suguru says and there is a horrible, smug lift to the corner of his lips. Maybe it’s more a threat of his teeth, which gleam in the lowlight. “I made you a promise and I’m keeping it.” 
“Let me up,” you snap. 
“Will you be good?” Suguru asks. 
Your fever spikes, tears pricking again at your eyes, and you finally lose your transformation. It melts from you, until you are fangless and drained once more. 
So drained, in fact, that your eyes gutter.
Suguru is off you in an instant. Air rushes into your lungs, the pressure from your chest lifting and he lets you heave for breath rough and hard. 
You don’t catch him move, but suddenly a glass of water is brought to your lips. When you can breathe, you drink. You let him guide it to your lips. And this time, when you try to pull away, he stops you. 
His hand cradles the back of your head, keeping your mouth to the glass.
“More,” he presses, “you’re weaker than you know.” 
And for once, you don’t fight him. 
You gulp down the rest of it, some of it slipping from your mouth, down your chin, rolling down your working throat. It’s cool but barely a balm to the oppressive heat inside of you. 
When you finish, Suguru pulls the glass away. He sets it down and studies you.
He tsks softly, “you’re a mess.” 
You take him in, though your eyes are growing heavy, all of that fighting took a lot out of you. It’s catching up with you quickly now. 
But your eyes land on the bite marks you’ve littered him with. The one, specifically, that is still ringed and bleeding, dripping down his chest. 
“So are you.” You reply, words slurring. 
You don’t catch what he says next, muffled, as you fade from consciousness. Darkness sweeps in to cradle you, much the way Suguru is now, and you fall into a restless sleep. 
***
Suguru wakes you at some point. 
It’s pitch black outside the window; there is very little light in the room at all, which adds to your confusion. Your head is throbbing. 
You whimper. 
“Sit up for me,” his voice is a hush, “can you do that?” 
“Let me sleep,” you reply, pushing weakly at him as he forces you up. Everything swims. Your head lolls like a doll and he catches it so you don’t give yourself whiplash. 
“You’re burning up,” he replies, “I need to get the fever down.” 
You don’t have the wherewithal to understand this. 
For a moment, you hope that he means—
“I’m going to give you a bath.” 
You make another noise, this one in disagreement. Fussy. 
He tuts softly at you, the way mothers do at bad children, and then he disappears, allowing you to fall back against the bed once more. 
You’re not sure for how long, but you doze off again, unable to keep your eyes open. You only awake when Suguru lifts you clear from the bed and into his arms. Again, you make a noise of protest, pushing weakly at him, but he pays you no mind. 
You open your eyes and wince against the bathroom light. 
The bath is running, filling with water. You frown and squirm in his hold, just as he gently sets you on the floor beside the tub. 
“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he murmurs and you push his hands away.
“No,” you snap, “leave.” 
He sighs, “you can hardly sit up right now. I don’t trust you in the bath alone.” 
“I’m not a child,” you protest.
“No, but you’re experiencing a compounded Heat, after years of not having one and you don’t have a knot to soothe you.” Suguru’s voice is cool. His eyes are, too. 
You level him with the best glare you can manage, “and whose fault is that?” 
“I’m only keeping my promise.” He almost sings. 
You swat at him but he catches your wrist easily and pulls you up further as you begin to slouch further and further down against the edge of the tub. “Come,” he says, “don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” 
This time, when he reaches to remove your shirt, you only grumble in protest. He peels it from you carefully, revealing bare skin. Despite how hot you are, you shiver hard. 
You ache. 
This is the worst fever you’ve ever had. Perhaps, this is one of the worst you’ve felt ever. 
You can hardly move enough to allow Suguru to slip your bottoms off and you feel so miserable that you can’t even find it in yourself to be embarrassed or frustrated or angry. 
Tears bead at your eyes again but it’s purely because you are in so much pain. 
Suguru lifts you into the bath. 
It’s lukewarm. Tufts of bubbles smell like lavender. The water is milky and gentle. 
You don’t realize it, but you’ve started to cry again, reaching out for Suguru. You realize he’s cleaned and bandaged his bite mark. He also coos to you, rolling up his sleeves to reach you in the water, stroking at your throat, your cheek.
And then he takes a wash cloth in hand and begins to do the same. He bathes you with a strange gentleness. A gentleness you have not given him. Your tears continue, tracking down your face, which he dutifully washes, too. He wipes away your tears, any sweat and grime, until you feel shining and new.
Eventually, you rest your arms on the lip of the bathtub, folded, and lay your cheek against them. You’re exhausted and still hurting, but at least quiet for now. At least you are cleaned and—
Suguru strokes at your cheek, traces the curve and folds of your ear, gently strokes through your hair. 
“Poor thing,” Suguru murmurs, knuckles drawing across your jaw, down your throat. When he passes along your scent gland, you shiver, you wince a little. 
“Hurts,” you get out and he coos more to you.
Babying you.
And you don’t have the strength to deny him any longer, so you let yourself be babied. You whimper at him and let him try to soothe you, you let him quiet and pet you. 
You’re looking at each other rather frankly, through the haze of your Heat, through all the lust or aggression or fear. In a rare moment of peace, you gaze up at his face and he looks down into yours. 
“Do you hate me?” You ask and your voice is rather raw from all the crying, “is that why you’ve led me here?” 
A strangely fond smile touches his lips, “on the contrary,” Suguru replies, fingers careful along your cheek, “I adore you.” 
“You have such a strange way of showing it.” You tell him. 
“I’m only keeping my promise,” he says again and all you have in you is a deep, dejected sigh. 
“I’m going to make you pay for this, Suguru.” And though your tone is docile, even sleepy, it is a promise. 
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll try.” He agrees, touch growing stronger, bolder, as he pets down your throat, your shoulder. You lean into the touch like a cat, too exhausted to deny it. “And I’ll still be here after—your ire or punishment will not scare me away.” 
You look at him for a moment, long and hard, and only find the truth there. Something strangely raw.
After a moment, you say, “I know.” 
He hums softly, leaning forward to give your burning forehead a rare and gentle kiss, “do your worst, then.” 
You pick your head up barely, tilt your face to his and catch him in a sudden, burning kiss. 
You pull away as quickly as you’d done it. 
You can tell you’ve surprised him only momentarily, it passes over his features like a bird flickering through the sky, there and gone. 
And you say, “no,” soft, and against his lips, “I’ll do my best this time.” 
He pulls away, creating carefully controlled distance. “Come,” he says, urging you up and out of the bath, “let’s get you to bed.” 
“Carry me?” You ask as he bundles you into a soft towel. “Let me wear your shirt?” 
His eyes glint violet, dark and quick, but he says, “of course.” And indulges you.
He even holds you all night and lets you sleep in late. 
The fever only worsens. 
And you can’t tell if your resolve crumbles or strengthens; but either way, you’re born anew with the sun the next day. 
*** 
Suguru woke up before you. He let you sleep in. But now you're awake and waiting for him. When Suguru returns to wake you in the early afternoon, instead of sleeping, you are half-lidded and sun-warmed, laying in his sheets still. The fever has reached a pitch inside you. You’re sure it’s done irreparable damage to your mind and psyche because of how you find yourself.
Because of how Suguru finds you. 
The shirt of his you’d worn to bed is pushed up to your chin, revealing your bare chest, your stomach, flexing and twitching, with your legs spread. Your fingers between them, working messily against yourself, against where you’ve needed since your Heat began. 
For once, you have shocked Suguru. 
Enough that his lips part. 
Just a flash, a ripple of his features, before he smooths them out quickly. Effortlessly. But it is enough to spur you on regardless, to feel just slightly triumphant. 
You keen softly, arching your back, pushing your fingers gently through silken folds. 
“Suguru,” you mewl his name, all soft and broken, arching your hips into your own touch desperately. Beyond your desire for revenge, is simply your desire, the need to feel full, to feel pleasure like this. And you reasoned with yourself, all night, and all morning, that you’d win regardless; either you’d wrestle his tightly held control from his grasp, and get what you so desperately want from him, or you’d still get to touch yourself and find some brief moment of reprieve. 
Beyond either of those two things, you could not think. They ran around your mind like wild, starved dogs hunting down the possibility of a rabbit. 
(Or are you the rabbit? Running around and around your mind, trying to escape the bite? Or are you looking for it?) 
“What do you think you’re doing?” He asks and for a moment, he doesn’t dare step closer to you or the bed. 
You push a finger inside yourself, it goes in easy—so slick and easy—that the next pass, you add a second and gasp. 
What are you doing? You feel half out of your mind. 
“Can’t help it—” you get out, “it hurts so bad. It’s—I’m so—” 
You watch a muscle in his jaw feather and tick. His scent is—
It hits you like a blow to the chest, the way he smells. It’s dark and spiced with warmth; tobacco and the oud in his scent has become heavier. You can almost taste it in the air.
“Suguru—“ you mewl again, pleading and cloying. You tilt your hips up towards your hand, towards him. You’re trying to entice him. 
You can nearly hear the way his teeth grind together. 
“You’re a brat,” he hisses but you can sense the way his control has slipped and thinned. You can nearly feel it fraying in his voice alone.
You practically purr, fingers pushing desperately inside yourself. 
