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jiikyu · 3 years

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Taste of Marigolds In Bloom

Herb of the Sun — Or Marigold was often used during the Middle Ages as a love charm. Carrying one of these brightly colored flowers was thought to bring love. Though be warned for they are also poisonous. Chapter IV. Sitting in the back of a police car was not how you anticipated your night ending — And certainly not with Mirios arms wrapped around you all the while. You’re not sure how you got here. ∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ All characters are 18+ Yandere!Mirio x Fem!Reader(AΩβ) Y/N = Your Name F/N = Your Full Name E/C = Eye Color H/C = Hair Color

Warnings: Yandere / Unhealthy Behavior / Delusions / Angst / Possessiveness / Violence and uh Fluff? First Chapter Here❦ Previous Chapter Here❦ Next Chapter Here ❦

∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ “Oh hey!” Mirios leans his arm against the doors frame. “Isn’t this a lovely surprise.” “Hey, do you wanna come to Nabezos with me?” Your question takes him by surprise and he feels his arm slipping. It’s raining. “Sure, let me grab my jacket.” ∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ The little droplets from above mean the sidewalks are clear of people, it’s not often you practically get the city all to yourself. When Mirio agreed to come with you to the popular restaurant off campus grounds, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. It wasn’t like you to swing by unexpectedly, at least not without some form of prior acknowledgement. Like a text. What’s even stranger was that you wanted to go to Nabezos, in the rain. Maybe it’s nothing to be get riled up over... The conversation flows in it’s usual lighthearted manor with you both throwing in the occasional jab. It’s normal. But if that’s truly the case then — Why won’t his heart stop hammering violently against his ribs? Somethings not right. He just knows it. Mirios pace starts to slow to a crawl, and little by little it all together stops. And you had been so close to making it to Nabezos, maybe two blocks down the sidewalk? Suddenly his appetite is gone. When there’s no respond to your corny joke do you turn to see the blond fallen behind. Everything about it feels so very wrong. Standing like motionless his yellow umbrella rests loosely in his grasp, shoulders slouching forward. But — You catch sight of something that freezes the blood in your veins. Tears threaten to spill from those blue pools. How had this happened? Only a few seconds ago were you chatting like normal. This proves all of your fears and suspicions, that there is something deep troubling Mirio. That’s why you were doing this right? You were going to do your best to gently coax out whatever was bothering him. Had you already messed up? The gap made between you wasn’t large by any means but by gods do you close it fast. Abandoning your umbrella to ground below as shoes splash against the wet pavement, now your standing before him in the rain. “Wait Mirio what’s happening? Why are you crying?” “Y/N...” His voice has been reduced to a rasp whisper, the usual optimism drained and you can see the bottom of the well. “Are you leaving?” Huh? The question confuses you even further. That cannot be the root of the problem, a small idle conversation between you and your friend could not have been the cause of this. “What? Of course not!” As much as you want to stay in Musutafu — Your words are not quite the full truth, are they? “Well I... I don’t actually know yet.” Do not make promises you cannot keep. The way he kneads his lip with his teeth, suffocating any sound from escaping, it does nothing but further shatter your heart into tiny fragments. If this continues you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to put the pieces back together. You’re about to speak again when the blond does the unexpected. Taking a deep breath he exhales, then the corners of his mouth upturn. It is nowhere near as radiant as his signature smile, and you know it’s not real. But now it’s his turn to close the gap. Taking the step forward Mirio dips the yellow umbrella so it no longer hangs over his head but yours. The thrumming of his heart drums against his ears, he’s sure you hear it too. “Y/N, what if I told you I don’t want you to go?” Oh. Wait? Does that mean? Oh. You feel the heat rise to your cheeks. “I —“ The soft pitter-patter of raindrops against the umbrellas canvas matches your own heartbeat. Fast and light, like suddenly you’re floating. You watch the collar of his gray gym shirt start to darken with moisture and droplets catching in that sunshine soaked hair. You swallow down your shame because — You’ve never been more sure of anything in your life. “I would say, I feel the same.” You’ve never seen someone visibly light up the way Mirio does when those words leave your lips. The very words he oh so desperately needed to hear. Was that all it really took? No, he must be dreaming. “Really?” The single word is laced with so much hope it’s palpable, it’s followed by a sniffle as he brings his thumb to wipe away a stray tear. “Of course idiot!” Your own eyes start to blur and you blink them away before it’s too late. “Now stop it, you’re gonna make me cry!” Your fingers grab a hold of the umbrellas metal handle, just above Mirios hand. You push it towards him, so it’s no longer covering only you. “There, now we can both stand under it.” Sure, both of you have a shoulder that’s going to get absolutely drenched, but do you care? No. Mirios eyes go big when you do this and you swear you see literal stars dancing in those pools of blue. You’re so blissfully unaware that everything you’re doing only furthers you both down this spiral. He’s staring at you like you’re his entire world. And he wouldn’t change a single thing about you, for anything. “Aw you’re such a softy Y/N.” “Wha — You were crying first! You started it.” It’s not fair. He really does have the most contagious smile you’ve ever seen. Hand in hand you and Mirio continue to make your way to Nabezos, your own umbrella is left forgotten to the rain. ∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ Dinner had gone so well that you’re left giddy and boy, does it show, your smile never once falters. Not even when the scent of cigarettes and alcohol starts to overflow your senses. Currently you’re leaning against the outside of Nabezos, the buildings bricks now having imprinted into your back. Awning overhang keeps you dry from the rain while your eyes stay trained to the bright screen of your phone. Sun having started its descent the color slowly begins to fade from the sky. But you’re not worried, campus is only a few blocks away.

And you have Mirio.

Now you’re just wait on him, who, being the forgetful man he is forgot his wallet at the table you had eaten at. Never in a million years would you believe someone as breathtaking as Mirio would return your feelings.

Your happiness leaves you blind to the world.

“Hey are you d-deaf or do you just think it’s cute to ignore someone talking to you?”

Huh? Only when you look up from your phone do you realize there’s a man, who you don’t recognize, staring directly at you. Your mouth is suddenly dry. The stench of booze and smoke is so strong your nose is set ablaze. You can’t help but take shallow breaths. When had he gotten so close? Were you really that oblivious to your surroundings? Your pulse is racing but you don’t move, maybe if you continue to ignore him he’ll leave you be. What a stupid idea. Suddenly your wrist is grabbed, phone slipping from your grasp and it falls to the pavement. And now you’re trying desperately to yank yourself from of his grasp. But his fingers have an iron clad grasp around your limb. “What sort of game are you trying to play?” He’s shouting at you and you have no idea what he’s going on about, you just want to get as far away from him as possible. Your eyes barely catch the flash of yellow that appears over the drunks shoulder and before you know it he’s no longer holding onto your wrist — Or rather he was flung off you by an impact to the gut. The stranger lets out a cry as his back slams against the hard concrete below. You listen to him cough and sputter for air, but you don’t look — Your eyes stay glued to your savior. Mirio. Besides the loud grunting coming from the man who just got his guts rearranged, it’s eerily silent. You cannot see the blonds face, so you can only guess what expression he wears... But something feels off and that scares you. You finally tear your eyes away from Mirio when you hear the other stand. The stranger regained his footing but why isn’t he running away? Isn’t it enough? Mirio hasn’t moved an inch since landing the first strike, standing between you and the man. A shield. Neither move for a while, just staring each other down and you can see the sweat beading down the strangers face. You never would have expected Mirio to be the one to break the stalemate. Basically just straight up breaking into full sprint towards the stranger before banking a quick left. “Oh shit —“ Is all the man manages while raising his right arm, taking shaky aim at the blond, some sort of liquid ejects from his fingertips? Mirio makes it look so incredibly easy to dodge, the inky black substance lands somewhere in the shadows. Forgotten. The man does not get a second shot. An earth shattering blow lands under his chin and you swear you hear an echoing crack of bone against bone. And just like that it’s over — Or at least that’s what you tell yourself. Anyone would be knocked unconscious by the sheer force. But Mirio doesn’t stop. What if I told you I don’t want you to go? Those are the words that come to mind as your E/C eyes follow Mirios fist. Over and over again it connects with the strangers face. Time slows like some form of torture, you watch the man take each crushing blow. As you watch the blonds knuckles begin to turn a dark crimson. And you do nothing but stand frozen, a bystander, a participant. Even the ability to speak is lost to you. Only when the terrible sound of blood starts to bubble up from the man’s throat does Mirio finally release his white-knuckled grip from the shirts collar. Without the Alphas hold the unconscious body rag-dolls to the pavement below. God, does the sickening thud make you shudder in disgust. Now it’s just you — And the man who has only ever showered you with warmth and overbearing kindness. Towering over the bloody pulp of a man he stands with his back towards you, chest heaving as he attempts to recapture his breathing. Your mind is so vary far away right now but somehow, somewhere in your anxiety riddled state are you able to produce a single cohesive repeating thought. It’s something that comes so naturally it almost terrifies you, you might even loath yourself later for it... You cannot help but be frightened, not for the beaten man lying against the cold pavement, no your fears are for Mirios safety. For his sake. When he turns to face you you’re met with the burning blue of the ocean. And within seconds you swear you see the raging sea already starting to simmer. Your feet stay planted as your hero takes the first step towards you. Even if your life depended on it you’re not sure you’d be able to move an inch — Though it’s too late for that now, isn’t it? By the time you notice he’s practically all over you, but there is an invisible wall of tension that keeps him from touching. With the back of your shoulders pressed against the brick wall there is no escape from the cage of muscle surrounding you, thick forearms having rooted themselves on either side of your head. Every instinct screams at you, to run, to submit, to hide, to do anything useful. Maybe you’re broken. Instead, you find yourself entranced, E/C eyes trace along the scars of those very forearms keeping you trapped. The healed skin darkened where deep gashes once bled. Following the perfect blemishes to the meat of his shoulders you accidentally meet deep iris pools, completely and utterly awestruck. The expression Mirio wears is one you’ve never seen before. You want to tell yourself that it’s the shadows casted down by the looming cities walls — Or that’s it’s just the dark clouds raining down on you. But... You’re having a difficult time convincing yourself. “Are you hurt?” A low breathless whisper pulls you from muddy waters, dredged up from the murky depths of your mind. Was that Mirios voice? He’s close, so close, his ragged breathes ghost across the bare skin of your neck. Your eyes fall to the filthy lot concrete, where you’re barely able to make out the motionless mans shape. Why is it so hard to see? You hadn’t even noticed your eyes gloss over, fat tears already rolling down your cheeks. “M-Mirio you —“ The pain in your voice has his chest twisting in agony. Sharp thorns digging into the delicate flesh. Seeing you like this hurts worse than the searing ache in his knuckles. But it’s okay. Because you’re safe. The thin threads holding him back finally fray and snap. Mirios arms abandon the wall behind you, pulling you flush against his broad chest, muscled arms wrapped around your frame. “It’s okay. I’m here now.” His head rests atop your own, you feel his lips move against your locks as he continues to reassure you. “I’ll always be here — I promise.” You won’t ever have to be worry again. Being held only makes the flood tears worse, when your body melts against his so does the last bit pf willpower holding the dam together. Slowly you begin to hiccup into his shirt, your arms shakily wrapping around his neck, falling further into the embrace you feel his arms tighten. And now your balling in a empty public restaurant parking lot with a bloody unconscious body only a few yards away. The dying rain isn’t strong enough to wash away the scent of copper. ∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ Blinding red and blue lights flash across the cities walls. When you speak with the police — Well actually, it’s not so much you speaking with them as it is you listening to Mirio tell them the details of what happened and offering a weak nod when they wanted your input. You haven’t spoken much since exhausting your lungs and draining a lakes worth of tears onto Mirios shirt. His eyes keep darting to meet yours between every couple of words. You watch on as the blond speaks clearly and calmly with the officers, you envy his ability to do so. He’s even able to smile as if nothing happened — You finally tear your eyes away, choosing to look at a lone anthill, inches from your foot. The weight of his jacket keeps you semi-warm as you stand under the overhang of Nabezos, the smell of ocean and sun clings to the leather, you pull the fabric tighter around your shoulders. You had watched as three first responders wheeled the stretcher to the waiting ambulance. As soon as its doors slammed shut the siren blared to life and the vehicle sped away. It was a good sign you tell yourself. A sign that the man was alive. The invisible weight on your shoulder lifts, if only by a hair. “Do you need a ride home?” The question snaps you from staring at the pavement. A male officer, possibly a Beta? It’s hard to tell in the rain, he has kind eyes. There’s no time for you to search for an answer before a firm hand finds itself planted the deputies shoulder. Mirio now stands behind the rather startled man, all smiles of course. Though something about the curve of his lips doesn’t sit well with you. “That would be great actually, can you give the both of us a ride?” It takes you a second to realize he’s answering for you. “We’re both headed the same direction.” “Of c-course.” The officer shakes away his initial fright by the time he finishes speaking. And you still have yet to process what’s happening. ∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ Sitting in the back of a police car was not how you anticipated your night ending — And certainly not with Mirios arms wrapped around you all the while. You’re not sure how you got here. But what you are sure of is that there isn’t an inch of you that doesn’t smell like the Alpha. He’s been scenting you ever since entering the vehicle, practically pulling you into his lap. It’s not so uncommon amongst friends — Although, you’re no longer just friends, are you? His hand could wrap around your wrist two times over. The blond has a delicate touch as he traces the pad of his thumb over your skin, he holds you as though you’re porcelain. The entire time your eyes are glued to the red busted skin of his knuckles. An uncomfortable clearing of a throat breaks the moment. You had almost forgotten about the police officer who so politely offered the ride home. You blame it on overactive instincts, that this is probably the norm, it’s a lousy excuse and you know it. And a part of you, one that you’re desperately trying to drown under the surface until there is no oxygen left, knows instincts are not the only thing at play here.

∘◦ ✿ ◦∘ When Mirio told you he’d be staying the night at your place you thought it had been an offer. Not a fact. You remind yourself that you know Mirio. Know that he would never hurt you, that he’s only looking out for you. That’s why you agreed.

So what if your every attempt to convince him you’d be fine staying alone was disregarded. Right?

You stare into the mirror, letting the sink fill with water. Paying no attention to the temperature you soak a hand towel into the ice cold liquid. Bringing the damp fabric under your eyes you wipe away the last remnants of tears marks. The soft knock on the door startles you from your haze, looking over you notice the shadow of what can only be a pair of feet peeking under the thin frame of wood. “Are you okay?” Mirios voice may be muffled behind the wood but it’s impossible to ignore the worry bled into every syllable. “Yeah.” Your own voice is still raspy from your crying, it reminds you how weak you truly are. “Just give me a few minutes... Okay?” “I’m here.” What you can’t see is the large hand pressed into the creases of door. “When you’re ready.” The outside noise seems to die down with that and you listen to the static of the running water as you strip out of your soaked clothing, peeling the wet material from your skin. The jacket that had kept you warm now hangs off the tubs edge. ... Mirio stands guarding the entrance of the restroom. Like a good boyfriend. Foot tapping nervously against the carpeted floor. This is all so new, usually the hero is in full control of his actions. But now — Every passing second is another nail plunged into his coffin, he might have really screwed up big time... And just when the two of you had finally become official. He doesn’t know what took over. But he does. When saw you cornered by some low life — He only remembers the feel of white hot burning rage coursing his veins and the look of terror in your eyes. He really dropped the ball hadn’t he? He doesn’t regret it. Not even for a second, he’d do it again, for you. His only regret is scaring you. Suddenly his foot stops its anxious drumming. It becomes apparent to him that — With you in the bathroom he has full range of your dorm, unsupervised. Not that he would do anything fishy, of course not! It’s just the first time he’ll get to appreciate your little temporary home.

A glimpse at the future you’ll share.

Waiting by the door for another minute he takes the first experimental step away from his post, waiting with bated breath. Nothing. The only sound is the continuous running of a faucet. It’s the only sign he needs to continue onwards, down the hallway. By all means it’s not a long journey, in only a few of feet does the blond find himself in front of a cracked door, a dim light streams through the gap. With a featherlight touch he pushes it open to reveal what he’d hoped for. Your bedroom. He’s not disappointed, the room is so very you. It smells like you. Even when Mirio’s absolutely drained he can’t help but admire every little detail, even down to the lone sock lying forgotten in the center of the floor. A tired smile makes its way to his lips as he goes to pick it up, tossing it in the hamper sitting only a few feet away, a smile resting pretty on his features all the while. How forgetful you were. He doesn’t mind this, in fact quite the opposite — He can’t help think it’s quite domestic. Who knew he’d windup such a hopeless romantic? Before the blond knows it he starts to wonder what living together would be like. It really can’t be helped.

Mirio can almost envision you seated at his table waiting while he cooks your favorite meal, it might take him a couple of tries to nail but he’s anything if not persistent — Or perhaps, waking up to morning kisses with your legs tangled in knots. Maybe one day a couple of children that share both your and his qualities pop into the picture. He understands how silly it is all is, that he can’t help but feel as though he’s already been living this life with you. Too bad it doesn’t last. The sweetest of daydreams are cut to shreds when blue eyes catch the unmistakable flash orange and white of a bottle. On your nightstand are your suppressants, sitting carelessly for all to see. After staring for what is probably considered far longer than normal a not so innocent thought just sort of floats its way into his system and... Suddenly Mirio’s being crushed under the weight of something tremendous and hideous. Guilt. He could never. Everything’s falling into place, just the way it’s meant to. But — Some stranger had basically gone and flipped his world upside down in the matter of seconds. That drunk bastard leaning in close you, probably whispering dirty words to you... His fist clenches into a tight ball, knuckles still burn from the impact of skin against skin. God only knows what that creep was gonna do? That filth had tried to take you from him, there is no mistaking. Was it some sort of cruel joke, turning the best day of his life into one of the worst? A bead of sweat breaks along his brow as blue eyes continue to stare down the bottle of white pills. Fear has got Mirio in a chokehold and right now it’s a losing battle. You are someone he wants — No, needs to protect, that’s why he can’t stop but think... What would he do without you? He doesn’t notice his fingers have started moving on their own volition. Mirio cannot picture a world without you.

#mirio x reader #yandere mirio #bnha mirio #yandere bnha #mywriting #SO EXCITED TO POST THIS YA'LL #it really should have been split in two but whatever #theres one☝️ chapter left this is ur warning☺️

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kuromichad · 3 years

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different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia.

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner).

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness.

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

#source on much of this: existing as a transmasc on tumblr for years and years.#i stopped identifying as any sort of 'woman-aligned' pretty much right before the ridiculous 'all afabs are dysphoric' stuff #but it sure did still make me hate myself and feel like a silly cowardly ugly little girl for wanting to transition!#and back when i WAS a she/they i definitely was falling for 'men are bad maleness is bad always inherently :)' rhetoric #not in the modern form outlined above but in the like. brainlessly parroted from 'baeddel tumblr' form #which was still like 'you can escape being a Bad Person by either becoming or admitting you are a girl :)'#and the only acknowledgment of trans men in this ideology was like. 'well i guess they feel like they have to do that :\'#'too bad for them. im not saying they shouldnt transition but you know. men suck though <3'#it was bad for me it was bad for other people so im saying from experience. Fucking cut it out! the end

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nobody-knose--archive · 3 years

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i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

#lemon demon #spirit phone #pretty sure this is my first bit of spirit phone content on my blog. hi greater lem dem fandom nice to see y'all. go listen to deporitaz #loolin liveblogs #i enjoyed this less for the content the commentary contained & more for the way i handled it. more pleasant than some times ive had #tis i #i havent listened to spirit phone in general in ages. i know why. so this was nice #to the world and back again

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samwrights · 4 years

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When You Wake

I literally cannot believe I wrote this. This was originally started to celebrate Yaku’s birthday (happy belated, my love), and to satisfy the requests for a Noya/Yaku threesome. Uh, don’t come for me. I couldn’t find inspiration in the normal hq world, so we’re making it weird. If y’all thought Between the Lines was long, this monstrosity is 13.2k words. 13,200 words, with a shameful, side amount that is smut. Literally, this is all just plot.

ear candy list is, surprisingly, on the smaller side.

⤞ Revenga - System of A Down ⤞ Violent Pornography - System of A Down ⤞ Question! - System of A Down

pairing: Yaku/Reader/Noya

w a r n i n g s//TW: rape, murder, blood consumption, mentions of getting roofied, gore, blood from wounds, supernatural AU, revenge, temporarily mute reader, reader is converted to a vampire without consent, dubcon, death, spitroasting, dirty talk, senpai kink. PLEASE read through these warnings over and over until it is clear to you that this is not going to be an easy read. The reader literally goes on a revenge spree. ⤞ THIS. IS NOT. AN EASY. READ.

Now that you have been thoroughly warned, enjoy.

The way media and films and television glorified and romanticized college parties never could have prepared you for the fateful encounter in the alleyway on a muggy August evening. Primarily, college parties were depicted as fun—drunk nights on the weekends with your girlfriends, maybe hook up with that cute boy from chemistry that somehow ended up with you grinding on him on the dance floor. Though, in some genres, college parties end up with the protagonist roofied and raped and follows how the heroine spirals and recovers. But it only was supposed to happen in the movies, right?

It wasn’t supposed to end with you halfway to death, knocking on Hell’s door with blood pooling around your lifeless body in a barely lit, bleak alleyway. It wasn’t supposed to end with warbles of light fading in and out of your vision as cars passed you by, unknowing there was someone in the alleyway between a closed down butcher shop and a florist who had already gone home for the evening. You were only in your early twenties with only two more years of university to compete—it wasn’t supposed to end yet.

“We can’t just leave her here.”

“I think she’s too far gone, Yaku. We were too late.”

The voices swirling around you were unfamiliar, or at least from what you could gather. In your condition, it was impossible to discern them in the first place—were they even real voices? They sounded entirely too angelic from what you could process in your catatonic state. Maybe they weren’t; maybe death had taken you without your knowledge and the jury that decided whether or not your soul would ascend to heaven was passing their judgment on you.

“I can save her, Noya.” One of the voices, presumably this Yaku character snarls back with urgency. It is the last thing you hear before your limp body is pulled from the concrete. The movement, regardless of how delicate, causing more blood to rush from your open wounds and draining any ounce of consciousness from your mind. “You mind trying to collect the fallout?”

Nishinoya, though shaking his head, gives a subtle grin that cannot be seen in the dead of the night. He pulls out a large mason jar from the satchel he’s carrying and places the mouth of the jar where blood is pouring out profusely from a knife wound. The man collecting the blood knew entirely too well that once his mate sets his mind to something, there was no changing it. Not that it served as a recurring issue; if anything, Noya was grateful for Yaku’s stubbornness considering it was that exact trait of his that had given the former his second chance at life.

The two of them move swiftly, trying to make it back to their hidden mansion, that was quite a distance away, in secret. Yaku is doing all that he can to make sure not to disturb your body so as not to open any wounds further that could force you to bleed out and meet the grim reaper. He wasn’t a very pleasant creature, but that was a story for another day. At the same time, Nishinoya is almost fighting to keep the same steadfast pace while simultaneously holding the now half full mason jar just under the knife wound. The blood was beginning to thicken, turning from bright red to a deep crimson as it oxidizes.

The moment they enter their private garden, Nishinoya busts down the door to their home with expertise, alerting the other members of their clan. “Akaashi!” He screeches, his voice bellowing out in decibels that should not be used unless trying to project a voice in an amphitheater with no microphone. Thank omniscient beings for noise cancelling enchantments. “We need you!” An almost timid, young looking man enters the foyer where Noya is still collecting blood and Yaku is holding your limp body in his arms.

“So that’s where you two have been,” Akaashi deadpans, unfazed by the steadily decaying girl. “Bring her to my room. You can store what blood you’ve gathered there while I remove the knife and get her patched up.” Though calm, the three of them move at breakneck speeds, laying you face down on an operating table while Akaashi suits up. From what he can tell, this was going to be a real mess, considering how deep the knife is. The three of them knew what was to come and what their designated roles in this moment were—Nishinoya was to separate the blood he had gathered from your body and ration them into IV bags, while Yaku was provide suction in case of a bleed out.

“We can save her, can’t we?” Yaku asks quietly, tools in hand.

“That will depend on her will to fight,” Akaashi says quietly, half due to concentration, half because he genuinely does not have a valid answer. “You’ve done this time and time again, Yaku. If anyone is going to save her, it’s going to be you.”

Upon coming to, the only muscles in your body that can move are your eyelids. Peeling them back as much as you can muster, you notice the only light filtering into whatever room you are currently residing in is coming from the blaring moonlight through an open window. The shadows around you make up areas and shapes that you are entirely unfamiliar with, causing you to sit up impulsively to make sense of your surroundings. A mistake on your part, as you are immediately met with a searing pain in your ribs. With further inspection from your droopy eyes, you learn that your torso is entirely bare, save for the copious amounts of medical grade bandages and gauze around your breasts and stomach. Blood pooled somewhere along your left shoulder blade where the pain felt the worst.

“You shouldn’t try to sit up right now.” The same voice you faintly remember from the alley, the one that didn’t want to leave you, before blacking out calls out from across the bedroom. The room is quite large from what you could tell and his smooth voice seems to be leagues away. “Lay back down before you bleed out again—I’ll change your bandages.” From the shadows, a man whom you presume to be Yaku emerges before you, perfect pale skin and sandy brown locks nearly reflecting in the moonlight as he approaches. His face, while incredibly handsome, is blank and is strictly business as he saunters near. Even as he is gingerly tearing off the tight bindings around you with next to no effort, his face remains nonplussed. Even as he washes the dried, crusty blackened blood off your bare chest, nothing. “Do you remember anything?” Yaku’s voice is quiet and somber as he asks his question. He takes your silence as a no.

Your mind is a hazy smog, trying to recall any type of memory at all. Rather than actual imagery, you see a white light when you close your eyes—you see colors you don’t remember seeing before, you hear crying. You hear your name. Not just your first name or a nickname either, you hear your entire given name along with your birthday, even the time of birth.

Any attempt to recall memories is interrupted by a sharp pain. You suck in a breath as Yaku tries to lift your arm to wrap the fresh bandages around your torso, causing him to grimace ever so slightly. This task was a bit easier for him when you were still unconscious, but nonetheless he is glad you’re awake. When the pain subsides, you peel your eyelids back once again, staring at the man sitting at the edge of the bed in wonder. Why was he tending to your wounds? How did he fit into the story? “You needn’t worry about that right now, [name],” he murmurs quietly, reintroducing the same delicate tone you heard before blacking out in the alley. Yaku can tell you’re wondering how he knew what to respond with and how he knew your name but, after a small deliberation, he decides it’s best not to overwhelm you right now. “Get some rest, little one,” he speaks again, “I’ll be here when you wake.” Before you know it, you’re out like a light once again.

Yaku exits his and Noya’s shared bedroom to dispose of the sullied bandages, only to be greeted to the sight of his mate leaning against the bannister closest to their room. “How’s she doing?” Yaku’s lips tighten, the seam becoming a hard line as his grimace deepens.

“She doesn’t remember anything but when I asked her if she did...”

“What?” Noya presses, perturbed at the silence. Very few things in their lives rendered Yaku speechless.

“She started seeing memories of her birth.” The two shorter leaders of the clan meander their way down the grandiose staircase in silence, each step accompanied by the dramatic chimes of a grand piano coming from the foyer. The music stops when they reach the bottom of the staircase, Sugawara pausing his fingers and quirking a brow at the couple. It was a rare occurrence to see both of them, or Nishinoya in the very least, look so morose.

“What’s got you guys looking so down? You look like someone just died.” The musician muses. Sugawara Koushi always did have the most twisted sense of humor—that was partially the reason that Yaku had kept him around. The other primary reason was solely for bragging rights and an inside joke between the clan because no matter how many times Sugawara introduced himself as Beethoven or Bach, people assumed that they all just meant he was talented. Not that it was literal and Sugawara was just a name he’d adopted when he earned another century of life.

“Ha ha,” Nishinoya drawls satirically, for both himself and for Yaku. The latter excuses himself, parting ways because he knows he can’t handle conversation right now. “Come on, Suga, that’s not funny. Yaku’s already taking this really hard and if we lose her...”

“Humans die all the time, Nishi. A conversion isn’t a guaranteed shot at a second life and Yaku knows that so why is he—“

“Because she was found just like I was. Wrong place at the wrong time and it ended with...” the shorter of the two can no longer find the words to speak. It didn’t matter how many centuries old everyone in the clan was, it didn’t matter that they had watched plagues take countless lives or even bared witness to some of Jack the Ripper’s victims—it was a different monster entirely to genuinely watch a person become prey to another human. “I hope she makes it through, if only to rip out the guys throat that stabbed her.”

Three months had passed since you had first woken up. Strength is returning to you little by little, though not enough for you to hold consciousness for more than a few minutes a day. Regardless, Yaku is relieved to see you making some form of progress, to see that you’re somewhat handling the conversion well. The head of the clan was almost always present when you did awake, though there were instances in which his partner, Nishinoya, had been the one to greet you.

Nishinoya was much more boisterous than his other half—much more talkative and, considering you haven’t found the strength to speak quite yet, that was entirely okay with you. You learned that Yaku and Nishinoya had been together a very long time and Yaku had saved his life ages ago, as the latter phrased it. In admiration, Noya mentions his partner’s abundance of patience—a skill that he himself lacked—and determination to see justice being served had swayed the younger of the two to continuously stand alongside him. Through these little vignettes of their life, however, Noya makes it a point to acknowledge the fact that he was once almost too overbearing for his senior, often intimidating him with just how open and blunt he was. “Nishi, are you boring her with details of our mundane life?” Yaku asks bemusedly as he enters the room you’d been resting in.

“Hey, we aren’t boring. I’m not boring you, am I?” Noya looks to your face, your expression not giving much away save for the light in your barely live eyes. It was far from mundane—if anything, hearing the stories made you so curious considering from just barely glancing with the two, they seemed to be a strange couple.

“We are,” Yaku confirms, though as to what, you aren’t sure. You were certain you hadn’t said anything aloud, considering you practically can’t. “Let’s just say I can hear your thoughts. It’s how we’ve been communicating with you.” The head of clan saunters over casually, sitting at the edge of the mattress opposite to his partner. Both of their rich, golden irises are gazing at you, gauging a reaction from you as he shares this bit of information. Weird, was the only way for you to describe it. Though Yaku didn’t need to read your mind to know that; the slightly panicked look on your face gave away your thoughts.

“Don’t think we don’t know about those vivid wet dreams you have of us—“

“Yū, you weren’t supposed to tell her that!”

“What? We’re all adults here—“

“Nishi, get out,” Yaku covers his face in utter horror, even more so as his partner exits the room laughing as he does so. Shameless Noya. The door closes, leaving you and Yaku alone—were he able to go red out of embarrassment, he probably would have. “I-I am so sorry about him.” Testing out the information that the man beside you supplied moments ago, you reassure him that it’s fine—that you have no control over your dreams and that he probably doesn’t have a way to turn off this strange ability. For a moment, he’s relieved because you seem to be accepting everything with grace thus far; maybe telling you the truth wasn’t going to be the worst case scenario.

But the thought of the truth makes Yaku hesitate—there was no way you were ready to handle the entirety of the truth. At the moment, you could barely handle your weekly check-ups with Akaashi—the household doctor. After a formal introduction, you learned that Akaashi was the one who patched up your wounds when you were first brought to the little mansion. From what you gathered, he was quiet and direct, kind even, but you hated the weekly visits. Not only was Yaku carrying you rather painful, as you’re still recovering from your injuries, but Akaashi had to do regular blood transfusions because, according to the young doctor that you swore could not have already completed medical school and residency, you had lost a lot of blood during the incident.

An incident in which you still can’t recall.

“It’ll come to you,” Yaku says morosely, probably responding in accordance to your thought. The man beside you gets up from the bed, holding his arms open to you, silently asking for permission to pick you up. “Sorry, I’ll try to be more gentle.” His arms are cold as he lifts you up, but all you can focus on is the throbbing in your back as he moves you. A sharp intake of breath leaves your lungs as Yaku supports you physically, adding gentle words of encouragement because he can almost feel how much pain you’re in. Every step down the steep staircase adds another metaphorical bruise to your tender skin, a small groan leaving your throat each time. And while you’re not uncomfortable with the idea of being in Yaku’s arms, you’re grateful when you’re laid down in Akaashi’s office along the leather exam seat.

“How are you feeling today, [name]?” The young doctor asks as he preps you for your blood transfusion. Much to your surprise, you feel hungry—ravenous, even—like you hadn’t eaten a meal in months. Maybe you hadn’t; it wouldn’t be that ridiculous to consider since your memory was a little shoddy.

“You’ll feel better after the transfusion,” Yaku reassures from the chair he’s sitting in beside the exam bed, “we’ll get some food in your system before we start your physical therapy.” There’s an interesting intonation in the way he speaks this, you notice. Like there’s an underlying joke or hidden agenda that you don’t quite understand, but at the same time, the strange phrasing doesn’t trigger your fight-or-flight system in any capacity. If anything, it just seems that Yaku wants to help you regain strength as best you can.

Though, that was currently proving to be a challenge as well. While you weren’t entirely sure how long ago your injuries occurred, you knew a decent amount of time had to have passed. One of your first check-up appointments with Akaashi led to the explanation of the muscle atrophy in your legs from lack of use. Once you slowly became acclimated to being awake for more than just a few minutes a day, Daichi was introduced to you as your physical therapist. He was another enigma—entirely too young to be as experienced as he was in his field, but you decided against questioning it—temporarily mute or not.

Being mute was another issue that was taking much longer than you liked. You hated only being able to communicate through Yaku’s inexplicable talent of being able to read your mind. There were many occasions in which you wanted to ask Akaashi about your condition and how bad of a state you had been brought to him in; how you wanted to ask Sugawara how he’d learned to play such a vast variety of melodies so expertly; how you wanted to tell Nishinoya that every time he tried to feed you a soup or something, it tasted foul and metallic no matter how fresh it was.

You’d have to wait until you found your voice again.

After your check-in with Akaashi, Yaku brings you to Daichi’s office just down the hallway. “Hey, there’s our little fighter.” Daichi was probably the kindest out of everyone in the household. He had a warmth to him that seemed to contrast his icy fingers when he’d hold and guide you for your therapy sessions—a little uncanny that everyone in this mansion had freezing finger tips. Maybe everyone had poor blood circulation?

From the opposite end of the room, Yaku stifles a laugh by biting his cheek. Glad to know that your deconstructed concept of time hadn’t waned on your sense of humor. Meanwhile, Daichi lays you gingerly on a mat on the ground with you back flat as he wraps a resistance band around one of his ankles, as well as your own. “Alright, [name], I’m gonna help you get your leg up and I want to see you pull your leg up as high as you can go, understood?” Five didn’t seem like a very large number, but for now it was the goal. If you could at least lift your legs five times, it was progress considering the severe muscle atrophy in your legs.

Some days, it was difficult for Yaku to sit with you through therapy. He can see the way you wince in pain because you’re trying to relearn and rebuild your muscle groups; other times he just wanted someone, anyone, to blurt out the truth about the situation and hope that it inspires you to push yourself to heal. Some days, it was difficult because Yaku found himself just wanting to hold you in his bed that you’d taken over while the two of you plot out the revenge you didn’t even know you needed. But it wasn’t always bad. There were days, like today, where the progress on your therapy was going much better than anyone in the clan anticipated. There were days where Yaku would ask what you remembered about...anything, and you would have some form of answer for him.

On those days, Yaku began to realize that your memories were coming in chronological order. From the first time you sat up or crawled, to your first word even. In fact, Yaku’s favorite moment that he’s witnessed thus far was watching your father teach you to take your very first steps—it seemed to recur during your therapy sessions, as if subconsciously encouraging you to try to walk again. Maybe that’s why today, you were able to provide Daichi with double the repetitions that he asked for—a sure sign that strength and muscle were returning to your legs. But even with what progress you’ve made so far, Yaku makes it a point to carry you back to your room and lay you back in bed to rest. As always, Yaku tucked you in as he spoke, “get some sleep, little one. I’ll be here when you wake,”

For weeks on end, dreams stop becoming dreams. Per usual, Yaku awaits in the corner opposite of the bed where you rest, allowing your memories-turned-dreams to flood his mind. Each night, they’re progressively becoming more and more clear—you’re able to recall outfits that you’d worn twenty years ago with perfect detail, scars and scrapes that your friends had, even when that one sock was in the corner of your closet from when you were seven. But the clearer these chronological dreams became, the less frequently you were waking up and it was beginning to worry the head of the clan. While you were still obtaining your weekly blood transfusions to help sustain your life, it seemed to be that they were no longer providing you with enough energy to move past your current stage of recovery. “Yaku, she needs to start feeding,” Akaashi had instructed him during a consultation.

“I still haven’t told her—“

“Come on, man, it’s been almost eight months,” the house doctor groans. There was no reason to coddle you anymore as your life-threatening wounds had already healed for the most part. Sure, there was still discomfort from your broken ribs but even those had almost entirely healed over; your physical therapy sessions and rehabilitation with Daichi were going rather well but, at this point, if you didn’t start getting more substance in your body, this would be the end of the line for you. Akaashi had advised him this for weeks now, but Yaku still hesitated. “We’ve got to tell her.”

“I know, I know. I just—“ the sandy brunette ruffles his claws through his mussed locks in frustration, “I think her power is developing. And I’m afraid if we drop the bomb on her now, it’s going to halt or hinder that progress.”

“Either tell her or feed her,” Akaashi bites, “if you don’t, she’s not going to have any power because she’s going to starve to death.” With that, Akaashi walks away because he has nothing left to argue at this point. While he may be the youngest of the brood, this made Akaashi the most volatile of the group. More often than not, he was relatively kind and patient, timid even, as he was in his human life, but also very stern and strict—all of it coming from a place of love. And Yaku, knowing the tremendous amounts of emotional pain that the former had received, the leader of the clan dare not disrespect him.

Rather than making it an argument, Yaku roams around the lodge to grab a couple bags of O negative out of storage before heading back to his room. Much to his surprise, Nishinoya is sitting at the edge of the bed already, a slight look of panic washing over his features. “Yaku, I think something is wrong.” Without another word, the creature in question hands the bags of blood to his mate before resting his forehead against yours—a sure fire way to make sure that the mental images he picked up from you were pristine and uninterrupted as you dreamed—ignoring the cold sweat beading on your forehead.

You were at the Pike house. It was the first week of the new college semester and your roommates had convinced you to tag along to a frat party they were invited to. The night was going along exactly like a corny romantic comedy—you had locked eyes with a man from across the dance floor. He was sweet—much kinder than others you had met that night. He grabbed you drink after drink, but your memory begins to go fuzzy after that despite being able to recall memories of your own birth or the stupid girl that picked on you when you were twelve and even the small pimple on her temple that you figured was probably making her insecure. So if you were able to recall these memories, dreams, whatever they were, with such perfect clarity, why could you not remember leaving that party? Did that mean he had been drugging your drinks? It was entirely possible, considering Pike wasn’t exactly known for their hospitality. You vaguely remember the man holding your hand firmly as the two of you weave and bob around people and being met with the sweltering humidity of a muggy August night and your roommates, Yukie and Kaori, were nowhere to be found.

You were dragged into a dimly lit alleyway, stumbling with every step that the man had nearly carried you by your wrist alone, reeking of trash that had been long overdue for pick up and maybe even rotting carcasses. It was difficult to tell considering the drugs you assume that had been placed in your system and it was even more difficult to recall the memories. Bits and pieces of your memory were coming back in patches—though the face of the man that had brought you there was not one of them. Nor were any of his friends that had joined in, appearing at the opening of the alleyway. You remember the sound of tearing fabric, salacious laughter of the group of men surrounding your body. You remember feeling searing pain as one held a knife to your throat, warning you that he would slit your throat if you tried to scream.

The threat was replaced in the form of one of the frat boys ramming a half-hard cock down your throat, knife still in place along the jugular vein, while every orifice and inch of your skin had been violated. Vaguely, you remember trying to bite down on the cock in your mouth and run away. The one that threatened to kill you had missed your throat when you ran and threw the knife into your back instead. Foul screeches of demeaning slander left their mouths as they kicked your ribs in at full force, as if the knife deep in your back wasn’t bad enough.

You remember them leaving your bare, naked body in the alley for death to take you.

You remember their faces.

Awakening with a start, you sit up abruptly, only to fall back into the pillow with a resonant clacking noise followed by a dull throb to your forehead. Yaku recoils, mostly out of shock rather than pain—maybe laying his head on yours wasn’t his finest moment. “You remember,” he balks after he’s recovered from the impact. You’re trying to scream, no sound leaving your lungs while tears barreled out from your eyes. Remember? Why was that a memory? Why did it have to be a memory?

Nishinoya acts hastily, tearing open one of the O negative packs and draining half the contents into his mouth and holding it there as he shoves Yaku out of the way. The smaller of the two slats his lips over your silently screaming mouth, puncturing a small wound to the inside of your lip with his teeth and letting the blood trickle in the hole. It feels like pudding trying to push through a sieve, the flavor of copper and iron tampered out by an earthy, meat flavor—maybe venison? The desire to scream fades away as well, rather being over taken to have whatever nourishment Noya is giving you to enter you more and more. Out of necessity, you mold your lips over his, sucking hard on his lip while wrapping your arms around him because it just didn’t seem that he could get close enough in this moment. Despite the fingers you have threaded in Nishinoya’s gelled locks, he pulls away with a shit-eating grin, his tongue swiping away at the trail of red liquid dripping from the seam of his lips. “Careful, might make a guy a fall in love with that kinda kiss.”

“M-more,” you croak out, deflecting the younger one’s flirty comment all together. Yaku and Noya’s eyes go wide upon hearing your voice for the first time. The former acts on instinct, downing the remaining contents of the bag in his partner’s hand before reenacting the same gesture as the latter. Yaku’s lips are much softer than his partners—or maybe it’s the quelling of whatever hunger that hadn’t been satiated that eased the desire. With Yaku, his tongue laves against the wound that Noya had made, coaxing the fluid to enter at a much more steadfast, intimate pace. Even well after he was done feeding you, Yaku sucked on your tongue, encouraging you to reciprocate, so as to get every drop. “W-What was t-that?” You pant out brokenly as soon as the two of you break apart. The question startles the two sitting at the edge of the bed—now that you had your voice somewhat back, Yaku no longer needed to communicate for you. That also meant he couldn’t control the flow of responses to not overwhelm you.