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” you simper, “I’ve been so good letting you feed me and bathe me—I’m wearing the shirt you put me in, too.” 
For a moment, you watch as his eyes slowly dip down the length of your body, to where your fingers are. You watch his expression flicker, the tilt of his eyebrows, the slight parting of his lips. You whimper, knowing he’s watching, and try to curl your fingers. 
But they don’t reach as deep as his might—not thick enough, either, and the ache inside you grows monstrously. 
Perhaps only soothed by the way, for once, you’ve rendered Suguru Getou rather speechless. You toss your head back and moan at the thought. 
“Suguru—won’t you help me? Even a little?” You arch off the bed and catch his gaze when his eyes fly back up to your face. 
“No,” he snaps quickly, “I promised you—“
“Then tell me what to do—talk to me.” You beg, “it hurts so bad, Suguru—“
The muscle in his jaw feathers again. But this time, he wades carefully into the room, stepping closer to the edge of the bed.
The moment he’s there, you adjust so he can see you better, move so your foot is just nearly touching his thigh at the end of the bed. And even that small potential for touch has you crying out again. 
“I’m not sure I should, after the way you’ve been acting.” He says and though he’s trying for casualness, you can sense the tension lurking underneath.
“Touch yourself then,” you breathe, your own eyes drifting down to his sweatpants—to the noticeable bulge—
In a bold move, you place your foot on his lower abdomen, looking up at him through your lashes as your fingers gently push in and out, walls fluttering desperately around them.
He catches your ankle before you can move another inch. The way he squeezes you makes a thrill run through you, race up your spine, pool somewhere low and hot in the depths of you. 
“Is this your way of trying to make me suffer?” He asks and despite everything, a hint of a smile flickers across your heated, panting face.
“Is it working?” You ask. 
All he does is hum, thumb stroking along the bone of your ankle.
Even that is enough for pleasure to skitter and flare beneath your skin. 
“Wanna see you,” you get out, breathy and soft, “wanna see what I’m missing.”
Suguru curses and you laugh, delirious and soft.
Pleasure blushes and surges beneath your skin. 
“No,” he says again but he has to grind the word out, pull it and wrestle it from his own mouth. “You won’t get the better of me here.” 
“Don’t you get tired of your tightly wound control?” You get out, twisting a little so that you might free your ankle from his grasp, but he holds firm.
“I should be asking the same of you—but clearly,” his eyes flicker again, “you do.” 
“Need you so bad—“ you get out, almost pouting. 
You can nearly hear his teeth grind together. He inhales sharply, as if to try and steady himself, but you can tell it only worsens him. Your scent must be thick in the air, sweetened and cloying.
Your fingers slip messily, desperately, over your clit, down inside of yourself and back out. You whine, a little frustrated, trying again and again to satiate the ache inside of you. But anything you do, isn’t enough. 
It almost feels as if it’s made it worse. 
“Poor thing,” Suguru finally says and you realize, he’s regained some of his composure, “look what you’ve done to yourself.” 
You curse this time. 
But you press on, unwilling to give up your win yet, “you’ve also done this—because you wanted the upper hand so bad.” You press inside yourself, hips lifting towards your fingers, “you didn’t have to take the suppressants.” 
His brow flickers up, “I did it for you.” 
“Did you?” You gasp, adding a second finger. 
He swallows, eyes falling to the apex of your thighs, watching, as you fitfully try to pleasure yourself. 
“You didn’t have to—you could’ve let me trigger your Rut. Then we both would’ve been like this—” your voice hitches, “then you would’ve gotten what you wanted sooner and you could’ve feigned innocence.” 
“You didn’t want that,” he says, watching you carefully, “who's to say you won’t come out of this Heat and resist me again?”  
“I won’t,” you breathe, “I did—” you mewl, hips arching and falling, trying so hard, working yourself up so horribly. 
You bite off a groan. 
Suguru clicks his tongue, makes a soft, disapproving noise. “And now look at you,” his hand slides along your calf, so large, and—
“Don’t even know how to properly touch yourself.” 
“Suguru—” 
Suddenly, he tugs you gently, so you’re down at the edge of the bed, your legs on either side of his thighs as he stands above you. 
He leans down slightly and you sit up, towards him, hoping, desperate—
“Such a terrible, little Omega. Do you need me to teach you this, too? Do you need me to help you?” 
You cry out, kitten soft, as needy and tender as a child. 
“Please,” you beg, “please, I need you—”
His hand traces up the outside of your calf, up to your thigh and you squirm, hope fluttering, heart racing—
“Don’t move,” he murmurs, “or I won’t help you.” 
“Suguru,” you growl in frustration. 
“Ah, ah, I thought you were being good?” 
Your head spins—you have no idea how he managed to flip it on you so sharply, but suddenly he has, and suddenly you're nearly underneath him, and he’s leaning over you and watching so intensely—so— 
You try to go still for him. Your chest is heaving. 
“That’s it,” he murmurs and his hand slowly arcs over the bend of your hip, and towards your stomach. Your hips twitch and he stills, “careful—” he warns. 
You force yourself to freeze, still panting. 
And then he lays the broadness of his hand on your lower stomach, his thumb just barely brushing your mound. 
“This is as far as I’ll go,” he says and with the way you almost fall into a frustrated groan, he seizes your chin with his other hand, “I’ll not touch you sexually. This is all I’ll give you—be grateful for even this.” 
You sneer at him and he takes his hand away. 
Instantly, you miss the warmth, the pressure, the—
“Be good, or I’ll leave the room now and let you suffer even worse than before—see what you’ve done to yourself? Worked yourself up so horribly, and all for what?”  Suguru’s voice is soft and smooth and so, horribly in control again. When did he get it back? When did he take it from you? 
“My attention? The hopes that I’d give in?” He asks. 
When you don’t respond, he squeezes your face, prompting you, “answer me, pet.” 
“Yes—I want your attention. I want—” the words break over you like a wave, the realization like a blow. You want. 
You desire. 
You want him. You want an Alpha and not just any Alpha but Suguru, despite everything, maybe because of everything. Maybe because you made him chase, and he did. Maybe because you have run your whole life from this—this attention and this desire and this intimacy—and you have finally found someone willing to hunt you down like a fox, and in the face of your gnashing teeth and growling and yipping, to treat you gently. Like you’re a beloved house pet and not a snarling, wild beast. 
“I want you,” you say honestly and his hold slackens on your cheeks to let you speak, “I hate you and I want you and—there’s no one but you—it’s only you and you’re awful but I am, too, and I need—” 
It cracks out of you, voice raw, a half-sob. 
Your tears make him smile. 
He hushes you gently, “oh, sweet girl,” he soothes, and his other hand slowly returns to its place on your trembling, lower stomach, “you’re so torn up about this. How much grief have you given yourself? Hm? Just for wanting?” 
You heave, unable to respond, suddenly reaching with your free hand for him, pulling on his shirt, closer to you. 
He gives in and goes, lets you claw at his back and bury your face in his shoulder. He finally lets go of your face, in favor of letting you fall to pieces beneath him. His knee dips on the mattress. But he holds himself above you still.
“I’ll guide you now,” he murmurs and his voice is by your ear. He turns his nose to nudge against your temple, inhaling slowly. 
You can feel the rumble of a groan through him that he holds back, a soft growl. 
And then, “look at me.” 
You sniffle and with a great deal of reluctance, you pull your face away from the safety of his shoulder to find his gaze. Midnight violet. Depthless. 
“Hate me all you want,” he says, “but I adore you—no matter how you are. Willing and pliant, or vicious and biting. I’ll always adore you. And I’ll always do what’s best for you.” 
Something inside of you cleaves open. Fractures in a way that is irreparable. 
You want to say something but you don’t know what, you have something so tremendous and terrifying inside of you, because of him—all you can get out is a soft cry. 
“Now,” he continues, eyes flickering over your body, and his thumb gently strokes over your lower stomach. “You feel empty, don’t you?” 
A whimper eeks out of you. You nod slowly. Empty and torn apart and open and aching. 
“Use three fingers, not two.” He commands gently, “you want something bigger, hm? I’m sure it hurts so badly—you’re so wet.” 
Without thinking, you obey him. 
You press three fingers carefully inside of you and it’s the first stretch you’ve gotten, the first spark of relief. 
You cry out, clinging to him. 
“That’s it,” he encourages, “in and out for me.” 
You tilt your hips up into his hand, towards your fingers, and he doesn’t scold you. The pressure on your lower stomach makes pleasure bloom and strengthen there. For a moment, it’s just the soft, slick noises of yourself, and it’s so—
Embarrassing. So horrible. 
You must look out of your depth, you must look lost or terrified, because he finally speaks again, “curl your fingers for me, darling.” 
You do just that and moan the moment you press deeper inside yourself. 
“Good girl,” he praises, “does that feel better? Answer me.” 
“Yes—yeah.” You get out, crooking your fingers inside yourself. “I still want—” 
“More?” He murmurs, pressing his hand gently against your lower stomach, “this time, you have to make do with just this.” 
You bite back your whine or complaint, head hazy—fingers moving desperately. But you don’t complain, you don’t fuss. 