“I think it’s time you finally got your answers,” Noya mumbles, treading carefully as he looks at his partner. It was a silent reassurance that, no matter how this scenario proceeded, he would be here to support Yaku. To make you more comfortable, he adjusts the pillows behind you so that your back can rest properly along the headboard.

“M-my d-d-dreams?” Having just rediscovered your voice, it still came out in sharp, staccato-like whimpers, but the boys weren’t going to discourage you from speaking. Much like everything else Yaku had done in his life, he had done with patience and your recovery and rehabilitation were no different. But your throat was still raw and it still hurt to speak—thankfully with your mind rushing like a bullet train, Yaku was able to grasp the entirety of your question.

“I think they’re more memories than dreams.” His words come out like a condemning nail in a coffin—like a doctor telling you you only have a few months left to live—because that means everything you recalled from Pike house, the drinks, the party, the alley, all of it was real. “Noya and I found you that night barely clinging to life. Naked, soaked in blood and semen. You died that night, [name].” As he speaks, his cold finger tips traced along your breast until you feel the throbbing mound of flesh—a scar of where the knife had been thrown into you from the back and exited out the front. “The knife had gone through your aorta. Akaashi spent a long time trying to repair it but was unable to.”

Your body begins to tremble as silent sobs wrack through your body. You died? “S-so how ‘mi h-here?” Yaku looks over at Noya in discernible worry—not because the head was afraid of telling the truth, no. He was afraid how you would react to the truth. His partner looks at him poignantly, mentally reminding him that this was eerily similar to how Noya had reacted when he had learned the truth as well. Yaku’s head bobs in agreement, swallowing his hesitance before speaking again.

“I made you like me. Like the rest of us.” Your brows furrowed in confusion, suspicion even, because there’s no way that he’s saying what you think he’s saying. But rather than offering a verbal response, Yaku holds his hand out towards Noya, in which he places the other bag of O Negative in his palm. While the original plan was to just feed you once again, the second Yaku tears open the bag, the hunger you thought had eased returned at full force. You rip the bag out of his cold hands, elongated claws scratched at you as you do so, before you down the contents like a shotgunned beer before you could realize what you were doing.

“T-This is a joke, right?” You balk, voice clear as day due to the strength returning to your body once again from freshly consumed sustenance. But the tensions have gone down significantly, to the point where Noya feels relief and excuses himself to feed, leaving you in Yaku’s solitary care. Once the two of you are left alone, Yaku can only shake his head as he continues to press on with the truth. This had to be a cruel, sick joke. But it wasn’t funny and you certainly weren’t laughing. Yet Yaku had no reason to lie to you and the snack you had just consumed moments ago was meant to serve as a final nail in the metaphorical coffin to make you understand that he was telling the truth.

“We have been alive for centuries—storytellers dubbing our kind as vampires—but originally, we were simply called the Damned.” Yaku proceeds to go through the history, much like he had with all the others before you, because he feels the need to share the truth, needs to tell you that your death isn’t the end of your life but rather the beginning like it had for all those in clan. The most recent addition to the family was Akaashi. He was less than a century old, compared to the others. Akaashi had been tied to a tree and shot repeatedly, only to watch his lover drown to death, who had been tossed into the ocean before shortly before with a thirty pound weight attached to his ankle with his last few breaths. Yaku and Sugawara were the ones to set his nearly lifeless body free with the head of the clan performing Akashi’s conversion. This lead to the newborn to coming back to slaughter the community that decided to his partner needed to die for being a man in love.

Each of their stories was nearly identical. Sugawara, who apparently has been every major known classical musician in history hiding under the guise of his shapeshifter ability, and Daichi were hanged together for being a homosexual couple after their village had carved unsavory words on their bodies to remind their reincarnations of their sins. Yaku and Noya had saved each of them respectively, and allowed the two of them to go on a rampage to annihilate their executioners.

Lastly, or rather firstly, was Nishinoya himself. As Yaku goes into detail about transforming his partner, he tears up ever so slightly. And as you listen actively with no interruptions, no questions even, as he tells you about how Nishi was wrongly imprisoned for theft and how the other prisoners constantly violated and sodomized his body because he was smaller than the rest; how he ended his own life by ingesting whatever toxic chemicals he could find and how Yaku broke him out of prison to start a new life together. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” the aforementioned prisoner re-enters the room, a fragile smile on his thin lips as he takes a seat beside his partner. “So you finally told her?”

“B-but why m-me? Why not just let me die?”

“Do you not want revenge against the assholes that killed you a year ago, [ name ]?” Noya bit before Yaku could jump in. “They’re still alive after what they did to you—how is that fair?!”

A year?

You had died a year ago. How did your family take the news? Your roommates and best friends? Nishi was right—it wasn’t fair at all. Yaku raises a hand towards his partner in attempts to get him to calm down before he got too riled up about the situation and before he could get out the most important question. “I have to know, [ name ], if you want to continue on with this lifestyle or not before we proceed with the real rehabilitation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You tilt your head to your newfound savior. He said it so nonchalantly, as if learning how to walk or learning that your diet was blood wasn’t rehabilitation.

“Well, we have to teach you how to feed properly so your strength gets back up—unless you just want us to feed you for the rest of your eternal life.” Noya jokes, waggling his eyebrows suggestively in what you’ve come to understand is his typical, joking demeanor.

“I mean, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Noya, can you maybe save the flirting for later?” Yaku grits out—once again slightly mortified. It brings laughter to the man in question; it was like rewatching his own life all over again, seeing him get flustered at the smallest amounts of forward affection. It was endearing, if anything.

“Sure. Let’s get [ name ] healthy first then.”

After coming to terms with your transformation and feeding more regularly, still off of a supply stock that the mansion carried, you were able to attend therapy sessions with Daichi more frequently. And while you hadn’t entirely regained muscle or use of your legs, you were able to at least stay awake more often than not. Rather than being cooped up in the bedroom, you found yourself lounging near the entryway where Sugawara would entertain you with the countless pieces he had written over the years. It was soothing and peaceful and Sugawara’s jovial personality kept you from spiraling into a deeper hole knowing that you died. It was still an insane concept, but the five men in your new home had worked hard to keep you sane. “Ready for your session?” Yaku asks gently as he takes a seat beside you on the luxurious sofa. He’s not as uptight as he was now that you knew the truth, though he still did get flustered when you would openly show affection. Even if it was something as simple as leaning your head on his shoulder like you were now.

“I think so,” doing what you could, you scooted and clambered onto Yaku’s lap, wrapping your arms around his neck firmly while your weakened lower limbs splayed across his lap. He tucks one arm under your knees while the other supports your back, effectively scooping you up and brings you to the kitchen where the blood stock is kept. You quirk a brow at the creature carrying you, knowing you’ve already had at least three bags since you woke up.

“Gotta get your strength up so you can recover faster,” is all he responds with before he sets you down on a bar stool. Yaku tears open the bag of O Negative and, much to your shock, he drinks half the contents without swallowing before his lips are on yours. One of his fangs finds purchase on the inside of your lip, sinking down and creating an opening for the blood to flow in for quicker delivery. Usually, Yaku would only have to feed you like this when you were in a weaker state, so it felt a bit out of place for him to be doing it right now, but it certainly wasn’t unwelcome. While the blood trickles into the wound, Yaku’s tongue swirls with yours intimately, coating the cavern with the liquid and he doesn’t stop until every ounce is clear from both of your mouths.

“Not complaining,” you say slowly, “but is there a particular reason you wanted to feed me instead of just letting my chug the bag?” As you ask your question, Yaku is draining the rest of the contents of the bag into his mouth before pulling you towards him in another kiss. The question is repeating over and over in your head, he can hear it loud and clear, but the other thoughts are spurring him on further. The thoughts of how Yaku’s touch makes you crave more, makes you want to feel his lips along your skin and his large hands gripping your thighs tightly. Sometimes he’s unsure whether or not you conveniently forget that he can read your mind, sometimes he wonders if you let your salacious thoughts run wild on purpose. His chest is heaving, deep intakes of breath are plunging through his nostrils despite the blood being long gone. He doesn’t want to stop but centuries of control are begging him to.

“We’re going somewhere today, after your PT,” Yaku pants out after he pulls away, tilting his head down because he can’t look at you right now—he’s afraid to. He needs to try to dampen whatever feral thoughts are running through your brain so that his own self-control doesn’t just get tossed out the window. “Noya and I are taking you out for your first hunt.”

“Uh, am I ready for that?” Shit, you can’t even walk in your own yet. Yaku laughs, grateful for the reprieve from your sexually charged thoughts when you point out the setback.

“That’s why the extra feeding tonight. I needed to make sure it was in your bloodstream so that you had enough strength for PT and the hunt,” Yaku adjusts you from barstool, scooping you into his arms once again to bring you to the mansion’s back garden. Daichi is standing a short distance away adorning a tight muscle tee and joggers, while Noya and Akaashi are sitting at the small table with cigars in hand. Yaku steadies you in front of Daichi, the latter holding onto your hands to make sure you don’t fall, before the former joins the rest the clan at the table. Sugawara emerges from inside the mansion as well, passing off a cigar to Yaku while lighting his own. It was uncomfortable in some capacity to have everybody watching—you couldn’t help but feel as if you were being critiqued on your performance.

“I’m going to be one step ahead of you, and I won’t let go, okay?” Daichi holds his arms out to give you space to take your first step. You take in a sharp breath, the scent of scent of cigars and pine trees overwhelming your nasal cavity. When did you sense of smell become that strong? With trembling limbs, you cling onto Daichi’s muscular forearms, praying to god you didn’t fall as you took a step forward.

“Hey, look!” Noya cheers from a distance, nudging Yaku in the stomach. “She took a step!” The excitement in his voice was evident because, after months of constant aid, Noya has come to have a soft spot for you almost as much as Yaku does. The two of them are watching, utterly enthralled with the way you’re only moving mere millimeters—but millimeters is better than nothing considering the muscle decay and atrophy that had taken place over the last year.

After the first few steps and curling your toes in blades of grass, your feet begin to relax as you tremble forward. Gripping Daichi with all the strength in your hands, you pick your right foot off the ground and place it forward. “That’s good, [ name ]! Gimme one more,” Daichi, a therapist in more ways than one, encourages you to continue moving, wanting to make sure both legs were receiving equal treatment. You repeat the motion with your left leg, taking two full steps. While not perfect, you kept moving forward with his guidance until his calves hit the stone wall of the garden fountain. Considering where you started, twenty five feet was a tremendous distance to cover. “You did amazing, [ name ].” The vampire holding onto you smiles big, pride swelling in chest like a father praising his daughter for taking first in a beauty pageant.

Yaku and Noya are by your side immediately in celebration, the latter much more overt with it as he’s hugging you and holding you up. “What do you think, Daichi? Is she strong enough to at least witness a hunt?” The former asks. Mentioning the “H” word again perks your ears up because a part of you almost wishes to not have to engage with whatever a hunt entails, but part of you also knows that this is your life now. Everything you thought you knew was no longer valid—this was your rebirth, your awakening.

“I think she’ll be okay if one of you carries her for it—“

“Ooh, I’ll do it!” Noya cheers almost too loudly in your ear as he’s still holding you. Without so much as a chance to offer a rebuttal, you’re swept up into his arms as he stands at full height before glancing at his mate. “Ready to go?” Yaku gives a nod, gripping tightly at the satchel over his shoulder before the three of you are off at breakneck speeds. They’re silent as they travel—perhaps because were they to open their mouths at this speed and velocity, they would be catching a whole lot of bugs in their mouths. To your surprise, the three of you end up outside ten-foot-tall brick walls and a chain link fence.

“This is a...”

“A prison,” Yaku answers simply, as if he were answering with what his favorite color was rather than his favorite meal, “considering our diet, we choose to collect our sustenance from those who do not deserve redemption.” There’s a malignant, dark twist in the headman’s words.

“Personally, I prefer going after the rapists and child molestors. Those bastards deserve to be drained of every ounce of blood.” Noya snarls—you could tell it was personal for him. But how could he tell? Surely it wasn’t just written on placards outside of prison cells.

“Easy. Walk in, ask them what they’re serving time for, and their minds fill in the blanks.” The foreboding you sensed from Yaku deepened even further; deepened to the point where it felt like a magnet drawing your eyes towards your savior. But he looked anything but. Yaku stood merely a few inches taller, his claws sharpening and turning black while red overtook the once golden hues of his irises. You look up at Noya curiously, wondering if he’ll undergo the same sort of transformation, but before you could even question it, the gold in his own eyes had already molded into crimson rings.

The three of you enter the building with ease, aiming for the top floor because, according to Nishi, that was where they kept the worst criminals. It played out exactly as Yaku said it would—ask them what they were imprisoned for and, if they were in captivity under the basis of rape, first or second degree murder, sexual assault, or anything involving a minor, he would sink his fangs into their jugular vein and drain them dry. Though he announces his satisfaction, he remains in this strange form that he has presented you with as Nishinoya passes you off into his arms.

The smaller of the two repeats the same process, taking down two prisoners of his own before taking the satchel off of his partner’s shoulder. Noya continues questioning prisoners, letting Yaku’s power of mind reading acting as the judgment call, before pulling out a small, sharp knife from the satchel and slitting each victim’s throat while holding them downcast like a gavel banging down the rule. As blood fountains from their necks, Nishinoya holds fresh IV bags over the openings to collect whatever comes out like rain. Was this how they ended up getting blood for you to feed over the past year. “Yes,” Yaku answers evenly, looking down at you with his crimson eyes, “but we were hoping to actually teach you how to feed tonight. Are you up for it?” Every nerve in your body seemed to scream no, like you shouldn’t be witnessing these events let alone doing it.

But your guts are telling you yes, yes this is now your way of survival. These men were horrid, their victims needed justice. You needed justice. Giving Yaku a small nod, he gives you instructions while the three of you search for your very first meal. Considering neither your fangs nor claws had grown in, as you were very much still a baby by all intents and purposes, Noya would have to incapacitate your prey for you while you bit the inside of your lip, reopening the same puncture wounds from earlier, to allow easier access for the nutrients to enter your body. Once they were out, Noya would puncture the jugular vein for you, while Yaku dipped you down far enough to feed.

Your lips latched on to the raw skin, hooking your own canines for leverage as you draw the blood from your dinner and the moment the warmth seeped into the opening, all doubts about what you were doing had flown out the window. You adjusted the way you’re sitting on your victim, your hands finding purchase on his shoulders as you continuously sucked every drop of life from him. “Did she just—“ Noya questions, not missing the fact that you had just moved your atrophied legs. And while Yaku is very aware of his mate’s balking, he can only focus on the way your lips mold against your meal’s neck or the muted slurping noises bubbling from your lungs like a woman starved. In a sense, that was quite literal. Noya looks over at his partner—silence wasn’t typical of Yaku when asked a question—but words are lost on him when he sees the way Yaku’s eyes are hungrily staring at your form and he’s unsure if its due to hunger or hunger. The moan that leaves your tongue when you finally pull away from the now empty body confirms the shorter one’s suspicions. “Not that seeing you turned on doesn’t turn me on, but you might wanna put that away, Morisuke.” Noya teases before walking towards you, the call of his given name causing Yaku to snap out of his stupor. Well fuck, he snarls bitterly in his head. He was gonna have to feed again, considering all the blood he had just consumed went straight to his cock.

You feel alive—more alive than you felt in ages. And despite your attempt being incredibly shaky, you managed to stand on your own two feet, using the wall to brace yourself. Noya rushes over to your side to try to hold you steady, asking if you’re alright. “I’m more than alright, Nishi, holy shit.” He has an arm under you, carefully bringing you back towards Yaku, though for the most part, you’re walking entirely on your own.

“So what, have you guys just been giving me snacks this whole time?” You sneer teasingly, though Yaku looks away because your accusation because it isn’t entirely wrong. The blood packs were indeed “snacks” but were usually only used to stave off hunts, that way they didn’t just decimate the prison on an every other day basis, but were also used as post coitus replenishments.

“One more?” Yaku coughs out, as if choking on his own spit. “We can do this one together, if you like.” He’s trying to be polite, despite the feral look in his eyes while also trying to calm down the lust and adrenaline running rampant in his system.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” As opposed to carrying you this time, Yaku flanks to your empty side, helping you walk between him and Noya until you came upon your next victim. This one was larger than the last few—stocky and skin marred with stories of a brutal past. No matter which way you looked at him, he looked bitter, and after asking him what he was in for, you figure he was a perfect candidate. After all, intentionally murdering his wife and three children was heinous by definition. Yaku approaches the much taller man, crouching ever so slightly in the event your meal tried to escape; not that he could even if he wanted to. The leader of the Damned was behind him in seconds, snapping his neck to disarm the threat that was his build.

To everyone’s surprise, you made your way over slowly to the now lifeless, six-foot-three prisoner while Yaku punctured holes on both sides of the victim’s neck, allowing the both of you to feed. It was oddly intimate, being so close to someone while sucking the literal life out of somebody. The lapping, sucking noises brought back salacious thoughts to the man beside you, and he’s doing all that he can just to avoid trading sustenance for an erection again. Meanwhile, Noya is watching both of you in amusement. Does his partner realize that he’s gingerly scraping his claws along your spine? Is it out of encouragement, or interest? Yu can’t quite tell, but he finds it entertaining nonetheless. Even more so when Yaku squirms at the throaty moan leaving your lungs when you pull away, lips plump with a bead of leftovers dripping from the seam of you mouth.

Either way, Nishinoya knows it won’t be long now until Yaku cracks. Despite the great amount of self-control he tends to exercise, Yaku is but a simple creature that cannot stave off his desires and Noya is no different. They were going to give way to their desires sooner rather than later, but they made a vow eons ago that revenge must always come first.

One year, three months, one week, and four days. That was how long it had been since you died in the alleyway. Today was the day those boys were going to die for what they did.

By now, you were fully functioning; walking on your own, feeding on your own. The only difference between you and the others was that you still slept, though not very much anymore, and according to Akaashi, it would be a trait that you would grow out of maybe two decades after your first century. That was actually the sole reason there was even a bed in the house—Nishinoya still slept merely because he enjoyed it. He wasn’t like the others who had found a passion project that kept him up around the clock, so more often than not, he would join you in bed. After all, it was originally his bed.

And more often than not, Yaku would sit in the spacious window sill while Noya wrapped his arms around you protectively in your shared slumber, as if to abide by the repeated mantra he had said over the last year—he’ll be there when you wake.

Your dreams are no longer memories, as you’ve got caught up to current events thanks to the playback speed that they paced themselves at. Now, you’re able to recall on every single event of your life that you’ve witnessed thus far with perfect detail—including the faces of your five murderers. Each of them belonged to your university Pike fraternity; two of them were a year older than you, two the same age, and the one who had the knife to your neck was a freshman not yet old enough to drink legally, but apparently old enough to to pull the metaphorical trigger and throw the knife that had gone through your entire body, severing your aorta in your heart.

After researching in the form of disguise, you learned that tonight Pi Kappa Epsilon would be holding their annual holiday gala; fancy words for a giant frat party for those who chose not to return to their hometowns for Christmas. Knowing how these events tend to function—it was relatively easy to sneak in, even with Nishinoya and Yaku flanking your sides. You flashed the doorman a crisp fifty, knowing males always had to pay a fee for entry while women always got in for free. The bouncer grins upon seeing you in a tight, red body-con dress, but the grin is immediately displaced when his eyes land on the two men beside you. Giving your best, most flirtatious smile, you grab both of their wrists before heading inside. “Don’t lose me, okay?” You yell over the pounding music.

“We won’t,” they say in unison. Noya gives you a reassuring smile, hand pressed against Yaku’s back gently, while the latter purses his lips together in discomfort. “Just keep talking to me through here,” he adds, pressing his cold lips to your forehead chastely, “and I’ll find you.” You give him a confident nod before you throw yourself into the throng of people to find your targets. It proved a bit of a challenge, considering the strobe lighting and the myriad of people—all of the men looked the same on top of that. But once your eyes narrowed in on the man you first lured you, it was game over.

Like a tiger ready to pounce, you sauntered over to him, pushing aside whomever he was with at the moment before wrapping your arms lewdly around his neck. He looks down at you skeptically, but otherwise pleased with the bold actions. From a short distance away, Yaku and Noya are hiding like wallflowers, listening to the resounding chant happening in your head that screamed to kill him. “You know,” Noya chimes in lowly, distracting Yaku from the way your hips are grinding and gyrating against the strange man’s, “we could just kill the entire fraternity.” Yaku shakes his head—Noya was always fond of the idea of revenge against all who were guilty by association. While the others in the clan gave into his persuasion, Yaku never found it amusing.

“What if they had no idea that their brother killed someone?”

“They probably bragged about it,” Noya grumbles. From his own experience, the shorter of the two liked to think that he knew how these people tended to operate.

“It’s go time.” Yaku says abruptly, eyes locked onto your retreating form as you pull one of your rapists by the tie and lead him out the frat house. The two Damned maneuver their way towards the quietest space, hunting for a window they can exit out of to follow you without garnering too much attention towards the situation. When they end up on the sidewalk outside of the Pike house, they see you parading—brokenly, complete with fake stumbles to allude to you being drugged again—the man by the tie until he shoves you into the same alleyway.