He smiles when he realizes how you’ve caught yourself, “oh, look at that,” he purrs, “you can be tamed after all.” 
And before you can ruin it for yourself, Suguru sweeps his thumb just barely over your mound again, and says, “rock your hips now, gentle.” 
The moment you do, the friction against your palm makes you moan, head falling back, baring your throat. 
Perhaps without thinking, he dips forward, nose tracing over the cure of your neck, following instinct. You make another soft noise, and in your haze, wish desperately that he would just bite down—
All you get is the brief skim of his warm, soft lips. No teeth and you miss them, achingly. 
He presses his hand down just a little more and—
Pleasure bursts beneath your skin with enough force that your back bows off the bed, mouth parted. 
You sob. 
You feel your walls flutter uselessly around your fingers, feel your body desperate for something you can’t have this time, and fall apart.
Suguru is there to catch you. 
He coos to you, soft and easy, and even kisses at your damp, tear-struck cheeks. He lets you arch and twist and chase your pleasure, lets you be wanton and shameless and desperate. He lets you claw him and bite him and cry into his shoulder. 
And when you begin to quiet, he suddenly hitches your legs around his waist and lifts you clear from the bed. You lope your arms weakly around his neck and bury your face into his throat. 
You don’t protest or fight him, you are grateful and eager for all the places you touch, feeling incredibly fragile in his broad arms.  
You don’t bother to look where he’s taking you—can’t find it in yourself to care, if you can feel him against your center, feel where he’s hard and aching himself, even with the suppressants—
But between one breath and the next, you’re in the bathtub again, and the water from the shower blasts on from above. 
Ice cold water pours on you. 
You shriek and Suguru has the nerve to laugh, which makes you lunge for him, yanking him towards the spray of water. 
It soaks his shirt, his hair, as he holds himself over you, before stepping carefully into the tub to join you. 
He sits with you, beneath the cold water, and pushes his hair out of his face as you clamber into his lap. 
You pull at his wet shirt and he lets you take it off of him, throw it over the side of the tub in a heap. 
He reaches to do the same to you, ridding you of the only article of clothing you’d had on. 
You grit your teeth, “does it have to be so cold?” You ask, feeling the spray now rain against your back, your shoulders. You lean away from it, into his arms. 
“You needed this.” He says fondly. And then, as he strokes your wet hair, “I did, too.” 
“You’re an awful man,” you curse him, shivering.
“I know,” he agrees with a soft, fond smile. 
You look at him, hair inky and dark, lashes damp against his cheek, and the pleased way he smiles. Like an insufferable, giant cat. You’re aching and furious and freezing and so—so tender. 
“I hate you,” you tell him but it sounds more like a confession, soft around the edges. 
He kisses your temple, lingers there, and you can feel the curve of his smile. You can hear it color his voice;
“I know.” 
***
Something shifts between the two of you after that. And the following day, your Heat finally begins to wane slightly. 
You try to touch yourself again and Suguru forbids it this time. You fight and snarl with him, but you let him hold you and lull you to sleep. You let him feed you. And bathe you. You sleep bare against his naked chest and are soothed by it the way a fussy baby is calmed by the bare skin of their mother. 
You feel infinitely closer to him. 
You lounge with him in bed, in his living room, hanging off him all that you can. 
He indulges this behavior, encourages it, even. 
And on the eighth day, your Heat finally breaks. 
When you wake, still curled on his chest, with his hands stroking tenderly over your bare back, he asks, “how do you feel?” 
“Sane, I think.” You murmur it into his chest. 
“Your Heat broke in the night.” He says and touches your head, your forehead, like he’s taking your temperature. “You’re still a little warmer, but it’s over now, I think.” 
Slowly, you pick yourself up to look at him. To hover over him. 
He looks up at you, too, uncertain. Waiting. You’re sure he’s waiting to see if you’ll return to your usual self, if you’ll snap or snarl or chew him out—will you storm out? Or seethe? Will you fight him still, after everything, even as he holds you in his arms now? 
“Thank you for respecting my wishes,” you say instead and lean down to suddenly press your lips to his. 
You feel his surprise, the way his lips part, the way he freezes and you sink down into it. For a moment, you worry he won’t reciprocate again. 
But then, his hand comes up to cradle your face, and he nudges into the kiss. Hungry. Deep. 
You give into him, you encourage him, coaxing him with soft tongue and eager mouth. 
When you pull away, you grab his face this time, the way he always grabs yours, squeezing his lips into a little pout, “but if you ever make me suffer like that again through a Heat,” your nails dig into his cheek, “I’ll fucking kill you.” 
He laughs, canines flashing, and surges forward to kiss you again. Harder. Meaner. 
It’s all teeth and heat, a little vicious, the way you are. He wrestles you beneath him, kisses you into the mattress. And when he pulls away, he says;
“If you ever make me suffer like that again, you’ll wish you’d killed me first.” 
You feel your own smile against his neck, against one of the ridges of your own bite mark, and with all the satisfaction in the world, you sink your teeth down into it again. 
It’s like a key coming up against a lock, fitting snugly to their own indents, and finding their own, well-worn place. 
It’s like finally coming home. 
133 notes · View notes
xjulixred45x · 27 days
Text
OKAY, I know I should work on the requests but I recently discovered the story of the game HADES and as a Greek mythology nerd that I am, I became obsessed, so I ask you to imagine this scenario that unfortunately I have not seen anywhere:
Platonic Yandere Zagreus+ Reader x son! reader
let me explain myself.
Imagine that we are between Hades 1 and Hades 2, where everything seems to be going well for Zagreus and his partner, both living in the Underworld and occasionally visiting the surface, but paying attention to their duties in general.
then they have a son! reader. Their pride and joy.
Zagreus probably thought that it would be difficult to have children without any kind of divine intervention, so seeing that his son was born alive by himself was a great relief and even pride, because it meant that he probably wouldn't have the same problem as his father, he would be freer than him.
son!reader ends up being a child who is super spoiled by his parents thanks to this, filled with affection not only from them, but from the vast majority of the beings in the Underworld, Achilles being a kind of Fun Uncle, Meg a cool teacher, Thanatos and Hypnos second father figures, etc.
even HADES loved this child.
the only problem that son! reader has is that, like his father and mother, he was very curious and stubborn. which led to the incident before he reached puberty.
It was an occasion where Zagreus and Reader were away due to a hasty visit to the surface, so son! Reader, like every child, did what he was told not to do:
get off the safe path.
From then on son! reader can die however you prefer, perhaps by the Hydra, by one of the enemies on the upper levels, by the river Styx, but my favorite excuse is that he found where the titans were and fell from the shock, dying instantly ( drawing a parallel with mythological Zagreus).
And when Zagreus and his partner find out? God, to say that they are devastated would be an understatement for their pain.
Everyone is hurt and sad about what happened, everything feels so silent now, heavy, empty...
to the point that the prayers of the beings of the Underworld reach the ears of Zeus, who in a certain way feels sorry for his brother for having lost a grandson and Zagreus for his son, who decides to apply Dionysus's typenof move, that is, leave the heart of the child in the womb of a human woman.
Zagreus is difficult to convince, he wants Zeus to do this directly with the reader, but if this is the only alternative, he will accept it. More when the mental health of both has also been seriously affected by this(Zagreus having mutilation and Self harm tendencies bc of grief and incapility of die? yep, although he'll probably be very worried if reader starts to seem like them too.)
And so the agonizing wait begins, the weeks go by, the months go by, and Zagreus and the reader are increasingly anxious and impatient. more distressed with a new day of silence at home, with each day of inactivity, with each hour that their child's room is empty...
But the wait pays off, when Zeus gives them the news that the time has finally come for them to go look for their son.
Zagreus takes off at full speed, with various bonuses given by people like Thanatos, Charon, some Olympians, hell, even his father goes easy on him.
and he begins to search quickly with the little time he has on the surface for his son, being guided by Zeus to where his son was.
When Zagreus was beginning to weaken and felt that he had come in vain, he heard it. a laugh, a small voice that he hadn't heard in a long time.
His son...alive again...
Here things are separated a little. two different scenarios.
1: SON! READER REMEMBER HIS LIFE LIKE GOD
This case is the fluffiest of all and definitely the least yandere.
when son!reader sees Zagreus he's running out to meet him, melting the godling's heart, relieved that his son is not only back in body, but in spirit.
They both return to the Underworld and receive them all with great joy, they ruffle the child's hair, give him gifts, Dionysius may even throw a party in honor of his return.
but it doesn't mean there isn't Yandere stuff.
Zagreus becomes incredibly overprotective of son! reader, to a disturbing degree, now practically does not leave him alone. the same with reader. If he is not with one, he is with another.
they make son! reader accompanies them everywhere and can only play with their supervision, only them, not anyone else. because the previous one was very effective last time.
I think the reader would use the death of son! reader like an auk to keep him fearful and thus avoid another incident. in general both being very obsessive with this new opportunity to have their son back.
Although it's not so bad, Zagreus and the reader continue to bombard him with love and affection, bringing him gifts, reading to him or telling him legends, even now they take him to the surface with them! It is within the scope of a happy ending, they could overcome their unhealthy tendencies over time...I hope.