Close behind were four others, all built and stocky as they traveled in their pack and making their way towards the alley. You were cornered amongst trash and dead rats, the five of them trying to zero in on you, yet you showed no fear. Instead, you stood at full height with the addition of your stilettos, as your body transitioned into it’s more predatory form. “Remember me?” You ask sweetly, cracking your knuckles nonchalantly. Your hair that’s covering the ugly mound of flesh scarred over from your injury is swept over the opposite shoulder, giving them full view as your short, blackened claws graze over the skin. “Over a year ago, the five of you brought a woman to this alley, raped her and you,” a feral snarl leaves your lips as you point to the youngest fraternity brother, “threw a knife into her back that went all the way through her heart and killed her.”

The five of them begin looking over at each other, wondering who ratted out who considering they had never spoken of the night since it occurred. It was easy to avoid, considering the body was never found. There was never any evidence. “W-who are you?” The youngest one squawks out.

“Don’t remember?” Your head snaps in the direction to one of the older members. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.” There’s no more room for talking, no room for rebuttal. Instead, you grab the same man you lured into the alley by the tie, bringing him close enough to snap his neck. When he was neither moving nor breathing, the remaining four began to back up.

“Yo, this bitch is crazy, let’s get out of here—“

“You think you’re just gonna get away?” Noya laughs dryly as it crescendoed into full volume, shaking the walls and mimicking an earthquake that did not expand beyond the walls of the alley. The remaining four fall to the ground, not prepared for such loud noises let alone a trembling earth to accompany the sound. Yaku shakes his head in utter disgust before the crimson ring in his eyes locks with the prey.

“Done eating, love?” He calls out, causing the four other frat boys to look over in horror at the “e” word. Once again, you’re standing at full height, the back of your hand wiping away the blood that had escaped from your mouth from your feeding.

“Not quite yet,” With every step you took, they trembled back, only to be met with your two saviors blocking their only exit. The youngest one is hiding all the way in the back, trepidation causing his bones to rattle within his skin as his back hits Yaku’s calf. “I’m still hungry.” Noya lets out a snort at this—he truly did love your sense of humor.

“You’re next.” Yaku looks down at the young boy, only nineteen-years-old, who had been your executioner. That same boy looks at the leader of the clan in horror, eyes wide because he never in a million years saw this as his end. Effortlessly, Yaku picks him up by the collar of his shirt before tossing him in your direction. Rather than catching him, you gathered your claws together to form a single point, driving the makeshift lance through the stomach of the one who had ended your life. Without verbalizing it, you gave the boys permission to feed on the other two—so long as it wasn’t the one that you had tried to bite down on when he rammed his cock in your mouth.

You had plans for him.

In the mean time, you pull the now lifeless body off of your bloodied hand, drinking down whatever was dripping down your arm before tossing him off to the side; you had one more pressing matter to deal with. The last of the boys—the dessert to your meal was pressed against the wall as he tried to run from this situation, watching in mortification as Yaku and Noya beheaded the other two brothers with their bare hands, feasting on their prey. “Like I said,” you sneered as you approached the last one, ripping off his pants and boxers much like he had when he violated your mouth. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.”

And so you did.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Yaku muses, having finished his meal, gawking at the way you had just left the last one along the wall with his penis bitten off all the way down to the base while you returned to the youngest member again, draining your murderer for all he was worth.

“I dunno, it’s kinda hot, babe.” Noya jokes, watching in amusement as well.

“I’m actually kinda full,” You shrug, having drained the stabber entirely—that put your body count to two full bodies. “D’you guys wanna have the last one? I got all I wanted from him.” At sound of your permission, Yaku approaches the last one with a predatory glare, not daring to break eye contact as he asked you one more question.

“[ name ], do you feel that justice been served?” With a nonplussed grimace, you gave a shrug.

“If anything, these assholes got the short end of the stick. They murder a girl they raped so she comes back from the dead and kills them all with two beautiful men by her side? Yeah, I’m happy with that.”

By the time you returned home, you were an entirely different creature. You felt...free. Like there was nothing else anchoring your dead heart, like you no longer had a tether to this world. Like you had no purpose.

So now what?

Silently you meander back to your shared bedroom to further contemplate your existence, the boys you left behind glancing at each other in concern. “Want me to talk to her? I might be able to better sympathize.” Noya asks quietly so that your now heightened hearing can’t quite pick up on the conversation. Regardless, Yaku shakes his head. He knows exactly what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling and not just because of his ability to read minds.

“I’ve got a few things I want to say to her anyway.” Noya presses a tender kiss to his mates cheek before he flits away to hang out with Daichi as he normally does when he’s not with Yaku, while the head of the clan makes his way to the room. You’re lying in bed already, the dress and stilettos shed and traded for bare feet and a slip. Despite your back turned towards him, you feel the bed dip as he lays beside you, something atypical of Yaku. “How do you feel?” His voice is merely a whisper as he cautiously wraps an arm around your waist.

“Shouldn’t you know the answer?” You retort, but Yaku doesn’t recoil because he knows. He knows the sort of limbo you feel you’re placed in now that your postmortem mission had been carried out. What were you supposed to do for the rest of eternity besides act as an impromptu executioner, feeding off of the worst criminals within a hundred mile radius?

“Is that all you see us as?”

“No,” You say quietly. These Damned men had accomplished great things, from what you knew of them, in their lifetimes. Sugawara has continued composing even well after his other alias’ deaths, Akaashi has been working on a research piece for decades regarding cancer in the form of preventative measures rather than a cure, in addition to a cure. Daichi had participated in the Olympics a number of times, Yaku was once a politician in multiple countries and Nishinoya had worked closely with electronic developers over the years including Microsoft and Linux. “You guys have accomplished so much in your lifetimes, I just don’t want to be some sort of disappointment—“

“[ name ], we never knew were going to do those things. We just kept pushing on, finding out things we were passionate about and since we have unlimited time, we’ve had time to hone and perfect those skills.”

“What if I never do anything that great?” Yaku lets out a sigh, turning your now fully restored body around to face him and pressing his face into your neck. Over the duration of your rehabilitation process, he’d become so over protective of you, wanting what’s best for you in any capacity yet never fully being honest with himself.

“You have time to figure it out,” he mumbles into your own icy skin, lips tickling your veins. “Until then, just stay? With me?”

“Yaku...” he had never fully outright asked you to stay—only alluding to it in the past with talks of the future.

“I-I want you,” he whispers almost uncharacteristically. Being a diplomat, stuttering was not a thing that Yaku did very often. “To stay with us forever. To stay with me forever.” This is it, he figures. It’s now or never. Yaku can’t stand the idea of you leaving the clan, leaving him when he hadn’t yet had a taste of you, had you in any other form than a few mere kisses for feeding or in fantasies. Pulling away, Yaku shifts once again so that his arms are holding his weight above you, his lips ghosting intimately over yours.

Both of you are overly aware of the attraction that’s there—you knew of the daydreams you’d had of him throughout the year and with his ability, he was unwillingly subjected to them. Reaching up slightly, your lips press against his hungrily, your tongue immediately dancing along the seam of his lips, begging for permission to enter. Yaku doesn’t waste a second dropping the support from his arms in favor to press his body fully into yours because he’s been waiting for this moment. It’s evident in his fervent kiss, it’s evident in his ever present erection. A mewl warbles in your throat as you feel him grind against you.

Why the hell had you waited so long for this? Why did he wait so long for this?

There was no more waiting.

Breaking a part for a moment, you pull the slip off your torso hastily while Yaku unbuckles his belt and frees his lower half. Impatience floods you as you tear off the thin Henley he’s wearing, leaving the two of you entirely bare in front of each other. The large scar on your bosom that had made you self conscious for months suddenly felt dull in comparison as you’re met with the varying marks that marred Yaku’s skin. From what you could tell, they looked like whiplashes. “I need you now,” he pleads, ignoring your wandering thoughts as he hungrily pulls you in for another kiss. Though rather short lived, your overwhelmed with warmth and pulsing in your core as his fangs run along your neck before sucking lovingly at your collarbone.

“O-oh,” you moan out wantonly, clutching at his shoulders to keep yourself steady. With no preparation, not that you needed any, Yaku slowly sheaths his member inside of you, the girth stretching you deliciously. For a moment, the two of you remain still to bask in the reprieve you both felt, unaware of the third party member watching pleased in the lounge chair across from the bed. “Fuck,” you hiss out between your teeth as he’s pushing in inch after inch.

“You’re doing so good, princess,” for a moment, he’s impressed—taking eleven inches with little to no preparation can be torturous, and he knew that from experience. “Come on, baby take the last of it—oh fuck yeah,” Yaku groans out as soon as he’s balls deep within you. The two of you are still, enjoying the moment of togetherness before he bottoms out entirely in your sweet little hole. His hips move almost languidly so as not to hurt you but good lord for all that is unholy, is he holding back.

Soft whimpers leave your lungs each time his hips snap back into yours—why the hell hadn’t you fucked Yaku sooner?! A throaty chuckle grumbles in his chest at the thought. Even with him slamming his cock in you at half-force, his mind is intertwined with yours to the point where your thoughts feel like his own. “I had to take care of you princess, wanted to make sure you could handle me fucking you.”

“Then fuck me harder, ass-hat.”

“He likes it better when you call him senpai.” Nishinoya calls out from the opposite corner of the room, as if he wasn’t just leisurely watching his partner ream himself into your core. You let out a scream and at this point, you aren’t sure if it’s because Yaku have a particularly hard thrust with the head of his dick meeting with the edge of your womb or if Nishinoya’s presence surprised you. Even more so to see that he was stark naked, stroking his cock that he’s presenting to your mouth.

“Suck off your senpai, princess.” Yaku whispers devilishly in your ear, holding his cock still within you as he does so. Tentatively, you give a kitten lick to the head before you, testing out Nishinoya’s reaction to the motion before deeming him worthy. A soft grunt escapes him, his body more than welcoming of the sensation—but it just wasn’t enough for you.

“I need a better reaction than that, Nishi,” You joke.

A poor plan on your part.

The shorter of the two looks down at you curiously, a wicked twist of his lip displayed for you as he briefly tosses an amused look towards Yaku, to which the latter lets out a chuckle in addition to the shake of his head before he starts to withdraw his cock from within you. “How’s this for reaction?” Noya chirps before deftly wrapping his claws in your hair, slamming his engorged member down your throat while Yaku simultaneously thrusts back inside you. The carnal desires that had run rampant through your mind on occasion had built to this moment, built up the needy desire that the boys finally had the chance to release with you. “Yeah, you take that cock in your throat, baby. Show us how much you’ve wanted us from the start.”

Nishinoya is absolutely relentless as he repeatedly withdraws and replaces his erection in your mouth, pulling so far back as to have his tip tease and smear pre-cum along your lips, all the while chanting praise and how much he loves you; how much he’s dreamed of having you between him and Yaku. The latter can’t help the stuttering motion of his hips as he unabashedly strokes his member along your walls, the tip of dick all but moving into your womb. “Yeah, princess, take your senpais cocks so fucking good, yeah? You want us to fill all your holes with our fucking cum, don’t you?” You can only wail out around Nishinoya in your mouth in response, clenching and squeezing your pussy tightly around Yaku inside you. The clan head lets out a very audible groan at the abrupt friction. “Oh, fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, senpai’s gonna cum so fucking hard inside you, yeah yeah yeah.” Yaku is absolutely wrecking and ravaging your lower half while all the foul, salacious words leaving him were only serving to turn on his partner even more until the both of them hold still to empty their first loads inside you.

After a momentary reprieve, the two of them withdraw from you, the smallest whine leaving your lips at the distinct emptiness. Between pants, both of the males look to each other before letting out a laugh. “Princess,” Noya calls out from your left, golden eyes light and airy as they gaze at you, “did you think we were going to let you cum?”

“Y-yes?” Why wouldn’t they? Wasn’t that just normal, sex etiquette between partners?

“Oh no, love,” Yaku adds, “We’re gonna show you just how much we love you, gotta coat every inch of your skin in our fluids before you can even think about cumming.” Before you can blink, the boys are up again with Nishinoya taking his position with the tip of his still hardened member teasing the outer lips of your pussy. Meanwhile, Yaku makes it a point to slap your cheek with his own erection, making sure to keep your attention and focus on him. Simultaneously, they thrust into their respective orifices that they’ve traded—Yaku treating you much more delicately versus Noya who shoves his entire mast inside your depths.

“Oh damn, babe, you’re so fucking tight!” The latter howls, throwing his head back in ecstasy. Despite having identical lengths, Nishinoya was much more rough and rigid, your walls acclimating to every vein out of necessity before relentlessly pounding away at your insides. At his pace, your pussy doesn’t even have a chance to miss the feeling of fullness. Your voice is no longer coming out in moans or screams due to the damning pace—only in a broken staccato of warbles from the speed that Noya’s fucking you. “Yeah, baby? Gonna stay here with us forever and get dicked down every night? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

But with the almost tender, loving way Yaku is holding your throat while repeatedly sliding his cock in from tip to base, there is no actual way you can reply. Instead, you let out grunts and cries of affirmation because you would stupid not to welcome the way these two were screwing you. It’s also more than just that.

These two, as well as the rest of the brood, had taken you in being inches from death, presented you with another opportunity for life that served as an opportunity for you to seek revenge, while caring for you and almost...loving you.

“We do,” Yaku bites, withdrawing his cock from your lips offended at the thought of almost, “love you, that is.” The hand that is cupping your throat moves to brush the backs of his claws along your jaw before pulling your chin and torso up so that Yaku can kiss you fully. There is no lust or wanton desire in this kiss—it’s love through and through that is simultaneously cold yet warm.

“You’ve been dreaming about us for a long time, princess,” Noya grits out, his peak approaching all too quickly with the way you’re clenching around him with no relief. He’s panting heavily, no longer caring about his need to assert his dominance in any capacity; all he can think about is cumming deep inside you while you cum around his thick cock. “We want to make your dreams come true.”

Yaku pulls away from the kiss in time to hear your cries—a delicacy he had never had the pleasure of knowing in a past life—as you cum with Noya. The latter is holding still for a brief moment before withdrawing, his spent body collapsing beside you. You’re sensitive, you realize, as Yaku slides back in to reclaim his space. Your walls are still trembling in the aftermath of your orgasm, but Yaku is much more gentle this time around. Pressing his body flush against yours, he wraps both his arms around you with one cradling your head, the other around your lower back to pull you as close as possible. His shallow moving thrusts in accompaniment to his pulsing girth are enough to trigger yet another orgasm in direct succession, and coercing his own orgasm. “Please stay, [ name ].” He mumbles into your hair as he feels his seed spurting within you. Though you supply no answer due to trying to catch your breath, you only nod in response. Yaku remains still inside you, so as if to seal both his and his partner’s emission within you with his own softening cock, smiling at the simple fact that you had nodded in response. “Get some rest, little one,” He adds, adjusting so that he’s on the opposite side of you and a now sleeping Noya. “We’ll be here when you wake.”

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summoner-kentauris · 3 years

Note

What does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir? (You can either just answer or write a lil story if you feel like it)

OOOO now i have thought in my free time a fair amount about what líf thinks of zasha but, and i cannot believe this, i have not thought about what zacharias thinks about líf and thrasir. full disclosure, book III happened to be going on when i formally stopped playing feh. i kept up with the story after that but, theres my obligatory knowledge base disclaimer.

also minor cws through this whole thing because i talk here and there about zacharias and his... mm, canonical relationship to death/selfharm

so, i spent a lot of time thinking about this one, and i keep coming back to my gut reaction, which is that i don't think zacharias would like them very much. i dont know why i think that, though.

PART ONE

i think a lot of it would depend on how they approach him, which is maybe why i've spent more time thinking about the reverse of this ask, come to think of it. see, i think zacharias could go any which way in terms of what he thinks of them. i think he could hate them, as two people who killed versions of everyone he ever loved, including metaphorically killing off the two people closest to him.

i think he could love him, having seen the hell (ha ha literally) that they went through. understanding what that feels like. given the way he talks about his suicide attempts, and honestly that he spent most of book I trying to get people to kill him, really his whole relationship to death. i mean the man talks a lot about death and killing. he might not be the feh OC who best understands how manipulative and... whats a good word. alluring? what im trying to say is that besides eir, he might be the one most likely to understand why Hel and hel's offer appealed to líf and thrasir. i feel like this bit has a place here: "With his dying breath...he begged for his life. He called out your names! "I'll do anything you ask! Just let me live!" excepting of course that i still am not sure if i think he said/thought that or not. ive never been sure who really is in control of speaking right then and there. Anyway. Probably he could come to understand Líf and Thrasir's stance, enough that he could care about them the same ways he cares about his versions of Alfonse ann Veronica

on the other hand, i can see him being fully horrified by the choices those two made in response. this bit: Not anyone... This dark god...seeks death. And it cries for the destruction of Askr. Like. Líf and Thrasir are intentionally enacting the same thing as the dark god's desires, in order to correct a mistake they made that, uh, also enacted the same thing as dark god's desires. talk about awkward. and i think Zasha, who has lived with this nightmare in his head for so long, might recoil from people who are so directly aligned with it. who wants to be around someone who has become, who has chosen to become, everything you ever feared you'd be? especially when you're nearly drowning from the effort of fighting to stop yourself.

i could also see him meeting them and it being incredibly, incredibly bad for him. i feel like, he puts a whole lot of... mm. what am i trying to say.here:

Yet it is you that says this, dear friend, and so I must consider it. I see the faith reflected in your eyes. Perhaps it is possible...

SPEAKING OF BUNNY ZACHARIAS I ALSO THINK YOU COULD TAKE THE FOLLOWING:

You never change. All you see is a lofty goal, even if you lack the means to achieve it... The idea that gods would fall by the hand of man is a fantasy... and a preposterous one. This is a goal that even our ancestors Líf and Thrasir could not achieve.

setting aside the obligatory wtf zash i know you know your lore (fuck, maybe there is no killing the gods, maybe all Fire Emblem victories are temporary at best and Zenith is the only one who knows it. but i think, probably not), i think you could spin a very believable scenario where zacharias takes one look at these two ambitious, arrogant posers and absolutely refuses to speak to them any further.

so, part one, i think that zacharias could think any number of things about líf and thrasir. which i suppose means that i think he's fairly neutral on the subject of líf and thrasir. makes sense to me, i suppose. i feel like zacharias | bruno has practice (regardless of whether he's any good at it or not, or whether its any good for him) at holding and maintaining separate personas, so I don't think the fact that líf and thrasir were alfonse and veronica would necessarily be all that important to him.

which brings me to part ii

what happened to dead zenith zacharias

if zacharias is neutral on the subject, I think a lot of their relationship is going to pushed in one direction or another by líf and thrasir themselves.

and, complicating matters (when do I make things simple?), i think their approach to zacharias would of course depend on what happened to their zacharias. correct me if im wrong, but i dont think we have even a hint what happened to him.

there are three ish options I'm seeing. one: as dead world zenith is further along in its timeline and as zacharias claims he's almost out of time with his curse, other zacharias died due to that before the war with hel. i feel like scenario one is the most likely to lead to a good relationship between main zacharias and líf and thrasir.

two: mr. professional "knows plot relevant things out of knowhere" was the one who found out about angrboða's heart in the first place. especially given "As destruction took hold, we joined with Embla to seek the forbidden heart...", which to me sounds a lot like, "hel was kicking our ass then zacharias showed up and said we should go get this mystical plot object from embla". thrasir even says she and líf weren't allies before the world went to shit. anyway. hear me out here:

Yes. The heart is sealed within an Emblian blood temple. If that seal is broken, someone will die each time the heart beats... Those who perform the rite are the first to die.