The only way in this scenario for both of them to become yandere as is is if some person on the surface is "badly influencing" son! reader to be more independent or worse, go to the battlefield.
There Zagreus will directly get rid of said influence with the help of Thanatos.
Now, the most intense and interesting scenario.
2: SON! READER DOES NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT HIS LIFE AS ZAGREUS'S AND READER'S SON
Imagine that you are an apparently normal child with some strange characteristics (like maybe red feet or heterochromia), living peacefully with your parents that you have known all your life as a mortal... and FROM NOWHERE the fucking GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD comes to tell you who you are HIS child and not of your PARENTS....
practically this reader.
Zagreus would believe that after having spent so much time among mortals his son has forgotten his true lineage and even finds his innocence cute with the whole thing, but they must return to their TRUE home as soon as possible.
Since he is a god, A SON OF HADES, even if the reader's parents love him, they cannot fight for him, so they give him to Zagreus.
Zagreus is overjoyed with this, reader is so confused.
because after all he does NOT know these people, he does not know this supposed father who ripped him away from his birth family, he does not know his supposed mother who greets him with tears in her eyes when they arrive at the damn Underworld.
He doesn't know any of the gods who welcome him warmly, who ruffle his hair, who call him cute nicknames, who seem to have known him all his life when they don't.
reader is feeling like some kind of glorified pet. an empty replacement. This is not his house, his HOME.
while Zagreus and reader think that their son must be feeling very shocked by all the information and come home that they simply shower him with more love. much to the child's displeasure.
If the reader continues to insist that he doesn't really remember them, Zagreus will probably dismiss it as something temporary, which is simply the adjustment after an event as traumatic as dying (he gets it, seriously! he dies every now and then, but he doesn't want to think about on what it must have been like for his son).
while reader will try with Thanatos to make him remember things from the past, show him family photos and portraits that they made before the tragedy, his room, his old toys and stories behind them. all with so much love that the reader feels uncomfortable, as if he were usurping the place of their true son.
I think the reader would be especially uncomfortable if mom!reader were also a goddess, he feels VERY intimidated by both of them, but when they show this very...vulnerable and loving side...he doesn't know what to think.
In this scenario, both Zagreus and reader are more overtly manipulative and yandere. Zagreus can use his thousands of failed attempts to try to get out of the underworld on his own so that reader doesn't even think about doing so, while reader uses the reader's death as a way to guilt trip him so he doesn't leave them.
The reader feels bad for them and their son, but is very afraid of them. More after seeing Zagreus angry.
At first they would see Reader's attempts to escape as something "cute" thinking that he was "imitating young Zagreus" and was not serious. Of course, if he ran into a shade, Zagreus would appear and take him home. simply a game.
But when they were lost for long periods of time, they had a panic attack thinking that the accident had happened again. and when Zagreus found the reader, on a higher level and with scratches, he was furious, almost killing all the beings on that level.
It was enough to solidify the reader's decision to want to leave. This man was not only terrifying, he was dangerous.
I think that in this case there would be characters like Meg, Patroclus, Odysseus, even Thanatos himself who realize the reader's discomfort around his "parents" and even become his only allies in his escape attempts.
but because they isolate him so much, so much to the point that he can only leave the house of Hades if it is with them, no one else, and they see the desire to RUN in his face. They feel compassion for him.
This is how a new story in Hades begins. As a reader you will have to face many powerful deities, shadows, and more to escape not only from the Underworld, but from your delirious new family.
but Zagreus would not be himself if he were not stubborn and persistent . I wouldn't let him run and escape easily. not this time.
Could reader do it? let the game begin.
Tumblr media
Shares, reglogs and comments are very welcome!
What can i Say? I'm obsessed over games i will NEVER get to play :,) but at least i'll try to see gameplays.
90 notes · View notes
yuri-is-online · 11 days
Note
I've got a theory question for tdb (bear with me, I've blazed through story so remembering the beginning is a little difficult)
So at the beginning, the anomaly we met was actively texting us right? Said something about how they've "been waiting to see us" or somethin like that
Which we know anomalies can be sentient (especially if we run with the theory with towa). And I dunno, I wanna loop in the time loop theory somewhere here. If we go with the idea of mc being the girl in the tower and her jumping before a loop maybe, then what (or who) is the anomaly we met?
I've been going through the tdb tag to see if you've mentioned it yet and no one has asked, so I figured I would bc I like bouncing theories... I need to hop on tdb reddit
SO I lurk in the discord server some people on the reddit put together and it was pointed out there that shortly after that happened the dev's other game had a Rapunzel themed event 💀💀💀 so that's what the line about the girl in the tower was likely referencing since it makes sense someone like Taiga would "not be into that shit (i.e. not his game) at all." THAT BEING SAID I am so glad you brought up the anomaly in the beginning because there's some stuff about it I find interesting.
I went and took some screenshots from the summoning and the person who commented under that little theory was right in that the person who is falling does land in the woods, so it could be that whoever jumps off of the tower at the end of the loop does end up in the woods somewhere. It might mean nothing, but I'll hold onto this thought just in case.
Dorms rarely cooperate on missions, so Taiga and Haku being on one together is odd. Taiga also does not seem to have lines referencing Haku, but he seems to have given up on trying to escape the timeloop and wants "the others" to join him in his nihilism. I think this sort of goes with his being a gambler who says there is "no trick to winning you just have keep playing" but still desperately looking to the MC for "something I could do different" or a reason. He wants to have hope again but he isn't able to.
I personally think these "others" he talks about are probably Tohma and Romeo, Tohma because he seems to be one of the more active ones working to isolate the traitor and Romeo because that's his best friend. Oh and while I am on the subject of the traitor, someone brought up to me a crack theory about Luca being the traitor and I have seen some votes for Towa too. While I obviously think that it is almost certain to be Haku, I think there is a potential for a faction split between people who agree with whatever Haku's take on the ghoul's situation is and people who agree with Tohma. Luca is a very good candidate for someone who I could see being manipulated into siding with the "evil" side if he thought it meant it was the only way to protect his brother. Towa will go wherever Haru does, and I can't really see Haru siding with Haku if it involves hurting the anomalous creatures in any way. That and Haku seems very convinced that he's in whatever he's in alone.
But to finally answer your question/talk about what's been bugging me: the anomaly who curses the MC takes her into something that reminds me of a cursed domain from JJK and turns the scenery all red. And like you said they text her! Like it's been stalking her for a long time. I hope we get to learn about how Haku's flute works in the Hotarubi chapter because I want to know how and why he was able to take MC out of the anomaly's domain and return her to the train car. That almost made me think he could control it in some way... I'll have to level his affection enough to see what his pfp is in his texts because it it is remotely similar to the one the anomaly uses I will have a stroke.
As for what the anomaly is... it's profile picture is a spider lily and it uses the name "Mina" when talking to MC. It's head has roses, spider lilies and what I think are supposed to be poppies growing on its head. Apparently there is a Chinese legend about spider lilies and I keep seeing the same text copy and pasted everywhere about it, but I feel comfortable sharing what I found since I was able to find it on Wuhan University's English website: (x)
Tumblr media
I imagine when we meet whatever monster cursed MC it will be a bit different than whatever is going on here, but MC is talking about how "if she knew it would end like this she never would have fallen for them in the first place." Sure she's just talking about how her favorite band just broke up, but maybe that feeling drew the spirit towards her since it is attracted to/preys on lost loves.
If I am allowed to cope a whole bunch here, I think it would make for solid timeloop building if MC's feelings weren't about the band at all, but about her lost love who jumped off the building at the start of the game. Since the loop has restarted she doesn't remember him, so she thinks her feelings are and directs them towards the band she used to love, but the strength of her disappointment comes from somewhere else.
Thank you very much for your question, it made me think a whole lot!
39 notes · View notes
heartfullofleeches · 2 years
Note
I feel like the spouse would try to poison the Jester on like- a royal banquet or something, there are so many people there that it's hard to find the culprit. And it would either end with the Reader being very much poisoned but by a miracle they managed to survive, just straight up died or the Emperor said he would try out their food because it "looked very nice" and totally not bc he suspected the spouse would try to poison his beloved jester
They honestly thought about letting you live. As much as they wanted to straggle you themself, you seemed obvious enough to your emperor's affection, and they didn't want the blood on their hands. They'd just send you away to some remote island, or have a band of thieves sell you off. It was one, single event that pushed them over the edge.
It was the week before the celebration of the previous emperor and queen's lives. They had been gone for some time now, but the day was to celebrate the entire bloodline. The emperor walked around the dining room with a small group of those who'd be there, pointing out where they and those absent would sit.
The celebration would last the entire day. A festival in the village below, then dinner, and finally a show led by the court jester before fireworks to end the night. The emperor's spouse watched closely as he laid out the seating arrangement, their jaw dropping when they saw who he'd have sit beside him at the end of the table.
"And Y/n will sit beside me here."
Before the servant could jot that down in their notes, the spouse grabs the board.
"You must be kidding.
The emperor blinks. "I beg your pardon?"
"You're letting the jester sit next to you, as apposed to your betrothed?"
"They are my dearest allie, and an important part of the festivities, of course they'll be by my side."
"Then... I suppose I'm on the other?"
"No, that's for the general. He has been a good family friend since I was a baby, and I fear the old bat is growing hard of hearing."
"Well, where am I?"
The emperor points at the other end of the table, all the way on the other side of the room.
"Right there. So I can look at your lovely face from afar."
The little smirk on his face makes their blood boil. He would not win this round, or the game that was their life. But first, they had to get rid of a certain pawn.
-
As the feast begins, everyone filters out into their assigned seats. You question why his spouse was so far away, but the emperor waves it off as they had a recent flare of acne, and didn't want to be the center of attention as they would be by him.
Servants begin to bring out food in an array of courses. Being the fool you are, you steal a berry from the emperor's fruit salad and pop it in your mouth. In retaliation, he picks up a similar fruit and shoves it into your mouth; the both of you laughing as his spouse glares daggers.
By the second dish, their mood suddenly brightens. It was a simple soup, just something to hold back hunger until the main course. The servers start at their end, one meeting their eyes with a solemn look.
With nearly everyone served, the only people who hadn't gotten a bowl were you and the emperor. The server doesn't look at you when they arrive; the weight in their pocket reminding them of what they had to do. They reach over the first bowl on the tray and grab the second, placing it before you; something the emperor notices. They give him his, and bolt from the room.
"Y/n, let's switch."
He speaks just loud enough for his spouse to hear on their side, their spoon clattering to the floor.
"What? Why?"
"Your bowl has more than mine."
"Hm? That's silly. They look about the same to me-"
He tilts his head. "Are you saying you'll let your king- your best friend starve?"
"C-course not. Here." You switch the bowls; the emperor rewarding you with your compliance by a pat on your head; bells attached to your hat jiggling with each stroke.
He picks up his spoon and gathers soup on it, his motions notably slowly. Meanwhile, his spouse is sweating. If he died, the life of their dreams wouldn't come as they weren't married yet. And if they told him not to eat the poisoned spoon it would be suspicious. They needed to act, and quickly. Looking at their own bowl, they knew their only option.
Their screams echo down the hall; music to his ears. The soup wasn't extremely hot, but they were one for dramatics. He tries to hold in his chuckles as the servants swipe that the spill on their clothing. They had been wearing a bright blue and grey outfit, the colors of your kingdom, and one of the worst things to spill vomit green soup on.
In the fuss, the emperor dumps the soup in his empty cup. His only desire is to take their head after trying to take your life, but feels they had enough punishment for now as they weren't seen again that night. He wonders if they'll learn their lesson, but probably not. If you're going to plot a murder, don't do it in a wide corridor, or have your victim be the true love of a mad royal.
When the main dish comes, he leans over to you as you grab your utensils.
"I'm starving. Giving me the first bite from your plate."
"But you already took my soup!"
He knows you're out of harm's way, but the meal tastes sweeter coming from your fork.
By the end of the night, he makes things up to you by bring you a cake and sitting on the ledge of his bedroom window to watch the fireworks together; something you did when little.
There was one other reason why his spouse was so upset by your presence. It's a legend in the emperor's family that if they spend this night with someone on the first year of their rule, that person will lead beside them for the rest of their days.
With this eve by themself, his spouse can tell the only way to get rid of you is by their own two hands, or those of another.
983 notes · View notes
ghcstao3 · 1 year
Note
hi, hope you're well! so today I was thinking (bc ofc my brain's natural reaction is to lunge viciously for the hurt/comfort), what if the '09 game events still happened? Like, instead of AUs (where timelines branch off from a single event), it's a glitch in the timeline? So you have the '22 version of the 141 doing their thing, but they have nightmares & deja vu stemming from the '09 stuff. Cue (yes I'm shipping) SoapGhost where Ghost has all these bad feelings concerning Shepherd plus he has awful nightmares about burning & Soap's there to comfort him, but he's afraid that they're all losing it bc he keeps having similar dreams concerning how he dies--
i am well ty! hope u are as well!
anyway i tried my Best. however u may (will) have to pretend 22 141 doesnt know shepherd was part of the betrayal bc uhhh yeah👍🙂👍 also cw for kinda graphic desc of ghost’s nightmares
-
Soap couldn’t pinpoint when the dreams started, or why, for that matter—but what he does know is that it’s pure and utter torment.
It’s a unique fear that festers in their wake, in cold sweat and heart palpitations. It’s spine-chilling in a way Soap has never experienced, because while he’s confident he’s looked death in the eyes on too many occasions, never has he actually died.
But his dreams, these dreams—they tell him otherwise. And he isn’t the only one, either.
Gaz and Price have started to look just as sleepless. And Ghost—Soap has never seen him so afraid. When, for the first time in weeks, Soap sees his face, it’s harrowed. Haunted.
There’s a sense of familiarity that’s brought along with Soap’s dreams; explosions, gunfire, dilapidated buildings and someone screaming his name. His brain supplies him with the knowledge that it’s Price, but it isn’t, not really. At least, not how he knows Price. He feels old wounds tearing open and a searing pain in his side as his body is drained of far too much blood, and Price—not his Price—is shaking him. Begging.
In the end, it just makes sense to Soap. To die in the field. But the dream is too visceral to feel anything but real, and he starts to wonder just when he’d begun to deserve these sorts of taunts.
Gaz says his own nightmares are blunt, but just as violent. As fiery. Price doesn’t say anything, but there’s a new sunken quality to the bags under his eyes, and he just looks at his team so different, with a tortured gaze and a regret so profound he doesn’t seem to understand it himself.
Finally, Soap thinks, their mental states have deteriorated beyond repair. Until, in his arms, Ghost is screaming his throat raw in his sleep, a wail only ever sounded by those trekking their way through hell. Soap’s heard it before, from others, in their final moments, but never from the living.
And that’s when Soap begins to understand that these aren’t just some dreams, but some distant reality he hopes to never face.
Soap gently coaxes Ghost from his slumber, cutting through nightmare and imagination and whatever horrible thing could have Ghost in such pain. His face wets with tears as he slowly wakes, clinging to Soap like a child might to their mother’s leg in an indescribable fear. Ghost has never seemed so small.
“It’s not just you,” Soap whispers. He presses a kiss to Ghost’s temple, pulls the man closer. “Tell me what happened.”
As Ghost gradually forces out the words Soap begins to feel sick, nauseated not only by their contents but by the knowledge that Ghost had just lived through it, but he never lets go. Never asks for Ghost to stop speaking, just listens. Listens even as something gnaws away at his gut, as bile climbs his throat.
Hot, Ghost says. It was hot. A bullet had been lodged somewhere in his body but it didn’t matter—it was hot. He’d claw off his skin to get rid of the heat if it weren’t already melting flesh from muscle, from bone. Clothes and gear meld with his corpse and he feels it all, feels the bubbling, smells the burning, senses the way parts of his body slough off into ash.
He’s reaching for someone, and there’s the itch of betrayal, and a voice in his ear that he knows, instinctually, is Price, but there isn’t anything more he can do than lie there and accept his fate as his fleeting thoughts pester him about everything he’d done wrong. About everything he could’ve done—should’ve done to save… to save—
“I know his name,” Ghost murmurs, “but I also don’t. And I—“
“Don’t dwell on it, Simon,” Soap advises. “Please.”
Ghost shakes his head against Soap’s shoulder. “I can’t just—it’s not something I can forget, Johnny. Not when it keeps happening.”
“But you can,” Soap pleads. A terrible sense of dread has befallen him, growing in intensity and insistence. Something isn’t right, but he doesn’t know if he wants to find out just what. “We all can.”
Ghost is silent a moment. Shifts somehow closer to Soap. Soap can hear him thinking.
“I don’t know if we should be trusting Shepherd,” he finally says.
Soap’s face pinches in a tight frown. It seems such a random topic for this hour, after such terror. “Why?”
Ghost shrugs. “Can’t explain it. Gut feeling. Could be wrong, but—“
“When are you ever?” It’s meant to be teasing, but Soap does trust Ghost’s judgement more than anyone, perhaps even more than his own. Ghost just nods and clings ever tighter until his breathing evens out and tense muscles go lax.
Soap can’t find it in himself to fall back asleep.
Instead, he begins to wonder just how true these nightmares hold. And he begins to question how exactly Shepherd may fit into all of it.
Unfortunately, though, he supposes, there’s only one way to find out.