Now. Líf claims he was the one who broke it open, but he also was present for the war that followed and only after was he killed and inducted into hel's army. so. both of those things can't be true. i propose that the magic mcguffin located in a sealed emblian blood temple was unlocked by our dear zacharias and thats what killed him in other zenith. i think its possible that other veronica was the one who did it, but you know. its all imagination at this point. also, and i forgot this, but thrasir does go off about how she can't lose until she saves her brother, so. something especially tragic happened at least. and oh boy is scenario two a nice fresh tasty tragedy. so that's scenario two. other zacharias directly died as a result of attempts to fight hel

number three thing that could have happened to zach is boring. he's always off doing things, he could have just died off screen. i mean. everyone did, eventually.

frankly he could still be alive for all i know. the heart appears to take the lives of people in the world, not of the world, or else the summoner would have been fine. so, if zacharias was on one of his off world jaunts, he could conceivably be a-okay. well. as okay as someone who's whole world died. i don't think that's what happened, because thrasir is pretty clear about feeling that she failed him, but yknow.

líf and thrasir's reactions to the above

thrasir is i think the most straightforward. i can't really see her approaching main zacharias with anything but positive intent. even if she's only a little bit open, i think thrasir and zacharias will probably have a decently tolerable relationship. if zacharias can come back to a country that exiled him as a kid and let his mother die in a dungeon and then go on to not just befriend but protect and care for a half sister he didnt know before then, then i think he'll find a way to care about thrasir. you know, intsys could have had fun making another perpetual older brother character. as i understand it, xander gets brother'd a lot, he and zach could have talked. could have been fun. a whole, zacharias, a historically traumatized child: *arrives in a world* every currently traumatized kid in a five mile radius: oh shit this one's ours now. you know what im saying? found family except zacharias would very much like it to stop finding him. he's got important brooding to do. but anway, they didn't go that route and its a tragedy.

líf is... more complicated. i think scenario one creates the most positive outlook. i can see him still having guilt over zacharias' loss, but i think any of it would be overshadowed by everything else that happened. in this scenario, líf finally gets back a piece of the world he'd lost. yeah, it's not his zacharias, but still. it is a zacharias, who is living and breathing and frowning and asking why you are staring at me, knight. i think the two of them could get along rather well, although i see them having significant issues with pessimism. inch-restingly enough... the dark curse bades its hosts to kill askrans. and líf is, well. dead. so... perhaps... perhaps líf wouldn't trigger the curse like alfonse does. in that case, not only does líf get someone back he thought he'd never see again, but so does zacharias.

scenario two is just a nightmare. frankly, i initially thought this scenario would lead to líf just ignoring zacharias (out of guilt, pain, etc), but i was rereading the scripts looking for the spelling of angrboða and this came up:

Tell Hel. She'll erase those memories. She'll erase them all...

so, honestly? i think that in scenario two líf just straight up gets hel to remove his memories of zacharias (as an aside maybe this is also why he never ever ever talks about other anna >:{ )

in that case, líf wouldn't really have any reason to talk to this man, who causes this empty deeply sad feeling to well up in him for now discernible reason. and zacharias has no reason (or time) to talk to this standoffish general of the dead. so. that's a real ships in the night moment.

number three i think líf would still hold the same guilt as in number two, but i don't think it would be as horrifically tragic, so i think it's more likely he'd be willing to approach zacharias. he does appear to have even worse of a thing than alfonse about not opening oneself up to people, but i think that even if he's líf, he once was an alfonse, and being that this is me answering this, i don't think any alfonse can really keep away from a zacharias for very long. its a version of the person who once knew him as well as any other person in the world. like líf can't really seem to stop himself from associating with main sharena, i don't think he could stop himself from reaching out in his own way to main zacharias. and god does that man need some more friends. i think zacharias would probably be a little frightened of líf, and of what an alfonse could become. but i think probably... i feel like a lot of book i issues stem from the fact that, justified or not, zacharias thinks alfonse would risk anything, any harm to save him. i don't know that confronting an alfonse who literally risked everything and did all harm to save his world would be a comfort, but i do think zacharias would get a lot out of having someone who's already done the worst they can do. been there, done that, got the tshirt. i think zacharias would be a little afraid of what an alfonse could become, but i think he would no longer have to be afraid of... no, anxious about it. i think there's a kind of calm in having something confirmed that zacharias could appreciate. healthy? unhealthy? fuck if i know. i also think that in líf, zacharias has a friend who he can't physically hurt anymore. lífs already dead. been there done there got the.... glowing gel torso. i think, curse nonewithstanding, zacharias will always have some degree of tension and fear about hurting people he's in a relationship with, be that because of his issues with abandonment, of abandoning, of harm, etc. but you know. líf's kind of a rock. and he's already hit his rock bottom, now that i'm thinking about rocks. i think that kind of steady, placid deathness could really help zacharias. and i think he would find it soothing, whether or not he knew why.

plus he will be able to know that if the curse gets him, if he dies... he'll still have a friend in the realm of the dead. he doesnt have to be so afraid of leaving and getting left

so there we go! lots of musings. i have been thinkin about why my headcanons are less that and more elaborate branching theories, and i think it is because i would change my opinion depending on which story i wanted to tell or hear or see.so yeah. dunno which one of these answers belongs to the question, what does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir?, but hopefully at least one of them is interesting to read about!

OH also. i think he would be petty-ly annoyed about them cribing líf and thrasir's name. like full on scholar petty. probably showed up to the order in a nerdy huff excited to meet the actual factual líf and thrasir and turns out its just those two, sitting around glowing and reciting death metal lyrics like they're spoken word ballads. dont think he'd get over that ever.

#as an aside during the course of writing this #i have become convinced that ''I was powerless to stop it... There was nothing I could do...'' eir #could probably have interesting things to talk aboutwith ''he was all alone... there was nothing he could do to save himself...'' zacharias #anonymous #whew thats a lot of words #ill spell check in the morning #yeah right no ill spell check tomorrow evening #thats more likely #that was fun to think about #i hope this makes sense because i am NOT going to reread it #im going to go get dinner #sat here and DID NOT MOVE for ages #my neck is killing me #thanks zacharias

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p4nkow · 4 years

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D is for Dangerous - part IV

Hey hi! It took me so long to finish this part but finally here it is. I really hope you guys are gonna like this second-to-last part of this fic. Let me know what you think of it!

Part I, Part II, Part III

Summary: driven by the desire of revenge, the reader tries to take down the man who ruined her life only to find out that her plan is an utter fiasco; however she meets a man that is gonna change her life and give her the chance of a lifetime

Warnings: use of weapons and a little bit of smut

You hoped the coldness of the water might’ve helped you clear your thoughts, distracting you. As you gave yourself a look in the mirror, water droplets were running down your cheeks, falling right in the sink. Your eyes, usually so cold and full of determination, were now the reflection of chaos. Lost and devastated — that’s how you felt.

I used to work for Kuklinski. No matter how hard you tried not to think at Four’s words, they kept echoing in your head. Not that you’d heard his story, given that you had literally ran off from him. You were starting to regret it, though, given that there was one simple question that was eating you alive.

Had he been part of the assassination of your parents?

As you moved your hair off your face your hands started to shake, perfectly describing how you felt just at the thought of Four being involved in it. Now that you finally knew why was he so mad at Kuklinski, you wished you didn’t.

You had to know more. You had to know if he’d killed your parents.

And that thought gave you the strength to get out of your room — even though you felt unsteady in your own feet, you forced yourself to keep moving. You felt like a robot, walking though the cold hallways of the building without paying attention to what was surrounding you.

And when you finally found yourself in front of Four’s door, it took you five minutes to find the will to knock. You closed your hand in a fist, trying to stop it from shaking as you waited for him to open it. Your thoughts were running wild and you were torn between the desire of punching him and the one of conforming him.

And when you finally heard the lock clicking, you still hadn’t made up your mind.

His green eyes immediately found yours. You lifted your chin as he clenched his jaw, unsure what to say. You tried to remain composed as you swallowed in vain, saying in an uncertain voice “Can I come in?”

Four didn’t reply — he limited himself to nod at your question and walk aside in order to let you come into his room. “I think it’s better if you sit down.”

You didn’t like the awkwardness of the moment but Four was right. You didn’t trust your own legs, so you sat down to his mattress. Your chest rise and lower as you took a deep breath, looking at your own hands in nervousness before looking up to meet his gaze.

”Did you?”, you immediately asked. You couldn’t wait any longer.

Four narrowed his brows. “What?”

It took you all the strength you had not to make your voice shake as you asked him in a cold tone “Did you kill my parents?”

Four parted his lips, as if he was trying to process your question. His golden hair was messier than usual and God knows how much he’d slipped his fingers through it during the last hour. “Bloody hell, Eight. No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t kill your parents. I have nothing to do with it.”

You wanted to believe him. You had to. The look in his eyes — so desperate and sad — suggested you that he was being honest, and you truly wished he was. You didn’t reply, you limited yourself to nod at his words. That’s probably what pushed him to add “Please, believe me.” His voice, so soft and low, almost broke at the end of the sentence.

Even though you were trying so hard to avoid it, your eyes became teary at his words. You hurried to get rid of the few tears that had escaped and you raised your gaze to meet him once again. “I do.” You nodded to confirm your words and then you softly said “I’m— I’m sorry I just ran off.”

Four nodded as he leaned against the wall in front of you, arms crossed in his chest as his eyes never left yours. “No need to apologise. It was a bit of a shock, I know.”

“Yeah.”

Four exhaled deeply and the two of you stood quiet for a while. His past seemed to upset him, you noticed it by the shade of his eyes and by the stiffness of his posture. The fact that you were forcing him to open up was killing you, but you had to know.

“I need to know, Four.”

“I know.”

“You know it’s fair—“

“Yes, it is”, he murmured as he picked up a chair and sat on it. Even though he was in front of you, he kept the distance, which allowed you to think clearly about his words. You weren’t yourself when Four was around you.

It took him some time before he could finally find the courage to start talking about his story. “I was born in England, I think you got that from my accent. And yeah, Harry is my brother. He’s three years younger than me. The surname and the family is all we have in common, though. We never really bonded.”

Hearing of the relationship he had with his brother made you think of Emily. You wondered how she was, what was she doing, if she was thinking of you.

You started thinking of a mini-version of Four, his golden hair flying everywhere as he ran in a big, green field. And you felt incredibly sorry at the fact that he hadn’t been as lucky as you in matter of family.

“I— uhm, I might have asked you before”, you stated as he paused his speech. “What’s your realname?”

Four smiled. It wasn’t one of those forced smiles you were obliged to do as a sign of courtesy. Oh no, you’d known Four enough to know that he only smiled when he genuinely felt like doing it. He cleared his voice, rubbing his hands and saying “Billy.”

“Billy”, you repeated. You slowly nodded, trying to process the news along with the rest of the shocking ones Four revealed you. “You look like a Billy.”

“You look like a Y/N.” Your name coming from his lips sounded so different. It’d been a while since you last heard the sound of your name and it was quite a weird feeling. You were surprised by the fact that he remembered it.

“You remember.”

Four narrowed his brows and gave you a little grin. “‘f course I do.”

Geez, you truly hoped your cheeks weren’t turning bright red.

You cleared your voice and you looked away from him, playing with your hands and staying quiet for a while. But then you broke the silence by saying “How did you and Harry end up working for Kuklinski?”

There were still important matters to deal with.

Four lowered his gaze and rubbed again his hands, probably trying to find the right words. “At the age of eighteen I moved to NY and joined this group of people — they were the only friends I had. We were pretty good at parkour, actually, and we decided to use our skills to do something. To gain some money, y’know. Our business had been going on for a while when suddenly one day Harry called me. I didn’t know he’d moved to the US too, but he proposed me something. A job. At the time the idea of gaining some money by doing something I was good at tempted me. I was young and naive.”

You were trying to remain impassive at his story, bu you were miserably failing. That was Kuklinki’s power. He gave you hope, money, a purpose, but then he fucked with your life. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.

When you met Four’s eyes, you noticed they’d changed into a different shade. Darker, even deeper. “I didn’t know what part of Kuklinski’s business Harry was taking care of, until the day of the party.”

“And what did you do?” Your words were nothing but a whisper.

Four pursed his lips. “I was his ears and eyes, informing him of his enemies’ moves. He used to call me ‘the skywalker’.”

You were about to make him a question but he preceded you. “I know what you wanna ask me, and no. He never asked me to check on your parents. I didn’t even know they were involved with him until One gave me your file and asked me to recruit you.”

“He has a file on me?”

Four gave you the typical ‘Seriously? Right now?’ look and you shrugged. “He has a file on each and everyone of us.”

You slowly nodded at his words and you bit your lower lip. “When did you join the group?”

“I’d been working for Kuklinski for a few months — we were in Kiev, me and some other guys. And my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend? “Well, ex-girlfriend. She backstabbed me”, he added.

You gave him a questioning look and he leaned towards the back of the chair. “We had to spy on a powerful enemy of Kuklinski who at the time was hiding in Ukraine. Of course we took some liberties, too. We’d been told that the Kalahari — a jewel worth millions, if not even billions — was hidden in the house of an important functionary. As we broke into his apartment, someone called the police. Right before running away I’d managed to find it — God knows if I needed the money it was worth. We ran away in a rush and we had to climb an old billboard that was coming apart. I made one wrong move — I held on an old wiring but it broke on one side.”

“Geez”, you whispered.

Four pursed his lips and nodded. “To make it short, I managed to hold onto the corner of a building and as I was holding the jewel in my mouth, I asked my girlfriend to grab my hand and help me. But all she cared about was the Kalahari, so she grabbed it. I fell for six floors, maybe even more, right into a building. One was there, he showed me his plan and he recruited me. Now I’m working for a cause I believe him, I’m free from Kuklinski and my backstabbing girlfriend, along with my brother, are still working for that son of a bitch.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

Four slipped his fingers trough his hair and sighed deeply. “The things I’ve seen, the horrible things he made me witness—”

Four’s voice broke right in the middle of the sentence. Your heart sank at the sight of Four’s sorrow and you stood up, walking towards him. You slipped your fingers through his blonde hair, closing you eyes. His pain was almost touchable.

He raised his gaze to meet yours and your hands slipped on his cheeks. His eyes were teary and it broke your heart. Four, who had always been so strong and cocky, was falling apart in your hands. You leaned towards him and whispered “I’m sorry.”

His lips were just a few inches away from yours, but you hurried to eliminate the distance between you. Just like the first time you’d kissed him, his touch was soft but firm. He immediately placed both his hands on your cheek and the two of you stood up without backing away.

There was a difference between the two kisses, though — he didn’t reject you. Four kissed you back, deepening the moment by pulling your body close to his.

The two of you started to move back towards the bed and you made Four sit on the mattress as you sat on top of him. Your face was just a few inches away from his and his lips were so close that they almost grazed yours. In his beautiful, green eyes there was a look that you’d never seen before. The kind of look that makes you feel like if you have butterflies in your stomach.

He cupped your cheek and touched your nose with his, finally kissing you again. His touch was so soft that it gave you the goosebumps. You immediately leaned towards him, but you didn’t want to rush the situation. It was just as perfect as it was going.

Your hand slipped to his neck and then inside of his shirt, making your fingers run through his bare back. At the same time, Four’s hand was slipping through your arm with a soft touch.

His shirt was just being in the way, so you lifted it and took it out. His body was a masterpiece, with all his flaws. As you laid on top of him you gently grazed his torso, starting from his collarbone down to his lower muscles. You could feel his green eyes closely following your movements with caution.

He wanted you, you could feel and see that, and the sensation of his body pressed against yours did nothing but increase the need. But you had no chance to know how the strike could’ve been, what would’ve happened — it was a bloody dangerous mission. And that’s the reason why you wanted to enjoy every second with him, to feel at the very best all the emotions that his touch gave you.

“Eight”, he whispered, but sure as hell he wasn’t begging you to stop touching him. His hands moved to your hips, grazing your naked skin before getting rid of your tee. Four made his hands slip from your thighs to your chest, now only covered by your bra. His soft touch gave you chills and so you shrugged, making him giggle. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful.”

You bit your lower lip at his words, placing your lips on his in a soft kiss. Your hands were exploring his chest — you just weren’t able to keep your hands to yourself.

Four explored your body, too. His calloused fingers grazed your back down to your sweatpants. You were starting to grow impatient so you backed away from his lips, placing your hand on his and pushing him to drop both your trousers and your panties. You stood up to get rid of them and right after they were long forgotten on the floor. “Bloody jeans”, you murmured as you tried to unzip them. Four giggled and helped you get rid of them in a hurry.

Your naked bodies fit perfectly and it felt so right. That thought left you breathless for a couple of moment so Four surrounded your hips with his arm and switched the positions, laying on top of you.

And immediately his hands were all over you, slipping from your bare chest to your belly and even further to your thighs. His green eyes were constantly checking on you, trying to spot the slightest change of mood, but you wanted him. You wanted him more than you have ever wanted anything or anyone in your life.

His soft and warm lips explored your chest, focusing on your boobs and teasing your nipples with his tongue. His gaze was so overwhelming that you had to look away, your hands gripping on the sheets as you tried to keep control. “No, love. Eyes on me.” He gently turned your head towards him as the other hand was firmly holding your hip.

You bit your lower lip and your hips automatically lifted against his touch as he gently kissed your lower belly. “So bloody beautiful”, He whispered.

“Four.” You couldn’t even recognise your own voice.

“You like that?”

You could feel the warmth of his tongue against your most sensitive zone and you just hummed in response — your breath was too heavy for you to say a meaningful word. His blonde hair gave you the goosebumps when touching your inner tight and you smiled at the memory of thinking how it’d have been to sink your fingers on it.

“You okay?”, He asked once he’d come back to your lips. His whispers and your heavy breath were the only sounds in the room.

You slowly nodded, almost begging “Please” before taking his face in your hands and placing your lips on his. He immediately kissed you back, deepening the moment and pushing his body against yours. He wanted you, and that’s exactly what his wood pressed against your lower belly was telling you.

And when he slowly sank into you his gaze never lost yours; your hands slipped through his bare back up to his neck, your fingers sinking between his blonde hair.

You surrounded his waist with your legs and crossed your ankles, trying to feel him as much as you could in each and everyone of his pushes. “Fuck, Y/N”, He murmured as he hid his face on your neck, his heavy breath caressing your skin as he kept sinking into you. He’d called you by your name, your real name, and if it wasn’t for the situation your eyes’d have become teary.

You both reached the culmination a few moments later, his green eyes never leaving yours as he grunted. When he laid down right next to you with a sigh, at first you were too worn off to say something. As the seconds went by you turned your head towards him, meeting his gaze already fixed on you. The sight of his tight smile made you chuckle, and he asked by widening his smile “What?”

“Nothing”, You said between the giggles.

“Was it bad?”

“Oh my god.” You hid your face on his neck and he surrounded your waist with his arm.

“Eight.”

“No, absolutely. It’s been great.” You placed your chin on his shoulder to face him.

“Good.” He pursed his lips but you could tell your words pumped up his ego.

“So, Billy”, you teased him with a grin.

“Yeah...”

“It’s lovely.” And you were being honest.

Four limited himself to just look at you, making you slightly blush. Your attention was caught by the scar that crossed his brow, so you slowly grazed it with the tip of your finger. “How did you get it?”

“Parkour isn’t exactly the safest thing on earth.”

“So you smashed your face.”

Four laughed again. “Yeah, sort of.”

“Can I ask you something?” A question had just popped in your mind.

Four limited himself to nod a ‘yes’ and you bit your lower lip, taking your time before saying “Why’d you reject me?”

His blonde brows were now narrowed in a questioning look. One of his hand was resting under his head and the light coming from the window made him look like Adonis. “Huh?”

“That day at the gym. You said that it was because of the stress I was under.”

“It wasn’t?”, He asked almost in a playful tone and you slapped him in his chest.

“’f course it wasn’t.”

Four pursed his lips and sighed deeply. “I felt guilty.”

“For what?”

“I used to work for the man that ruined your family, Eight. The look in your eyes every time his name was pronounced — I couldn’t forgive myself. I still can’t.”

His eyes were so clear and so honest that pushed you to place a hand on his cheek, making him look right at you. “I do, Billy. I forgive you.”

And the smile he gave you made your heart do a backflip. He didn’t reply, though. He kissed you, pressing your body against his.

One week ago you’d never thought to find yourself in this situation, but there you were. Right into Four’s arms.

His hand started to go up and down on your bare lower back, relaxing your muscles and making your feel even more comfortable. “Are you scared?”

He seemed to reflect on your question. “Just a bit worried.”

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“And you won’t do anything stupid.” You were surprised to notice he’d realised how the strike made you feel. That it was something personal to you. You were going to face Kuklinski in a few hours and you were terrified. You were worried about your anger issues and you just hoped you weren’t going to screw things up.

But you were determined to take that motherfucker down so you confirmed his words. “No, I won’t.”

Fourteen days after the explosion – the day of the hit on Kuklinski

“Red really is your colour.” Five gave you a quick look from above her shoulder. Maybe she was right. The red dress you were wearing looked really good on you, but nothing compared to her and her green tube dress. She looked like a goddess.

Her hair was up in a fancy hairstyle but Two’d decided to make yours just slightly wavy.

“Isn’t it too much?”

She turned towards you and gave you the most confident smile you’d ever seen. “It’s never too much.”

You were about to leave for the strike and anxiety was eating you alive. You were determined to do it, but things could’ve gone terribly wrong. Your thoughts immediately led to few hours before, while laying in Four’s arms. In a different situation the thought of what you’d done would’ve made you blush, but not that night. You were worried sick.

Four had a major role in the strike and you just hoped he’d get away with it uninsured. The eight of you trained hard for this very special occasion, so you tried to stay positive. The plan was perfect in every singular detail.

“You look... différente”, Two said by looking at you with her eyes narrowed.

Her words caught Five’s attention, who simply replied “I’ll tell you what it is. She got laid.”

“She what?”, Two replied at the same time you almost screamed “Five!”

Your cheeks were bright red but thankfully you didn’t get the chance to continue the chat, thanks to a knock on the door.

“You girls ready?” One voice came muffled from behind the door. You exchanged a quick look with Two and Five before following them to the hallway. The heels you were wearing weren’t the comfiest thing ever, but you knew how to move. They weren’t that big deal.

When you got to the dining room, everyone was there. One was wearing a bulletproof vest and he was making sure that his guns were loaded. Two was standing right next to you and she was following closely Three’s movements — you were pretty sure they had something going on, too. The latter was tying his jacket with an amused grin on his face.

Then there was Four, in his typical jumpsuit and a black beanie covering his blonde hair. But it wasn’t his clothing that got your attention — his green eyes were all over your body. His intense staring brought back the memories of the previous day and you were sure you’d blushed hardwhen his eyes met yours. He winked at you and you shook your head in amusement, making your gaze run to the rest of the group.

Five was now chatting with Six and they were gesturing towards the gas can she was holding. Seven was on his own, closely cleaning his rifle in silence.

“Okay guys, it’s time.” One looked at each and everyone of you. The determination in his eyes made you actually believe that you could make it. That you could finally take Kuklinski down.

“Let’s do this”, Six said with a big smile, followed by Three who said “Ay papi, we’re gonna take that motherfucker down.”

“Merde à tous.” You didn’t speak french, but you smiled at Two’s words anyways.

“Y’all know what to do, so let’s go.” Seven was the first to get out of the door, followed by Five.

Nervousness was eating you alive and the thought of facing Harry — Four’s brother — and then Kuklinski did nothing but make you sweat even more. As the rest of the group left to the cars, you were about to follow them when Four grabbed your hand.

You gave him a look from above your shoulder, followed by a smile. “Be careful, ‘kay?”

Four tightened the grip on your hand at his words and you just pursed your lips, fully turning towards him.

You let go of his hand only to place it on his cheek, looking directly at his green eyes. “Please, please stay alive.”

Four exhaled deeply before placing his lips on yours. It wasn’t a soft, delicate kiss like the ones of the day before. He kissed you with passion and desire, with desperation, almost as if he never wanted to let you go. You truly wished you never had to leave, you didn’t want to get in that car and leave him behind to do his job,

But you had to.

So you backed away from him, caressing his cheek for the last time before clearing your voice and whispering “Let’s go.”

The ride to Kuklinski’s building was silent. Extremely silent, except for Six’s little taps on the steering wheel. It was just the two of you plus Five. Two and Three were coming on another car, One was directing it all from a roof as Four and Seven were taking their positions.

When you finally got there, you gave a last look at Six. He pursed his lips, holding the wheel a little tighter while saying “Good luck, girls. I’ll be waiting you.”

You smiled at him before getting off the car, standing right next to Five. You didn’t start walking and neither did she, so you turned towards her. You didn’t say anything, but from the look in her eyes you knew she wanted to say something, too.

There was no time for pleasantries.

The earpiece was well hidden under your curled hair as you walked through the metal detector undisturbed. One was a bloody genius. You grabbed your briefcase and gave Five a quick look as she took a seat in the waiting area as you walked toward the reception.

“Good morning. How can I help you?” A blonde, middle-aged lady politely smiled at you.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Longbourn.”

As the lady checked your words on her laptop, your hands were starting to sweat for the nervousness. You forced yourself not to give a look around you, trying not to look suspicious, and the lady looked right at you only a few seconds after. “Mr. Longbourn is ready for you, Miss. His office is in the fourth floor.”

You thanked her in a whisper and a polite smile before walking towards the elevator. You knew there were cameras watching you as the elevator lifted, so when One asked you through the earpiece “Eight, you okay?”, you limited yourself to hum “Huh-huh.”

“Zip line secure”, you heard Four saying through the earpiece.

“It’s a good ride, One”, Seven said. Their chats were helping you not to overthink, distracting you. “A little scary up here, but...”

“Nah, this is fun. Don’t be a pussy, Seven”, Four immediately replied and it made you smile.

When you got to the fourth floor you switched off your earpiece, so that you could only communicate with One. As much as you wanted to hear Four and make sure he was fine, he was a distraction. A big one.

Harry’s office was easy to find — his name was written all over the wall glass. Funny how he was the exact opposite of his brother. At least Four wasn’t a bloody criminal. Not anymore, at least.

You knocked at the door before entering the room, getting ready to out in place the greatest play in the world. “Mr Longbourn”, you said with a smile, catching his attention.

His eyes moved from the laptop to you, but when his green eyes started to run all over your body, it was nothing compared to Four. Harry’s staring repulsed you. “It’s Harry for you, my dear.”

He shook your hand and you took a seat in one of the chairs right in front of his desk. Now that you knew his story, you could tell that he was trying to hide his English accent by faking an American one. Little did he know.

“I recall that you’re leaving for an international meeting tomorrow, am I right?” You really wished he wasn’t Four’ brother so that the group could take care for him because of his actions.

You faked a smile. “I am, indeed. You recall correctly.”

“You’re even prettier than the last time I saw you.”

Filthy bastard. You truly hoped Four wasn’t paying attention to your little chitchat with his brother. “Thank you, Harry.”

“So”, he said by rubbing his hands “what have you got for me?”

You never had the chance to reply because of the gunshots. A lot of them, probably coming from the lower floor. Harry’s attention had been caught by them and he didn’t notice you extract a gun from your briefcase. “Hands up”, you said with a grin by pointing the gun at him.

His brows were narrowed in surprise, his lips parted because of the shock. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I said hands up”, you repeated in a higher tone, given that he hadn’t done as ordered.

Harry placed both his hands on his head and you carefully walked towards him, still pointing the gun at him as you searched him looking for a weapon. You clicked on the earpiece and told One “Harry’s clear.”

“Good”, he immediately replied and you noticed he was out of breath. “Bring him to the meeting point.”

You heard other gunshots as you tried to avoid Harry’s shocked gaze. “Who are you?”

The tip of your gun was pressed against his back and when he gave you a look from above his shoulder you simply said “I’m Eight. Now shut up and walk or I’ll make you.”

“I did nothing wrong”, he tried to justify himself.

“Yeah”, you puffed. “Nothing at all. Try telling that to the families of all the people who’ve died because of you and your fuckin’ boss.”

On your way to the upper floor you met one of Kuklinski’s guard. Right before he could shoot at you, you killed him. It was wrong, so bloody wrong, but it had to be done. He fell to the ground like a puppet. Harry gasped and you tried not to think about what you’d just done. “Eight, the floor is clear. You’re free to move”, Seven told you through the earpiece.

Holding Harry’s shirt with one hand and the gun with the other, you walked upstairs. Your senses were on alert, ready to spot the slightest movement of your enemies. Harry didn’t say anything, but on the last step of the stairs he turned towards you. He tried to disarm you by bending your arm — he might’ve had the brute force needed, but he wasn’t trained like you and sure as hell he wasn’t thinking clearly.

Your grip on the gun was firm when you pushed away Harry’s arm and kicked him right in the undercarriage, making him grunt of pain. All you had to do was push him a little to make him sit down on the stairs and you pointed your gun right at his head. “Tell me, Harry. Have you ever watched Chicago?”

“What?” He was seriously confused.

“Chicago”, you replied. “The musical with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger.”

“Yeah, I guess so?”

You leaned towards him so that your face was just a few inches away from his, but you made sure your gun was still pointed at his forehead. “You try to do that one more time, and you’ll end up like one of those boys. I may be a girl, but sure as hell I’m stronger than you. I can still blow your head off.”

Where did those words come from? This wasn’t you.

The sound of broken glasses made you smile, giving you the sign that the plan was proceeding as planned. “Eight, you okay?”

You sighed in relief by hearing Four’s voice. You forced Harry to stand up and you pushed him into the room where Two and Three were waiting. You spotted them in the distance but you couldn’t see them clearly. “I’m fine, yeah. Where the hell are you?”

“Got stuck at the roof. I’m on my way.” And by doing so he switched off the earpiece.

Thank God Four was fine.

“The floor’s clear, Eight.” Seven was monitoring the situation in the distance and you just nodded at his words.

Only when you walked towards Two and Three you noticed they were pointing their guns right at Kevin Kuklinski. You froze right behind Harry, your hands starting to shake at the sight of the men that had killed your parents.

“Eight.” Two caught your attention and you slowly moved your gaze to her. She nodded at you, silently saying to move closer to them.

So you did — you pushed Harry who complained quietly and you made him sit down to a chair right next to Kuklinski.

It was the latter who broke the silence by saying “I know you.”

Now that Harry was being monitored by Three, you could finally look at Kuklinski. “Do you remember me?”

Those bastard’s eyes — so dark that they seemed black — were fixed on yours. You had your father’s eyes and he’d probably recognised them. “Y/L/N”, Kuklinski said with a smirk. A strand of grey and black hair had fallen into his forehead and if he didn’t have his hands tied, he’d have probably moved it.

“In the flesh.” You tightened the grip on your gun, holding it with both hands.

“I remember your parents. How silly they’ve been in trusting me.”

Your knuckles had turned white and you were trying to contain yourself. Without looking away from him and his cold eyes, you asked Two “Where’s One?”

“On his way.”

“Fuck.”

“They got what they deserved”, Kuklinski kept going. What was he trying to do?

“Shut the fuck up.” You switched on the earpiece. “One, where the hell are you?”

All you heard from the other side were gunshots.

“Do I know you?” Harry had a very bad timing.

Footsteps were approaching you and they caught Three’s attention. Kuklinski’s guards were more numerous than you expected and they just kept coming. “Shut up, Harry.”

“We killed her parents”, Kuklinski said with a grin. “You should’ve heard them begging for mercy.”

That was enough. Without thinking twice about it, you pointed your gun at Kuklinski and fired. Again and again. The thud of the gunshots was echoing in your ears and you felt numb. You just couldn’t feel anything.

“Hey”, Two said by placing a hand on your shoulder. “He’s dead.”

Without even realising it your eyes’d become teary, you bit your lower lip to make it stop shaking and you lowered the gun.

Kevin Kuklinki was finally dead. He’d gotten what he deserved and it felt so good. So right.

It wasn’t the right time for celebrations, though. Half of the group was still in trouble, and there was still Harry to be taken care of.

“Four?” No answer. You exchanged a quick look with Two and Three but they just shook their heads. “Four?!”

When Four finally replied, your heart sank. “He’s gonna kill me.”

Taglist: @maccasbeard @radiob-l-a-hblah @queen-turtle-boiii @desperatelytryingtosavemyself @sara-1705 @queen--sherlock @allthethingsicant @hells-personal-bitch @owensgrxdy @amy-brooklyn99 @dep-thx @ken-yee-not @mazzelloqueen @caborhapch @jonesyaddiction @mightbeidfkalien @pink-lemo @dreamingaboutyousworld @multi-fandom-iimagines @just-bookish @simonedk @roseslovedreams @dreamingaboutyousworld @cheeseedreams47 @hyungbean @livesnearthecity @blushingwueen @ariesxslytherin @grave-details

let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist :)

#ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy fic #6 underground #6 underground fic #six underground #roger taylor #roger taylor fic #roger taylor x reader

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freddiesaysalright · 5 years

Text

Peace Like A River - Epilogue

A Gwilym Lee x Reader Story

Summary: Reader has found her peace in Gwilym. Violet shares how much it means to her on a special day.

Word Count: 1.6K

Tag List: @psychosupernatural @someone-get-a-medic, @bensrhapsody, @deakyclicks, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession, @minigranger, @simmisblog, @assembledherethevolunteers, @lookuptotheskiesandsee, @readinghorn, @riddikuluslypotter, @doingalrightt, @misslolasworld, @lemurian-starship, @ravenedges-lies, @painkiller80, @imgonnabeyourslave, @crazyweirdocalledfriday, @ixchel-9275, @sincerelygmg, @lv7867, @unicorn-princess-1999, @delilahmay39, @chlobo6, @dragon-out-of-water, @radio-hoo-ha, @agentmalfoy24601, @thigh-your-mother-down

A/N: Here is the super sappy promised epilogue! Y’all it is GUSHY but after such a wild ride, I thought they all deserved some pure love lol. Thank you all so much for the love you’ve shown this story. I had so much fun writing it and seeing how all of you reacted to the twists and turns. Please enjoy the last part of Peace Like a River :)

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part XI

Epilogue here we go!!!

You twisted one last curl around Violet’s face and pinned it carefully to the back of her head. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She was so beautiful, and you could see the excitement in her eyes. You leaned over her shoulder and kissed her cheek.

“Are you nervous at all?” you wondered.

She shook her head. “No. Jamie is it for me. I know it.”

You grinned. “I’m so happy for you, baby. I just can’t believe you’re getting married.”

“Mom,” she groaned with a roll of her eyes, but she was still smiling. “I know I’ll always be your baby.”

“Yes, you will,” you assured her, giving her another small squeeze.

“Mom, I need to tell you something,” she said seriously. “Before the others get here.”

“The others” you knew referred to her younger siblings - Sybil, Olivia, and Tom. Your brow furrowed. What could she not say to them?

“What is it?” you asked.

“I was in New York for that conference - about a month ago - and I...well, I met up with Henry.”

You blinked and stepped back. “How did it go?”

She looked at her hands folded neatly on her lap. “Not great. Especially not after I told him about Dad.”

After you and Gwilym were married, he adopted Violet officially. Only then did you give her her father’s last name, Lee. You could imagine Henry hadn’t taken that well.

You knelt down in front of her and took her hands.

“Did he hurt you?” you asked, heart rate quickening with worry.

“No,” she said, trying to smile but it came out as more of a grimace. “No, not physically. He just yelled at me for a bit. It was frightening, for sure, but I just walked away.”

“Do you regret going?”

“No,” she repeated. “I was always curious about him. Now I know.”

“Do you want to tell your dad?” you wondered.

“Not today,” she said. “But at some point, I will. It made me realize how grateful I am for him. I’ve always loved him, but that whole encounter just...made it abundantly clear why.”

“The best thing to do now is forget him,” you said. “You have a wonderful father who loves you very much.”

“I know,” she returned, smiling in earnest now. “I know I do.”

Just then, Gwilym appeared in the doorway with Sybil and Olivia. They both gasped when they saw Violet and immediately began gushing about how great she looked. She beamed at her little sisters and embraced them excitedly. Gwilym stood frozen, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. You chuckled and slipped an arm around his waist.

“Shocked?” you questioned.

He nodded stiffly. “I can’t believe that’s our little girl.”

“I know,” you agreed.

“I mean, I still remember her with whipped cream on her face and saying Merry Breakfast,” he said. “That feels like it was yesterday.”

“To me too,” you said. “But she’s not a little girl anymore.”

“No, she’s not,” he said. “She’s about to make Jamie the luckiest man in the world. Second to me, anyway.”

You giggled and kissed him on the cheek. Violet finally shook off her sisters and approached you and Gwilym. As she looked at him, you saw her eyes shining with tears. He wrapped her up in his arms.

“Scared, love?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I just love you so much.”

“Aw, I love you too, sweet girl,” he returned. “Are you ready? Jamie’s waiting for you.”

She took a deep breath and grinned. “I’m ready.”

Tom was a groomsman, so he was with Jamie. He was waiting to walk Sybil and Olivia down the aisle first. Then you and Gwilym would follow with Violet. She had insisted on you both giving her away for equality’s sake. You waited with her at the front of the aisle and you saw her squeeze Gwilym’s arm. The music changed and it was time for the bride to make her way to the groom.

The ceremony was beautiful. You cried through their vows - which Jamie and Violet had written themselves. Gwilym actually held up very well. You could see how happy he was for them. But he didn’t cry. He did put his arm around you to comfort you.

As the happy couple made their way back down the aisle as husband and wife, you leaned into Gwilym. He pressed his lips to your temple and whispered how much he loved you, exactly as he had done on your own wedding day. You closed your eyes and just let him hold you for a moment, taking you back to that time.

The reception hall was lovely. It was simple, with just a few lights scattered around to create a soft, warm glow. After pictures were over, you all settled at the head table with the bride and groom. Violet was absolutely glowing. She gave Jamie a sweet kiss and then she stood up, clinking a fork against her champagne glass. The room quieted and turned eyes on her.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here on this special day,” she began. “I feel so blessed to have so many friends and family who care for me and Jamie. We are truly grateful.”

She paused and took a deep breath.

“I wanted to say a few things before we get too far into the reception,” she said. “Some things that have been weighing on my heart in the days before my wedding.” She turned toward you and Gwilym. “Mom, Dad, as I thought about marriage, I realized I was ready because of the example you set. Watching you two instilled in me tools for navigating a partnership that have been fundamental in my relationship with Jamie, and will continue as the pillars of our marriage. Things like respect, understanding, open-mindedness, and most importantly unconditional love. I knew Jamie was the one for me because I recognized these qualities in him. Qualities I’d seen from the two people I admire most in the world.”

She took a sip of champagne.

“Gotta drink before this part because it’s about to get emotional,” she joked, and everyone chuckled.

“Mom,” she said, meeting your eyes. “To me, you’ve always been strength. You have survived so much, and you went through a literal hell for me. And yet, you never made me feel unwanted or like a burden. You have taught me to demand respect for myself and to work hard for the things I want. You’ve taught me more about loving myself than I could even conceive of. And you’ve shown me the value of taking chances. You are my biggest cheerleader, confidant, and friend. You are my inspiration. I love you so much.”

She finished with a smile. Through watery eyes, you blew her a kiss. She met Gwilym’s gaze then, and you saw tears spring to her eyes.

“Dad,” she said shakily, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat. “This is gonna be hard, but I promise I’m really happy.”

He laughed and smiled warmly at her. She cleared her throat.

“Dad,” she began again, stronger this time. “I don’t remember it, but I’ve been told the story of how I chose you my whole life. One day, I called you ‘Daddy’ and since then, you just were. I love that story, and I think it’s so incredible that I selected you out of all the men in the world to be that for me. But, um…” she trailed off, her bottom lip quivering. “But you chose me too. Lots of men would have run screaming from everything that Mom and I meant. But you stayed, when you had every reason to step back. No one would have blamed you. But you didn’t. So yes, I chose you once. But you chose me and my mother over and over and over again. And you gave us all of you every single day.”

She sniffled and paused again. A tear slid down her cheek.

“You’ve shown me what a good man looks like,” she choked out. “You’ve shown me what a good father looks like. You’ve shown me what love looks like. Thank you for choosing us.”

You looked over at Gwilym and saw tears flowing down his face. He was trying to wipe them away, but quickly decided it wasn’t worth it. He got up and reached his daughter in two strides, completely engulfing her in his embrace. You saw her shoulders shake with a sob as she beamed up at him, no longer bothering to hold back her tears either. You watched them together and felt like your heart was breaking and also dancing around inside your chest.

Gwilym held Violet tight. He was overwhelmed with affection for her in this moment, though he never thought it possible to love her any more than he already did.

“I love you, my girl,” he whispered. “I will always choose you.”

She laughed through another sob and kissed his wet cheek. “I love you too, Dad.”

They made it through and finally, Jamie took Violet’s hand and led her out to the dance floor for their first dance. They’d actually gotten lessons to dance a foxtrot to Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.” You looked at Gwilym, still dabbing your eyes.

“I can’t believe she did that,” he sighed.

“I know, she got us good, huh?” you teased.

He laughed. “Look how happy she is.”

“We did okay with her,” you said, leaning on his shoulder.

“More than okay,” he replied. “She’s perfect.”

“Well done,” you told him. With a smile, you added, “Dear Friend.”

He kissed your forehead and smirked. “You as well, Dear Friend.”

Together, you watched your other children join Violet and Jamie on the floor. Your family was growing, and would continue to grow as each of them found their way in the world. You and Gwilym would always be there for them, providing a home, and showing them love. You were their peace, and they were yours.

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morganas-pendragons · 5 years

Text

3| T.S.

I’m supposed to be writing a paper, here I am writing more for Endgame. I needed this - It’s my only way of coping. Thank you for the feedback, and enjoy!

CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS - I WILL FIGHT FOR TONY STARKS RIGHT TO BE LOVED UNTIL I AM DEAD

Tag: @robertdownyjrs

***

“When I come back, you better be here.” His words are spoken with fervor, a desperate promise that he needs you to be able to fulfill. You are the only person in Tony Starks life who has been there since the start, the only one who stayed, and the one he vowed to spend the rest of his life with.

You have to be there when he comes back from Titan, because he might literally call it quits if you aren’t. You have to.

Your reply comes in a searing kiss that quite literally makes him weak in the knees. “I already told you, you idiot.” You whisper as you force yourself away from him, lips hovering over his own so closely that he almost wants to take you right then and there. “I love you too much to leave.”

And unfortunately, he loves you too much to stay, and that is what prompts him to board the ship that will take him to Titan.

Given what happened during the Civi War between your fiancé and Steve Rogers, you’d give anything to be with him on Titan instead of protecting the outskirts of Wakanda. Steve has vowed to look after you - whatever that means - and somehow lost track of you after the battle, completely oblivious to the fact that you decided to remain with Thor. You and Thor had grown rather close over the last 8 years and often spent time training together when he came to Earth because of the similarities with your powers.

Your darker nights, the ones where you cried until you couldn’t anymore, were spent in the safety of Thor’s bedroom at the Avengers Compound. Steve still fulfilled his duties and checked in on you just as he had promised he would, but he never went further than that. The man knew you didn’t trust him, and with good reason.

It’s mere days after the Snap that you feel it, the tremble beneath your feet as you indulge Thor by telling him stories about your life. It distracts you from the lack of Tonys presence, and it distracts him from wallowing in his misery brought upon by the losses he’d endured.

“Y/N!” Your gaze flickers upward as Steve sprints into the room and urges you out the bedroom door to the main yard, where a massive ship is being carried by a glowing woman who you are unfamiliar with. She sets it down with ease and meets your gaze, and you give her a firm nod in thanks.

The hangar door opens, and all the blood drains from your face. The air crackles with static electricity from where you stand before Steve, Natasha, Bruce and Rhodes, completely paralyzed as you watch the occupants of the Benatar file off into the open night.