137 notes · View notes
septembersghost · 9 months
Note
is it morally acceptable to send bcs asks in this day and age? because I am still haunted by fun and games -> waterworks kim. like her breakup was empathetic and loving but then we are punished with a scene where she looks directly at the camera and says “he is not a good person”. Feel like it was to increase the “dramatic twist” of his confession (same vibes as a workaholic finally showing up to his son’s baseball game at the end of a movie)
if it is morally unacceptable, then i encourage the sin.
you know what haunts me about this? probably repeating myself or saying things i've already expressed to you, but it reads as such a specifically female narrative punishment, such a glaring swerve for her characterization - the need to make her prostrate, make her surrender everything she has, cherishes, and has accomplished, but that isn't enough. she has to become the moral equivocator, thrust into a world that is suddenly stark black and white (this symbolism was not subtle), taken from her wonderfully fascinating complicity in a world of thoughtful, graded color into the sole person who knows the true man behind the facade, loves and abets him, and then must rebuke and renounce him in order to begin the purging of her trangressions.
she also has to serve as the catalyst for his final descent, a decision that, instead of being the slow transformation it once was, a persona worn as a suit, becomes a melodramatic gunshot into gaudy hollowed existence due to her abandonment/absence. it's the contrary of so much of what they built, so much of why she was unique and had agency of her own, she dissolves into a symbol behind the existence of saul, the bottle topper at the back of a drawer. nearly silent, exiled, stripped of true identity and achievement. (don't get me started on florida man, nobody wants to hear me lose it over that again.)
it's just a discomfiting choice for this amazing character - a woman who, two episodes prior, pointed a gun at a total stranger if it meant saving this man. who used her intellect and tenacity so consistently. who knew and saw and accepted him wholly. it's not that she shouldn't face consequences, like it's not that jimmy shouldn't (despite my extreme dislike of the implications of how that played out too), it's the WAY it was executed. it's inorganic to everything we knew to be true - because it does serve that final dramatic twist more than it serves these characters and their relationship that we knew and loved so well.
46 notes · View notes
julysn · 2 months
Text
julia really needs to sleep: late night rants with yours truly
topic: this one gorgeous fanfic that got deleted on thanksgiving and now i haven’t been happy ever since.
time: 2:10 cst
i love ranting about this silly deleted fic
129 days.
a hundred and twenty nine days since that fanfic has been deleted and i couldn’t download a copy before the author did so.
i haven’t smiled since the day before. i haven’t laughed since the day before. i haven’t felt an ounce of joy since the day before.
i woke up on thanksgiving day expecting some good ass turkey but what i got was as if that turkey had expired and mold all over it.
NO SERIOUSLY THAT FANFIC WAS SO GOOD YALL DONT GET ME. it was a sp one and i don’t think i have ANY sp mutuals here?? so.. lemme explain..
it was a kyle broflovski academic rivals to lovers. fake relationship trope. i remember sm of the fic despite not having read it for months??/ i even downloaded a pdf so i could read it on a fight 2 detroit but I DELETED IT AFTERWARD. JULIA WTF.
plot/thingy/intro: so basically stan had to pull y/n into the janitors closet bc y/n was on the cheer team + bsfs with wendy (sp lore: stan and wendy are dating) and he tells her sm about college? FUCK I FOROT IT BUT ANYWAYS
also everyone’s aged up to hs. feel like that’s self explanatory but i am not reading an elementary fic hell no busters
and then craig and tweek (sp lore: they’re dating) walk in and they’re like “… 😦😦” bc one male one female in janitors closet why wouldn’t u think that and craig went “….this is our makeout closet” I LAUGHED SO JARD LMFAO
and so stan uses the excuse that he was confronting y/n about being on a date w kyle broflibskii!!11! omg. and it’s shocking bc everyone knows they’re enemies so craig + tweek believe it.
and since this took place during lunch, and kyle eats lunch in the gymnasium so the two go there and stan explains the mess he dragged them into and he’s like “pwease ☹️ pwease i don’t want wendy to think i cheated on her WITH HER FRIEND!” so yk kyle agrees and they hug and shit
scenes that happened that i remember: OMG. THIRD CHAPYER. y/n was eating in the gym in the bleachers and kyle used her lap as a pillow and they shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich i loved this scene oh my god it was so cute
also: lore drop: y/n is cartmans cousin. i don’t need to say much to explain anything, if you’ve been on the internet for at least a month you’d know about his character
so after a game since y/n is on the cheer team she goes home and OH NAUR. CARTMAN LOCKED HER OUT FOR DATING KYLE OH NAURRRR. and it’s raining too! so y/n gets all soaked in the rain and kyle finds her so he takes her to his place and she has to shower and wear his clothes and it’s cute
they didn’t sleep in the same bed. NOOOOOO but he slept on the floor and let her take his bed what a gentleman k lived this fic so i loved it with all of my soul and heart pls come back.
dead on arrival by strawbebbyparks u changed my life forever.
ever since i first read that fic, i have been prettier. my hair looks better now, i look better now and i finally have a solid clothing style that suits me. i am feeling much more well.
i have not gotten sick within the time period that the fic was up on tumblr + ao3. but i swear i had a massive cold days after it got deleted. NOOOOOOOOOOO,,LKKK
please it was so good.
i’m manifesting that the author is just rewriting everything and she’ll re upload it w better writing + scenes soon bc I MISS DOA SM IT WAS SO GOOD
i remember having an online friend and in the middle of the night i’d be there and we’d be having a convo on how it was the best kyle x reader and no one could top it. doa was amazing
that fic motivated me into writing again too omg i remember reading it and immediately beginning to wri my own kyle fics
i remember waking up on summer days METICULOUSLY checking my notifications to see if k got an update email. and if i did i would be screaming and giggling and kicking my feet just reading it over and over again
also i’m js exaggerating like i’ve obviously been mourning the fic but i wasn’t THAT sad 😭😭
9 notes · View notes
zegrasdrysdale · 6 months
Text
[ game day ] n. hischier
Tumblr media
day seven of malia’s christmas fic marathon
paring : Nico Hischier x fem!reader
summary : (Y/N) flies into the states early to surprise and watch her boyfriend play a game before he goes on the short Christmas break
warning(s) : none
author’s note : sorry that this is on the shorter side but i am tryinggg to catch up on fics for the marathon (i timed this out really poorly bc i didn’t realize how exhausted i would be from work everyday)
༺═──────────────═༻
The plane lands 20 minutes before game time so she has to rush to get to the Prudential Center from Newark airport. It should only be a 10 minute drive but it’s a few days before Christmas so everyone is flying in to spend the holidays with their families.
Including (Y/N).
She's lucky that her Uber is waiting for her right outside the airport after she grabs her suitcase from baggage claim. There is already a ton of traffic leaving the airport and she groans as she checks the time. She's going to miss warmups but maybe she can get there in time for puck drop.
There's a text from Nico that comes through as she finally leaves the airport.
neeks ❦ - 6:59 pm can't wait to see you after the game. gonna score a goal or two for you tonight. text me when you land. i love you, mien liebling ♡
(Y/N) realizes that he's back in the locker room between warmups and puck drop. Traffic finally begins to clear up so the Uber speeds up going into Newark. Her knee bounces in the backseat as she keeps an eye on the time.
"Anxious for the Devils game tonight?" The Uber asks with a thick New York accent. "I see you're headed to the Rock."
"Just anxious I won't get there in time for puck drop," she replies. "My boyfriend is playing in the game and I wanted to surprise him before the puck dropped but I didn't realize how much traffic there would be two days before Christmas."
The Uber looks very surprised when she says that her boyfriend is playing. "Devils player, I hope?" he curiously asks as he looks in the rearview mirror at her.
"Yeah," she replies. "I'm not wearing 13 for no reason."
"Ah, the captain," he says as he pulls out front of the Prudential Center. "Good choice. Well, good luck to the boys tonight. Hopefully they can bring home this dub against Detroit."
Yeah, me too. She doesn't say it out loud as she gets out of the car. She grabs her suitcase and heads around the building where she knows Nico parks all the time.
(Y/N) puts her suitcase in the trunk of Nico's car with the extra key she has before she heads to the back entrance of the building. With a flash of the VIP badge and ticket that she bought to security, (Y/N) gets into the back entrance of the Prudential Center with no issues.
She can hear the starting lineups being announced as she rushes through the concourse so they haven't even gotten to the National Anthem yet as she practically sprints to the seat she bought.
The singer is being announced as she walks down the steps to her front row seat right next to the Devils' bench. Luckily, Nico is standing closest to the glass on the ice as the singer begins to sing.
She isn't being very subtle with the way she's walking in front of everyone. When she looks on the ice, she sees that her boyfriend is looking at her. Nico smiles and bites his bottom lip when she looks at him. She gives him a small wave then shows him the jersey she's wearing. He has to repress the smile that threatens to spill onto his lips.
Then applause breaks out throughout the arena, signaling that the anthem has ended. Nico puts his helmet back on and skates to his teammates. (Y/N) settles down in her seat and sends Nico a 'looking good out there' text she knows he will see at intermission.
Their eyes occasionally find each other throughout the game. Jack even notices Nico looking toward her at one point during a power play and says something to his captain. Nico's face turns visibly red when he looks at his alternate. Jack laughs at whatever Nico says to him. (Y/N) can't help but capture Nico's flustered face as he gets ready for the faceoff. She'll have to ask him about it later.
Timo scores one in the second period and one in the third. Tyler scores the game winner with eight minutes left in the third, and the Devils hang on for the win. Nico gets a couple shots on goal but no puck luck.
As first star of the game Timo gets interviewed on the ice, (Y/N) makes her way to Nico's car.
She doesn't know if she's shivering from how cold it is outside or if it's because she's excited to see her boyfriend for the first time in over a week. Either way, her entire body is shaking.
While she waits for Nico, she leans against his car and scrolls through social media. There are clips of her arriving to the game and Nico's reaction to seeing her all over Twitter. She can't help but share one of the videos of Nico's reaction with a little heart emoji. The replies and quotes start rolling in almost immediately. The Devils fans are loving the confirmation that Nico was looking at her during the anthem.