Your eyes flutter shut as you resist the urge to sprint across the clearing and jump into his arms. It’s something you’ve had to learn to control, but just seeing Tony standing there actually speaking to Steve sparks something deep within you that urges you forward and across the clearing.

“Y/N?”

Aching arms fling outward to envelop Tony Stark in the most bone crushing hug he’s ever experienced, and it takes all of his willpower not to crumble in your embrace as you whisper in his ear. “Home. Home. Home.” His hands sink into the tresses of your hair, breath ghosting over your skin as he hides his face in the crook of your shoulder.

The other Avengers don’t bother to pry the two of you apart, not after what you’ve been through. There was no possible way of moving through the despair and anguish without people. Or more specifically, the people you love.

“When you need an anchor, you count to three.” In the midst of Tony learning to deal with his anxiety, you’d given him a solution. Of course it had come in the most unconventional way - seated at the bar - and drunk enough to make your head spin. But he was here, warm and alive, and so very... very real. “Count five things about me. Anything goes. Physical traits, things you love about me, things I’ve taught you. If it helps you cope with whatever is plaguing that beautiful mind of yours..” Your fingers curled around the curve of his jaw and brought his eyes up to yours, thumb dragging across the apple of his cheek to settle in the divot of his lips. “You do whatever it takes.”

“One, hands that have held my heart since the day you stumbled on my front porch when I was 7 years old.”

He tries to make nice with Steve, he really does. But after being left for dead in Siberia and alone in the fight against Thanos, Tony holds a considerable amount of resentment for that very same man who had once said that if they were to lose, they’d do that together too.

You’re always lingering in his line of sight when things go awry, and just as he suspects, you are immediately at his side when he rips the IV from his arm and stumbles in Steves direction. Fury courses through his blood and despite the fact there are stars dancing behind his eyes, Tony still rips out his arc reactor and slams it into the hands of Steve Rogers.

It’s only when his knees give out from beneath him and he lands on the floor that the second thought comes, when he looks up into your eyes and sees the terror lurking within them just before he slips into unconsciousness.

“Two, even when I am least deserving, you are always there. Always lingering for that moment when I need you most desperately, and present when I fall to my knees.”

Recovery is never easy, but having someone there when you wake up makes it just a bit more bearable.

Shaking fingers extend outward as Tonys eyes slowly flutter open, blinded by the light of dawn as he struggles to adjust to the brightness. His eyes follow the billow of the curtains at the open windows and slowly travel the length of the incredibly bland medical wing up until he catches the TV - where his favorite TV show is softly playing in the background.

His fingers tighten in the mess of hair laying limply at his bedside. You sleep at Tonys side with your hand loosely wrapped around his calf, almost as if its your only security that he’ll be there when you wake up. Eyes drift over the curve of your parted lips, breaths coming slow and steady. Tony hasn’t seen you sleep so hard since you were younger.

When life was a little bit easier.

“Y/N?” His voice rumbles low in his chest, and its enough to jolt you upward at the sound. Tony nearly topples over the side of the bed because his hands are still tangled in your hair, and the sight of the shock written all over his expression is enough to send you into a fit of laughter. “That was not funny-”

Your eyes soften as they meet his. “I have never been so happy to see your eyes open in the forty some years we’ve known each other.” You whisper. He can see the reluctance to open up when you dip your head toward your chest, extending your hand outward into the open in hopes he will oblige and take it.

He does.

“I nearly lost you, Tony. All this time after Thanos snapped.. I really believed you were dead. And do you know how disheartening it is to be stuck in another country with people you once called family, left behind by your husband with your only company being the God of Thunder?” You settle a knee into the mattress and bring yourself up to hover over him as he lays supine beneath you. “Seeing everyone disappear, screaming so loudly to someone who might hear me to keep you safe.. I have never experienced true fear like that. Fear of believing that you would never come home.”

That’s when thought number three comes. Trapped in the cage of your arms, breath ghosting over his face and sunshine reflecting in your eyes. He realizes right there, in that moment of silence, that your presence is the only home he has ever known.

And that despite your darkness and your regrets, despite his failures to both you and the greater good, you will never part from his side willingly. You are here and real and you are never leaving. It’s the best freakin’ news he’s heard all day.

“Y/N, I need-”

“What do you need?”

Tony swallows the knot in his throat and lets his tongue dart out to wet the cracked flesh of his lips. “I need you to kiss me.” It’s spoken with the same desperation you heard before he boarded his ship for Titan. That same desperation that pours from your own mouth when he tries stumbling down a path you can’t follow him on. “Please.”

It’s hard to pick a word to describe that moment - that moment of solitude where it’s nothing but you and him. How you succumb to his desires and lower yourself on top of him, careful of aggravating his injuries. He arches his back into you as you claim his mouth with your own. Hot, heavy, full of need and the ability to convey the fierce loyalty the two of you held for one another since the day you’d met as young children.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

Tony swirls a single finger around the rim of his glass as you pour yourself another. “Whenever you need a anchor, what will you count to?” You believe he thinks something absolutely ridiculous, like 72 or 191. Something completely unrelated to what you’ve just said.

“I’ll count to three too, but for me it’ll be in the moments we pull together instead of apart. When I need you the most.. when I need to breathe, I’ll count to three.”

His tongue breaks past the seam of your lips and his hands tangle in your hair, and if you listen quietly enough, you can hear someone whimper. You don’t know if it’s him or you.

It’s only when you are forced to pull apart for air that you whisper, “Three.”

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #anthony stark x reader #iron man x reader #avengers: endgame #marvel oneshots #marvel imagines #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #tony stark x you #tony stark x y/n

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peachywise · 5 years

Text

nullify part 3

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader

- part iii: the difference between truths and lies || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ part vi ⋆ more parts to be released

- synopsis: Klaus may have terrified your neighbour, broken an unspoken contract, and overall just acted like an absolute ass, but hell. That wasn't anything compared to how shitty your first meeting went when you met the rest of his family.

- notes: Sorry, this chapter took a little longer to get up than expected! Then again, it was delayed because I got a puppy, so yeah man I'm not that sorry lmao. Hope you enjoy! Swearing and minor violence TW.

link on ao3

________________________

“Did you break my lamp?”

Looking over his shoulder, Klaus peered at the tall beige light lying haphazardly on your floor, its shade squished to shit with little pieces of broken light bulb scattered around. It also just so happened to be right beside the window he had crawled in to get here.

“Would you believe me if I said it was like that when I got here?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. Patience. You had to have patience. Granted, that would be easier to achieve if you also had a lamp that was intact.

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, it made a loud enough crash and you didn’t even wake up. Would have thought you were dead if I wasn’t such a brilliant expert on the subject already.” Crossing the room to stand in front of you, he lowered his voice slightly, asking, “what pills do you take for it? Never seen anything like it.”

“Nothing. Just the sheer anger and exhaustion that comes from having been born,” you bluntly stated, only half-joking.

He tilted his head in a funny nod. “Ah, yes. That would do the trick.” Shaking your head, a little amused despite it all, you brushed past him to grab one of your canvas bags hanging by the front door. In doing so, Klaus’s eyes fell down to your hand, only just noticing the object clasped in your grasp. His face contorted in confusion “Are you actually bringing that clock with you? I was joking when I suggested it, sweetheart.”

Slipping the clock in the bag—which was little more than a defensive weapon now—you snorted. “I’m not taking any chances.” You’d already had a plate thrown at you, a spoon, and a pot dropped on your stomach, and that was all in less than twenty-four hours. If they were going to keep tossing ridiculous objects your way, then the clock was yours to use freely as far as you were concerned.

You almost wanted to smack him over the head with it again to avenge your fallen lamp. At least that’s why you told yourself you wanted to.

“Remind me why I agreed to go meet them, again?” You muttered, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you slipped some sneakers on. Klaus moved back over to your window, gingerly stepping over your lamp like he was afraid of damaging it more than he already had. How nice of him.

“Because I’m incredibly charming. And if you’re thinking of backing out, you aren’t going to get the ice cream cone I was going to treat you too on our midday stroll.”

Well, shit. Couldn’t say no to that.

“Let’s go, then."

Klaus’s grin was way too big, his face a little too excited. It was the same as that almost anticipative, hopeful look in his eyes you saw when you first met. The near intensity that he looked at you was enough to unnerve even the most confident of people. It was confusing. You had begun to think about what they could need. Clearly, they weren’t as interested in your forcefields ability of simple defense, given Five’s early dismissal of it. He was way more interested in learning you could nullify powers. At the very least you knew you could cancel out Klaus’s. Most likely they just needed you to do that with someone else. The question was, who was it?

Moving to unlock your door, you heard a familiar swish and click of a window. Turning back around, you noticed Klaus trying to squeeze himself through it, his body already halfway out.

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re doing that to be funny, or because you forgot we could leave out the front door.”

Stalling just before he stuck his second foot out on your fire escape, he stayed still for a beat then backtracked, maneuvering himself inside the apartment once more. Clearing his throat as he stood upright, he murmured, “I was just following Ben’s lead,” walking past you to swing the front door open. “Well come on, we haven’t got all day. Early bird gets the worm and all that."

Patting Klaus’s arm condescendingly, you stated a little loudly simply in hopes ghost boy was actually still in the room, “with how much I assume Klaus pins his stupid stunts on you, it's a travesty that you haven't been anointed to sainthood, Ben.”

“Please,” Klaus scoffed, throwing his arm over your shoulder as you moved out in the hallway, closing the door and locking it behind you. “You can’t even hear him and you believe him over me?”

Shrugging his arm off, you span around and walked backward, facing him. “Are you kidding? Currently, he’s my favourite because I can’t hear him. It’s blissful.”

Klaus was about to shoot something back at you, his face lighting with the knowing signs of amusement, but stopped himself before he could begin. Oh, so no clever come back? You’d gotten so used to the rapport you were almost disappointed, despite what you had just previously stated about the quiet.

But then you heard another voice behind you, and Christ, you already dreaded having to explain the presence of your rather scantily clad, eccentrically distinctive acquaintance.

“Honey, are you okay? I heard some noises coming from your apartment and I was just on my way to check.”

Spinning back around, you gave a tight smile in welcome to your elderly neighbour, Eliza Carr. She was a sweet little woman, albeit nosy as all hell. Shrunken to about 4’9 with overly long grey hair pinned up in a tight bun, you always wondered if she did it too stretch her wrinkles in a make do facelift. Ingenious, really. She’d always kind of reminded you of a fairy. Odd comparison, but it worked when you considered they were often pleasant under the guise cover an impish exterior.

Once you had even caught her looking through your mail. You were pretty sure she had taken a pizza coupon from the stack and hid it in her bra.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Carr. I was just—”

“With me,” Klaus interjected, stepping beside you and looping his arm through yours, pressing you closer to his side as he put on his fake little polite act.

Shit.

Why he interrupted, you had no idea. Maybe it was just his incessant need to hear his own voice, or his need to make his presence known lest he disappears like the invisible ghost who trailed along after him.

“Believe me, I tried to quiet them down but they just can’t keep their hands off! Didn’t help that they ball-gagged me and had my hands and feet tied together, but that’s pretty tame compared to last night.”

Maybe he interrupted because this truly was hell and Klaus was a literal fucking demon given the duty to torment you in every sense of the word. Then Eliza’s hand went to her chest, and you had decided he was actually the grim reaper who just tried to kill the poor old bat.

Widening your eyes, you were completely stunned into silence, unable to cough even the slightest noise or retaliate against his words. Then Eliza dropped her hand and took a small, concerned step forward, reaching that hand out to place it on your forearm in a comforting, though at the moment mortifying, gesture. “Why don’t you come to church with me on Sunday, Hun? I think—”

Sidestepping away from her grasp, you gripped Klaus’s wrist as you finally found your voice again. “Sorry, gotta go! Late for an appointment!” Before she could try to convince you that you needed Jesus—someone who inevitably must have abandoned the earth the moment your present companion was born—you pulled Klaus behind you in your frantic attempt to escape. Then he turned just slightly to yell back at the woman, “we’re trying to adopt! I think we’ll make fantastic parents," as you turned down the hall and raced down the few flights of stairs. Klaus snickered the whole way down.

As soon as you reached the landing of your lobby, musty and welcoming with its stained emerald carpet and all, you dropped his wrist and indignantly ignored him as you exited the building. He trailed behind you like the world’s worst trained mutt. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, will ya?” He huffed, as you walked down the concrete steps and on to the sidewalk. “I’m still a little winded from having that ball gag in my—”

Sticking your leg out casually as he descended from the final step, he comically tripped over it and fell to the ground just as gratifyingly as you had imagined it.

“Do that again and I’ll shove coal so far down your throat you’ll be shitting diamonds for years to come.”

“You promise?” He smiled, pushing himself off the ground and wiping the gravel from his hands on to his pants. Not like those things could really get any dirtier. “Also, that’s an oddly specific threat. You pick it up from Five? Sounds like him, though it’s a little crude.”

“Do you get off on making a random strangers life hell?” You questioned, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared at him indignantly.

Klaus stepped beside you and bumped his shoulder with yours. Smirking as he bent his face lower to your level, he groaned out, “come on, you had to find it a little funny. That woman probably isn’t a saint herself. Seen plenty of grannies reading Fifty Shades of Grey on the bus. Think she’d want to give it a go with me?”

Okay. It was a little funny.

Taking your silence and the slight upturn of your mouth as a win, he poked your arm as if the last attempt to coax you out of grumpiness. You let out a small laugh. “Fine, whatever,” you conceded, “It was a little funny. But seriously, don’t do it again. She’s tried to get me to go to her church so many times that I think next time she’ll just knock me out and drag me there in her car.”

Chuckling back, he sprang into action as he began walking down the street, calling back, “come on, let’s go get that ice cream.”

“I can’t believe you,” you muttered, pulling the vibrantly pink sunglasses down off your head to cover your eyes, despite being inside.

Klaus turned to glance through his matching pair.

“What? I told you. It will present us as a united front.”

“Not the glasses,” you said, taking another lick of the ice cream. You know, the ice cream that you paid for despite him saying it was his treat? Yeah. At this point, you were just ashamed that you had even believed him. And to trick you with the promise of ice cream, of all things! He was truly and most undoubtedly heinous. “When you say you’re going to treat someone to ice cream, typically that means you’ll pay for it, not just order mine and one for yourself, then look me dead in the eye to tell me to pay the man.”

“Did I not hand it to you? I treated you. It's not my fault you thought I had money.”

Wow. He truly would have thrived in high school debate. How disappointing he was raised to be a freakin’ con man instead.

“You know what? The glasses I was fine paying for. They’re cool. But to make me buy you ice cream, taking back an unspoken contract? Despicable.”

You couldn’t tell if the offended look on Klaus’s face was real or a weak attempt to hide the pleasure you knew he was truly taking from this mindless argument.

“Unspoken contract!” He snorted, exiting the elevator on one of the higher levels of an apartment complex way nicer than your own. “Why are we even having this conversation? We both have ice cream, do we not? I call that a win-win.”

“That’s because you're stupid,” you jeered back, reaching over to take a bite of his ice cream like a passive-aggressive child. He gasped in what seemed like true horror. “Hey, you have your own!” Klaus whined, lifting his ice cream high up like that would actually stop you. You gave him a cheery grin—downright innocent. “I bought it. Both are mine.”

Klaus stopped in front of one of the apartment doors, not even bothering to knock as he swung the door open and entered inside. You followed behind him.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called out, then turned his attention back to you, swooping down to take a bite out of your ice cream in return. You gasped, recoiling back as if he had just tried to take your most precious possession. Man, now you knew how Gollum felt. “Not fair!” You laughed loudly, Klaus’s eyes crinkling as he returned the laughter in kind.

Then the thunk of something planting itself in the wall right beside your ear had your laughter cutting off rather fast, and you dropped your ice cream too the nicely tiled floor in shock.

Oh, hell no.

“Diego, what did I say?” Echoed a baritone voice from around the corner. Turning your head slightly to stare directly down the hall, you lifted the sunglasses back on your head and made eye contact with one of the family, Diego. Luther soon followed into view and tugged him back.

Klaus muttered a small “uh oh,” beside you.

Peering from the corner of your eye at the knife he had just thrown at you, narrowly missing your head by a fraction of an inch, you turned your attention fully back to Number Two, squinting as you did.

“I am not a fucking steak!” You yelled at him, getting really tired the cutlery this family just kept throwing at you. So tired, in fact, that you ignored the man’s inquisitive look in favour of scrounging in your bag, pulling out your broken clock and throwing it with the intent to clock him on the head, no pun intended. Instead, it just bounced enthusiastically off his chest, falling to the floor and cracking its glass face.

Everything went quiet. Well, apart from the snort Klaus tried so hard to mask by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t see any force field. I told you I don’t trust them,” Diego sneered to Luther, turning back around the corridor with a lasting, “we don’t need to involve anyone else.” You weren't necessarily going to dispute that, but man, he was a bitter boy.

Klaus leaned down close to your ear, whispering, “that was Diego. A ray of sunshine, isn’t he?”

Absolutely delightful.

Luther took that opportune moment to advance towards you too. While his disposition tried to read friendly, you knew underneath it all he was scrutinizing you just as much as the trigger-happy Diego had. Reaching out a gloved hand, you tried hard not to let his intimidating size spook you. When the fuck did he get that big?

“I’m Luther,” he introduced himself, as you shook his hand firmly but briefly.

“I know who you are,” you commented back, dropping his hand and taking a tiny step back. “Care to explain what’s going on?”

A look of confusion fell over his face. “Wait, no one told you?” Wow, the whole family was smart, weren’t they? “Klaus, you were supposed to tell her,” he sighed, turning towards his brother.

“Probably best he didn’t. He’s not the most reliable source for information,” came another voice, slightly higher pitched and overly familiar. Five moved to stand in front of you. “Nice to see you again. Was that a clock you threw?”

“Yes. Probably looks a little different from the Disney themed one you have beside your race car bed, so I understand your confusion.”

The only tell he had of his annoyance was the slightest tick at the corner of his eye. “Are you done and ready to talk like an adult now?”

“What, looking for practice? Can’t remember the last time I played house. Maybe kindergarten.” You were going to milk this as long as you could. It wasn’t just that you were trying to avoid whatever weird, nearly cult-like thing this had evolved into in your mind. It was also because you wanted to see just how much you could push the little tyke’s buttons until he snapped.

And then he snapped.

Giving a small huff, a knowing, almost winning look crossing his features. “And that was before your house burned down with you in it, right? If I recall correctly, that was when you were ten.”

This motherfucker. He knew. He knew everything.

Judging by the perplexed look on Luther’s face, and Klaus’s small exclamation of, “what?” it seemed that he was the only one who did. At that moment, it was the only thing stopping you from falling into a spiraling descent of panic and unbelievable ire.

This wasn’t worth it. No matter your curiosity, this was far from worth it.

Turning to Klaus, you bit out, “I think you need to set the kid down for his afternoon nap. He turns into the world’s biggest asshole when he’s tired,” and then swiftly moved to open the apartment door, slamming it behind you as you left without even saying goodbye.

#the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy fanfic #the umbrella academy fanfiction #the umbrella academy imagine #tua #umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus hargreeves imagine #klaus hargreeves fanfic #klaus hargreeves fanfiction #five #five hargreeves #Diego hargreeves #luther hargreees

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not-close-to-straight · 6 years

Text

I See You (SWS #28)(Ghost!Peter)

This has a PART TWO!

SUNDAYS WITH SPIDEYPOOL MASTERLIST

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

The therapist had suggested a new apartment, had said that moving on would be easier if he wasn’t surrounded by his old life, by the things that had made up his life with Vanessa before all the...all the everything happened.

She hadn’t been wrong.

It was infinitely easier to sleep at night when he couldn’t roll over and push his face into Vanessa’s old pillow and wish she was there. Easier to force himself out of bed when the new bathroom had a fancy shower head with all sort of...interesting options. Easier to make himself eat when the kitchen wasnt decorated with their mismatched pots and pans and funny sticky notes on the dirty fridge.

Easier to deal with his new fucking face when he had torn down all the mirrors and tossed them away and now only clean white walls stared back at him.

Easier to go a little crazy this way too.

Two months Wade had been in this new place and he felt like maybe he hated it to his soul, but he didn’t know what else to do. Vanessa was gone. His looks and his charm were gone. Francis had been rude enough to die in an actual accident that Wade had had no part in, or had even been there to witness.

He had dedicated so much time to finding Francis and plotting every way he was going to make that fucker pay that now that it was over Wade didn’t know what to do with himself.

At least he had had a mission. A purpose.

Now he was just a regular guy with an astonishing temper and a fantastically fucked up face living in a bland little apartment, trying to see a therapist to work through his (countless) issues, and staring at plain white walls long enough that he thought he really might be losing whatever was left of his sanity.

Especially when he started hearing voices.

Well not voices. One voice. Just the one. Singing or humming, sometimes talking, sometimes crying.

It flitted in and out of his mind ever so often, and the first time Wade had heard it he had whipped around thinking someone was standing in his apartment, because he had heard the song as if someone had sang it in his ear.

The second time it sounded more like it was coming from outside and he had gone to the window fully prepared to yell at some loud ass kids, only to realize there was no one on the street at all.

Maybe it was music from one of the surrounding apartments? Or people walking down the hall? Or maybe it was weird radio interference?