The door opens and (Y/N) watches Nico walk into the parking lot with Jack, Luke, Jonas, and Timo. She smiles and walks up to the group.
"Congratulations on your two goal night, Timo," she says to get the group's attention. "And first star." Timo smiles in response but doesn't have time to say anything before Nico finally makes a move.
He immediately envelopes her in a hug as soon as he processes that she's standing in front of him. She giggles when her boyfriend lifts her off her feet. She wraps her legs around his waist so she doesn't fall. "I think that's our cue to leave," Timo tells the Hughes boys as he walks in the direction of his car.
Jack laughs, "Have a good night, cap."
"Use protection," the youngest Hughes states as he, Jack, and Timo head to their cars. She smiles at Luke's comment.
Nico has no reaction to what his teammates say. He's busy burying his face in (Y/N)'s neck and holding her in his arms. "
They stay like this for a few seconds before Nico finally sets her back down on the ground. His hands cup her jaw and she wraps her arms around his waist under his jacket. "I thought your flight was going to get in while I was playing," Nico finally says to her.
"And miss your last game before the short winter break?" she asks with a smile on her lips. "Absolutely not. I know you guys haven't been playing very well and I know how that's been making you feel so I wanted to be here tonight. Proud of you and the boys for bringing in a win going into the break."
A little frown forms on his lips. "You didn't have to leave your family early just to be here for me," he tells her. "Oh my God."
She fixes his beanie and lets out a light laugh. "They told me to come back," she admits to him. "I told them about our conversation after the last game and how I wished I could be there for you because of how frustrated you were so I switched to an earlier flight. Seemed to do the trick because you won tonight."
Nico smiles and shakes his head. His thumbs run over her cheekbones and he sighs. "I truly don't deserve you," he quietly says. "Best girlfriend ever."
"Best boyfriend ever," she retorts as she gets on her tiptoes. They share a quick, soft kiss that Nico tries to deepen but she doesn't let it get too far away from them. "Can we go home? I miss Nala and her cuddles."
He laughs at the mention of their kitten that they adopted a month ago. "Yes, we can go home," he says. "Pretty sure Nala misses you too. She cried right after you left and has slept on your side of the bed every night you've been away."
They get in the car and Nico takes off the beanie. Her jaw drops.
"You asshole," she gasps as Nico starts the car. "You cut your hair."
Nico smiles and she runs her fingers through his shortened locks. "It was too long, liebling," he laughs as he pulls out of the parking spot. "It was getting in the way more often than not." She pouts and Nico notices. "It'll grow back, baby. Promise."
"And you better not cut it again without my approval," she retorts. "You know how much I love the longer hair. Don't make me hide all of the scissors in New Jersey and New York, because I will."
"So dramatic."
"You love me anyway."
He glances over at her with a small smile on his face. "Yeah, I do."
༺═──────────────═༻
MAIN MASTERLIST
have a request ? check out the guidelines !
wanna be added to the taglist ? fill out this form !
taglist : @dancerbailey3 @dasiysthings
427 notes · View notes
borom1r · 23 days
Note
1-25 choose violence ask game ❤️
ALL OF THEM?????? you’re so real for this ty snfnsnbfns. doing LotR bc of course I am
1. the character everyone gets wrong
PIPPIN I HATE TO SAY IT BUT PIPPIN. all those incorrect quote polls that have been posted where pippin keeps fucking winning YALL REALIZE HES AN ACTUAL CHARACTER RIGHT?? with like depth?? and bonds?? and a personality. yall realize that right?????? right??? ik we all love 2 joke but he would not say half of those things
2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom
ok I personally enjoy both for Boromir BUT if he IS topping. he is a service top. I will die on this hill
3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr
I block ppl for these takes so no screenshots but everyone who thinks Boromir is a villain. if you think Boromir is a villain I will key your car.
4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?
there is one singular straw and it is bad Boromir takes in the Boromir tag
5. worst discord server and why
I don’t join fandom discord servers bc I love myself too much for that 💗
6. which ship fans are the most annoying?
ummm idk? most of my lotr mutuals have different ships from me and it’s all chill. but tbf I’m very selective abt who I interact with now lmao.
7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?
no one yet thank fuck.
8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about
Aragorn/Arwen isn’t actually romantic sorry I think it’s fucked up actually. the vibes are off there for SURE
9. worst part of canon
FARAMIR’S “yeah I’m gonna take you from your home and tame you. haha wdym. you don’t need a blade during times of peace.” SHTICK WITH ÉOWYN IN THE BOOKS. UNPACK YOUR BIASES YOU LITTLE FREAK!!!!!!!!
10. worst part of fanon
HM. I will stick with “people who horrifically misinterpret Boromir’s character”
11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered
at the moment I only have rings of power blocked but I’ve had that blocked since it came out bc if I look at the armor in that show I will commit crimes.
12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them
MOVIE!FARAMIR MY SPECIALEST LITTLE GUY OOOOOOOOOO MOVIE!FARAMIR I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU he’s so handsome and special and I love him and you WILL all look at him and clap and cheer. it makes me insane that his temptation by the ring mirror’s Boromir’s and he’s actually fucking normal abt the Rohirrim AND I just love him very much :)
13. worst blorboficiation
ummm idk… maybe Frodo
14. that one thing you see in fics all the time
HMMM exposing myself but I basically only read Aragorn/Boromir fics lmao + since we’re Choosing Violence the most annoying thing is Boromir just being A Brute. like damn I love the surface level reading of the text maybe try engaging with it above a 1st grade analysis next time 💗
15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time
hmmmmm idk cuz again I don’t interact w a lot of fanartists so there’s nothing like. annoying. all th ✨motifs✨ I do see r very fun + I like them :)
16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)
ummm for Serious, portraying Pippin as Stupid. for Silly, uhhhh Trans Faramir is so real to me I completely forgot cis people both 1) exist in the real world and 2) probably interpret Fara as cis too. i don’t get it :(
17. there should be more of this type of fic/art
trans Faramir 🩵💗🤍
18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...
HM idk. trans Faramir again. also bc I love it, utilizing Old Norse culture for the Rohirrim teehee
19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...
OK IM MAD THAT FINNISH BOROMIR IS JUST ME. THATS ME. THATS AN OUTFIT I WEAR REGULARLY MINUS THE LONG HAIR. I DRESS LIKE THAT TO BUY GROCERIES. i love him for that tho. I’m also mad that MtG Boromir’s stupid pointy muttonchops have grown on me. freak behavior, keeping his facial hair trimmed in those stupid little points
20. part of canon you found tedious or boring
I’m fighting for my life reading the histories rn 😑 I find them very dry for the most part
21. part of canon you think is overhyped
idk? I think there is an appropriate level of hype. but idk if Rings of Power had a lot of hype. if it did, then Rings of Power is my answer
22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores
idk if it’s IGNORED necessarily but the fact that Boromir carries a Rohirric shield in the films does actually genuinely make me insane 💞 I love that sm
23. ship you've unwillingly come around to
UNWILLINGLY?????? idk?? ummmm I think it’s all fine for the most part I’m just A Fag so I don’t write het ships. it’s like a moral thing. Éowyn/Faramir gets a pass conceptually bc they’re T4T to me tho
24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse
idkkkkkkk I don’t engage w discourse bc I want this fandom to remain pleasanttttt
25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing
again idk.. I block on sight if I see a Bad Take + then I erase it from my memory so I can continue to live in a beautiful blissful world where I. forgor abt cis people ☺️
5 notes · View notes
hibiscusheir · 1 year
Text
Katsuki Bakugo x shy!Reader
a/n: more mha since it's fresh in my brain TwT- also! i have a request I am working on!! if you have any more, feel free to send them to me! i also can answer questions if you have any :]
Genre: Fluff
Pronouns: No specific ones are mentioned, can be taken as fem, masc, or gn :)
Contains: Bakugo x Reader, Hawks x Reader, Dabi x Reader
CW: Cursing, probably very OOC, reader has a bit of social anxiety, bit of overthinking, self indulgent ngl, mention of alcohol
Katsuki Bakugo
Katsuki had invited you to hang out with the two of yours's group of friends, the Bakusquad. Mina and Denki had it all planned out: all of you would meet up in Katsuki's room at six o'clock PM (6pm) and play card games, eat snacks, drink a little bit of alcohol (at least until you all got tipsy), and overall have fun.
"I dunno, Katsu..." You had replied to his 'invite', knowing well you could only handle so much social interaction in one day.
"If you need to leave, just give me the word. I don't care if they'll miss us, you're more important to me. But at least try." His words were soft, not pointed like they usually were. It made you sigh and nod your head.
You all met up and began the festivities that night by playing Uno. The usual events were happening; Katsuki yelling at Eijirou and Denki for supposedly cheating at the game; Mina and Hanta dominating the game; you were watching it all unveil.
You had noticed your anxiety beginning to spike as you spoke less and less as the night continued after the game was over. No one had really taken notice of this, besides Katsuki who held your hand for a moment, looked you in the eyes, and let go, continuing on talking to Eijirou. It wasn't until Mina asked you a question that things began to go downhill.
"Hey, (Y/N)! Do you want a drink? We've got whiskey, tequila, wine... we could probably go find something else if you want?" She tilted her head to the side holding her own glass of wine.
"Uh..." you paused, unsure of what to say. It was a school night, and you probably shouldn't be drinking in the first place. But would they think you were lame? You had known all of them for a few months since you started dating Katsuki, but there was still a possibility. "N-No thanks, I'm alright-!"
Denki scoffed, "Lame!" but swiftly murmured an apology as Katsuki smacked him upside the head. Everyone laughed but you. You were stuck in your own head. Of course, you were lame. How could you fit into this group? You shouldn't have even come, you knew this would turn out badly. You knew-
"I'm turning in for the night with (Y/N). You guys continue," Katsuki announced to the group, standing up and walking over to you. He held out a hand for you to grab and pull yourself up. You did and he led you to the door, still holding on. No one protested and simply said goodbye. "You looked spaced out back there. You probably didn't realize it, but you were shaking. You do that when you're anxious," he didn't look at you and instead keep his gaze forward as you two walked down the hall to your dorm room. "They're annoying as hell. Don't beat yourself up about it, babe."
You smiled and leaned your head into his shoulder. When you finally reached your door, you opened it, pulled him inside, and kissed him softly as you shut it behind you. "Thank you, Katsu. It means the world to me."
He grumbled and kissed you again.
-
a/n: i’m actually so sorry this took so long to post- it’s been sitting in my drafts for like a month and i just had no motivation to write. at first it was gonna be a handful of characters x reader (separate) and then i narrowed it down to three and, again, had no motivation, so i just cut it off to bakugo. i still hope you enjoy this and hopefully it won’t happen next post :) also, refer to my oc post bc i may make a post about them <3
76 notes · View notes
distant-velleity · 3 months
Text
no title, just a little thing i wrote up just now bc i had the idea
takes place roughly around book 5-75, replacing the scene where yuu goes to look for grim. mild content warning for an injury but it's not too graphic i dont think
~
The sky is black and grey with the remains of storm clouds; the streets are glassy like mirrors, made as such by the sudden downpour of rain during the evening and all throughout the night. Reflected in the slick stone tiles is the magical flame from the streetlamps, setting the ground ablaze with harsh light.
Yu pays all of this little mind as he dashes across campus, his sneakers already soaked through the soles. The cold hardly bothers him—it doesn’t stand a chance when his anxiety is already gnawing away at him.
[ x1 Blot Crystal remains at the coliseum. ]
If the blot crystal remains at the Purple Stage, it won’t be found until after the Culture Fair—and if so, it will continue to affect visitors to the end of the event. Yu is far from a saint, but after bearing witness to five separate overblots, he refuses to run any risks. 
He has to get to that crystal, and hide it with all the others. And soon.
After what feels like too long, he finally reaches the coliseum. The gates are closed, almost mockingly so, but that’s fine—they’re not too tall, so without too much overthinking, Yu manages to scale them and end up free on the other side. As soon as he does, he pushes his freezing feet and hurries to the stage.
[ Set tracker to find target object? ]
“Yes, please,” mutters Yu, feeling jittery. While he waits for the tracker to activate, he looks around in short, shivering jerks of his head.
[ USER is 10m from Blot Crystal. ]
And so begins the game of hot and cold pursuit—relying on the tracker, Yu searches desperately for the latest blot crystal, even as he has to zip up his pitifully thin jacket and rub his chilled hands together through his gloves. But he refuses to give up, strangely motivated by some reason.
Until he finally finds it.
[ USER is 0m from Blot Crystal. ]
Thank fuck, he thinks, forcing a hand through the foundations of the stage and blindly grabbing until his grip connects with a rock-like object. One numbly painful extrication later, he has the blot crystal in his hands. It’s almost identical to the others, but with a distinct sickeningly saccharine scent, and a violet hue around the edges.
And, disturbingly, it feels warm through Yu’s gloves. No, not warm—warm would describe the feeling of Riddle’s crystal, with the lingering effect of his overpowering fire spells. This feels more like—like—
At the same time that Yu becomes aware of his palm being corroded to rawness, his head is assaulted by an acute feeling of painful dizziness. He gasps and drops the crystal, hearing it sizzle menacingly all the way down, and tears off what remains of his glove. The cold air stings where it touches the now-exposed skin of his palm, an angry red. Veiny lines of black start to stretch outwards from the edges of the corrosion.
[ DEBUFF ACQUIRED — Fairest Poison: -1 HP every second until medical intervention or unconsciousness. Increased dizziness, nausea, and shortness of breathing. ]
[ DEBUFF ACQUIRED — Blot Exposure (Lvl. 2): USER will begin to experience lightheadedness and other symptoms of sickness. Max HP is reduced by 20 points. ]
[ BLOT METER: 30/100 … 38/100 … 46/100 … ]
[ HP: 68/80 … 67/80 … 66/80 … ]
“What the fuck?” asks Yu aloud, because his head hurts too much to think right now. “Why does the crystal have poison on it—oh, who am I kidding, it was V—”
He staggers, losing his sense of balance as pain blooms in his head again. It throbs again, then, so intensely that his vision blacks out for a moment. More and more notifications pop up in his peripheral, but he can’t read what they say. 
“Ughh…”
Yu sways dangerously when he tries to take a step forward, losing control of his body for a frankly terrifying amount of seconds. When the coordination partially comes back to him, he tries to continue, but his head hurts even more, and—
Suddenly he’s on his knees. When did that happen?
“Gotta at least… get someone to help,” he mutters, shaking his head to try and clear the dizziness. It doesn’t work. And then, placing his damaged hand on his knee, he tries to stand up but immediately hisses in pain. “Shit—I just need to—”
Out of the corner of his eye flashes the biggest notification so far:
[ WARNING: HP is low. Fainting imminent. ]
“—get outta… here…”
The ground seems to come up to meet him. Yu’s eyes slip shut, and he experiences the peace of one’s senses vanishing.
6 notes · View notes
winterchimez · 10 months
Note
Mutuals who just radiate positive energy-
weeee another moot game!! thank you anon <3
ps. im tagging the ones that i interact/talk to the most!!
Tumblr media
@sungbeam - hear me out folks. beam is literally one of the sweetest human bean you'll ever find here cs honestly never in a million years i'd imagine us to be moots when i've been following her works WAY BEFORE writing myself 😭 though now we're just two crackheads who literally scream abt anything/everything everyday now lmao 🤡
@cloverdaisies - there is a reason why i call her my love bcs it is what it is. i love her sm, clo is just always there for me and checking up on me daily, like???? yes everyday i thank God for blessing me with such a beautiful soul 🤧💚
@flwoie - my OG best supporter of my works!! sona's been there since the beginning of my writing journey and it always flatters me how she speaks highly of my works (bcs i myself do not think of it that way honestly before meeting you???) the way how she only has nice things to say is just- 🥹🥹🥹
@hanniluvi - i met soph through sona bcs of how she recommended my hyunjae series to her (which btw i'll always be grateful for both of your reviews and thoughts abt my first baby 🥹) soph's the sweetest and always tagging me in lot of the moot games too!!
@cupidjyu - another sweet meimei 🥹 honestly both her and her works just straight up radiate positive energy 24/7 like 🥹🥹🥹 yumi's just so sweet and cute i love interacting with her always!
@zzoguri - another one of my biggest supporters!! i enjoy every single conversation i have with moni and i find myself smiling all the time as i chat with them 🤧 and thank you too for actually reaching out to me first in the dms!
@heemingyu - sana was the first one to hop into my dms and i can't tell you how grateful i am for that 😭 (bcs im shy and don't usually start the convo first ajskdjdj) i love how we've just naturally be able to talk to each other well & literally have some of the same interest too!! (ps we will ignore the fact how she's always sending me sangyeon stuff and enjoys watching me lose my shit- 💀)
@stealanity - our big sister matty!! i've mentioned this in a previous moot game but she's literally the sweet unnie who would send you a positive message always and just makes your day a whole lot better 🫶🏻
@haet-sal - my fellow hyunjae wifu!! lacey is just so freaking hilarious yall i can't even begin how many times she has made me cackle so hard 😭
@i520cm - my fellow malaysian moot!! 🇲🇾 another one who makes me cackle bcs ipah would literally pop up in our gc and suddenly drops a random ass topic which makes us drop dead cs of how funny it is 😭
@daisyvisions - my fellow ult fav sangyeon stan!!! daisy has always been so sweet and nice to me since the beginning and i can't tell you how happy i was when you first interacted and followed me 😭 i always love talking to you whenever!!
@kinouuu - we just recently became moots but the way how boki's already giving me such sweet and positive energy vibes is just 🫶🏻 i look forward to having more convos! (and im still shooketh and so happy with the fact that ive finally found a fellow irish moot!!! 🧡)
@etherealcheol-mp3 - another recent moot!! im so happy you reached out to me first in dms and i can't believe that we've already been able to talk about so many things!! hehe i look forward to more convos with you toro & YALL I FINALLY FOUND A FELLOW 01 LINER 😭😭😭😭😭
16 notes · View notes