Wade searched desperately for what the voice could be, until he finally had to admit that maybe the voice was him. Maybe another side affect of this shitty new life was a psychological break, and now he really was crazy.

And he sat in his new apartment staring at the white walls and thought, “Yeah alright. I could go crazy. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen.”

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

Wade made his peace with his fracturing mind. The music wasnt half bad. The voice in his head was even a little soothing. It was like having someone else there in the apartment with him, and that wasn’t...terrible.

(his therapist would disagree, but he stopped seeing her weeks ago)

One day he even thought to say something back to the voice. Maybe if he said something aloud, his other personality would answer and hey, that would be like having a friend, wouldn’t it?

So he sat and waited. Stared at nothing until his eyes started to blur and then just on the edges of his consciousness--

“Say Becky, was you ever engaged?”

Wade blinked. “Um, once. And my name isn’t Becky.”

Silence in the room then, and Wade was struck by the oddest sensation of someone watching him, but he didn’t turn from the wall. “Were you ever engaged?” he asked tentatively, feeling entirely ridiculous for expecting an answer, but then--

“Are you talking to me?”

“Who else would I be talking to?” he snorted. “Just me and you in here, isnt there? Unless there’s another voice or two hidden in my head?”

“In your head.” The voice was cleared now, not quite as whispery. “Is that what you think?”

“Um--” Wade blinked at the wall again, his senses going into overdrive when he got the impression of being approached, like someone was walking towards him.

“Can you see me?” the voice asked. “Or just hear me?”

“No, I cant see you.” Wade said in irritation, and then he was screeching at the top of his lungs, scrambling backwards over the couch and landing on the floor in an ungraceful heap, snatching his gun and sending several rounds right into the boy standing in front of him.

Or rather, sending several rounds through the boy standing in front of him.

“Oh my god, you can see me!” the boy--teenager--college kid? said in excitement, and Wade started screeching again when he walked through the couch and knelt in front of him. “Stop screaming. Stop--stop screaming.” he was smiling, his hands reached out like he was going to touch Wade, and well, Wade was not about to have that, so he sent another round point blank into the kids face and---

---nothing.

“That’s irritating.” the ghost/spirit/thing huffed. “Stop that.”

“What in the fuck?” Wade blurted. “What the fuck. What in the ever loving actual fuck is going on? What the fu--”

“Yes, you said that already.” the other one said mildly. “I dont understand why you can see me. A hundred years Ive been stuck here and no one has ever seen me and now you can see me and I dont understand--” he was staring at Wade like he was fascinated, words tumbling from his mouth almost faster than Wade could keep up, but that could have been because Wade was pretty sure he had gone completely insane this time and his mind had screeched to a complete stop before completely shattering.

“Oh. You’re not crazy.” the ghost shook his head. “I’m really here. Well not here. Im sort of in between worlds. Which makes me wonder if you are--” without stopping to ask permission, and before Wade could think to run the fuck away, the ghost stuck his hands directly into Wade’s chest and first it was blinding cold and then raging heat and the last thing Wade remembered before passing out was the boys eyes widening in surprise, and the entirely unsettling thought that the ghost had the prettiest smile he had ever seen.

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

Wade was still on the floor when he came to, and he shook his head to clear it of the ridiculous dream, retrieved his gun and flinched at the bullet holes in his previously perfect wall and stood to stumble to the bathroom to take a shower and wipe away the soreness from being on the floor all night.

Well that was the plan, anyway, until he looked over at the couch and saw that fucking kid sitting there calmly, hands clasped in his lap, an eager smile on his face.

“Nope.” Wade shook his head. “Nopety nope. Fuck no. You aren’t there. I’m not seeing things. Hearing voices is one thing. Hallucinations is another. I’m not even high. Its not fair to see things if I’m not even high.” he took a deep breath. “When I come back from my shower? You better be ghosted the fuck out of here, you understand?”

He slammed the door to the bathroom and turned the water as hot as it could go, turned to reach for a towel--

--and screamed all over again when the kid appeared in front of him.

“Good Christ.” Wade put a hand over his heart. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t understand.” the other one grinned all over again. “You can see me. This is incredible.”

“Is it?” Wade deadpanned. “Because I’m starting to feel like checking myself into a mental asylum.”

“No, its incredible!” the ghost enthused. “You’re incredible. Your soul hovers in the same plane I do, and that’s why you can see me.”

“Alright.” Wade took a deep breath. “I’ve snapped. Its fine. Due to happen, right? I’m going to take my shower, call my therapist and--”

“My names Peter!” the ghost blurted. “Peter. What’s your name?”

“Wade.” he answered, because why not? Why wouldn’t he talk to the hallucination/ghost/imaginary friend.

“Wade.” The ghost-- Peter-- kept smiling and Wade blinked at the happiness in it. “This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Um. You’re welcome?”

Peter reached out then, and for all of two seconds Wade could feel his hand, solid and warm, on his scarred skin before it cooled and slid through.

Oh yeah. Yeah, Im batshit crazy.

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

He wasn’t crazy, or at least that’s what Peter kept assuring him.

“I’m real.” Peter said for what must have been the thousandth time as Wade eyeballed him suspiciously over his cereal. “Well, sort of real. A ghost. You really see me, you’re not going crazy.”

“Im real.” Peter said again, days later when Wade came out of his bedroom and literally walked through him. “It was rude of you to walk through me, but Im really here.”

Wade was too icked out by the thought of walking through someone, and the lingering chill in his bones to answer.

“Im here.” Peter sighed impatiently, when it had been two weeks and Wade narrowed his eyes and threw a book at Peter, watching in fascination as it slowed to pass through Peters skin and then hit the wall with a thump. “Stop throwing things at me, please!”

“Explain.” Wade finally said one day, plopping on to the couch and then jumping awkwardly up and moving to another chair when Peter sat on the couch next to him. “Explain this.”

“I died a long time ago.” Peter explained. “Here before this building was born and my soul is tied to the land. No one can see me, or hear me and I’ve been wandering around this building for decades.”

“Not this apartment specifically?” Wade asked carefully, his therapists number already dialed in his phone just in case.

“No.” Peter spread his hands vaguely. “You trapped me here. I was wandering through and you took down all the mirrors and now I cant leave.”

“My bad.” Wade muttered, and Peter only grinned at him. “So thats why I can see you? Because you’re trapped?”

“No, you can see me--” Peter leaned forward, brown eyes sparkling and a flush in his cheeks which was... odd...because Wade had always assumed ghosts were see through, not that they looked like cute guys from the 1800s.

“You can see me because of your--” Peter motioned to his face then pointed to Wade. “Whatever this is, keeps your soul somewhere between life and death, like mine. When I touched you that first day--”

“When you violated my chest with your creepy hands?” Wade interrupted.

“Yes.” again, with the little blush and Wade was annoyed by how much he liked it. “When I touched you, I felt your soul. Whatever happened to you keeps you from dying right?”

“Right...” Wade hedged.

“But you aren’t really.... alive?” Peter raised an eyebrow. “Right? I mean, being alive is basically the ability to die right? And you don’t have that ability. Our souls are on the same sort of plane, and I’m trapped in your apartment, so you can see me and talk with me and oh my god--” he laughed, clear and sweet. “I’ve been so lonely for so long and now you’re here and I can actually talk to you! Its incredible!”

“Right.” Wade said again. “Incredible.”

“This is weird for you?” Peter asked, looking upset. “You... you don’t want me here?”

“Actually.” Wade ran his hand over his scalp, scratching idly and then flinching at the pain. “I’m weirded out because you’re awfully pretty for a ghost. I thought you would be blue and see through and blurry. Not looking like someone Id pick up from a bar.”

“Oh!” Peters eyes lit (fuck Wade hated how much he liked it). “You’re awfully pretty too.”

“You’re full of shit, baby boy.” Wade said calmly and got up from the chair. “Do you want me to put up a mirror so you can leave?”

“Um. No?” Peter looked terribly unsure all the sudden. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Talking with a ghost is better than thinking Im going crazy.” Was all Wade said. “Goodnight.”

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

It was a weird life, sharing an apartment with a ghost, but Wade had adapted to a lot of weird shit in the last few years so really it wasnt an issue.

Peter didnt eat of course, but he sat with Wade during every meal and made polite conversation. After Wade had shouted at him a few times, Peter had stopped just appearing in the bathroom, explaining sheepishly that he forgot to observe walls and doors when he could just walk through them.

The bedroom was another issue, since Peter didn’t need to sleep he simply stood and watched and that was creepy even for Wade, so after another heated discussion, Peter had stopped doing that too.

They settled into something of a pattern and it was a little domestic and sort of sweet how happy Peter was anytime Wade came home and it certainly didnt hurt that the kid was gorgeous, right? All long limbs and big eyes and a ridiculous smile and an annoying (adorable and fairly sexy) way of biting at his bottom lip when he got excited.

“I ran off to join the circus when I was eighteen.” Peter explained one day and Wade said a silent prayer of thank the fucking lord that he had died at over eighteen-- and wow wasnt that a screwed up thought to have?

“What did you do in the circus?” he asked, only to keep his mind away from that sort of thought about the ghost.

“I was a trapeze artist.” Peter grinned. “Something amazing about flying like that. Flipping through the air and only having those strings to hold you up. We didn’t have nets and it was such a thrill to be that high up and know that you could die if you weren’t careful.”

“Trapeze artist, huh?” Wade was the worst, because he heard trapeze artist and thought bendy and that was... that had to be messed up right? “So what happened?”

“There wasn’t a net.” Peter explained sheepishly. “And I tried something ridiculous and fell. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Uh, yeah. I bet not.”

Another day, Wade was pacing in the apartment, rubbing at his head, irritated because his skin hurt and he had had nightmares the night before and hadnt slept and god he was cranky and finally collapsed face down on the couch to scream into a pillow--

--And cool hands landed on his back, touching just barely over his skin and numbing the sting and Wade took a shaky breath and asked, “Does it feel gross to you?”

“All I can feel is your warmth.” Peter explained, working his hands lower and smiling over the groan of relief Wade gave him. “Im always cold, and you’re so warm, I love it.”

“Oh.”

Cool hands smoothing over his butt and working down his legs and Wades eyes flew open in alarm when he started...responding... because it was weird enough that there was a ghost giving him a back rub but it was even weirder that he was apparently popping a boner over it but hey, the ghost was a hottie and it had been a long time since Wade had even thought to--

“Roll over for me.” Peter suggested, and then he laughed. “Or I could just get under you I guess. Could just phase through the couch and--”

“Nope!” Wade blurted. “Dont!”

“Do my hands feel bad?” Peter frowned. “I know you can only feel them for a few seconds before they give way, but--”

“Nope. Everything feels good.” he said through gritted teeth. “Really really good. Thank you. Move away please.”

“Oh. Alright.”

That night was the first night Wade shoved his pajama pants down and took himself in hand, fully prepared to jerk off to the image of big brown eyes and slim hands and those stupid long legs and the way Peters lips parted when he smiled--

---but then he felt gross over it and pulled his pants back up, throwing an arm over his eyes and willing his arousal to lessen.

This was weird even by his standards.

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

It started getting more difficult for Wade to leave the apartment, knowing Peter couldn’t go with him, and the money from his mercenary days was more than enough to pay for the apartment and food so Wade ended up spending every day just... home. Watching TV, or reading, or learning how to cook more and more complex meals, with Peter reading from the recipe books and telling him stories from his life before.

Eventually, Wade started walking around the apartment with less clothes on, content with Peters constant reassurance that he didn’t care about his skin.

“Really, I see your soul.” Peter explained one day. “I mean, yeah, I see you physically, but because our souls are on the same plane, that is more obvious to me.”

“Besides.” his voice softened then. “You’re gorgeous, so even if I couldn’t see your soul I would stare.”

“You’re full of shit, baby boy.” Wade rolled his eyes, but couldn’t deny that it made him feel good and when Peter reached for his hand, Wade lay his palm out so Peter could bring their fingertips together, phasing in and out of being corporeal, the cool touch coming and going every few seconds.

And when Peter finally did ask about the scars, Wade told him all about the cancer and Vanessa and Francis and his revenge, and fully expected Peter to do that adorable nose wrinkle he did when he was disgusted, but instead Peter just smiled sadly and said how sad he was that Wade had had such a hard go of it.

“Maybe I’m happy, though.” he said cautiously. “Because if it hadn’t happened, then you wouldn’t be able to see me and Id still be here, and lonely.”

They held hands again after that and when Wade went to bed, Peter stood on his toes (frankly, adorable, because it was such a human thing to do) and tried to kiss Wade, his lips solid for only a second before they dissipated.

It was odd, but it was wonderful and Wade realized one day that he had gone and fucking fallen in love, and if there was ever a time to call his therapist, that would have been it. But instead he put in Patrick Swayze’s Ghost and justified that if Demi could be in love with a ghost, then so could he.

And then at some point, Peter started sleeping in bed next to him.

Or not so much sleeping as he was lying there with his eyes closed, with one hand resting on Wade’s chest because he knew Wade slept better with someone else there.

They never talked about it, never brought it up, just let it happen because it made them both happy.

They also never talked about the day Wade had finally given in and gotten himself off in the shower thinking about Peter, wishing he was solid and real and then Wade could really hold him like he wanted to. Hold him and kiss him and press him into the bed and---

And when he was done, he had walked out the door to see Peter staring at him and biting his lip, cheeks flushing red, and his hands trembling a little when he reached out to touch Wade’s cheek. His fingers had seemed solid for longer that time, brushing over Wade’s rough skin sweetly, before fading again.

It came up eventually that Peter had been reciting The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that first day that Wade had heard him. He had read the book so many times, he had it memorized and it was the only thing that kept him from feeling lonely.

Wade ordered a Kindle that same day and uploaded as many books as he could onto it and gave it to Peter as a present, confident that he could be solid enough for the split second it could take to turn pages on the e-reader.

Peter didnt speak for a solid week after that, his nose almost pressed to the screen, lips moving as he devoured the books.

Wade woke up one morning to Peter started sleeping on his side with what was probably the cutest ass Wade had ever seen (or not seen, since it was ghostly and all that) budged up into Wade’s hips, his Kindle on the bed next to him, a sleepy smile on his lips.

“Pete?” Wade asked quietly, and the boy opened his eyes and leaned up to press a kiss to Wade’s lips, just barely there before it was gone, and then cool hands down his sides before Peter snuggled close-- or as close as he could before moving through Wade, anyway.

“So um, men then?” Wade said awkwardly. “Or is it just because I bought you books?”

“Men.” Peter assured him, then shyly smiled and whispered, “But really its just you, Wade.”

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

“So almost a hundred years, sweet cheeks?” Wade asked and Peter nodded, drawing his fingers in idle patterns over Wade’s bare chest and down to his stomach. “Why are you stuck here?”

“I don’t know.” Peter admitted. “At first I thought it was some sort of purgatory. The first few decades I wasn’t solid at all. Just wavering there, could see through my own hands-- it was horrifying. Maybe twenty or thirty years ago I started being able to actually talk again, and now I’m physically for a few seconds at a time.” he held up his hands in explanation. “Ten seconds is about my max, but I think being here with you is making it longer.”

“You look tired today.” Wade said in concern. “I’ve never seen you look tired.”

“I feel tired.” Peter complained and leaned his head against Wade’s shoulder, frowning when he phased through almost immediately. “I dont really know whats going on.”

“Maybe your purgatory sentence is almost up.” Wade meant it to be teasing, but Peters eyes widened in fear.

“I don’t want to die, though.” he whispered. “Im terrified of dying, Wade. I just got used to being here. What will happen to me?”

“Oh, baby boy, I didn’t think--” Wade bit his tongue to keep from saying anything stupid. “I don’t really think--”

“I don’t want to die Wade!” Peter was panicking now. “I don’t want to leave you!”

“Shhh, sugar buns. Its alright.” Usually the boy loved Wades names for him, and would blush and smile, but today it only set him off further.

“No! No! I don’t want to! I like being here with you! If I go somewhere else Ill be so alone!” Peter cried. “You will be alone and I dont want that! I dont!”

“Easy. Easy, baby boy. We will figure it out.” Wade reached for Peter, but his hands passed right through him and Peter nearly screamed when he couldnt make himself solid for ever a few seconds.

“Wade!”

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

Wade didn’t quite know what to do with himself after Peter left. Or disappeared. Or poofed or whatever it was ghosts did.

It was weird-- one day he was there, and then the next day he was a little less there and then one morning Wade woke up and Peter was no where to be found.

He hung a mirror in the hall, just in case Peter managed to find a way back, but it never happened.

There’s wasn’t much to do without Peter to keep him company, so Wade started taking jobs again, traveling further and further from the States as he did, and the money from doing the mercenary thing was even better now that he was basically un-killable, so he took more and more jobs, amping up the danger because it was the only thing to keep him from thinking too much.

Word got around of course, about the loud mouth Merc who didnt seem to die, and he caught the attention of the Avengers-- the too pretty to be real Tony Stark, and the slice of All American beef that was Captain America. Black Widow was fucking terrifying and Hawkeye was at least chill-- he and Wade could crack jokes behind the others back in sign language and that was fun.

Every once in a while around the Avengers Tower Wade caught sight of an intern with thick brown hair and long legs and he always stopped himself from going after the kid.

The intern couldn’t help that he looked like the ghost Wade had fallen in love with twenty years ago.

(That was a weird sentence, even in Wade’s head.)

But then-- then-- Wade met Spiderman and was instantly in love.

The kid was smart mouthed and sassy and fucking bendy and he flew through the air like he was on a damn trapeze and Wade loved it. Spidey teased him and wrestled with him and spent nights eating burritos back to back so they didn’t accidentally see each others face and it was the first time in a long time that Wade felt something close to normal.

“So you gonna bless me with your name, or should I start giving you nicknames?” Wade asked one night as they scarfed down chinese food. “I mean, I did save your life tonight. I think you owe me at least that much.”

“At least my name?” Spidey snorted. “The hell you do.”

“Have it your way, baby boy.” Wade said nonchalantly, and was surprised to realize that saying the nickname still made his chest tighten and his heart hurt a little bit.

He wouldn’t ever be over that ghost, would he?

“Spidey?” he asked, when the kid didn’t say anything.

“Um. You could tell me your name?” The words were a little muffled, as if Spidey had pulled his mask back down.

“Wade.” he said instantly. “You can call me Wade, or sir, or daddy, or whatever--ooph!”

Wade fell over when the solid pressure of Spidey at his back disappeared, and he turned just in time to see the kid web off the roof and out into the dark.

“Rude.” he sighed. “Kids these days.”

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

Wade had never moved from his apartment. Partly for the sentiment, partly because he never really quit hoping Peter would come back, partly because he was too fucking lazy to move.

But the building had all but been abandoned now, not the upscale apartments it had been thirty years ago, and Wade had most of the tenth floor to himself, which made it completely unexpected and fairly weird that someone knocked on his door sometime close to three am.

“Who the fuck--?” he groaned and pulled himself out of bed, foregoing his mask because the only people around this time of night were cops or druggies and he had no problem shocking either of them. He had been dreaming about Peter again, and wondered irritably when that lovely habit would stop. It had been almost twenty five years at this point.

Enough was enough. He was tired of feeling heart broken after all this fucking time.

More knocking at his door and Wade dragged on a pair of pants and stomped towards the hallway.

“What the fuck do you want?” he ripped his door open. “Who the hell-- Spidey?” he glanced down the empty hallway then back at the web slinger in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

“Wade?” Spidey asked hesitantly, and the soft voice was so achingly close to Peter that Wade almost shut the door in his face.

“Yeah.” Wade nodded, then motioned to his face. “Surprise. Sorry. What do you want? Usually Id be down for some Spider Booty but, baby boy its been a hell of a night so maybe you should--”

“Wade.” Again, just as soft, and Spidey pulled his mask off right there in the hallway to stare up at him. “I cant believe you still live here.”

Wade blinked down at him, down at Peter--

--and promptly shut the door.

Then he nearly tore it off his hinges opening it again, and asked, “If I try to shoot you, will you bleed?”

“Like a bitch.” Peter nodded and started laughing, even as tears slid down his cheeks. “I cant believe I didnt realize it was you all this time. I mean, I thought it was you, but I never knew your name, and you never took off your mask and then you called me baby boy and--”

He lunged forward like he wanted to kiss him, and Wade put a hand up to stop him. “Explain.” he demanded. “Right now.”

“After I--poofed?” Peter offered. “I um... I was born. My soul was recycled or whatever, and I kept having flashes back to my other life and my time as a ghost and when I met you they started to get worse and then tonight you told me your name and its like all these memories came crashing back and--”

“You are talking really fast.” Wade pointed out, and Peter blushed and bit at his lip.

“Sorry. I just-- I cant believe-- did you know it was me?”

“Do I look like I knew it was you?”

“Its me.” Peter nodded his head and reached for Wade’s hand to bring it to his cheek. “It’s me. I promise. I don’t understand why or how or anything like that, but Im right here. Im really here. You aren’t crazy.”

He hesitated, twisted his mask in his hand anxiously. “Can you-- can you see me?”

“Yeah baby boy.” Wade brought his other hand up to frame Peters face, rubbing his thumbs through the tears. “Yeah, I see you.”

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

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#ncts fics #spideypool #sundays with spideypool #ghost!peter #wade wilson

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